An expert system shell for mixed initiative reasoning.

Abstract

This paper presents a general purpose expert system shell that incorporates mixed-initiative reasoning and the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) scheme of evidence combination for inexact reasoning. Domain knowledge is stored in the form of rules with associated belief values defined in the O-S framework. To structure the consultation process, the knowledge base is implemented as a partitioned rule base. The reasoning component uses a combination of forward and backward inferencing mechanisms, and controls a mixed initiative interaction with the user. To provide a suitable framework for performing the D-S computations and to achieve efficiency in propagating belief values during the chaining process, the rule base is compiled into a network. A rule editor has also been designed to facilitate knowledge -base construction.