Object-oriented knowledge acquisition: Integrating construction of and reasoning in object-oriented knowledge bases

Päivikki Parpola presents in this research report the SeSKA (seamless structured knowledge acquisition) methodology, integrating phases of knowledge acquisition (KA) through seamless transformations between object-oriented (OO) models. This attacks the problem of disintegration, or the gap between phases. The methodology is accompanied by presentation of the SOOKAT (structured object-oriented knowledge acquisition) tool supporting it. SeSKA and SOOKAT extend the KA process to constructing knowledge bases by instantiating a series of models for inferencing. The models are constructed in SOOKAT utilizing metaobject protocols. Inferences performed in instantiations of OO models are guided by control objects (CO). Messages are sent between COs and components of the inference structure. A specific CO, possibly using subordinate COs, can be specified for each inference strategy. There exists a mutual CO for forward and backward chaining that can also be used when reasoning according to protocols. In addition, COs for problem-solving methods (PSMs), such as cover-and-differentiate or propose-and-revise, can be used.Three example applications are used for demonstrating the properties of the SeSKA methodology and SOOKAT, that is, a mineral classification "toy application", Sisyphus III rock classification and dietary management of multiple sclerosis.Mechanisms for importing problem-solving methods (PSMs) over the Internet, as well as for generating specific control objects (COs) for them, remain open to further development.  Päivikki Parpola (1965-2015) was a Ph.D. student at Aalto University. Her research interests concerned knowledge acquisition and presentation, development and reasoning in expert systems for different application fields, using the object-oriented paradigm. She received her M.Sc. in 1988 and Lic.Phil. in 1995 from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. Her M.Sc. thesis concerned forming a formal grammar based on text samples of natural language or unknown writing. Research presented in her Lic.Phil. thesis continued in her Ph.D. studies. She worked with Nokia Research Center from 1987 to 1993. In addition to her thesis, she published multiple international and domestic conference papers and articles as well as contributed in European Union research project publications