Fusing cooperative technical-specification knowledge components

In this paper, the problem of fusing logic-based technical specification knowledge components of a physical device or process, is investigated. It is shown that most standard logic approaches to beliefs fusion are not relevant in this context since some rules should be merged even in the case of a consistent fusion. Accordingly, we discuss the various types of formulas that should be merged during a fusion process, in order to avoid necessary conditions for the absence of failure to become sufficient conditions. This transformation is then described formally. It can be performed as an efficient preprocessing step on the knowledge components to be fused. The properties of this transformation schema are then investigated from a semantical point of view. Finally, a series of subsumption tests are proposed, preventing conditions of absence of failure from being overridden by subsumption.