A Software Environment for Operating Various Discovery Systems based on the Logic of Discovery

Abstract

The goal of our research is to develop a software environment in which users can select appropriate Knowledge Discovery systems from various candidates, and compare each obtained result with others. This paper reports a prototype of such an environment, named EVLD (Environment for Various Logics of Discovery). The key idea in constructing EVLD is introducing three-level architecture into it. We adopt the logic of discovery proposed by Plotkin for the middle level, and put every Knowledge Discovery system on the lowest level. By designing the transformation of the two levels, users of EVLD obtain outputs of every discovery system in the form of logic programs. They can compare the outputs by comparing the logic programs. Moreover the logic programs are stored in a rule base, and can be used as a background theory for another trial of discovery systems. Though the logic of discovery was invented thirty years ago with philosophical consideration of discovery, it includes Knowledge Discovery from relational databases in first-order logic. Therefore constructing EVLD is connecting recent Knowledge Discovery systems with Plotkin's philosophical consideration.