A blackboard framework on top of prolog

Abstract

Abstract BEST (Blackboard Expert Systems Toolkit) aimed to provide the ability to produce large-scale evolvable, heterogeneous intelligent systems. Apart from providing all necessary blackboard infrastructure and control capabilities, BEST allows its user to integrate different programming paradigms within a single blackboard application. It does not matter if one knowledge source is a forward- or backward-chaining rule-based system, another uses model-based reasoning paradigm, and still another is a conventional, procedural program. Moreover, because representational flexibility is similarly important in blackboard systems, and the blackboard model does not place any prior restrictions on what type of information can be placed on the blackboard, the authors offer multiparadigm knowledge representation language, built on top of Prolog, therefore avoiding restricting users to a single way of expressing either knowledge or data. BEST's problem-solving facilities include assumption-based truth maintenance, temporal, hypothetical, and approximate reasoning. The generality and flexibility of the BEST environment present the first-time blackboard application developer with numerous implementation choices, providing a wide range of options and capabilities,what significantly increases the productivity of BEST programmers, and improves the performance of the application they produce. The ability to explain its reasoning and to defend its decision also distinguished BEST from most other blackboard systems.