Robert Inder

Automatic generation of diagrammatic Web site maps

In this paper we outline a site map application on the World Wide Web, whose aim is to improve navigation and orientation within the web site of the Human Communication Research Centre (HCRC). The map takes the form of a graphical fisheye view of the web site with the current node as the single focus. We discuss the semiautomatic process whereby the site map description is produced, describe how it is turned into a relevant map, and discuss reaction and usage patterns. We outline how the approach can be extended in three future directions: affording the user greater control of the graph drawing variables; covering more of the site, and indeed the web in the large; and using the users interaction history to constrain the site map display further.

Combining and adapting process patterns for flexible workflow

To provide intelligent process management support in complex engineering domains, considerable advances in the flexibility of current workflow systems are necessary. We describe an approach to developing such flexibility based on the capture of process patterns within a particular domain, and the dynamic composition of such patterns to determine the structure of an overall process. The role of a formal ontology of the domain in maintaining internal consistency of processes being managed in this way is emphasized.

Bags and viewers: a metaphor for structuring a database browser

The creative work of experts in many fields is increasingly coming to involve data held on computers. Conventional database query systems require precise knowledge of the structure of the database and of a query language such as SQL (Date 1989). Many experts who could benefit from using on-line data neither have, nor wish to acquire, substantial computer skills. Interfaces that allow data to be retrieved without such knowledge-e.g. based on “forms” (ORACLE 1986)-generally involve anticipating the user’s data needs. However, the data creative domain experts require at any moment, may depend on their interpretation of the data they have already retrieved, making very flexible but powerful query mechanisms essential.

Cape: extending Clips for the internet

Abstract This paper describes Cape , a programming environment combining Clips And Perl with Extensions. Clips is an efficient and expressive forward-chaining rule-based system with a flexible object system. Perl is a popular procedural language with extremely powerful regular expression matching facilities, and a huge library of freely available software. Cape closely integrates these languages, and provides extensions to facilitate building systems with an intimate mixture of the two. The paper describes the facilities Cape offers programmers and the demonstration systems and “component applications” distributed with it. The use of the system is then discussed with reference to dime (Distributed Information Manipulation Environment), a toolkit being developed to support identifying and coordinating the use of external knowledge sources. Finally, planned developments of the system are indicated.

Bags and Viewers: A Metaphor for Intelligent Database Access

We present a way of structuring a database query system to form a bridge between current data handling systems and the data requirements of creative work. The interface is based around specifying the contents of “bags” of objects and inspecting them using “viewers”, which can then be used to launch further queries.

Experience of constructing a fault localisation expert system using an AI toolkit

The paper briefly outlines the operation of community clubs, a method of organising collaborative research which has proved effective within the UK governments Alvey programme, and focuses on one of the projects organised by the DAPES (the Data Processing Expert Systems) club: namely an expert system for localising a fault within a network of data communications equipment. Coming from a DP background, club members were particularly interested in methodical approaches to the implementation, maintenance and documentation of expert systems. They chose to construct an intermediate representation based on the KADS methodology (which is briefly described), which was then used as the basis of two parallel implementations. The paper concentrates on the description one of these implementations, which used a specialised AI toolkit (Inference ART). It describes the performance of the final system and the way it is constructed. It also comments on the performance offered by the toolkit, and compares the system with a second implementation carried out in parallel using a PC-based shell.

Planning and Problem Solving

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the planning and problem-solving process required in an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) incorporating machine. In the subject of AI, planning refers to determining a sequence of actions that are known to achieve a particular objective when performed. Problem solving is finding a plan for a task in an abstract domain. A problem is difficult if an appropriate sequence of steps to solve it is not known. This chapter discusses the overall planning task from an AI perspective and introduces some related terminology. The chapter shows how these general principles are embodied in the seminal work on sequencing activities—Newell and Simons General Problem Solver (GPS) and discusses the way the Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver (STRIPS) extended the ideas of the GPS to activities of a robot such as pushing boxes between rooms. However, the limits of the natural representations adopted in GPS and STRIPS means that large classes of tasks could not be planned effectively. These problems are also addressed in the chapter along with solutions to the problems. As researchers grapple with various ways of extending planning systems to deal with specific aspects of real-world problems, the current work on planning is inevitably diverse. In conclusion, the chapter discusses these works and summarizes various aspects of planning that are particularly relevant to cognitive science.

World Wide Web applications track (track introduction only)

Initially the Web was intended to provide a simple mechanism that would make it easy for users to share information across disparate and distributed computing platforms. While it can indeed still fill this need, its growth has for the most part transformed it into a mass-audience broadcast medium delivering complex, highly designed multi-media that have been carefully designed atWaet the attention of those who are browsing to find something of interest.

Combining Prolog Programs in a Techniques Editing System (Abstract)

Kirschenbaum et al. proposed in [KLS89] the stepwise enhancement methodology for constructing logic programs. This methodology encourages software reuse and standardisation and tools embodying it are easily implemented. Based upon this methodology, we have developed [VVVR93] a system to construct modular large-scale Prolog programs using a techniques editing system and program combination. This integrated environment allows users to: 1. build Prolog programs by means of a Prolog Techniques Editor (PTE); 2. combine the programs devised using the Prolog Techniques Editor into more complex ones by using the Composition system.