PROLEXS - CREATING LAW-AND-ORDER IN A HETEROGENEOUS DOMAIN

This article defines a heterogeneous domain as a domain in which typical problems can only be solved by combining several distinctive knowledge sources. The legal domain, in this view, must be considered heterogeneous since classical rule-based knowledge sources like legislation, cooperate with expertise and case-law, both possibly represented quite differently, to produce useful results. The article continues with the description of the architecture of PROLEXS, an expert system built to operate in such domains. An example dialogue is added to sketch the problems of building knowledge-based systems in heterogeneous domains and the way PROLEXS approaches those problems. Finally the current PROLEXS research involving neural networks and case-based reasoning is introduced. © 1991 Academic Press Limited.