1995 Technical Reports with abstracts

• AIAI-TR-206 "Artificial Intelligence for Project Planning"; Brian Drabble; Proceedings of the Colloquium on Future Developments in Project Management Systems; Institute of Electrical Engineers, Savoy Place, London; October 1995; £ 3.00 UK/surface mail; £ 5.00 airmail
  Abstract
  The aim of this paper is to outline some new ideas that could help create the next generation of project management technology. This paper has four main sections. The first of these defines the problem to be addressed, the second outlines the strengths and weakness of existing project management software tools, the third describes what intelligent project planning could provide, and the fourth lists the particular technology items that need to be developed to provide an intelligent project planning environment.
• AIAI-TR-193 "Development of a KBS for Personal Financial Planning Guided by Pragmatic KADS"; Susanne Dirks, IBM Ireland; John Kingston, AIAI and Mandy Haggith, University of Edinburgh; This article was published in the journal "Expert Systems with Applications", 9,2, 1995, pp. 91-101; £ 6.00 UK/surface mail £ 8.00 Airmail
  Abstract
  This paper outlines the structure and the results of a research project titled Development of a KBS for Personal Financial Planning Guided by Pragmatic KADS. The aim of the project was the development of a prototype knowledge-based system for personal financial planning. The prototype system developed assists a potential private investor in selecting a professionally balanced mixture of investment products that meets all the investor's requirements with regard to the investment. As part of the specification, it was decided that the prototype is to develop a portfolio for a single client investing a one-off lump sum, assuming that the client's pension, insurance and mortage have been arranged and that no other prior investments need to be taken into account.
  The development of the prototype was guided by the Pragmatic KADS methodology, a streamlined version of KADS suitable to the development of small and medium-sized systems. The paper therefore describes how Pragmatic KADS helped to guide and structure the development of the prototype. The development process showed that the models that are developed as part of KADS knowledge analysis, which view knowledge from different viewpoints, contribute both to breaking down the complexity of the problem and to ensuring a comprehensive knowledge analysis. It also shoed that the top-down approach of KADS has the inherent danger of neglecting some of the low-level knowledge that may have an impact on the high-level problem-solving strategies. This paper presents a way in which this problem can be resolved by using a modified version of the spiral approach to expert system development, guided by KADS.
  389K ps file
• AIAI-TR-190; "KBST: A Support Tool for Business Modelling in BSDM"; Yun-Heh Chen-Burger, David Robertson, John Fraser, Christine Lissoni; Applications and Innovations in Expert Systems, Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference of the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES), Cambridge, UK, December 1995; £ 2.00 UK/Surface Mail £ 3.00 Airmail
  Abstract
  This paper describes a knowledge-based support tool for business modelling with IBM's Business System Development Method (BSDM). The tool, KBST, is designed to support the activities and capture the results of BSDM workshops, where senior business managers together with a BSDM facilitator develop business models. In this paper, we show how case-based reasoning techniques can be used to build domain specific knowledge into such a tool and how this can provide guidance in building appropriate business models. It is also shown that the application development package HARDY, a hypertext diagramming tool, provides a good platform for a BSDM support tool.
  82K ps file
• AIAI-TR-189; "A Profile of AIAI"; Ann Macintosh; IEEE Expert: Intelligent Systems and their Applications, June 1995; £ 2.00 UK/Surface Mail £ 3.00 Airmail
  Abstract
  This is the first paper in their special series that features AI Labs from around the world. Each issue highlights one lab that is devoted to applied research and technology transition. It addresses the institute philosophy, technical strengths and focus, and discusses specific technology transitions and their impact.
• AIAI-TR-188; "An Engineer's Approach to the Application of Knowledge Based Planning and Scheduling Techniques to Logistics"; Austin Tate, Brian Drabble, Jeff Dalton; 31/8/95; £ 5.00 UK/Surface Mail £ 6.00 Airmail
  Abstract
  O-Plan is a command, planning and control architecture with an open modular structure intended to allow experimentation on, or replacement of, various components. The research is seeking to determine which functions are generally required in a number of application areas and across a number of different command, planning, scheduling and control systems.
