A BINARY ENCODED INCIDENCE MATRIX REPRESENTATION FOR KBS VERIFICATION

An advanced binary encoded incidence matrix representation, to support KBS Verification and Validation (KBS V&V), is described. The represen tation has two very important advantages over traditional incidence ma trix representation techniques. Firstly the storage capacity required by the binary encoded matrices is substantially less (97%) than that r equired using more conventional incidence matrix representations. Seco ndly the representation supports much more efficient processing. Both a traditional and the advanced incidence matrix representation are des cribed as built into two KBS V&V systems, IMVER-1 and IMVER-2 The simi larity between the two systems provides an appropriate mechanism for c omparing the two representations. Two algorithms, one for inference ve rification and one for structural verification, are analysed with resp ect to the IMVER representations. Consequently some time complexity me asures are determined based on the number of matrix element comparison s required when the algorithms are tested against a range of ''balance d'' rulebases. The overall conclusion is that the advanced binary repr esentation, as implemented in the IMVER-2 system, when tested against realistically sized rulebases, utilizes significantly fewer (around 96 %) comparisons than that required by the traditional representation te chnique incorporated into the IMVER-1 system.