From: streppel@fwi.uva.nl (Hans Streppel (Academie voor Informatica))
Subject: Course Design Techniques for Knowledge-based Reasoning Systems
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:37:51 GMT


Design Techniques for Knowledge-based Reasoning Systems
a 5-day course

Amsterdam, October 1-2-5-6-7


This course is aimed at university graduates, working in industry, 
governemental agencies and other institutions such as such insurance 
companies,banks etc. who are or will be involved in designing and 
implementing knowledge-based systems. For post-graduate lecturers 
the course will provide a valuable overview of the field. 

Content
This course provides technical support for the design and implementation 
phase of the development of a complex knowledge-based reasoning
system. Formal specification techniques tailored to knowledge-based 
reasoning systems and automated tools supporting these techniques 
will be used

About the programme 

Both presentations and hands-on experience are included throughout 
the course. The material covered in the morning is put into practice in the 
afternoon, using automated tools to support the process of design, 
specification and implementation. This practical work will be on 
Sun-workstations.


Programme 

Thursday, October 1  

-  Task decomposition and modular architecture
-  Decomposing complex reasoning tasks
-  Compositional architectures of knowledge-based reasoning systems
-  Functionality and specification of a reasoning module
 
-  Practical exercise: modelling diagnostic reasoning based on 
   dynamic hypothesis generation and testing

Friday, October 2

-  Specification of a modular knowledge-based system
-  Description levels of knowledge-based systems; relation to the 
   KADS 4-layer model to be used in knowledge analysis
-  Explicit standardized description of interactions between modules and 
   control aspects
-  A supervisor component for global control
-  Informal and formal specification techniques
-  A framework for (detailed) specification of modular 
   knowledge-based systems: DESIRE (framework for DEsign and 
   Specification of Interacting REasoning modules)

-  Practical exercise: the use of a syntax-directed editor to create 
   an example (formal) specification, and of an implementation 
   generator to obtain executable code from it

Monday, October 5

-  The use of task-specific tools
-  Task-specific tools for specification (generic task models) and 
   implementation (task-specific shells)
-  Dynamic behaviour, flexibility and interactivity of a 
   knowledge-based system 

-  Practical exercise: modelling reasoning with dynamic assumptions; 
   specification and implementation of an example system using 
   task-specific support

Tuesday, October 6

-  Configuration and reuse
-  Reuse of specifications and of implementations; of generic 
   architectures and of components (with standardized  interface)
-  Classification of standard interaction types
-  Configuration of generic task models
-  Belief revision in a compositional architecture

-  Practical exercise: configuration of architectures for hypothetical 
   reasoning with causal knowledge and for reasoning about a 
   changing world and actions

Wednesday, October 7

-  Modelling examples and applications
-  Modelling complex reasoning tasks: reasoning from and about 
   viewpoints, reasoning about (design) requirements in design tasks 
-  Applications: compositional architectures for routing and for 
   designing sets of measures for environmental policy
	
-  Practical exercise: configuration of some example architectures


Organization

Course Director 
Prof.dr. J. Treur, Free University, Amsterdam

Background
Since 1988 prof.dr. J. Treur has been responsible for the development 
and integration of formal specifiation techniques developed for/tailored to 
complex knowledge based reasoning systems within the Artificial 
Intelligence Group at the Free University in Amsterdam. Fundamental and applied research, often together with academic, governmental and 
industrial partners (e.g. Rabobank Nederland, Cap Gemini-Pandata), 
frequently addressed the development and evaluation of a framework 
for (formal) specification of modular knowledge-based reasoning systems DESIRE  (framework for 
DEsign and Specification of Interacting REasoning modules).  DESIRE, 
provides an environment in which a conceptual model of a system as 
obtained from knowledge acquisition and analysis (e.g. a KADS model) 
can be used to design, specify and implement a real system.

A first version of DESIRE was presented at the European Knowledge 
Acquisition Workshop, EKAW-90 in 1990. The current version of 
DESIRE will be presented at the European Conference on AI, ECAI-92,
in August 1992.
Additionally, as part of the ECAI-92 conference a workshop on Formal 
Specification Methods for Complex Reasoning Systems will be 
organized by this research group.



The Academy for Computer Science, specialising in post-graduate courses 
in computer science, is run jointly by the Vrije Universiteit, 
the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University. 

Further information:
Further details can be obtained from
Drs. J.A.J. Streppel, Academy for Computer Science
Email: avi@fwi.uva.nl
Phone: +31 20 525 75 94
Fax: +31 20 525 74 90