  O-Plan aims to demonstrate how a planner, situated in a task assignment and plan execution (command and control) environment, and using extensive domain knowledge, can allow for flexible, distributed, collaborative, and mixed-initiative planning. The research is seeking to verify this total systems approach by studying a simplified three-level model with separable task assignment, plan generation and plan execution agents.
  O-Plan has been applied to logistics tasks that require flexible response in changing situations.
  The O-Plan research has achieved a clearer understanding of the components necessary in a flexible planning system, and has shown how such components can be combined in an open systems integration architecture. The work has determined improved ways in which the knowledge available from modelling an application domain can be used effectively to restrict search in a planner. An improved characterisation of a plan as a set of constraints on activity opens up many possibilities for richer distributed, cooperative and mixed-initiative planning systems in the future. The project has created a prototype implementation which has been demonstrated on a class of realistic applications.
  128K ps file
• AIAI-TR-187 see AIAI Project Report, AIAI-PR-63 "PROPOSE - PROject POrtfolio SElection"
• AIAI-TR-186 "Neighbourhood Search and the Vehicle Routing Problem"; Tim Duncan;
  1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  Distribution and logistics account for a sizable part of many companies' costs and therefore methods for increasing efficiency are much sought after. The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) abstracts the main features of such problems and in this paper we describe an approach, based on neighbourhood search techniques, which has been applied to the VRP. We also investigate the effect of varying the proportion of the solution population in generating new solutions, and test the system on a number of benchmark problems.
• AIAI-TR-185 "O-Plan's Plan World Viewers"; Austin Tate, Brian Drabble; Proceedings on Fourteenth UK Special Interest Group on Planning and Scheduling, Wivenhow House Conference Centre, Essex ; 31/7/95. 2.50 UK/surface mail; 3.50 airmail
  Abstract
  The user interface to the O-Plan planning system seeks to differentiate the various roles played by users in systems which support command, planning and control functions. Appropriate support is offered to the Task Assigner, the planning specialist and the operational execution staff.
  The planning role is supported by a user interface that provides different views of the plan structure. These can be technical or plan structure oriented views, or they may be more visualisation or world oriented views. We provide support to either view via an interface that supports the "plugging-in" of appropriate PlanWorld viewers which conform to a specfied interface.
  68K ps file
• AIAI-TR-184 "O-Plan: A Situated Planning Agent"; Brian Drabble, Austin Tate; Proceedings of the Third European Workshop on Planning (EWSP-95), Assisi, Italy, September 1995; 31/7/95. 2.50 UK/surface mail; 3.50 airmail
  Abstract
  This paper describes the need to view a planner as situated in an environment dealing with the whole "planning" problem. While a planning agent deals with plan generation aspects, other agents are concerned with aspects such as task elicitation, plan analysis, reactive execution, plan repair, etc. Each of these systems has its own perspective on the planning problem and each of the systems must be capable of communicating in a way which allows other systems to assimilate new information into their perspective of the problem. Within such a collection of agents a situated planner takes task assignments from a superior agent and creates a plan or further elaborates it before passing it to the execution support agents for further processing or enactment. The paper describes the O-Plan system which has been developed as an architecture within which situated agents, such as planning agents, can be created. The paper provides a summary of work to date on the planning and execution agents. The paper then goes on to describe current research involving O-Plan which aims to address the communication between a task assignment agent and a planning agent. It concentrates on three key issues in this area: communication of plans, assessment of the quality of plans and the role of authority in the planning process.

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• AIAI-TR-183 "Towards a Methodology for Building Ontologies"; Mike Uschold, Martin King; Workshop on Basic Ontological Issues in Knowledge Sharing, held in conjuction with IJCAI-95; 31/7/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail; 3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  We outline some requirements for a comprehensive methodology for building ontologies, and review some important work that has been done in the area which could contribute to this goal. We describe our own experiences in constructing a significant ontology, emphasising the ontology capture phase.
