Dr. Baral's Web Page at ASU

Associate Professor of Computer Science (Fall 1996-present)

Assistant Professor of Computer Science (Fall 1991- Summer 1996)

University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX

B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering (1987)

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur , India .

Ph.D. in Computer Science (1991)

University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Honors, Awards, and Professional Service

• Research Initiation Award, National Science Foundation, 1992-1995
• CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 1995-1999
• 3rd place finish in the AAAI 96 robot contest for office navigation.
• 1st place finish in the AAAI 97 robot contest for home vacuuming.

Research Interests

• Theories of actions and change for dynamic systems, robots, agents, and supply chains.

  (mobile robots; robot control - formal characterization and automatic generation; cognitive robotics; reasoning about actions; concurrent actions; complex actions; actions with causal effects; actions with non-deterministic effects; narratives; sensing actions; actions with probabilistic effects; Bayes' nets; Markov decision processes; Partially observable Markov decision processes; Supply chain planning; etc.)
  

• Non-monotonic reasoning, Knowledge representation, Logic Programming, Temporal reasoning, Combining knowledge bases, and AI in general.

  (mathematical foundations of nonmonotonic reasoning; use of defaults in commonsense knowledge; value minimization in circumscription; nested abnormality theories; knowledge representation using logic programs; class semantics of logic programs, default theories and autoepistemic theories; well-founded semantics of default theories, logic programs, and autoepistemic theories; conditional logics; preferential models; abductive reasoning vs filtering; etc.)
  

• Active, deductive and incomplete databases and workflows.

  (semantics of active databases; formulating correctness of active databases; specification of the purpose of active databases, and automatic derivation of active rules from the specification; modelling workflows as multiple co-operative agents; expanding queries to incomplete databases; Semantics of negation in deductive databases; etc.)
  

• Multimedia and visualization.

  (modeling of multimedia data; object relation data model; multimedia database design using extended ER models; modeling the web as a databases; visualization and display of multimedia data; specification langauge for display of multimedia answers to a query; etc.)

Research groups at UTEP that I direct or co-direct

• Knowledge representation laboratory .
• Robotics laboratory .

My Curriculum Vitae . (postscript)

Selected research results and papers

Computational complexity of planning and approximate planning in presence of incompleteness. C. Baral, V. Kreinovich and R. Trejo.
* To appear in IJCAI 99 (postscript).

Formalizing sensing actions -- a transition function based approach. C. Baral and T. Son.
* Abstract.
* Version submitted for publication. (postscript)
* Technical report with all the proofs. (postscript)
* A subset of it that appears in the International logic programming Symposium (ILPS), 1997. (postscript)

Abductive reasoning through filtering. C. Baral.
* Abstract.
* Version submitted for publication. (postscript)

Relating theories of actions and reactive control C. Baral and T. Son.
* Abstract.
* The initial version. (postscript)
* The current version -- shortened and revised. Submitted for publication. (postscript)
* Appears in Linkoping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science. Vol. 3 (1998): nr 9 .

From theory to practice: the UTEP robot in AAAI 96 and 97 robot contests.
* In proceedings of the second international conference on automated agents (Agents 98), 32-38.
* Abstract.

Formalizing narratives using nested circumscription. C. Baral, A. Gabaldon and A. Provetti.
* Abstract.
* Version that will appear in the Artificial Intelligence journal, Oct 1998. (postscript)
* The AAAI 96 version. (postscript)

Formalizing workflows as cooperative agents. Baral, C. and Lobo, J.
* Abstract.
* The DYNAMICS 97 (a workshop in ILPS 97) version. (postscript)

Value minimization in nested circumscription. C. Baral, A. Gabaldon and A. Provetti.
* Abstract.
* The version in Artificial Intelligence journal, September 1998. (postscript)
* The initial KR 96 version. (postscript)

Formalizing Active Databases. C. Baral, and J. Lobo.
* Abstract.
* The version in LIDS (Logic in Databases) 96. (postscript)

Representing Actions: Laws, Observation and Hypothesis. C. Baral, M. Gelfond, and A. Provetti.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of Logic Programming, 1997. (postscript)

Reasoning about Effects of Concurrent Actions. C. Baral, and M. Gelfond.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of Logic Programming, 1997. (postscript)
(A thoroughly revised version of an IJCAI 93 paper.)

Reasoning about actions: non-deterministic effects, constraints, and qualification. Chitta Baral.
* Abstract.
* IJCAI 95 version. (postscript)

Defeasible specifications in action theories. Chitta Baral and Jorge Lobo.
* Abstract.
* IJCAI 97 version. (postscript)

Embedding revision programs in logic programming situation calculus. Chitta Baral.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of Logic Programming, Jan 1997. (postscript)

Logic programming and knowledge representation. Chitta Baral and Michael Gelfond.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of Logic Programming, 1994. (postscript)

Expanding queries to incomplete databases by interpolating general logic programs. Chitta Baral, Michael Gelfond and Olga Kosheleva.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of Logic programming, 1998. (postscript)

Duality between alternative semantics of logic programs and nonmonotonic formalisms. Chitta Baral and V. S. Subrahmanian.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of automated reasoning, 1993. (postscript)

Stable and extension class theory for logic programs and default logics. Chitta Baral and V. S. Subrahmanian.
* Abstract.
* The version in Journal of automated reasoning, 1992. (postscript)

Larger list of my reports, publications -- by research areas; and lecture notes and tutorial slides.

Courses I have been Teaching

Database management systems (undergraduate course)

Database Theory (graduate course)

Distributed and Object Oriented Databases (graduate course)

AI - II : Cognitive Robotics (graduate course)

Building and Programming mobile robots (undergraduate course)

Operating Systems (undergraduate course)

Computer Architecture (undergraduate course)

Other Interests

Overseas Secretary, Orissa Information Technology Society. Current focus: B.Sc (Hons) Computer Science programs in Orissa; Establishment of an Information Technology library in Orissa; International conference in Information Technology (CIT 98) in Orissa; Revamping of B.Engg programs in Orissa Universities.

Contact Information

Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA
chitta@cs.utep.edu
915-747-6952 (office) 915-747-5030 (fax)