This paper descries D-SCRIPT, a language for representing knowledge in artificial intelligence programs. D-SCRIPT contains a powerful formalism for descriptions, which permits the representation of statements that are problematical for other systems. Particular attention is paid to problems of opaque…

This thesis confronts the nature of the process of learning an intellectual skill, the ability to solve problems efficiently in a particular domain of discourse. The investigation is synthetic; a computational performance model, HACKER, is displayed. Hacker is a computer…

The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposes to continue its work on a group of closely interconnected projects, all bearing on questions about how to make computers able to use more sophisticated kinds of knowledge to solve difficult problems. This proposal explains…

The results of a decade of work in Artificial Intelligence have brought us to the threshold of a new phase of knowledge-based programming -- in which we can design computer systems that (1) react reasonably to significantly complicated situations and…

This paper discusses some preliminary thoughts about the development of a questionnaire for the Knowledge-based Operations Management System (KOMS) project. The questionnaire is designed to elicit information from managers, regarding the type of operating problems faced by them in terms…

A system for visual recognition is described, with implications for the general problem of representation of knowledge to assist control. The immediate objective is a computer system that will recognize objects in a visual scene, specifically hammers. The computer receives…

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.

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 report develops a conceptual framework in which to talk about mathematical knowledge. There are several broad categories of mathematical knowledge: results which contain the traditional logical aspects of mathematics; examples which contain illustrative material; and concepts which include formal…

The construction of expert problem-solving systems requires the development of techniques for using modular representations of knowledge without encountering combinatorial explosions in the solution effort. This report describes an approach to dealing with this problem based on making some knowledge…