Report Number: CS-TR-87-1147
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: A Layered Environment for Reasoning about Action
Author: Hayes-Roth, B.
Author: Garvey, A.
Author: Johnson, M. V.
Author: Hewett, M.
Date: November 1986
Abstract: An intelligent systems reasons about -- controls, explains,
learns about -- its action, thereby improving its efforts to
achieve goals and function in its environment. In order to
perform effectively, a system must have knowledge of the
actions it can perform, the events and states that occur, and
the relationships among instances of those actions, events
and states. We represent such knowledge in a hiearchy of
knowledge abstractions and impose uniform standards of
knowledge content and representation on modules within each
hierarchical level. We refer to the evolving set of such
modules as the BB* environment. To illustrate, we describe
selected elements of BB*:
* the foundational BB1 architecture
* the ACCORD framework for solving arrangement problems by
means of an assembly method
* two applications of BB1-ACCORD, the PROTEAN system for
modeling protein structures and the SIGHTPLAN system for
designing construction-site layouts
* two hypothetical multifaceted systems that integrate
ACCORD, PROTEAN and SIGHTPLAN with other possible BB*
frameworks and applications.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/87/1147/CS-TR-87-1147.pdf