THE USE OF THE TYPED LAMBDA-CALCULUS FOR GUIDING NAIVE USERS IN THE REPRESENTATION AND ACQUISITION OF PART-WHOLE KNOWLEDGE

We address the task of enabling naive users in a practical context to define, comprehend and use knowledge bases for representing part-whole information. This work is part of a larger effort whose target users were ecologists who had little experience in mathematics, computing, a nd artificial intelligence, but who wished to build computer simulatio n models of ecological systems. The ecological domain has a rich varie ty of part-whole information. This includes individuals, populations a nd sub-populations, as well as composite entities. We note the special requirements deriving from the need to satisfy naive users and show h ow various existing approaches are insufficient. We describe a novel r epresentation, based on the typed lambda calculus which covers the abo ve range of part-whole relationships in a flexible, uniform framework. We emphasise the role of the typed lambda calculus in particular, and more generally, how a careful description of the ontology founding ou r representation can be used to guide users in creating accurate, tran sparent knowledge bases, which in turn facilitates reuse and sharing.