A method and system organize and retrieve information using taxonomies, a document classifier, and an autocontextualizer. Documents (or other knowledge containers) in an organization and retrieval subsystem may be manually or automatically classified into taxonomies. Documents are transformed from clear text into a structured record. Automatically constructed indexes help identify when the structured record is an appropriate response to a query. An automatic term extractor creates a list of terms indicative of the documents' subject matter. A subject matter expert identifies the terms relevant to the taxonomies. A term analysis system assigns the relevant terms to one or more taxonomies, and a suitable algorithm is then used to determine the relatedness between each list of terms and its associated taxonomy. The system then clusters documents for each taxonomy in accordance with the weights ascribed to the terms in the taxonomy's list and a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure is created.

System and method for implementing a knowledge management system

A method and system are disclosed for retrieving information through the use of a multi-stage interaction with a client to identify particular knowledge content associated with a knowledge map. The present invention is an application program running on a server accessed via the world-wide web or other data network using standard Internet protocols, a web browser and web server software. In addition to an automated portion, the present invention allows a human dialog designer to model the way the system elicits information, giving a human feel to the dialog and a better customer experience. In operation, users start a dialog by directing their web browser to a designated web page. This web page asks the user some initial questions that are then passed to a dialog engine. The dialog engine then applies its methods and algorithms to a knowledge map, using dialog control information\ and the user's responses to provide feedback to the user. The feedback may include follow-up questions, relevant documents, and instructions to the user (e.g., instructions to contact a human customer service representative). This dialog engine response is rendered as a web page and returned to the user's web browser. The user can then respond further to the follow-up questions he or she is presented, and the cycle repeats. The invention can be implemented so that it can interact with customers through a wide variety of communication channels including the Internet, wireless devices (e.g., telephone, pager, etc.), handheld devices such as a Personal Data Assistant (PDA), email, and via a telephone where the automated system is delivered using an interactive voice response (IVR) and/or speech-recognition system.

System and method for providing an intelligent multi-step dialog with a user

A method is provided for automatically classifying text into categories. In operation, a plurality of tokens or features are manually or automatically associated with each category. A weight is then coupled to each feature, wherein the weight indicates a degree of association between the feature and the category. Next, a document is parsed into a plurality of unique tokens with associated counts, wherein the counts are indicative of the number of times the feature appears in the document. A category score representative of a sum of products of each feature count in the document times the corresponding feature weight in the category for each document is then computed. Next, the category scores are sorted by perspective, and a document is classified into a particular category, provided the category score exceeds a predetermined threshold.

System and method for automatically classifying text

We present description logics of minimal knowledge and negation as failure (MKNF-DLs), which augment description logics with modal operators interpreted according to Lifschitz's nonmonotonic logic MKNF. We show the usefulness of MKNF-DLs for a formal characterization of a wide variety of nonmonotonic features that are both commonly available inframe-based systems, and needed in the development of practical knowledge-based applications: defaults, integrity constraints, role, and concept closure. In addition, we provide a correct and terminating calculus for query answering in a very expressive MKNF-DL.

Description logics of minimal knowledge and negation as failure

This paper describes a new approach to inheritance reasoning in semantic networks allowing for multiple inheritance with exceptions The approach leads to a definition of inheritance that is both theoretically sound and intuitively attractive: it yields unambiguous results applied to any acyclic semantic net, and these results conform to our own intuitions in the cases in which the intuitions themselves are firm and unambiguous Since, however, the definition provided here is based on an alternative, skeptical view of inheritance reasoning, it does not always agree with previous definitions when it is applied to nets about which our intuitions are unsettled, or in which different reasoning strategies could naturally be expected to yield distinct results

A skeptical theory of inheritance in nonmonotonic semantic networks

The Assumption-based Truth Maintenance System, introduced by de Kleer, is a powerful new tool for organizing a search through a space of alternatives. However, the ATMS is oriented towards inferential problem solving, and provides no special mechanisms for modeling actions or state changes. We describe an approach to applying the ATMS to the task of representing the effects of actions. The approach extends traditional tree-structured context mechanisms to allow context merges. It also takes advantage of the underlying ATMS to detect inconsistent contexts and to maintain derived results. Some results are presented concerning possible approaches to the treatment of merges in questionable circumstances. Finally, the analysis of actions in terms of a truth maintenance system suggests the need for a more elaborate treatment of contradiction in such systems than exists at present.

