A Framework for Managing Uncertainty in Embedded Expert Systems
J-D Rques
LETI-DSYS
Centre d'Etudes Nuclhires de Grenoble
BP. 85X,38041 Grenoble Cedex, FRANCE
Abstract
The matter of this paper is to describe the UMS shell and
particularly its management of uncertainty. UMS is an expert
system building tool dedicated to real-time embedded
applications. This system allows the user to specifi
knowledge using a set of linguistic approximations, without
being conscwus sfdata-processinginternally pevormed.
Supported by a development of the axwms of probability,
an interval-based framework for managing uncertainty is
presented. As generally admitted, an interval number is used
to capture features offuzziness and incompletness.But a new
parameter, called the degree of dependency. is shown to be
naturally induced by Frank's family of triangular norms. By
opposition to the existing methods which need a global
assumptionfor the exact nature of the dependency between
pieces of irJormation manipulated, the level of dependency is
here modelled at a local level. The three types of operations
required f o r dealing with uncertainty: combination,
propagation and aggregation are defined within this
framework. Finally, the graph-orientedstructure designed for
implementing these operators is described, with its
straigworward real-timeirJerence mechanism.
1 Introduction
Indicators that a real-time expert system might be
appropriate, especially when conventional techniques have
failed or are impractical, include problem-solving situations
where humans suffer from cognitive overload, fail to
effectively monitor all available information, are unable to
resolve conflicting constraints,are expensive or scarse, make
highcost mistakes, miss high-revenue opportunities, Cannot
simultaneously manipulate all the relevant information to
obtain optimal solutions, or cannot provide a solution quickly
enough.
A knowledge-based system operating in a real-time
situation will typically need to respond to a changing task
environment involving an asynchronous flow of noisy input
data and dynamically changing requirements with limitations
on time, hardware, and other resources. A flexible software
architecture is required to provide the necessary reasoning on
rapidly changing data within strict time requirements while it
accomodates temporal reasoning, nonmonotonicity, intempt
handling, and methods for dealing with uncertainty.
The UMS shell (Uncertainty Management System) is
designed for building efficient diagnosing and decision-
59
CH3024-7/91/000010059R01.00Q 1991 E B B
SAGEM
Centre d'Etude d'Eragny
BP. 51,95612 Cergy-PontoiseCedex, FRANCE
making expert systems for such a class of complex embedded
applications, where the notion of closed or pre-enumerated
universe is appropriate to the AI project. The two problems
currently under investigation are:
- The pilot's associate which is designed to assist an
airplane pilot in monitoring, analyzing, diagnosing faults in
airplane systems and reconfiguring navigation sensors.
- The guidance law selector for autonomous vehicle
which, based on sensor information, must infer the prevailiig
situation and choose themore appropriate guidance policy.
In both cases, compact fast code is produced in the target
environment, as an ADA package mainly consisting of one
scheduling task which receives and filters input data, and one
inferencing task which deals with u " tY.
This paper is chiefly dedicated to describing the
uncertainty management in UMS which is critical to the
performance of knowledge-based systems in domains where
inference through formal logic is inappropriate. Indeed, the
failure to explicitly represent the uncertainty within domain
knowledge can result in systems which are either incapable of
handliig interesting and important problems. or ineffective in
producing appropriate results. A diverse set of techniques are
available for reasoning under uncertainty. These include
Bayesian inference methods, certainty factors, belief
functions, possibility theory, and qualitative methods.
The technique proposed in this paper is intended to cope
with the weaknesses of the existing methods that preclude
their universal acceptance. Supported by a development of
the axioms of probability, an interval-based framework for
managing uncertainty is presented. As generally admitted, an
interval number is used to capture features of fuzziness and
incomplemess. But a new parameter, called the degree of
dependency, is shown to be naturally induced by Frank's
family of triangular norms. By opposition to the existing
methods which need a global assumption for the exact nature
of the dependency between pieces of information
manipulated, the degree of dependency is here modelled at a
local level. The three types of operations required for dealing
with uncertainty: combination, propagation and aggregation
are defiied within this framework. For clarity purposes, the
system allows the user to specify knowledge using a set of
verbal scales of linguistic approximations, without being
conscious of data-processing internally performed on interval
values. Finally, the graph-oriented structure designed for
implementing these operators is described, with its
straightforward real-time inference mechanism.
In the following, proofs of outlined properties are omitted
for brevity.
 strict and hence Archimedean. Moreover, when both places
2 Fuzzy connectives induced by Frank’s are fixed, the family of t-norms T, (respectively t-cononns
S,) is non-increasing in s (respectively nondecreasing in s).
family of triangular norms and conorms
In this section, we briefly survey some material in 2.2 Implications
functional equations which are helpful for the derivation of
our results. The discussion will be restricted to the first two types of
implication proposed by Weber 131 in order to extend the
2.1 Triangular norms and conorms boolean implication:
- the type 1, based on a t-norm T:
A triangular norm T (a t-norm for short) [ 11 is a two place IT(a +b)=sup( z / T(a,z)lb)
real-valued function whose domain is the unit square - the type 2, based on a t-conorm S (with the negation
[O,l]x[O,ll. and which can be considered as a very general operator C(a)=1-a):
model for fuzzy set intersection. For this, the monotonicity,
symetry and associativity properties must be satisfied, with Is(a +b)=l- inf(y/S(b,y)>a)
the following boundary conditions:
First of all, it can be noticed that the family of implications
T(O,O)=O, T(a,l)=T(l,a)=a IT is non-increasing in T, while the family Is is non-
Similarly, a model for fuzzy set union can be obtained decreasing in S.Furthermore, for aSb the result is always 1.
through a triangular conorm (t-conorm) S , by changing the Finally, if S and T are Archimedean t-norms and tsonorms
boundary conditions into: with generators f and g then [31:
S( 1,1)=1; S(O,a)=S(a,O)=a IT(a +b) = f-’ ( f@) - f(a) ) for o b
In fact, any t-conorm can be generated as a dual operator
of a t-norm through the transformation: IT(a +b) = 1 for aSb
S(a,b)= 1-T( 1-a, 1-b)
where C(a)=l-a is the negation operator.
Of special importance are the Archimedean t-norms and t- with: Is (a +b)=IT( (1-b) j(1-a) )
conorms, i.e those that can be written as respectively:
These operators can easely be calculated for Frank’s
T(a,b)=*l)(f(a)+f(b)) and S(a,b)=g(-l)(g(a)+g(b)) families of Archimedean t-norms and t-conom. using their
with so-called additive generators f, g and its pseudo- related additive generators:
inverses fl-l). g(-l). For strict t-norms and t-conorms, i.e
those that are continuous and strictly increasing in each of Forx>v then; - -I

