ONTOLOGY-BASED CONFIGURATION OF PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODS AND GENERATION OF KNOWLEDGE-ACQUISITION TOOLS - APPLICATION OF PROTEGE-II TO PROTOCOL-BASED DECISION-SUPPORT

PROTEGE-II is a suite of tools and a methodology for building knowledg e-based systems and domain-specific knowledge-acquisition tools. In th is paper, we show how PROTEGE-II can be applied to the task of providi ng protocol-based decision support in the domain of treating HIV-infec ted patients. To apply PROTEGE-II, (1) we construct a decomposable pro blem-solving method called episodic skeletal-plan refinement, (2) we b uild an application ontology that consists of the terms and relations in the domain, and of method-specific distinctions not already capture d in the domain terms, and (3) we specify mapping relations that link terms from the application ontology to the domain-independent terms us ed in the problem-solving method, From the application ontology, we au tomatically generate a domain-specific knowledge-acquisition tool that is custom-tailored for the application. The knowledge-acquisition too l is used for the creation and maintenance of domain knowledge used by the problem-solving method. The general goal of the PROTEGE-II approa ch is to produce systems and components that are reusable and easily m aintained. This is the rationale for constructing ontologies and probl em-solving methods that can be composed from a set of smaller-grained methods and mechanisms. This is also why we tightly couple the knowled ge-acquisition tools to the application ontology that specifies the do main terms used in the problem-solving systems. Although our evaluatio n is still preliminary, for the application task of providing protocol -based decision support, we show that these goals of reusability and e asy maintenance can be achieved. We discuss design decisions and the t radeoffs that have to be made in the development of the system.