Knowledge Systems
AIAI's Knowledge Systems Research concentrates on those areas of
Artificial Intelligence that are concerned with explicit
representations of knowledge.
These are Knowledge Representation,
including Ontologies, Enterprise Modelling, and Knowledge Management;
Knowledge Engineering, including tools for acquiring formal models and
checking their structure; and, more recently, services and brokering
on the Semantic Web.
The group explores and develops generic approaches by engaging in
specific applied studies. It uses the knowledge gained in specific
client projects and consultancies with all sizes of companies world
wide. Applications include automatic layout, hazard assessment, bid
management, management of spare parts, etc.
Current research in knowledge systems is supported by the
Advanced Knowledge Technologies (AKT) IRC project, a 6 year EPSRC-funded
project with 6 UK university groups researching subjects ranging
from knowledge acquisition and knowledge publishing to knowledge
management and knowledge maintenance.
The Semantic Web: will become the means of delivery for many
knowledge-based services. Representing knowledge in web-compatible
formats such as RDFS and OWL, and implementing brokering agents that allow
web services to be discovered and invoked are some on-going research
activities.
Knowledge Representation: developing ways to organise and
formalise knowledge of different types and
for different purposes. Edinburgh has a long tradition in the
development of knowledge representations and extensive experience in
the use of a variety of knowledge representations. AIAI is also noted
for its involvement in representation standards initiatives.
Ontologies:
definitions of concepts for sharing and re-using knowledge.
There is strong interest and experience in the
development of ontologies, and in their use in applications.
Ontologies for plans, actions and processes have been developed within
the Cyc Knowledge Base; an ontology of business terms has been
developed during the Enterprise project.
Enterprise Modelling:
describing those aspects of an organisation that are relevant for
supporting its operation. This field covers areas such as
multi-perspective modelling
(in both senses of perspective - different viewpoints on the
same artifact, or different opinions of a single concept), and
it draws on a variety of methods and techniques from areas like
ontologies and task management. Developments range from research into
issues and techniques for Enterprise modelling to the development of
support tools for enterprise modelling and tools that use enterprise
models to support the running of the organisation itself. Projects of
note are Enterprise, TBPM, and SDBA. Also note I-DE domain modelling
support efforts under AIAI's I-X work programme.
Knowledge Engineering:
developing knowledge-based software systems. Areas of expertise include
the use of methodologies for knowledge engineering, knowledge
acquisition techniques, and in programming knowledge-based
software systems. Three projects of note are the Rapid Knowledge
Formation project (RKF), which is building power-tools for knowledge
acquisition to allow experts to provide knowledge to a software system
without the help of a knowledge engineer, AUSDA, which analyses and
integrates software development approaches, and TOPKAT which
links knowledge acquisition with CommonKADS knowledge
representation. Our most successful deployed knowledge-based systems are
Formation and EASE.
Knowledge Management:
identifying the use of, or need for knowledge in an organisation, and
proposing strategies to look after that knowledge and to make it more
widely available. Edinburgh's approach draws on methods and
techniques that use rich modelling of knowledge, such as
ontologies, multi-perspective modelling, and established knowledge
engineering methods. Applications include skills management,
validation of business models, and web-based information
services.
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