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A Constraint-Based Approach to the Description of Competence

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Knowledge Acquisition, Modeling and Management (EKAW 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1621))

Abstract

A competency description of a software component seeks to describe what the artefact can and cannot do. We focus on a particular kind of competence, called fitness-for-purpose, which specifies whether running a software component with a supplied set of inputs can satisfy a given goal. In particular, we wish to assess whether a chosen problem solver, together with one or more knowledge bases, can satisfy a given (problem solving) goal. In general, this is an intractable problem. We have therefore introduced an effective, practical, approximation to fitness-for-purpose based on the plausibility of the goal. We believe that constraint (logic) programming provides a natural approach to the implementation of such approximations. We took the Common LISP constraints library SCREAMER and extended its symbolic capabilities to suit our purposes. Additionally, we formulated an example of fitness-for-purpose modelling using this enhanced library.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, Scotland, UK

    S. White & D. Sleeman

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  1. S. White
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  2. D. Sleeman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. AIFB Institute for Applied Computer Science and Formal Description Methods, University of Karlsruhe, D-76128, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Dieter Fensel  & Rudi Studer  & 

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag

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White, S., Sleeman, D. (1999). A Constraint-Based Approach to the Description of Competence. In: Fensel, D., Studer, R. (eds) Knowledge Acquisition, Modeling and Management. EKAW 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1621. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48775-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48775-1_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66044-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48775-3

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