  We first consider the very general issue of categorisation in modelling, and relate it to the process of ontology capture. We then describe the procedure that we used to identify the terms and produce definitions. We describe a successful way to handle ambiguous terms, which can be an enormous obstacle to reaching a shared understanding. Other important findings include: it may not be necessary to identify competency question before building the ontology; the meta-ontology can be chosen after detailed text definitions are produced; defining terms which are 'cognitively basic' first can lead to less re-work.
  38K ps file
• AIAI-TR-180 "Schedule IT: An Intelligent Vehicle Scheduling System"; Tim Duncan; Proceedings of the first ILOG SOLVER and ILOG SCHEDULE International Users' Meeting, Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay, France,; 30/6/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail; 3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  This paper describes the experiences and insights gained during the development of an intelligent vehicle scheduling system using ILOG SOLVER. A prototype was described in an eariler paper (Duncan 94). Here we look at some of the issues involved in the design of the system, and improvements that were made for the current system.
  The main task of the system is to allocate drivers and vehicles for the delivery of orders to customers. Since each order generally requires a separate journey, vehicle routing does not play a part in the system.
  Distribution constitutes a major proportion of the client company's business costs, and the quality of the service that they provide (mostly in terms of timeliness) is an important differentiator from other companies in the same field. This lead to the twin aims of the project being to improve the quality and consistency of schedules, while reducing costs.
• AIAI-TR-179 "Schedule IT: Improving Delivery Service through Constraint-based Vehicle Scheduling"; Tim Duncan, Howard Beck; Proceedings of International Conference on Transporation and Constraint Programming, Montpelier, France, published by E; 30/6/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail; 3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  
Schedule-IT is a vehicle scheduling system developed by AIAI for an oil and bitumen distribution company. The application involves the assignment of drivers and vehicles for single-drop deliveries, under a wide range of regulations, physical compatibility restrictions, and operating preferences. The problem is therefore primarily one of resource allocation rather than vehicle routing. The main function of the scheduler to to produce predictive schedules for the next day, but the system also provides support for the validation of user generated or user modified schedules, and for reactive scheduling. The system is split into two: the front-end which is responsible for maintaining data, and the scheduler which calculates the detailed schedule. The scheduler has been developed using ILOG SOLVER, a commercial library for constraint-based programming.
• AIAI-TR-178 "Intelligent Systems for Business Planning"; Brian Drabble, Howard Beck; Proceedings of the AI in Business Planning and Monitoring Colloquium, June 1995, IEE, Savoy Place, London; 31/7/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail; 3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  Businesses face ever greater demands to change and improve. Many of these demands are common across a wide-range of commercial and government organisations. One critical element in the process of improvement is the ability to generate and communicate business goals and plans.
  This report produced by AIAI for CCTA (the UK Government's Centre for Information Technology) reviews the requirements of business planning together with the intelligent tools and techniques which have been developed to address this requirement. In particular, the report shows how current intelligent business planning tools could be used to address the challenges faced by H.M. Customs and Excise. The focus on H.M. Customs and Excise case study is used to exemplify generic business planning issues and to indicate potential solutions with wide applicability.
• AIAI-TR-177 "Yes, but why is that better"; Brian Drabble, Yolanda Gil, Austin Tate; Proceedings of the International Conference on AI in the Petroleum Industry, September 1995, Lillehammer, Norway; 31/7/95. 1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  Generating sets of qualitatively different plans from which a selection can be made is crucial in the decision making support systems within any organisation or business. Current business and project planning tools are tasked such that all the alternative plans or Courses of Action (COAs) generated are produced under some fixed set of assumptions. The paper describes an approach which combines a generative planner with a knowledge-based system that reasons about plan evaluation criteria and allows qualiatively different solutions to be generated. Examples of the use of these techniques in the area of logistics planning are shown together with a summary of its potential benefits in the oil industry.
