miller@UR-ACORN.ARPA (Brad Miller) (09/11/86)
The University of Rochester HORNE reasoning system has just been rereleased in common-lisp form, currently running on a symbolics (though any common-lisp system should be able to run it with minor porting). Features: Horne Clause resolution prover (similar to PROLOG) with typed unification and specialized reasoner for equalities (e.g. A and B can be asserted to be equal, and so will unify). Equalities can be asserted between any ground forms including functions with ground terms. A forward chaining proof mechanism, and an interface between this system and arbitrary common-lisp forms are also provided. As part of the same release we are providing REP, a frame-like knowledge representation system built on top of the theorem prover, which uses sturctured types to represent sets of objects. A structured type may have relations (or "roles") between its set of objects and other sets. Arbitrary instances of an object may be asserted to be equal to another instance which will utelize the underlying HORNE equality mechanisms. HORNE is the product of several years of R&D in the Natural Language Understanding and Knowledge Representation projects supervised by Prof. James Allen at the University of Rochester, and forms the basis for much of our current implementation work. A tutorial introduction and manual, TR 126 "The HORNE reasoning system in Common-Lisp" by Allen and Miller is available for $2.50 from the following address: Ms. Peg Meeker Technical Reports Administrator Department of Computer Science 617 Hylan Building University of Rochester River Campus Rochester, NY 14627 In addition a DC300XL cartridge tape in Symbolics distribution format, or Symbolics carry-tape format (also suitable for TI Explorers), or a 1/2" 1600bpi reel in 4.2BSD TAR format (other formats are not available) is available from the above address for a charge of $100.00 which will include one copy of the TR. This charge is made to defray the cost of the tape, postage, and handling. The software itself is in the public domain. Larger contributions are, of course, welcome. Please specify which format tape you wish to receive. By default, we will send the Symbolics distribution format. All checks should be made payable to "University of Rochester, Computer Science Department". POs from other Universities are also acceptable. Refunds for any reason are not available. DISCLAIMER: The software is supplied "as-is" without any implied warrenties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We are not responsible for any consequential damages as the result of using this software. We are happy to accept bug reports, but promise to fix nothing. Updates are not included; future releases (if any) will probably be made available under a similar arrangement to this one, but need not be. In other words, what you get is what you get. Brad Miller Computer Science Department University of Rochester ------ miller@rochester.arpa miller@ur-acorn.arpa