Method of construction of hierarchically organized procedural node information structure including a method for extracting procedural knowledge from an expert, and procedural node information structure constructed thereby

• US 5,471,560 A
• Filed: 02/17/1994
• Issued: 11/28/1995
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/1987
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Honeywell Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Honeywell Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Wolff, Alan S., Allard, James R., Cochran, Edward L.
• Primary Examiner(s): RUDOLPH, REBECCA
• Application Number:
  US08/197,661
• Time in Patent Office: 649 Days
• Field of Search: 395/10, 395/12, 395/50, 395/51, 395/75, 395/76, 395/77
• US Class Current: 706/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition

Abstract

A knowledge acquisition tool for direct use by an expert in the automatic creation of a knowledge base derived from the knowledge of the expert, the knowledge acquisition tool including an input device usable by the expert for providing knowledge to the tool in response to questions, statements and/or prompts from the tool, a display for displaying the knowledge, questions, statements and prompts so that the expert can interact with the tool in creating the knowledge base, and a processor connected to the input device and the display for supplying the questions, statements and prompts to the display in order to extract the knowledge from the expert in the creation of the knowledge base incorporating the knowledge provided by the expert through use of the input device.

Claims

1. A method for eliciting procedural knowledge from an expert for constructing an expert system said method being executable on a computer having an associated display device which results in the generation and display, in order, to the expert of a representation of an organized procedural information structure having properly ordered nodes, each of said nodes defining a goal, each said goal a parent goal to either a set of daughter goals which when completed effectuate said parent goal, or alternatively, a set of procedures for effectuating said parent goal, wherein each said procedure consists of instructions and questions to be put to said users in order to lead said user to achieve said goals, said method comprising the following steps wherein the requesting of said knowledge from said experts and his responses thereto are via said display device:

A. requesting said expert to generally categorize said procedural knowledge to define a current reference goal which is initially a root goal which a user would want to achieve;

B. requesting said expert to specify in a preferred order all goals which are daughters of the current reference goal, said daughter goals to be achieved before achieving their parent thereof, i.e., the current reference goal, which preferred order will determine the order to which said user may be displayed any of said goals or nodes, and also requesting said expert to specify the conditional relationships, if any, between any daughter goals and the current reference goal, each of said conditional relationships determining whether particular procedures will be displayed to the user, and each of said conditional relationships being designated by the expert as relative to information already made available to the expert system by said expert or by a user in response to procedures at run time, and in the absence of any said daughter goals proceeding to step D;

C. designating on said display means and in accordance with said preferred order the new current reference goal and returning to step B;

D. requesting said expert to specify procedures and to complete said current reference goal;

E. designating on said display means the parent goal of said current reference goal as the current reference goal and, if there is at least a remaining one of said goals branching therefrom, then designating the next one of said remaining one of said goals in accordance with said preferred order as the current reference goal and returning to step B;

F. stopping if said current reference goal is said root goal but otherwise returning to step E.

2. A method according to claim 1 wherein in step E said expert is first given the options of adding a descendent goal to said parent goal or removing a descendent goal from said parent goal.

3. A method according to claim 1 wherein in said step D involves giving or getting information to or from the end user in a predetermined order as specified in said step B thereof.

4. A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein in Step D said expert may specify the conditional relationship, if any, between the current reference goal and its parent, and the conditional relationship, if any, between the procedures and any goal.

5. A digital computer system operable as an expert system which employs a procedural node information structure having a set of nodes hierarchically arranged and conditionally dependent such that display to a user exposes to the user each procedure required for the attainment of the user'"'"'s goal, but only in an allowable order as specified in the construction of said structure, constructed by the process of eliciting procedural knowledge from an expert for constructing an expert system said method being executable on a computer having an associated display device which results in the generation and display, in order, to the expert of a representation of an organized procedural information structure having properly ordered nodes, each of said nodes defining a goal, each said goal a parent goal to either a set of daughter goals which when completed effectuate said parent goal or alternatively, a set of procedures for effectuating said parent goal, wherein each said procedure consists of instructions and questions to be put to said users in order to lead said user to achieve said goals, said method comprising the following steps wherein the requesting of said knowledge from said experts and his responses thereto are via said display device:

A. requesting said expert to generally categorize said procedural knowledge to define a current reference goal which is initially a root goal which a user would want to achieve;

B. requesting said expert to specify in a preferred order all goals which are daughters of the current reference goal, said daughter goals to be achieved before achieving their parent thereof, i.e., the current reference goal, which preferred order will determine the order to which said user may be displayed any of said goals or nodes, and also requesting said expert to specify the conditional relationships, if any, between any daughter goals and the current reference goal, each of said conditional relationships determining whether particular procedures will be displayed to the user, and each of said conditional relationships being designated by the expert as relative to information already made available to the expert system by said expert or by a user in response to procedures at run time, and in the absence of any said daughter goals proceeding to step D;

C. designating on said display means and in accordance with said preferred order the new current reference goal and returning to step B;

D. requesting said expert to specify procedures and to complete said current reference goal;

E. designating on said display means the parent goal of said current reference goal as the current reference goal and, if there is at least a remaining one of said goals branching therefrom, then designating the next one of said remaining one of said goals in accordance with said preferred order as the current reference goal and returning to step B;

F. stopping if said current reference goal is said root goal but otherwise returning to step E.