• AIAI-TR-176 "Experiments in the use of Neighbourhood Search techniques for Vehicle Routing"; Tim Duncan; Proceedings of Expert Systems'95 December 1995, Queens College, Cambridge, UK; 30/6/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail;3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  Distribution is a substantial cost in many companies and in some sectors it contributes a high percentage of the value added to goods. Therefore the potential for savings is large, and there is much interest in improving distribution efficiency. The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is an abstraction of a class of problems that has been studied both as a theoretical problem and for its practical relevance to applications. In this paper we investigate Neighbourhood Search techniques for solving the VRP and describe some experiments with variations on the approach applied to a set of benchmark problems.
• AIAI-TR-175"A Distributed Scheduling Framework"; Carla Ludlow, Lyn Thomas, Austin Tate; Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence, pp 49-55, New Orleans, Lousisa; 31/5/95. 1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  A distributed problem solving approach to job shop scheduling is described in this paper. The approach views the system as an Organisation. Agents are assigned different roles and functions depending on their position within the structure of the Organisation. In this Organisation, agents of the same level state their interests independently of each other and therefore Conflict is likely to occur. A major thesis of the research reported here is that not only is it important to deal with conflict but also that conflict as a consequence of the scheduling process should be exploited as a way of integrating different scheduling perspectives, as a way of allowing agents to express their own interests independently of each other and, thus, as a way of guaranteeing pluralism by providing agents with both empirical knowledge (heuristics, dispatch rules and theoretical knowledge (optimal algorithms).
• AIAI-TR-174 "Open Planning, Scheduling and Constraint Management Architectures"; Howard Beck, Austin Tate; Published in BT Technology Journal, January 1995, Vol 13 (1), pp 95-101; 31/1/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail;3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  The development of open planning and scheduling systems seeks to (i) support incremental extension and change, and (ii) facilitate communication between processing agents (both computer and human). This paper presents the open planning and scheduling approach adopted in the O-Plan and TOSCA systems at the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) in Edinburgh. The purpose is to bring together a description of the concepts developed at AIAI and to relate them in a common framework. References to more detailed descriptions are provided. The paper describes.
  1. the key characteristics of the open planning and scheduling systems developed at AIAI;
  2. the basis of the separation of the constraint elements in planning and scheduling tasks, distinguishing a high-level model of what remains to be done, a user level view of the plan/schedule entities and the low-level detailed constraints;
  3. generic constraint managers for planning and scheduling including time constraint, plan variables and resource constraints managers. An example using the time point network within an activity or resource reservation framework is provided.
  112K ps file
• AIAI-TR-173 "Acquiring Criteria for Plan Quality Control"; Proceedings in AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium Workshop on "Integrated Planning Applications, Stanford, University, Cali; 31/5/95. 1.50 UK/surface mail;2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  In producing plans, human planners take into account a variety of criteria that guide their decisions. Besides constraints imposed by the domain itself, these criteria often express preferences among alternative plans that achieve the given goals. Human planners can use these criteria for two important purposes:
  when asked to generate one plan, human planners are able to discern between an ordinary solution and a better quality one and propose the latter.
  when asked to generate several alternative plans, human planners are able to discern between similar alternative solutions and qualitatively different ones relaxing different criteria to explore tradeoffs.
  Current AI planners are good at generating a solution that satisfies the goals that they are given. AI planners often have a facility to use a plan evaluation function for the immediate needs of selecting a good solution during the search for a single plan. However, they do not usually integrate quality considerations across several plans. The quality criteria that human expert planners consider. .sp0.5 are highly dependent on the situation and the scenario at hand. Some criteria may need to be considered if new considerations come up.
  include complex factors and tradeoffs that are often not represented by an automatic planner.
