UPML Unified Problem-solving Methods Language

 

 

 

 

 

Problem-Solving Methods are reusable components for implementing the reasoning part of knowledge-based systems. The UPML language aims at describing and implementing such architectures and components to facilitate their semiautomatic reuse and adaptation.

UPML provides both a framework and a language to describe libraries of knowledge components and their relationships to form knowledge systems. UPML is a software architecture that defines a set of components and connectors between these components. Next we present the more relevant components.

• Ontology defines a terminology and its properties, used by tasks, problem-solving methods, and domain models.
  An Ontology is characterized by:
  • Signature elements; used by other components to specify the input, output and knowledge.
  • Formula: that describe relations between signature elements. Formula are used to specify preconditions, postconditions and assumptions.
• Task specifies the problem to be achieved.
  A task is characterized by:
  • Input and Output Roles.
  • Competence that specifies the preconditions and postconditions.
  • Assumptions needed by a task to be solved
• PSM (Problem-solving method) that represents the method to solve a task.
  There are two types of PSM:
  • Problem Decomposer that decomposes the problem in subtasks
  • Reasoning Resource that directly solves the problem
• Domain Model introduces domain knowledge, merely the formulas that are then used by problem-solving methods and tasks.
  A domain model is characterized by:
  • Knowledge
  • Properties:
  • Meta-Knowledge.
• A Bridge connects two Components of different kind.
  A Bridge define mapping axioms and an additional Assumptions about the components it relates.
  There are three types of bridge:
  • Task-DM Bridge
  • PSM-Task Bridge
  • PSM-DM Bridge

More information about UPML can be found in http://www.cs.vu.nl/~dieter/upml/