A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR KNOWLEDGE-BASE VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION

Before Expert System (ES) technology can be effectively used for compl ex systems a comprehensive verification and validation (V&V) methodolo gy must be defined. Evidence from the computer industry suggests that without such a methodology Expert Systems will not be considered safe and reliable for field use. To this end, we have defined a design lang uage called TOP (Terms, Operators, and Productions) for specifying kno wledge-base designs which support verification and validation. This ar ticle discusses the key features of TOP which are: term subsumption, o perator methods, sequence expressions, and a method for translating TO P designs into C-Language Production System (CLIPS) rules. To put thes e features of TOP into perspective, several illustrations from applica tions using TOP are presented. We believe that the concepts presented here serve as a solid foundation for practical application of Expert S ystems and continued research into the verification and validation of Expert Systems. (C) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.