  29K ps file
• AIAI-TR-172 "Characterising Plans as a Set of Constraints - The Model - A Framework for Comparative Analysis"; Austin Tate; Appears in the Special Issue on "Evaluation of Plans, Planners and Planning Agents", ACM SIGART Bulletin, Vol 6, No 1, ; 31/5/95. 2.50 UK/surface mail; 3.50 airmail
  Abstract
  The (Issues - Noes - Orderings/Variables/Auxiliary) Model is a means to represent plans as a set of constraints. By having a clear description of the different components within a plan, the model allows for plans to be manipulated and used separately to the environments in which they are generated.

43K ps file
• AIAI-TR-169 "Support for Managing the Dynamic Environment"; John Fraser; Proceedings of the International Conference on Improved Manufacturing Performance in a Distributed Enterprise: Advanced; 1/5/95. 1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  All companies, especially manufacturing ones, operate in a changing environment. There are techniques, not yet widely used but put to very good effect by some highly successful companies, which help to manage the dynamic environment. Systems thinking and the scientific approach are two of them. Fairly simple software tools exist to support the techniques: when they can be integrated with information management tools and more conventional modelling tools they will combine to make powerful enterprise models. The Enterprise project is exploring how to do this. Generic models, reuse and integration are key issues for Enterprise.
• AIAI-TR-165 "The Enterprise Tool Set - An Open Enterprise Architecture"; John Fraser, Austin Tate; Proceedings of the Workshop on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS), International Joint Conference on Artificial In; 31/8/95. 1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  The Enterprise Project is collaborative work between AIAI at the University of Edinburgh, IBM UK, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Logica and Unilever. The project is establishing a generic framework within which enterprise tools can be used to assist users in their tasks. It is based on an Enterprise ontology which establishes shared terminology for communication between users and tools. The paper begins with an overview of the Enterprise Project and its current status.
  The main aim of the paper is to describe the open systems integration architecture which underlines the design of the Enterprise Tool Set. This draws on earlier work in Open Agent-based Planning and Scheduling Architectures (e.g., O-Plan [2], [8] and TOSCA [1]). A means to more easily integrate new capabilities into the toolkit is provided through the architecture which acts as a mediator between the various components. This draws on earlier work on mediators which act to help users of data base systems (e.g., PEXES/SDBA [4], [6]).
  The core of the tool set will support user tasks via a workflow engine which will assist the user in performing a task, allow access to appropriate tools and methods, and make available suitable information resources. An abstraction of this central workflow within the tool set is provided in this paper. This acts to provide a framework for describing the various components integrated within the tool set and allowing them to be provided in a modular fashion [9].
  82K ps file
• AIAI-TR-164 "MOBEDIC - A Decision Modelling Tool for Emergency Situations"; Jim Doheny and John Fraser; Expert Systems With Applications, Vol 10, 1996. Also published as AIAI-TR-164, AIAI, University of Edinburgh, April, 1995. 3.50 UK/surface mail; 4.50 airmail
  Abstract
  This paper describes a software tool that we have developed at AIAI for modelling the decisions that people make in emergency situations in oshore environments. The tool was developed using C++ and runs on a PC under MS Windows. It has a generic architecture and can be easily extended to other environments with different characteristics, e.g., hospitals, commercial buildings, etc. We use frames to represent a person's characteristics and their perception of the environment; scripts are used to define typical behaviours for particular situations. Our tool can be used to predict the likely behaviours of a population in hazardous situations and help evaluate the effectiveness of emergency procedures and training.
  We have worked with our collaborators to integrate our decision model with their model of people's movement to produce a system that can realistically simulate emergency scenarios on offshore structures. We believe that this is the first egress and evacuation modelling tool to incorporate both decision making and movement modelling. Our work is therefore an important step in the introduction of improved approaches to the evaluation of offshore safety management.
  Validating the decision model proved difficult because of lack of suitable data. We acquired additional data by interviewing oshore personnel and monitoring a mustering exercise. We then simulated an oshore emergency scenario and the results were encouraging. In the future we would like to enhance our model by incorporating communication between personnel. This would allow us to model complex scenarios, especially those that cannot be simulated realistically in training exercises.
