wang@ai.toronto.edu (Huaiqing Wang) (10/15/89)
Does anybody know an expert system shell named 'PROTEUS' developed at MCC? Any information would be appreciate. wang@ai.utoronto.ca
petrie@nicolas.ACA.MCC.COM (Charles Petrie) (10/17/89)
In article <89Oct14.165736edt.2399@neat.cs.toronto.edu>, wang@ai.toronto.edu (Huaiqing Wang) writes: > Does anybody know an expert system shell named 'PROTEUS' > developed at MCC? Any information would be appreciate. > > wang@ai.utoronto.ca Proteus is an MCC proprietary shell first made available to MCC shareholders in 1985. It has gone through several versions in which new inferencing or representation features were tightly integrated with previous ones. Each version was largely rewritten and essentially comprised a new system. It was also integrated with MCC's object-oriented database, ORION. Several shareholder large commercial applications, and one external product, have been built with Proteus. Current Proteus software is owned by Bellcore, CDC, DEC, Harris, Kodak, and NCR. Although different features have been emphasized at different times, the use of truth maintenance, especially for design, has been a primary research topic. Proteus is distinguished by its TMS labeling algorithm and its knowledge-based dependency-directed backtracking capabilities. Recent versions have incorporated novel techniques for compiling rules and frames for increased speed. The system description of a 1987 version of Proteus has been "declassified" and is available upon request. Ask for AI-136-87 from Linda Mitchell Reasoning Architectures, MCC AI Lab 3500 West Balcones Cntr. Dr. Austin, Texas 78759 mitch@mcc.com An older, short overview of Proteus is also given in AI-352-86. You may also be interested in TR AI-021-89 titled "Reason Maintenance in Expert Systems" which appeared in this summer's German AI magazine. See also "Revised DDB for Default Reasoning" in AAAI-87 and Robin Steele's paper on the NCR DesignAdvisor application in the AAAI's "Innovative Applications of AI". This last is a commercial program for verification of ASIC chip designs sold as both a service and a product by NCR. A few other application descriptions can be found in "Using a TMS to do Configuration" in the proceedings of the IEEE Fourth Conference on AI Applications, and in "PLEX: A Knowledge-Based Placement Program for Printed Wire Boards" in the proceedings of the IEEE Third Conference on AI Applications. Proteus was also discussed in the Vol 5 No 5 issue of Paul Harmon's "Expert Systems Stragtegies" newsletter this summer. The current focus of the Reasoning Architectures group, under the direction of Elaine Rich, has shifted from Proteus to a new class of inference systems for Distributed AI and hybrid reasoning incorporating neural networks.