their places, the pseudo-inverses fl-11, g(-1)are reduced to

inverses f-l. g-l. Moreover, if f is a strict t-norm additive
generator then g(.)=f( 1-.) is a strict t-conorm additive
generator.
Here, we are particularly interested in Frank’s family oft-
norms and tco3orms [2]: - lim ITJX -+y) = II.
S+l

lim
s-sw IT,(X+y)=l-x+y

lim*Is,(x +y) = 1-x

s+o

s, (x.y)=l-log, [1+(S1-X;!f$-LI)
1 ifs€ ]O,l[ull,=[
lim Is,(x +y) = -
s+ 1
1-Y
1-x

lim Is,(x+y)= 1 - x + y
S+W
s, b,Y) = max(x.y)
h+
s+o
For XSYthen;
lim s, (x,y) = x+y-x.y for SE [O,=]
s-1 IT,(x +y) = 1
lim S,(x,y) = min(l,x+y) ISJX+y) = 1 for SE [O,=]
S+oO

Of these t-norms To is not Archimedean (and hence not It can be shown that the families of implications IT^ and
strict), T, is Archimedean but not strict and T,, Ocscw are

60
Iss are both nondecreasing in Frank’s parameter s; especially p(B) pte)
we have:
P(A) P(MkTs(P(AIS(B)) F‘(AnlB~Tl/s(P(A)scB))))
T A ) PCmhTl/sWA)Q(B)) T‘~*kTsWAM”B))

2.3 Functional properties and probability theory

The class of fuzzy measures built upon Frank’s family of
t-norms and t-conorms verifies the general properties of such
fuzzy measures [4]:

where the notation gTs (respectively gss) means that the

fuzzy measure “gTs derives from Ts”(respectively “gs8
derives from S,”). When choosing B=-A, the equations must
be considered as a normalization similar to those encountered
in probability densities:

