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Reasoning With Conditional Ceteris Paribus Preference Statem

In many domains it is desirable to assess the preferences of users in a qualitative rather than quantitative way. Such representations of qualitative preference orderings form an importnat component of automated decision tools. We propose a graphical representation of preferences that reflects conditional dependence and independence of preference statements under a ceteris paribus (all else being equal) interpretation. Such a representation is ofetn compact and arguably natural. We describe several search algorithms for dominance testing based on this representation; these algorithms are quite effective, especially in specific network topologies, such as chain-and tree- structured networks, as well as polytrees.