Dynamic First-Class Relations for Knowledge-based Systems

In the context of knowledge-based systems interacting with dynamic or even real time processes, experts need to express domain specific relations in a natural way. We thus propose an expert language and a C++ implementation of these relations as first-class objects. The relations may have associated constraints such as multiplicities or any predicate expressing a necessary condition. The focus of this paper is to cope with time evolution of objects and their relations and, in particular, with the possibility of temporary inconsistencies. C++ components have been implemented to represent relations and their management and first experiments on existing knowledgebased systems are underway.