v 1 A, Ts(gTs(A),gTs(-’A))=O and...
Ss(gSs(A),gSsPA))=l
Due to their Archimedean property, the classes of fuzzy
measures gTs and gss deriving from Frank‘s family of t-
norms and t-conorms can be called respectively “pseudo-
necessities” and “pseudo-possibilities”, since they are
nrnmalized similarly to necessity and possibility measures:
(a) Maximum@ -ardence Cdk
B 2 A or A a B gives:
The family of pairs ((T,,Sd / SE [O,-]) have many other B(Ad3) = Min(P(A),P(B))
interesting properties which can be interpreted in the P(AuB) = Max(P(A),P(B))
framework of probability theory. They are the only pairs of t-
norms and t a n o m fulfilling the functional equation [21:
(b) S u x b tic independen e (s=l);
T,(a,b) + S,(a,b) = a + b
to be neared to the probabilistic equation: P(A / B) = P(A) gives:
P(AnB) + P(AuB) = P(A) + P(B) P(AnB) = P(A).P(B)
P(AuB) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A).P(B)
Constraints similar to those induced by marginal
probabilities are also satisfied by the equation:
(c) M & -00‘ l
T,(a,b) + Tils(a.l-b) = a
to be nearered to the probabilistic equation: P(AnB) = Max(0,P(A)+P(B)-1)
P(B).P(A / B) + P(lB).P(A / l B ) = P(A) P(AuB) = Min( 1, P(A)+P(B))
Thus, Frank‘s triangular norms build a continuous one- If P(A)+P(B) 51 then A and B are Mutually exclusive
parametered family of semi-groups of the unit interval t51.
The related continuously parametered contingency table is ( P(AnB)=O ).
shown on table 1.

61
 decreasing real-valued function from [0.11 to [O.=l:
3 Interval-based model of uncertainty s = logz(l/p)
Knowledge possessed by human experts is usually
incomplete and inexact in nature. Therefore, it is more Tp (respectively Sp) will henceforth refer to the Frank's t-
appropriate to handle intervals in [0,1] rather than point norm (respectlvely t-conom) corresponding to the degree of
values. dependency PE [0,1]. As a consequence, when both places
are fixed, the family of t - n o m Tp (respectively tcononns
3.1 Representation of facts S ) is non-decreasing in p (respectively non-increasing in p).
In this treatment, pseudo-necessity and pseudo- dneralizing the definition given earlier:
possibility fuzzy measures are used to represent the
uncertainty attached to a fact A, through a normalized interval
variable [N(A), n(A)]. N(A) represents the extent to which it
is certainly believed that A is true, N(-A)=l-n(A) represents
the extent to which it is certainly believed that A is false, and Some special models are:
the value II(A)-N(A) represents the extent of the uncertainty
of belief of wether A is true or false. (a) Maxi"depen dence or m m dewndence;
In fact, the system doesn't allow all possible D(A,B) = [1,1] gives:
combinations; the programmer must choose in the term set of
linguistic certainty values which constitutes the verbal scale
that he and the users will use to express their degree of N(AnB) = Min(N(A),N(B))
confidence in the facts. The verbal scale shown on table 2 is a
compromise between people's resistance to the use of I'I(AnB) = Min(lT(A),n(B))
numbers and the necessity to handle a common numerical
scale. N(AuB) = Max(N(A),N(B))
~emintyvalue I Linguistic approximation II(AuB) = Max(ll(A).ll(B))
KJ.01 I IMPOSSIBLE
[0,0.05] ALMOSTIMPOSSIBLE 0)stochasu'c in-ndence;
[O.O. 1 I SLIGHTLY POSSIBLE D(A,B) = [0.5,0.5] gives:
[0,0.65] MODERATELY POSSIBLE
N(AnB) = N(A)N(B)
[Os1I I POSSIBLE
n ( A n B ) = ll(A).ll(B)
10.35.11 O W E POSSIBLE
[O.% 11 I VERY POSSIBLE
N(AuB) = N(A) + N(B) - N(A).N(B)
ro.95.11 ALMOST SURE
~ ( A u B )= H(A) + n(B) - lT(A).n(B)
I [1JI I SURE I
Table 2. The linguistic approximations of certainty (c) Minimum dewndence;
values
D(A,B) = [O,O] gives:
3.2 Representation of degrees of dependency N(AnB) = Max(0, N(A)+N(B)-1)
between facts ll(AnB) = Max(O,ll(A)+n(B)-l)
As already mentioned, the parameter s of Frank's family
models the dependence relation between two pieces of N(AuB) = Min( 1, N(A)+N(B))
information. It will be used to derive lower and upper bounds
of the probabilities resulting from fuzzy connective ~ ( A u B )= Min( 1, ll(A)+lT(B))
combinations.
(d) Unknown dependence;
An interval value of [0,1],called the degree of
dependency, will be used in order to define this dependence D(A,B) = [0,1] gives:
relation:
N(AnB) = Max(0, N(A)+N(B)-1)
D(A.B) = [pl(A,B). Pu(AB)I,
I'I(AnB) = Min(II(A),II(B))
where pl(A,B) is the lower bound and pu(A,B) is the
upper bound of the degree of dependency between A and B.
N(AuB) = Max(N(A),N(B))
A bijective mapping from a degree of dependency p to a ~ ( A u B )= Min( l,n(A)+n(B))
Frank's parameter s is available through the strictly-

