Strategies for integrating knowledge-based systems techniques within conventional software environments

Abstract

This article discusses strategies for integrating knowledge-based systems techniques with conventional computer science techniques. The effect of such an approach has led to the production of an intelligent systems development environment called INDEX. INDEX supports a layered architecture to enable expert system functionality to be generated and integrated at language level, tool level, and system level within a traditional software environment. At the language level, INDEX provides a set of expert system primitives describing low-level operations of an expert system. These primitives can be accessed from most of the conventional languages. At tool level, expert system primitives and relevant INDEX facilities are used in producing expert system tools and various mediation tools for tool integration. At the system level, INDEX can be used to build integrated/coordinated systems. Several applications have been given to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, and its future directions. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.