Achieving Comprehensiveness in Verifying Hybrid Systems

Rule-based systems have been the traditional foundation for knowledge-based systems (KBSs). In this respect, research in verification and validation of KBSs has focused primarily on rule-based systems (Preece Suen, 1993; Culbert, 1990; Gupta, 1991; Murreli & Plant, 1997; O’Leary, 1994). Some researchers have extended the verification and validation concepts to KBSs that comprise other components, such as rules, frames, objects, and methods (Vermasan 1996, Lee & O’Keefe 1993, Mukherjee & Gamble 1995, Mukherjee, Gamble, Parkinson 1997, O’Leary 1989). These systems are called hybrid KBSs and can be developed using KBS shells such as Kappa-PC1 and CLIPS2. We have built a tool called KBS-DetectOR that statically detects traditional verification criteria, along with subsumption as it relates to object inheritance and monitor-rule interactions as used with active frames (Stiger et al. 1997). However, there are other research avenues and implementation considerations that must be explored in order for the tool to be comprehensive across multiple hybrid KBSs. In this extended abstract, we outline the research directions to complete KBS-DetectOR.