@InProceedings{Backofen-Ecai96,
  author =       "Rolf Backofen",
  title =        "Controlling Functional Uncertainty",
  editor =       "Wolfgang Wahlster",
  pages =        "557--561",
  booktitle =    "Proceedings of $12^{\it th}$ European Conference on Artificial
                  Intelligence ",
  year =         "1996",
  publisher =    "John Wiley \& Sons, Ltd"
, abstract = {There have been two different methods for checking the satisfiability of
feature descriptions using the functional uncertainty device,
namely [Kaplan/Maxwell88] and [Backofen94]. Although only the one
in 
<A
HREF="http://www.tcs.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/~backofen/abstracts.html#RegularPathExprJSC94.abstract">[Backofen94]</A>
solves the satisfiability problem completely, both methods have their
merits. But it may happen that in one single 
description, there are parts where the first method is more
appropriate, and other parts 
where the second should be applied. In this paper, we present a
common framework that allows to combine both methods. 
This is done be presented a set of rules for simplifying feature descriptions.
The different methods are described as different controls on
this rule set, where a control specifies in which order the different
rules must be applied.

   }
}