Research in Ontologies

Research in Developing and Reusing Ontologies and Problem Solving Method Repositories

Research in Planning

Research in Multi-Agent Communication and Coordination

We are interested in new approaches to knowledge based system development that exploit knowledge repositories in order to develop new knowledge bases more quickly.

1. Problem Solving Method Repositories

We are developing problem-solving methods for a variety of tasks, including plan evaluation and critiquing, configuration design, and plan generation. The problem-solving knowledge in these methods is represented explicitly, and can be changed and extended using EXPECT's knowledge acquisition tools. The methods are coupled with ontologies that define the problem solving terms used in the method. We are using these methods to develop new applications with EXPECT.

"Representing Capabilities of Problem-Solving Methods". W. Swartout, Y. Gil, and A. Valente. Proceedings of 1999 IJCAI Workshop on Ontologies and Problem-Solving Methods. (PDF file )

"Explicit Representations of Problem-Solving Strategies to Support Knowledge Acquisition". Y. Gil and E. Melz. Proceedings of AAAI-96. (PDF file)

"Developing plan evaluation and critiquing tools based on reuse and capture of general principles". J. Blythe and Y. Gil. Available from http://www.isi.edu/~blythe/evaluation-psm

"Using Description Logics to Match Goals". Y. Gil and P. Gonzalez. Proceedings of the 1996 Workshop on Description Logics.

2. Ontologies

We are developing ontologies that range from domain-independent core theories to domain-specific ontologies. Unlike other researchers that emphasize the use of ontologies to capture knowledge, our interest is to exploit ontologies for knowledge reuse, integration, and knowledge modelling.

"PLANET: A shareable and reusable ontology for representing plans". Y. Gil and J. Blythe. Available from http://www.isi.edu/isd/HPKB/planet/

"Building and (Re)Using an Ontology of Air Campaign Planning". A. Valente, T. Russ, R. MacGregor, and W. Swartout. IEEE Intelligent Systems 14(1), 1999.