Knowledge management system for performing dynamic distributed problem solving
First Claim
1. In a knowledge management system having a plurality of intelligent agents aid a plurality of mutually independent knowledge resources, a method of solving a problem, comprising:
- accepting a knowledge query from a user;
employing an agent having inferencing capacity to identify at least one knowledge resource, from the plurality of mutually independent knowledge resources, that is relevant to the formulation of a response to the knowledge query;
interacing with the identified knowledge resource to produce the response to the knowledge query; and
providing the response to the knowledge query to the user.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Disclosed is an invention that provides a knowledge management system that supports inquiries of distributed knowledge resources. Those inquiries may be in the form of questions or problem statements presented by a user. Interaction between a user and the knowledge resources is mediated by a collection of cooperative intelligent agents. The cooperative intelligent agents incorporate generalized automated negotiation and distributed inference (i.e., problem-solving) processes. Using those processes in a hierarchical architecture, the invention analyzes input problem statements and organizes the problem statements as sets of tasks. In pursuit of each task, the invention solicits accessible knowledge repositories, represented by knowledge agents, for relevant knowledge, and then analyzes and integrates responses from those knowledge repositories. The invention may then provide the responses to a human user or a using process.
192 Citations
33 Claims
-
1. In a knowledge management system having a plurality of intelligent agents aid a plurality of mutually independent knowledge resources, a method of solving a problem, comprising:
-
accepting a knowledge query from a user;
employing an agent having inferencing capacity to identify at least one knowledge resource, from the plurality of mutually independent knowledge resources, that is relevant to the formulation of a response to the knowledge query;
interacing with the identified knowledge resource to produce the response to the knowledge query; and
providing the response to the knowledge query to the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
a knowledge module containing information relevant to a domain of expertise; and
a first intelligent agent configured to conduct inference processing in cooperation with another intelligent agent in the knowledge management system, the first intelligent agent being further configured to retrieve the information from the knowledge module.
-
-
3. The method of claim 2, wherein two knowledge modules associated with two knowledge resources in the plurality of knowledge resources comprise knowledge that is overlapping.
-
4. The method of claim 2, wherein two knowledge modules associated with two knowledge resources in the plurality of knowledge resources comprise knowledge that is independent (non-overlapping).
-
5. The method of claim 2, wherein two knowledge modules associated with two knowledge resources in the plurality of knowledge resources comprise knowledge that is complementary.
-
6. The method of claim 1, wherein one knowledge resource in the plurality of knowledge resources includes a knowledge module selected from a group comprising:
- a knowledge-based system;
a simulation;
a database;
a world wide web site;
a real-time data stream;
a computational resource;
an interactive system;
a data processing device;
an algorithm; and
a data repository.
- a knowledge-based system;
-
7. A knowledge management system, comprising:
-
a user agent configured to mediate interactions between a user and the knowledge management system, the interactions including the receipt of a query from the user;
a meta agent having inferencing capability and an interface to the user agent operative to receive the query from the user agent, the meta agent being configured to determine and execute a plan to respond to the query by interacting with a plurality of knowledge agents; and
the plurality of knowledge agents being configured to mediate interactions between the meta agent and a plurality of knowledge resources, each knowledge agent in the plurality of knowledge agents having inferencing capability and being associated with at least one knowledge resource in the plurality of knowledge resources. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
prompt the user for additional information needed to service the query;
accept the input of the additional information from the user;
pass the input to the meta agent; and
render to the user progress information related to the execution of the plan to respond to the query.
-
-
9. The knowledge management system of claim 8, wherein the user agent is further configured to:
-
accept a request from the user for an explanation of the progress information related to the execution of the plan to respond to the query; and
provide the user with the requested explanation.
-
-
10. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein the user agent is further configured to generate a problem statement based on the user query, and wherein the meta agent is further configured to:
-
analyze the problem statement generated by the user agent to create a set of sub-problems for solution;
identify one knowledge resource in the plurality of knowledge resources that is relevant to the solution of at least one sub-problem in the set of sub-problems;
based on the identification of the one knowledge resource, produce a plan for interactions with the knowledge agent associated with the identified one knowledge resource; and
in accordance with the plan for interactions, issue the at least one sub-problem to the knowledge agent associated with the identified one knowledge resource.
-
-
11. The knowledge management system of claim 10, wherein the meta agent is further configured to:
-
consolidate responses received from more than one knowledge agent into a canonical response; and
issue the canonical response to the user agent.
-
-
12. The knowledge management system of claim 11, wherein the canonical response to the user agent may be sub-optimal yet valid within problem and stated constraints.
-
13. The knowledge management system of claim 11, wherein the meta agent is further configured with the capability to receive the responses in one of a plurality of communications modes comprising:
- asynchronously, incrementally, concurrently, and preemptively.
