This paper proposes that managing uncertainty is a control problem, a task for the control component of AI systems that decides what to do next. This view emphasizes the process of planning and executing sequences of actions that simultaneously satisfy domain goals and minimize uncertainty. The paper reviews AI systems that manage uncertainty by control. It is not an exhaustive survey, but rather illustrates issues in managing uncertainty with selected AI programs.

The 7th Annual Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Conference was held at the McLean Hilton at Tysons Comer, in McLean, Virginia, on Sept. 20–23, 1992. This conference was sponsored by Rome Laboratory and held in cooperation with the IEEE Computer Society, ACM SIGART and SIGSOFT, and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Human understanding in design evolves through a process of critiquing existing knowledge and consequently expanding the store of design knowledge. Critiquing is a dialogue in which the interjection of a reasoned opinion about a product or action triggers further reflection on or changes to the artifact being designed. Our work has focused on applying this successful human critiquing paradigm to human-computer interaction. We argue that computer-based critiquing systems are most effective when they are embedded in domain-oriented design environments, which are knowledge-based computer systems that support designers in specifying a problem and constructing a solution. Embedded critics play a number of important roles in such design environments: (1) they increase the designer's understanding of design situations by pointing out problematic situations early in the design process; (2) they support the integration of problem framing and problem solving by providing a linkage between the design specification and the design construction; and (3) they help designers access relevant information in the large information spaces provided by the design environment. Three embedded critiquing mechanisms—generic, specific, and interpretive critics—are presented, and their complementary roles within the design environment architecture are described.

The purpose of this paper is to review the use of knowledge-based systems and artificial intelligence (AI) in business. Part I of this paper provided a broad survey of the use of AI in business, summarizing the application of AI in a number of business domains. In addition, it also provided a summary of the use of different forms of knowledge representation in business applications. Part I has a large set of references, including a number of survey papers, focusing on AI in business. Part II of this paper consists of more detailed analysis of particular systems or issues affecting AI in business. It examines technical issues which are central to the construction of business AI systems, and it also examines the commercial contribution made by methods for the development of AI systems. In addition, part II looks at integration between AI and more traditional information systems. AI can be used to add value to many existing information systems, such as database management systems. Particular attention is given to the integration of AI with operations research, which is the one of the primary “competitors” of AI, providing an alternative set of support tools for decision making.

Business organizations are not concerned only with technology issues; there is also concern about the impact of AI on organizations. Further, the evaluation of AI often is based on an economic view of the world. Part II therefore investigates the organizational impact of AI, and the economics of AI, including issues such as value creation. The format of Part II is as follows: Section 8 analyses techniques for improving the performance of AI systems, thus maximizing economic return. Section 9 looks at different forms of uncertainty and ambiguity which must be dealt with by AI systems. It examines the contributions of fuzzy logic and numerical measures of certainty to handling these problems. Section 10 examines the usefulness of different approaches to knowledge acquisition in business situations, and investigates the benefits of methodological approaches to AI applications. It also looks at more recent AI programming techniques which eliminate the need for knowledge elicitation from an expert: neural networks, case-based reasoning and genetic algorithms are discussed. Sections 11 and 12 examine issues of integrating AI systems. Generally, the use of AI in business settings must ultimately be integrated with the broader base of corporate information systems. Section 11 looks at integration with information systems in general, and section 12 looks particularly at integration with operations research. Sections 13 and 14 review the organizational and economic impact of AI. Finally, section 15 provides a brief summary of part II.

Cognitive emulation is an expert System design strategy which attempts to model System performance on human (expert) thinking. Arguments for and against cognitive emulation are reviewed. A major conclusion is that a significant degree of cognitive emulation is an inherent feature of design, but that an unselective application of the strategy is both unrealistic and undesirable. Pragmatic considerations which limit or facilitate the viability of a cognitive emulation approach are discussed. Particular attention is given to the conflict between cognitive emulation and established knowledge engineering objectives, detailed over 12 typical expert System features. The paper suggests circum-stances in which a strategy of cognitive emulation is useful.

There seems to be general agreement amongst those involved in KBS research that in order to be useful, a system must be able to explain its reasoning to a user. This paper reviews the development of explanation facilities in knowledge-based systems. It differentiates between explanation as a problem-solving process, and that which explains a reasoning process. This review concentrates on the latter, identifying and giving examples of three categories of reasoning explanation.

We then look at user requirements for explanation. What makes an explanation useful depends on the expectations of a user, which in turn depends on such issues as user background and system context. Several techniques are examined that have been applied to the problem of producing explanations that are appropriately structured and conveyed.

Finally, we discuss some of the work that has been done in describing theories of human discourse and explanation, and some issues that will become increasingly important for future explanation systems.

An extensive annotated bibliography is provided.

For the first time, post-conference workshops were organised for the International Conference on Deductive and Object-Oriented Databases (DOOD). There were two workshops focusing on knowledge discovery and temporal reasoning. This report is dedicated to one dealing with temporal reasoning.

This paper describes the interfacing problem that arose in a Product Formulation expert system written in LISP that had to be interfaced to data in a relational database running on a separate mainframe computer. It surveys the different forms of coupling that are possible and emphasizes the advantages of tight navigational coupling over the more popular set-based coupling. It describes how Prolog was used to overcome the interfacing problems and to provide a customized front end to an end user, based on a navigational interface. It reviews the techniques of using Prolog and the likely obstacles, together with a look forward to databases using Frames or Objects.