COMBINING KNOWLEDGE BASES CONSISTING OF FIRST‐ORDER THEORIES

TLDR

Combining knowledge from multiple experts into a single expert system is a complex, nontrivial challenge. This work investigates how to merge expert systems represented as first‑order theories. The authors propose inconsistency‑resolution techniques and algorithms to implement them.

Abstract

Consider the construction of an expert system by encoding the knowledge of different experts. Suppose the knowledge provided by each expert is encoded into a knowledge base. Then the process of combining the knowledge of these different experts is an important and nontrivial problem. We study this problem here when the expert systems are considered to be first‐order theories. We present techniques for resolving inconsistencies in such knowledge bases. We also provide algorithms for implementing these techniques.