-
14. The knowledge management system of claim 11, wherein the meta agent is further configured to perform a test to analyze the responses to determine the ontological and semantic similarities between the responses, the similarity test comprising:
-
determining if the responses describe identical ontological, syntactic, and semantic entities and if the responses differ only in value;
determining if the responses describe identical ontological and semantic entities, but exhibit syntactic differences; and
determining if the responses describe entities for which the ontological, syntactic, and semantic similarity does not meet a specified threshold.
-
-
15. The knowledge management system of claim 14, wherein if the similarity test determines that the responses describe identical ontological, syntactic, and semantic entities and differ only in value, the meta agent is configured to consolidate the responses using a specified consolidation technique.
-
16. The knowledge management system of claim 15, wherein the specified consolidation technique comprises a selected one from a group comprising:
- statistical analysis, Bayesian analysis, boolean logic, voting, and algorithmic convolution.
-
17. The knowledge management system of claim 14, wherein if the similarity test determines that syntactic differences exist, the responses are analyzed to determine if a common intermediate form exhibiting identical ontological, syntactic, and semantic properties exists into which all responses can be converted.
-
18. The knowledge management system of claim 17, wherein if the common intermediate form exists, the meta agent is configured to consolidate the responses using a specified consolidation technique.
-
19. The knowledge management system of claim 14, wherein the responses are submitted to the user, via the user agent, for assessment and selection of an appropriate response.
-
20. The knowledge management system of claim 19, wherein if the selected response represents an intermediate response (solution to a sub-problem), the user'"'"'s selection is submitted back to the knowledge management system and used to support subsequent processing of the query.
-
21. The knowledge management system of claim 10, wherein the meta agent is further configured to:
-
receive from the knowledge agent associated with the identified one knowledge resource a request for additional information related to solving the at least one sub-problem;
identify another knowledge resource in the plurality of knowledge resources that is relevant to the request for additional information related to solving the at least one sub-problem; and
issue to the identified other knowledge resource the request for additional information related to solving the at least one sub-problem.
-
-
22. The knowledge management system of claim 10, wherein the meta agent is further configured to:
-
identify a need for additional information from the user agent for the solution of the at least one sub-problem; and
issuing a request to the user agent for the additional information.
-
-
23. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein the meta agent dynamically configures the distributed resources of the knowledge modules and their representative knowledge agents to solve the problem.
-
24. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein each knowledge agent in the plurality of knowledge agents is further configured to:
-
accept from the meta agent a sub-problem statement related to the plan to respond to the query;
convert the sub-problem statement into a format appropriate for the knowledge resource associated with the knowledge agent;
retrieve a response from the knowledge resource based on the formatted sub-problem statement; and
return the response to the meta agent.
-
-
25. The knowledge management system of claim 24, wherein each knowledge agent in the plurality of knowledge agents is further configured to:
-
generate a request for additional information required to solve the sub-problem statement;
pass the generated request to the meta agent; and
receive from the meta agent any additional information provided.
-
-
26. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein each knowledge agent in the plurality of knowledge agents is further configured to dynamically register, with the knowledge management system, attribute information describing the knowledge module associated with the knowledge agent.
-
27. The knowledge management system of claim 26, wherein the attribute information comprises:
- interests, capabilities, knowledge source, knowledge ontology, knowledge domain, date and time of creation of the knowledge resource, date and time of last update of the knowledge resource, limitations on validity of knowledge, level of expertise of the knowledge resource, confidence in the validity of the knowledge, validating authority, appropriate audiences for the knowledge, associated fees for use of the knowledge resource, and certification.
-
28. The knowledge management system of claim 27, wherein mappings between the interests and the capabilities of the knowledge agent are stored and used by the meta agent to optimize the distributed problem solving.
-
29. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein the meta agent is further configured to:
-
provide to the user agent a plan execution status report describing the status of execution of the plan to respond to the query; and
provide to the user agent an explanation of the plan to respond to the query.
-
-
30. The knowledge management system of claim 29, wherein the explanation of the plan comprises a rationale of the use of specific knowledge resources.
-
31. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein the inferencing capability comprises a plurality of modes.
-
32. The knowledge management system of claim 31, wherein the plurality of modes comprises a linear mode, a partitioned mode, a replicated mode, a real-time mode, a preemptive mode, and a qualitative mode.
-
33. The knowledge management system of claim 7, wherein the inferencing capability of the meta agent is further configured to support:
- parallel sub-plans;
iterative plan development;
recursive planning;
incremental plan development;
revisiting knowledge resources for additional information;
backtracking; and
replanning.
- parallel sub-plans;
Specification