We have developed a method and prototype program for assisting two experts in their attempts to construct a single, consensus knowledge base. We show that consensus building can be effectively facilitated by a debugging approach that identifies, explains, and resolves…

This paper examines the issues and the solutions that have been studied in database (DB) integration research and tries to draw lessons from them for knowledge base (KB) integration.

The object oriented programming style used in the Smalltalk and Actor languages is available in Lisp Machine Lisp, and used by the Lisp Machine software system. It is used to perform generic operations on objects. Part of its implementation is…

PATN is a design for a machine problem solver which uses an augmented transition network (ATN) to represent planning knowledge. In order to explore PATN's potential as a theory of human problem solving, a linguistic approach to protocol analysis is…

The next generation of artificial intelligence programs will require the ability to organize knowledge as groups of active objects. Each object should have only its own local expertise, the ability to operate in parallel with other objects, and the ability…

This thesis highlights the effectiveness of Real Options Analysis (ROA) in capacity planning decisions for engineering projects subject to uncertainty. This is in contrast to the irreversible decision-making proposed by the deterministic strategies based on expected estimates of parameters drawn…

The goal of the work reported here is to capture the commonsense knowledge of non-expert human contributors. Achieving this goal will enable more intelligent human-computer interfaces and pave the way for computers to reason about our world. In the domain…

Data quality issues have taken on increasing importance in recent years. In our research, we have discovered that many “data quality” problems are actually “data misinterpretation” problems – that is, problems with data semantics. In this paper, we first illustrate…

This paper presents an intelligent, hybrid system for stamping process planning in progressive die design. The system combines the flexibility of blackboard architecture with case-based reasoning. The hybrid system has the advantage that it can use past knowledge and experience…

In a Communication Bootstrapping system, peer components with different perceptual worlds invent symbols and syntax based on correlations between their percepts. I propose that Communication Bootstrapping can also be used to acquire functional definitions of words and causal reasoning knowledge.…