– IBROW 3 – An Intelligent Brokering Service for Knowledge-Component Reuse on the World-Wide Web

The World-Wide Web is changing the nature of software development to a distributive plug & play process. This requ ires a new way of managing software by so-called intelligent soft ware brokers. The aim of the European IBROW3 project is to develop an intelligent brokering service that enables third party k nowledgecomponent reuse through the World-Wide Web. Suppliers prov ide libraries of knowledge components adhering to some standar d, and customers can consult these libraries – through intelligen t brokers – to configure a knowledge system suited to their needs by selec tion and adaptation. IBROW3 integrates research on heterog eneous databases, interoperability and web technology with knowl edgesystem technology and ontologies. The aim is to develop a bro ker that can handle web requests for classes of knowledge sys t m (e.g. diagnostic systems) by accessing libraries of reusab le problemsolving methods on the Web, and selecting, adapting and confi guring these methods in accordance with the domain at hand. The aim of this paper is to give a general overview of the proje ct and to presents its main ideas and approach. IBROW3 has start ed on January 1, 1998 and thus we can only present preliminary resu lts.

[1]  R. Stephenson.  A and V , 1962, The British journal of ophthalmology.

[2]  Michael McGill,et al.  Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval , 1983 .

[3]  Larry Eshelman,et al.  MOLE: A Knowledge-Acquisition Tool for Cover-and-Differentiate Systems , 1988 .

[4]  Walter Van de Velde.  Inference Structure as a Basis for Problem Solving , 1988, ECAI.

[5]  Sandra Marcus,et al.  Automating Knowledge Acquisition for Expert Systems , 1988 .

[6]  [The state of the art in otology]. , 1989, Acta medica portuguesa.

[7]  B. Chandrasekaran,et al.  Design Problem Solving: A Task Analysis , 1990, AI Mag..

[8]  Martin Wirsing,et al.  Algebraic Specification , 1991, Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science, Volume B: Formal Models and Sematics.

[9]  Timothy W. Finin,et al.  Enabling Technology for Knowledge Sharing , 1991, AI Mag..

[10]  John McDermott,et al.  Usable and reusable programming constructs , 1991 .

[11]  Michael R. Genesereth,et al.  Knowledge Interchange Format , 1991, KR.

[12]  M. R. Genesereth,et al.  Knowledge Interchange Format Version 3.0 Reference Manual , 1992, LICS 1992.

[13]  Bob J. Wielinga,et al.  Validation and Verification of Knowledge Models , 1993, EUROVAV.

[14]  Gio Wiederhold,et al.  Intelligent integration of information , 1993, SIGMOD Conference.

[15]  Thomas R. Gruber,et al.  A translation approach to portable ontology specifications , 1993, Knowl. Acquis..

[16]  John McDermott,et al.  Preliminary steps toward a taxonomy of problem-solving methods , 1993 .

[17]  Bob J. Wielinga,et al.  Steps in Constructing Problem Solving Methods , 1993, EKAW.

[18]  Jay T. Runkel,et al.  Knowledge acquisition in the small: building knowledge-acquisition tools from pieces , 1993 .

[19]  Bob J. Wielinga,et al.  CML: The CommonKADS Conceptual Modelling Language , 1994, EKAW.

[20]  Bob J. Wielinga,et al.  CommonKADS: a comprehensive methodology for KBS development , 1994, IEEE Expert.

[21]  Joost Breuker,et al.  Components of Problem Solving and Types of Problems , 1994, EKAW.

[22]  Samson W. Tu,et al.  Mapping domains to methods in support of reuse , 1994, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[23]  Ulrich Müller-Kolck,et al.  Systematic introduction to expert systems: Knowledge representations and problem-solving methods , 1994 .

[24]  Nicola Guarino,et al.  Formal ontology, conceptual analysis and knowledge representation , 1995, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[25]  Dan Harkey,et al.  The Essential Distributed Objects Survival Guide , 1995 .

[26]  Jeannette M. Wing,et al.  Specification matching of software components , 1995, TSEM.

[27]  Enrico Motta,et al.  Parametric Design Problem Solving , 1996 .

[28]  V. Richard Benjamins,et al.  Modeling Planning Tasks , 1996, AIPS.

[29]  V. R. Benjamins,et al.  Problem-Solving Methods for Diagnosis and their Role in Knowledge Acquisition , 1996 .

[30]  Michael Uschold,et al.  Ontologies: principles, methods and applications , 1996, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[31]  Christine Golbreich,et al.  Assumptions of Problem-Solving Methods , 1996, EKAW.

[32]  Dieter Fensel,et al.  Assumptions in Model-Based Diagnosis , 1996 .

[33]  Modeling problem-solving methods in new KARL , 1996 .

[34]  John H. Gennari,et al.  Reuse For Knowledge-Based Systems and CORBA Components , 1996 .

[35]  Dieter Fensel,et al.  Assumptions of Problem-Solving Methods and their Role in Knowledge Engineering , 1996, ECAI.

[36]  J. Hendler,et al.  Par-KAP: a Knowledge Acquisition Tool for Building Practical Planning Systems , 1997, IJCAI.

[37]  Manfred Aben,et al.  Applying a library of problem-solving methods on a real-life task , 1997, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[38]  D. Garcia.  Electronic Enterprises, Looking to the future , 1997 .

[39]  Richard Fikes,et al.  The Ontolingua Server: a tool for collaborative ontology construction , 1997, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[40]  Frank van Harmelen,et al.  Validation and Verification of Conceptual Models of Diagnosis , 1997, EUROVAV.

[41]  Dieter Fensel.  The Tower-of-Adapter Method for Developing and Reusing Problem-Solving Methods , 1997, EKAW.

[42]  A.C.M. ten Teije-Koppen.  Automated configuration of problem solving methods in diagnosis , 1997 .

[43]  Michael R. Genesereth,et al.  The Conceptual Basis for Mediation Services , 1997, IEEE Expert.

[44]  Mitsuru Ikeda,et al.  Task Ontology Makes It Easier To Use Authoring Tools , 1997, IJCAI.

[45]  Dieter Fensel,et al.  Using Ontologies for Defining Tasks, Problem-Solving Methods and their Mappings , 1997, EKAW.

[46]  Bob J. Wielinga,et al.  Using explicit ontologies in KBS development , 1997, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[47]  Balakrishnan Chandrasekaran,et al.  The Ontology of Tasks and Methods , 1997 .

[48]  Natalya F. Noy,et al.  The state of art in ontology design , 1997 .

[49]  Katia P. Sycara,et al.  Middle-Agents for the Internet , 1997, IJCAI.

[50]  Dieter Fensel,et al.  Ontobroker: The Very High Idea , 1998, FLAIRS.

[51]  Frank van Harmelen,et al.  Construction of problem-solving methods as parametric design , 1998, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[52]  Dieter Fensel.  An Ontology-based Broker: Making Problem-Solving Method Reuse Work , 1998 .