Software machine designed for selection

摘要

A knowledge description language designed to be useful in tackling the automation of real-world selection decisions is introduced. Such selection decisions typify the conceptual stage of engineering design, and are exemplified in the paper by reference to the problem of selecting polymers for manufacturing containers. The language is used to create a classification hierarchy, which may be construed as a collection of objects related in terms of a graph which determines a pattern of default property inheritance. The language provides for the formulation of symbolic descriptions of an objects and its properties, and allows the graph to evolve in a controlled interaction with the computer user. Each fresh description of an object is treated as a partial or incomplete description, which is subjected to a strategy for maintaining the consistency of all objects in the graph. The result is an apparatus in which objects inherit dynamically, are always mutable, and which abstract both state and procedural properties.