36936116
Design of Knowledge-Based Systems with a Knowledge-Based Assistant
The authors propose a model for an intelligent assistant to aid in building knowledge-based systems (KBSs) and discuss a preliminary implementation. The assistant participates in KBS construction, including acquisition of an initial model of a problem domain, acquisition of control and task-specific inference knowledge, testing and validation, and long-term maintenance of encoded knowledge. The authors present a hypothetical scenario in which the assistant and a KBS designer cooperate to create an initial domain model and then discuss five categories of knowledge the assistant requires to offer such help. They discuss two software technologies on which the assistant is based: an object-oriented programming language, and a user-interface framework. >
11197998
A Modular Tool Kit for Knowledge Management
We describe an integrated programming environment for develop ing knowledge-based systems. The environment contains a variety of general-purpose tools: a rule interpretation system, a semantic integrity manager, a task representation system and a file manager. Although the tools have different origins (eg. rule based systems, database management, process control), an obiect-oriented foundation lends modularity and consistency to the tool kit.
33698159
On the Development of Commercial Expert Systems
We use our experience with the Dipmeter Advisor system for well-log interpretation as a case study to examine the development of commercial expert system. We discuss the nature of these systems as we see them in the coming decade, characteristics of the evolution process, development methods, and skills required in the development team. We argue that the tools and ideas of rapid prototyping and successive refinement accelerate the development process. We note that different types of people are required at different stages of expert system development: Those who are primarily knowledgeable in the domain, but who can use the framework to expand the domain knowledge; and those who can actually design and build expert systems. Finally, we discuss the problem of technology transfer and compare our experience with some of the traditional wisdom of expert system development.
18629340
Report on the 1984 Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop
The fifth Distributed Artificial Intclligencc Workshop tias held at the Schlumberger-Doll Research Laboratory from October 14 to 17, 1984 It was attended by 20 participants from academic and industrial institutions. As in the past,’ this workshop was designed as an informal meeting It included brief research rcport,s from individual groups along with genera1 discussion of questions of common interest. This report summarizes the general discussion and contains summaries of group presentations that have been contributed by individual speakers to scale the resources applied to a problem). Others arc motivated by problem characteristics, such as natural spatial or functional distribution. Finally, some researchers are motivated by the observation that some issues in problcm solving and reasoning (e.g., communication and coherent cooperation) are brought into sharp focus in the distributed setting. The main body of this report contains summaries written by individual attcndces of the workshop. This is, in turn, followed by a brief smnmary of the gcncral discus
42162123
A Conceptual Clustering Program for Rule Generation
We present an Interesting Situation Generator (ISG) that assists in the synthesis of interpretation rules from basic domain knowledge. The ISG is a hierarchical clustering program that discovers equivalence classes of situations (e.g. types of geological formations) that give rise to qualitatively distinct manifestations (e.g. different patterns of geophysical measurements corresponding to types of geological formations). The equivalence classes can be used by a rule generator to construct an initial set of interpretation rules of the form manifestation ⇒ situation.
11105386
Automated auditing of design principle adherence
Software design patterns and refactoring browsers are useful tools in developing high-quality software. Object-Oriented Oracle (OOO) is a tool that combines patterns and refactoring and extends them with the ability to recognize when the source-base doesn't adhere to software design principles. OOO relies on sophisticated compiler analyses and a set of heuristics to recognize characteristics of the code where a design principle is applicable, but is not being used. We present an example where the OOO can recognize noncompliance of design rules and the analyses and heuristics that are used to do the recognition. We also discuss other patterns where this approach applies and results from a prototype.
9913634
Generalized and stationary scrolling
We present a generalized definition of scrolling that unifies a wide range of existing interaction techniques, from conventional scrolling through pan and zoom systems and fish-eye views. Furthermore it suggests a useful class of new scrolling techniques in which objects do not move across the display. These “stationary scrolling” techniques do not exhibit either of two problems that plague spatial scrolling system: discontinuity in salience and the undermining of the user's spatial memory.
17086760
Cost profile of a highly assured, secure operating system
The Logical Coprocessing Kernel (LOCK) began as a research project to stretch the state of the art in secure computing by trying to meet or even exceed the “A1” requirements of the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC). Over the span os seven years, the project was transformed into an effort to develop and deploy a product: the Standard Mail Guard (SMG). Since the project took place under a US government contract, the development team needed to maintain detailed records of the time spent on the project. The records from 1987 to 1992 have been combined with information about software code size and error detection. This information has been used to examine the practical impacts of high assurance techniques on a large-scale software development program. Tasks are associated with the A1 formal assurance requirements added approximately 58% to the development cost of security-critical software. In exchange for these costs, the formal assurance tasks (formal specifications, proofs, and specification code correspondence) uncovered 68% of the security flaws detected in LOCK's critical security mechanisms. However, a study of flaw detection during the SMG program found that only 14% of all flaws detected were of the type that could be detected using formal assurance, and that the work of the formal assusrance team only accounted for 19% of all flaws detected. While formal assurance is clearly effective at detecting flaws, its practicality hinges on the degree to which the formally modeled system properties represent all of a system's esential properties.
6433216
XCS Applied To Mapping FPGA Architectures
This paper considers the application of XCS to the complex, real-world problem of mapping Boolean networks to technology-specific layout of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The mapping is formulated as a temporal task, where the XCS's actions are to create blocks (based on an abstract Boolean network) that can be placed in the FPGA, one-at-a-time. Despite the complexity of this task, we demonstrate that the system is effective. We demonstrate the transfer of knowledge stored in an XCS rule set from a small FPGA mapping problem, to a larger problem. We present a novel technique that utilizes a problem-specific finite state machine and two populations of classifiers to treat the problem hierarchically. Final sections of the paper discuss implications and future directions for this work.
52856801
Subjectivity in object-oriented systems