CRIB: A Method for Integrity Constraint Checking on Knowledge Bases

The necessity of verification tools for Knowledge Based-Systems (KBSs), that help to guarantee a certain degree of quality and reliability of these systems will increase in the future when more critical systems are developed in areas such as industry, science, business, etc. One of the objectives of the KBSs verification is to assure the consistency and completeness of the Knowledge Base (KB). In this paper, a technique to detect possible inconsistencies or conflicting situations between the objects of the KB is described, and a tool called CRIB, that implements this technique, is presented. The generality of this technique, based on the checking of the Integrity Constraints (ICs) declared on the KB, will allow to apply it to different kinds of KBSs. In addition, the flexibility and the power of the ICs specification language will make it possible to detect a wide range of inconsistencies in a KB.