CONCEPTUALIZATION OF DEVICE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

This paper investigates the use of a formal conceptual framework for t he conceptualization of devices' structure and function. The objective s are to support reusability of knowledge across a variety of problem- solving tasks and flexibility in reasoning. The paper conjectures that to meet these objectives, a conceptual formalism must provide both co ntext-dependent and context-independent representations of the represe nted aspects and it must separate between these representations cleanl y. Then, it investigates how the PHOS conceptual formalism can satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. PHOS utilizes a set of concept-form ing primitives with formal properties and emphasizes the content rathe r than the form of the representation. The paper shows how concepts ca n be utilized during simulation and fault diagnosis, and concludes wit h an agenda for future work.