AN INTERACTIVE FAULT-DIAGNOSIS EXPERT-SYSTEM FOR A HELPDESK APPLICATION

This paper presents work on an interactive fault diagnosis expert syst em for a helpdesk application. A knowledge representation and inferenc e algorithm is proposed to satisfy three design specifications: (1) no parallel event exists in human fault reporting; (2) the diagnostic se quence is unpredictable, and (3) the inference engine is passive in an event-driven environment. A lattice data structure is designed for kn owledge representation, which is generated automatically from a script of decision rules. The inference engine works in a transaction-like s tyle by prompting and responding to the user according to the knowledg e in the lattice. It can explicitly guide the inference sequence, as w ell as respond to ad hoc input from the user.