A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR KNOWLEDGE-BASE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION

Before Expert System (ES) technology can be effectively used for complex systems a comprehensive verification and validation (V&V) methodology must be defined. Evidence from the computer industry suggests that without such a methodology Expert Systems will not be considered safe and reliable for field use. To this end, we have defined a design language called TOP (Terms, Operators, and Productions) for specifying knowledge-base designs which support verification and validation. This article discusses the key features of TOP which are: term subsumption, operator methods, sequence expressions, and a method for translating TOP designs into C-Language Production System (CLIPS) rules. To put these features of TOP into perspective, several illustrations from applications using TOP are presented. We believe that the concepts presented here serve as a solid foundation for practical application of Expert Systems and continued research into the verification and validation of Expert Systems. (C) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.