  82K ps file, 250K pdf file
• AIAI-TR-160 "The Application of Knowledge Based Techniques to Support Authors and Readers of Technical Documents"; Andrew Casson; Proceedings of The Emerging Showcase '95, London School of Economics. London, England, January 1995; 31/12/94. 1.50 UK/surface mail; 2.50 airmail
  Abstract
  The production and use of technical and legal documents is an important aspect of the day-to-day function of organisations, both in commerce and government. However, the size, content, structure and interactions of these documents can render them very complex, and as a result the processes of creating and using them are difficult and time-consuming
  This paper proposes a knowledge-based approach to providing intelligent support for the readers and authors of technical and legal documents. This approach, which is based on rich hypertext representations of documents are used correctly and efficiently, and leaves the Interpretation of their contents to the reader.
  Having outlined the technology, the paper goes on to discuss its applications. In particular, a case study involving building regulations is described. The application of intelligent knowledge-based hypertext to this domain has been successfully demonstrated using the PLINTH system designed and developed by AIAI and the Scottish Office. Other applications discussed here include design rationale and statute law.
  Finally, the paper concludes with a summary and a discussion of why a hypertext based approach is particularly appropriate at this time, given the recent massive expansion of the global hypertext network, the World Wide Web, and the exciting new opportunities for on-line publishing that it heralds
• AIAI-TR-159 "Intelligent Systems for Business Planning"; Drabble, B, Beck, H; Proceedings of the "Emerging Technology Showcase 95", London School of Economics , London, England, January 1995; 30/1/95. 2.00 UK/surface mail; 3.00 airmail
  Abstract
  Businesses face ever greater demands to change and improve. Many of these demands are common across a wide-range of commercial and government organisations. One critical element in the process of improvement is the ability to generate and communicate business goals and plans.
  This report produced by AIAI for CCTA (the UK Government's Centre for Information Technology) reviews the requirements of business planning together with the intelligent tools and techniques which have been developed to address this requirement. In particular, the report shows how current intelligent business planning tools could be used to address the challenges faced by H.M. Customs and Excise. The focus on H.M. Customs and Excise case study is used to exemplify generic business planning issues and to indicate potential solutions with wide applicability.
• AIAI-TR-158 "Applying KADS to KADS: " John K.C. Kingston, The International Journal of Knowledge Engineering, 12, 1, pp. 15-26, February 1995 ; 1/2/95 3.50 UK/surface mail; 4.50 airmail
  Abstract
  The KADS methodology [Schreiber et al, 1993] [Tansley & Hayball, 1993] and its successor, CommonKADS [Wiellinga et al, 1992] have proved to be very useful approaches for modelling the various transformations involved between eliciting knowledge from an expert and encoding this knowledge in a computer program. These transformations are represented in a series of models. While it is widely agreed that these methods are excellent approaches from a theoretical viewpoint, the documentation provided concentrates on defining what models should be produced, with only general guidance on how the models should be produced. This has the advantage of making KADS and CommonKADS widely applicable, but it also means that considerable training and experience is required to become proficient in them.
  This paper reviews three projects, which investigated the feasibility of producing specific guidance for certain decisions which are required when using KADS or CommonKADS to develop a knowledge based system. Guidance was produced for the identification fo the generic task addressed by a knowledge based system; for the selection of appropriate AI techniques for implementing the analysed knowledge; and for selecting a suitable tool for implementing the system. Each set of guidance was encoded in its own knowledge based system, which was itself developed with the assistance of KADS or CommonKADS. These projects therefore both studied and applied KADS and CommonKADS in order to produce knowledge based guidance for knowledge engineers.
  The projects showed that it was feasible to produce heuristic guidance which could be understood, applied and occasionally overridden by knowledge engineers. The guidance provides reasonably experienced knowledge engineers with a framework for making the key decisions required by CommonKADS, in the same way that CommonKADS provides knowledge engineers with a framework for representing knowledge. The projects also produced some new insights about CommonKADS domain modelling and about the process of task indentification.
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