daemon@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (03/11/88)
A recent article on news asked for information regarding software engineering
applied to AI. A subsequent article eluded to a lack of information in this
area.
The CSIRO division of information technology has a research program applying
software engineering techniques to the AI area. We have two projects currently
on the go, both first generation expert system redevelopment projects.
SIRATAC is an expert system that advises cotton growers on what to spray on
their cotton crop, and GARVAN ES1 is an expert system that interprets blood
samples in a pathology laboratory and inserts an interpretation onto the
report in the area of thyroid disorders. Both these expert systems have grown
uncontrolled by any design parameters, and subsequently have become difficult
to maintain. We are applying data dictionary technology to both these expert
systems to fully document, define, and cross reference the knowledge, in the
form of production rules.
There are several technical reports available as follows
tr-fd-87-02 Applying software engineering concepts to rule based expert
systems.
tr-fc-87-05 Formal Specification of a self referential data dictionary
tr-fc-88-01 The knowledge dictionary. A relational tool for the maintenance
of expert systems.
In addition, another program is implementing a pattern matching hardware
engine into UNSW Prolog to speed up the pattern matching process.
Copies of any technical reports are available by applying to
The Divisional Secretary
CSIRO Division of Information Technology
PO Box 1599
North Ryde
NSW 2113
Australia
phone Australia 02 887 9307
fax Australia 02 888 7787
or alternatively by mailing a request to me at the address
ACSnet: jansen@ditsyda.oz JANET: ditsyda.oz!jansen@ukc
ARPA: jansen%ditsyda.oz@seismo.css.gov CSNET: jansen@ditsyda.oz
UUCP: {enea,hplabs,mcvax,prlb2,seismo,ubc-vision,ukc}!munnari!ditsyda.oz!jansen
AUSPAC: jansen@au.csiro.ditsyda
Drbogen@SUN.COM (Richard Bogen) (06/11/88)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 12:30 EDT From: Richard Bogen <rbogen@Sun.COM> To: AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Subject: AI & Software Engineering I am interested in leads on any papers or research concerned with applications of AI to the production of complex software products such as Operating Systems. I feel that there is a tremendous amount of useful information in the heads of the software developers concerning dependencies between the various data structures and procedures which compose the system. Much of this could also be derived automatically from the compiler and linker when the OS is built. It would require a rather large database to store all of this but imagine how useful it would be to the support people and to the people developing products dependent upon the OS (such as datacomm subsystems). With a front-end query language they could check the database for the expected impact of any changes they were about to make to the system possibily avoiding the time consuming debugging process of reading a dump later on. Furthermore it would be possible to automatically generate a dump formatting program and an online monitor program from the data stucture declarations in the source code. By using include files these programs could always be kept up-to-date whenever the OS was changed.
howell@COMMUNITY-CHEST.MITRE.ORG (07/18/88)
From: howell%community-chest.mitre.org@gateway.mitre.org
To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu
Subject: AI & Software Engineering (Soloway)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 88 11:27 EDT
I've just read an overview of the Yale AI Project in the Winter 87 issue of
AI Magazine (shows you how deep my "to read" stack has become!). I was
particularly interested in the work being done by Elliot Soloway on
applying story understanding techniques to program "comprehension". Any
pointers to additional information on this work would be greatly
appreciated. Pointers to other work on applying AI tools & techniques to
Software Engineering (esp. to qualitative assessment of large volumes of
PDL and code) would be appreciated. If the volume of responses is big
enough, I'll mail a summary to the ailist.
Thanks,
Chuck Howell
The MITRE Corporation, Mail Stop Z645
7525 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA 22102
NET: howell@mitre.arpa or
howell%community-chest.mitre.org@gateway.mitre.org