israel%umcp-cs@UDel-Relay@sri-unix.UUCP (10/08/83)
From: Bruce Israel <israel%umcp-cs@UDel-Relay>
[Reprinted from the University of Maryland BBoard]
The University of Maryland Computer Science Dept. is starting an
informal AI seminar, meeting every other Thursday in Room 2330,
Computer Science Bldg, at 5pm.
The first meeting will be held Thursday, October 13. All are welcome
to attend. The abstract for the talk follows.
MAL: My AI Language
Craig Stanfill
Department of Computer Science
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
In the course of writing my thesis, I implemented an AI language, called
MAL, for manipulating symbolic expressions. MAL runs in the University of
Maryland Franz Lisp Environment on a VAX 11/780 under Berkely Unix (tm) 4.1.
MAL is of potential benefit in knowledge representation research, where it
allows the development and testing of knowledge representations without build-
ing an inference engine from scratch, and in AI education, where it should
allow students to experiment with a simple AI programming language. MAL pro-
vides for:
1. The representation of objects and queries as symbolic expressions.
Objects are recursively constructed from sets, lists, and bags of atoms
(as in QLISP). A powerful and efficient pattern matcher is provided.
2. The rule-directed simplification of expressions. Limited facilities for
depth first search are provided.
3. Access to a database. Rules can assert and fetch simplifications of
expressions. The database also employs a truth maintenance system.
4. The construction of large AI systems by the combination of simpler modules
called domains. For each domain, there is a database, a set of rules, and
a set of links to other domains.
5. A set of domains which are generally useful, especially for spatial rea-
soning. This includes domains for solid and linear geometry, and for
algebra.
6. Facilities which allow the user to customize MAL (to a degree). Calls to
arbitrary LISP functions are supported, allowing the language to be easily
extended.