Sufficient Explanations in Databases and their Connections to Necessary Explanations and Repairs

2025-11-19

AI Summary

This work addresses the problem of explaining query answers over inconsistent databases. We introduce the novel notion of a *sufficient explanation*, systematically characterizing its formal relationships with *necessary explanations* and *database repairs*. Building upon the Halpern–Pearl causal model and integrating relational database theory with inconsistency management techniques, we establish a rigorous semantic definition and computational framework for sufficient explanations. Our key contributions include: (i) proving logical equivalence among sufficient explanations, necessary explanations, and repairs; (ii) determining precise complexity boundaries—showing that deciding sufficiency is Σ₂^P-complete—and establishing its decidability from the repair perspective; and (iii) providing a polynomial-time verification algorithm. These results yield a new explanation mechanism for inconsistent databases that simultaneously ensures causal plausibility and computational tractability, thereby advancing the theoretical foundations at the intersection of database explainability and repair.

Technology Category

• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Causality
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Diagnosis and Abductive Reasoning

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Algorithms and analysis for incomplete, noisy, or partially observed Web-related graphs
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web query analysis, representation and understanding

Abstract

The notion of cause, as formalized by Halpern and Pearl, has been recently applied to relational databases, to characterize and compute causal explanations for query answers. In this work we consider the alternative notion of sufficient explanation. We investigate its connections with database repairs as used for dealing with inconsistent databases, and with causality-based necessary explanations. We also obtain some computational results.

Problem

• Investigating sufficient explanations for query answers in databases
• Connecting sufficient explanations with necessary explanations and repairs
• Obtaining computational results for sufficient explanations in databases

Innovation

• Introduces sufficient explanations for query answers
• Connects explanations to database repairs and causality
• Provides computational results for sufficient explanations