A trained processor is described which operates beyond an untrained point. Information is stored in a memory array in a tree-allocated file. Information is stored in the memory as key functions with associated trained responses. After the processor has been trained, it is able during an execution cycle, to find appropriate responses for query key functions. These query key functions are compared with the reference key functions stored in the memory array to find an appropriate trained response. During the execution cycle, there are some query keys for which there is no corresponding reference key function stored in the memory array, therefore, no readily apparent appropriate trained response for the query key. These query key functions for which there is no readily apparent trained response are termed untrained points. Thereupon a query key function which constitutes an untrained point is effectively compared with the reference key functions stored in the memory array to establish and store a difference function for stored reference key functions. Logic means then selects for the untrained point a trained response from those trained responses best satisfying a predetermined decision criteria. During the comparison operation, conditions are measured that indicate when reference key functions corresponding to a given group of trained responses cannot be an appropriate response for the untrained point in question. Logic means waive further examination of some stored reference key functions thereby greatly expediting the efficiency of search. In the multimodal search there are several modes of search, each mode further defining the item being searched.
A tool for building a knowledge system and running a consultation on a computer is easily mastered by people with little computer experience yet also provides advanced capabilities for the experienced knowledge engineer. The knowledge system includes a knowledge base in an easily understood English-like language expressing facts, rules, and meta-facts for specifying how the rules are to be applied to solve a specific problem. The tool includes interactive knowledge base debugging, question generation, legal response checking, explanation, certainty factors, and the use of variables. The knowledge base language permits recursion and is extensible. Preferably, control during a consultation is goal directed in depth-first fashion as specified by rule order. The tool is easily embodied in assembly language, or in PROLOG to allow user-defined PROLOG functions.
The disclosure describes equate operand spaces (EOS) control over the addressabilities accessed by means of different address keys in an address key register (AKR) in a processor. Executing instructions, and their source and sink type operands may have different address keys in the AKR, and therefore different addressabilities. When enabled, the EOS control forces each source operand fetch to occur within the sink operand addressability specified in the AKR, even though the AKR explicitly contains a different addressability for source operands. When the EOS feature is disabled, the source operand addressability contained in the AKR is used when fetching source operands. An EOS field in the AKR stores whether the EOS state is enabled or disabled in the processor.
A tool is used for knowledge engineers for building and interpreting a knowledge base having separate portions encoding control knowledge, factual knowledge, and judgmental rules. The tool has an inference engine applying the judgmental rules according to a built-in control procedure defining discrete states or control steps during a consultation with a user. The control knowledge is encoded in an applicative and imperative language defining control actions to be executed during interruption of the built-in control procedure at specified control steps. Since the control knowledge is explicit and results in the modification of data only in a precisely defined fashion, the tool can be used to build knowledge systems that can always explain their conclusions and reasoning, and that are intelligible and modifiable. To provide transparent representation of control knowledge as well as factual knowledge, the knowledge base is preferably organized into distinct frames which include the rules; control blocks separately encoding the control knowledge; and classes which become instantiated, attributes which take on values describing the class instances, class types, legal value hierarchies, and user-defined functions, which all encode factual knowledge. The knowledge engineer may provide control blocks to be executed at the start of the consultation, after the instantiation of specified classes, when a value for a specified attribute is to be determined, after a specified attribute is determined, and upon explicit invocation by another control block. The tool can also implicitly determine subsumed attributes.
A tool for building a knowledge system and running a consultation on a computer is easily mastered by people with little computer experience yet also provides advanced capabilities for the experienced knowledge engineer. The knowledge system includes a knowledge base in an easily understood English-like language expressing facts, rules, and meta-facts for specifying how the rules are to be applied to solve a specific problem. The tool includes interactive knowledge base debugging, question generation, legal response checking, explanation, certainty factors, and the use of variables. The knowledge base language permits recursion and is extensible. Preferably, control during a consultation is goal directed in depth-first fashion as specified by rule order. The tool is easily embodied in assembly language, or in PROLOG to allow user-defined PROLOG functions.
An expert system shell and expert systems created thereby. The expert system shell creates a knowledge base consisting of terms and their definitions, the definitions making up a hierarchy of definitions in which each definition depends only on definitions at lower levels in the hierarchy or on values obtained from sources external to the knowledge base. The expert system shell creates the knowledge base by asking the expert to define a given term and then asking him to define all undefined terms which appear in the definition of the given term. Because the hierarchy is created in this fashion, the definitions are guaranteed to be complete and non-contradictory. Expert systems created using the expert system shell employ an inferencing engine which determines the value of a given term by evaluating its definition. In the course of the evaluation, the definitions of terms required to define the given term are evaluated and external values required for the evaluation of the definitions are obtained. Users of the expert system may inquire of the system why it is seeking a given external value and how it obtained the results it did.
