---
title: "A Theory of Meta-Diagnosis: Reasoning about Diagnostic Systems"
authors:
  - "Nuno Belard"
  - "Yannick Pencolé"
  - "Michel Combacau"
doi: "10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-129"
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2011/129"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2011/0129.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 2011
pages: "731-736"
track: ""
keywords:
---

# A Theory of Meta-Diagnosis: Reasoning about Diagnostic Systems

Nuno Belard, Yannick Pencolé, Michel Combacau

*Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 731-736. DOI: [10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-129](https://doi.org/10.5591/978-1-57735-516-8/IJCAI11-129)

## Abstract

In Model-Based Diagnosis, a diagnostic algorithm is typically used to compute diagnoses using a model of a real-world system and some observations. Contrary to classical hypothesis, in real-world applications it is sometimes the case that either the model, the observations or the diagnostic algorithm are abnormal with respect to some required properties; with possibly huge economical consequences. Determining which abnormalities exist constitutes a meta-diagnostic problem. We contribute, first, with a general theory of meta-diagnosis with clear semantics to handle this problem. Second, we propose a series of typically required properties and relate them between themselves. Finally, using our meta-diagnostic framework and the studied properties and relations, we model and solve some common meta-diagnostic problems.