Problem solving methods (PSMs) are domain-independent reasoning components, which specify patterns of behavior which can be reused across applications. While the availability of extensive PSM libraries and the emerging consensus on PSM specification languages indicate the maturity of the field, a number of important research issues are still open. In particular, very little progress has been achieved on foundational and methodological issues. Existing libraries of PSMs lack a clear theoretical basis and only provide weak support for the method development process, usually in the form of informal guidelines. In this paper we will address these issues by illustrating a framework which characterizes PSMs in terms of problem commitments, problem-solving paradigms and domain assumptions. This framework provides i) a theoretical foundation for situating PSM research and individual PSMs, as well as ii) an organization which allows us to characterize method development and selection as a process of navigating through a three-dimensional space (defined by the three components of our framework). Individual moves through this space are specified by means of adapters. In the paper we will illustrate these ideas in detail, with examples taken from parametric design problem solving. 1.

Problem-solving methods provide reusable architectures and components for implementing the reasoning part of knowledge-based systems.

Problem-solving methods model the problem-solving behavior of knowledge-based systems. The PROTG-II framework includes a library of problem-solving methods that can be viewed as reusable components. For developers to use these components as building blocks in the construction of methods for new tasks, they must configure the components to fit with each other and with the needs of the new task. As part of this configuration process, developers must relate the ontologies of the generic methods to the ontologies associated with other methods and submethods. We present a model of method configuration that incorporates the use of several ontologies in multiple levels of methods and submethods, and we illustrate the approach by providing examples of the configuration of the board-game method.

This paper describes a conceptual framework for facilitating the modelling and development of heuristic reasoning services in clinical domains. The purpose of this framework is to provide support for 1) the representation of medical knowledge in a structured manner, 2) the design of clinical tasks such as diagnosis, therapy planning and patient monitoring, 3) providing some type of facilities for the implementation of these clinical tasks, and 4) making available its use on the web. In order to adequately achieve all these objectives, our approach is oriented to configure heuristic reasoning services, by reusing generic knowledge components, such as clinical domain ontologies and models or problemsolving methods. Currently, an engineering framework, KEAM (Knowledge Engineering Applied to Medicine), based on this approach is being implemented. 1.

this paper, we describe a systematic approach to constructing models' of data and their context. Our approach provides a generic "template" for constructing such models'. For each data source, a developer creates a customized model by filling in the template with predefined attributes and value. This approach facilitates model construction and provides consistent syntax and semantics' among models' created with the template. Systems that can process the template structure and attribute values' can reason about any model so described

Abstract. Problem-solving methods provide reusable architectures and components for implementing the reasoning part of knowledge-based systems. The Unified Problem-solving Method description Language UPML has been developed to describe and implement such architectures and components to facilitate their semiautomatic reuse and adaptation. Spoken in a nutshell, UPML is a framework for developing knowledge-intensive reasoning systems based on libraries of generic problem-solving components. The paper describes the components and adapters, architectural constraints, developments guidelines, and tools provided by UPML. UPML is developed in the course of the IBROW 3 project providing an internet-based brokering service for reusing problemsolving methods.

Even in its very infancy computer technology has been seen as a collection of tools destined to solve problems of a given application domain (AD) 1. The problem solving process using computers is (and has been) carried out within the computer environment and requires the AD experts to formalize their problems in computer terms. The effort put forth so far toward making this process easier for AD experts has generated a rich and well-defined information technology (IT) domain, populated by computer artifacts such as programming languages and program generation tools. Successes of this approach to problem-solving led to the development of current computer technology whose complexity overwhelms computer experts themselves. Nevertheless, the usage of current IT for problem solving still requires AD experts to manipulate IT domain concepts and tools rather than AD concepts and tools. To

Even in its very infancy computer technology has been seen as a collection of tools destined to solve problems of a given application domain (AD) 1. The problem solving process using computers is (and has been) carried out within the computer environment and requires the AD experts to formalize their problems in computer terms. The effort put forth so far toward making this process easier for AD experts has generated a rich and well-defined information technology (IT) domain, populated by computer artifacts such as programming languages and program generation tools. Successes of this approach to problem-solving led to the development of current computer technology whose complexity overwhelms computer experts themselves. Nevertheless, the usage of current IT for problem solving still requires AD experts to manipulate IT domain concepts and tools rather than AD concepts and tools. To

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