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Representing actions with an assumption-based truth maintenance system

Most frame languages either are glaringly deficient in their treatment of default information or do not represent it at all This paper presents a formal description of a frame language that provides semantically sound facilities for representing default information and an efficient serial algorithm for inheriting default information down class-subclass and class-member hierarchies constructed in that language We present the inheritance algorithm in two forms In the first form, the algorithm provides justifications to a TMS, which then manages the inherited information In the second form, the algorithm performs its own, special-purpose truth maintenance and therefore is useable in a system that does not include a general-purpose TMS

Semantically sound inheritance for a formally defined frame language with defaults

In artificial intelligence, a method is provided for representing a directed acyclic graph of worlds using an assumption-based truth maintenance system (ATMS) as a tool The invention introduces the concepts of a nondeletion assumption and a deletion nogood, in order to allow deletion of an assertion upon transition between worlds The traditional (de Kleer) ATMS tool is augmented to allow distinction between two kinds of assumptions, namely the nondeletion assumption and the world assumption The nondeletion assumption is the elementary stipulation indicating the presence of an added assertion in a world The world assumption is the elementary stipulation representing existence of a world According to the invention, a method for testing assertions is provided for determining whether an assertion holds in a world The method involves taking into account the presence of deletion nogoods relevant to the tested assertion A deletion nogood is a nogood which indicates the contradiction between a world assumption and a nondeletion assumption which arises from a deletion of an assertion Deletion nogoods are introduced at a world to block any further inheritance of an assertion from an ancestor world The ATMS tool is further modified by replacing the traditional ATMS notion of inconsistency with a concept of inconsistency wherein only world assumptions are blamed for inconsistencies The present invention may be used in connection with planning systems and diagnosis systems as well as with other types of knowledge-based systems

Method for representing a directed acyclic graph of worlds using an assumption-based truth maintenance system

An important problem faced by auditors is gauging how much reliance can be placed on the accounting systems that process millions of transactions to produce the numbers summarized in a company's financial statements. Accounting sys-ems contain internal controls, procedures designed to detect and correct errors and irregularities that can occur in the processing of transactions. In a complex accounting system, it can be an extremely difficult task for the auditor to anticipate the possible errors that can occur and evaluate the effectiveness of the controls at detecting them. An accurate analysis must take into account the unique features of each company's business processes. To cope with this complexity and variability, the COMET system applies a model-based reasoning approach to the analysis of accounting systems and their controls. An auditor uses COMET to create a hierarchical flowchart model that describes the intended processing of business transactions by an accounting system and the operation of its controls. COMET uses the constructed model to automatically analyze the effectiveness of the controls in detecting potential errors. Price Waterhouse auditors have used COMET on a variety of real audits in several countries around the world.

COMET: An Application of Model-Based Reasoning to Accounting Systems

We present an overview of an implemented knowledge system development tool, called JOSIE, that provides a general framework for integrating specialized representation and reasoning facilities. In our presentation we emphasize the problematic issues that arise when integrating specialized representations and the distinctive features of the facilities included in the system. The current system includes assertion, retraction, and query facilities using a predicate-calculus style interface language, a default sentential representation for the interface language, an inference rule language and forward chaining interpreter based on the interface language, a justification-based truth maintenance system that supports restricted nonmonotonic proofs, a frame-based specialized representation system that provides arbitrarily nested slot descriptions and default slot values, and a constraint language and reasoner within the frame system that provides both constraint propagation and symbolic solution of linear equations via Gaussian elimination.

Robert Nado

Papers

Representing actions with an assumption-based truth maintenance system

Semantically sound inheritance for a formally defined frame language with defaults

Method for representing a directed acyclic graph of worlds using an assumption-based truth maintenance system

COMET: An Application of Model-Based Reasoning to Accounting Systems

JOSIE: an integration of specialized representation and reasoning tools