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Implementing logic spreadsheets in LESS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2007

ANDRE VALENTE ,
DAVID VAN BRACKLE ,
HANS CHALUPSKY  and
GARY EDWARDS
ANDRE VALENTE
Affiliation:
Alelo, Inc., 11965 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90045, USA; e-mail: avalente@alelo.com
DAVID VAN BRACKLE
Affiliation:
Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, 3 Executive Campus, 6th Floor, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002, USA; e-mail: david.van.brackle@lmco.com, gedwards@atl.lmco.com
HANS CHALUPSKY
Affiliation:
USC Information Sciences Institute, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, USA; e-mail:hans@isi.edu
GARY EDWARDS
Affiliation:
Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, 3 Executive Campus, 6th Floor, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002, USA; e-mail: david.van.brackle@lmco.com, gedwards@atl.lmco.com
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Abstract

Spreadsheets are a widespread tool for a variety of tasks, particularly in business settings. Spreadsheet users employ a form of programming that, although popular, is highly error-prone and has limited expressiveness. A promising approach to overcome these shortcomings is to augment spreadsheets with logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning (KR&R) functionality. In this paper, we present Logic Embedded in SpreadSheets (LESS), a system which integrates PowerLoom, a highly expressive logic-based KR&R system, with Microsoft (MS) Excel. The design of LESS provides different tiers of functionality that explore trade-offs between direct access to the underlying logic engine and user-friendly support for spreadsheets users. A prototype of LESS was implemented as an MS Excel add-in.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 237 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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