Ise -- an Integrated Search Environment the Manual

In this manual, we describe the software package ISE (acronym for Integrated Search Environment), a tool that implements hierarchical searches with meta-control. ISE actually is a collection of problem-independent routines to support search processes. Mainly, these routines are core routines for solving a search problem and they handle the control of searches and maintain the statistics related to searches. By separating the problem-dependent and problem-independent parts in ISE, new search methods can be implemented by calling existing methods and they can be developed easily by coding the meta-control. Further, new applications can be developed by only coding the problemdependent parts. Potential users of ISE would be designers of new application solvers and new search algorithms, and users of experimenting them. ISE is designed to be user-friendly and information rich. In this manual, the organization of ISE is described and some sample runs are also shown. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Research partially supported by National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract NCC 2-481 and by National Science Foundation under grant MIP 88-10584. Technical Report CRHC-92-1.