62
 Moreover, if the degree of dependency between A and B _-
is known, the degree of dependency between A and 'B, A'
and B and-A and -B can be ded&
r
0.0 I NEVER
if D(A.BB)=[pi,pulthen:
D(A,-B)=[~u*,pil. SOMETIMES
D(-A,B)=[pu*,p<] and ...
DCA,-B~[PI,PUI. 0.65 VERY OFl"
where p* is defined as follows: GENERALLY
p * = 2 ( - 1 /logz(P)) I 1.0
I ALWAYS I
For the programmer's and user's convenience, a term set Table 4. The linguistic quantifhs of necessity and
of linguistic dependency values is available (see Table 3). Of sufficiency degrees of entailment
course, the choice m y be extremely difficult but a minimal
assumption is D=[0,1].
3.4 Fuzzy pattern matching
Depcmdency~ Linguistic approximation Sometimes, in natural language, matching between a fact
ro,01 MINIMUM DEPENDENCE and a reference certainty value may be necessary for
evaluating the condition part of a rule. In such a case, the
_.
ro.o.351-I
SLIGHT DEPENDENCE condition to be evaluated is no longer expressed as simply F
[0.5.0.5] I STOCHASTIC INDEPENDENCE but as "F is A", where F is the available information and A
r0.65,11 I HIGH DEPENDENCE the certainty value representing the predicate to be evaluated.
The calculus of the belief/disbelief pair related to the
11.11 I MAXIMUMDEPENDENCE proposition E="F is A" is made using no a priori assumption
on the dependency between A and F (D=[O,l]): it is the safest
choice.
Table 3. The linguistic approximations of dependency In UMS. the matching operator is defined using a partial
values order on belief/disbelief pairs represented by fuzzy sets.
"F is A" iff F conveys more-then-or-equal amount of
3.3 Representation of rules information or knowledge than A, or in other
The rules processed by the inference engine underly words, N(A)S.N(F)and l-I(F)m(A); then:
causal directed links of the format:
N("FisA)= Min(
IF E THEN H with Necessity 2N
Sufficiency 1s
Dependency2p
n("F is A ) = Max(
where the uncertainty bearing on the rule is translated into
three numbers. N is measuring the degree to which E
supports H, and can be interpreted as to what extent E is Let us mention that the resulting belief/disbelief pair is
necessary to justify H. S is measuring the degree U, which -E always normalized, and the implication used is Gddel's one
supports '
H, and can be interpreted as to which extent -E is (p=l).
necessary to justify -H (or E is sufficient to justify H).p is a
lower bound of the degree of dependency between E and H 3.5 Combination of conditions
(or -E and 33).
In other words, N is a conditional pseudo-necessity The condition part of a rule contains n conditions here
measure of H given E, S is a conditional pseudo-necessity related to each other by means of a connective that may
measure of -H given -E the very nature of the causal link express conjunction or disjunction, under various dependency
assumptions. For the sake of simplicity and for
between E and H being given by p=pl(E,H). implementation issue, no more than one kind of connective is
The linguistic quantifiers used by the programmer to allowed in each rule.
express either degrees of necessity or degrees of sufficiency
for implications are shown on table 4.

63
 The associativity of t-norms and t-conorms have been
used to recursively define conjunctive and disjunctive From a more practical viewpoint, the proposed unwrtainty
operators processing n arguments of equal importance: propagation procedure can be considered as an interpolation
between total ignorance [0,1] and the uncertainty values
associated to the condition. Indeed, intervals calculated for
right-hand sides of rules are always wider than those related
to antecedent parts.
The use of Lukasiewicz implication (p=O) have been
choosen in all cases because it leads to the least lower bound
and to the greatest upper bound; it is the safest choice,
'I
i=l particularly when we are not sure of the very nature of the
"suenght" of the d e or. when viewing this suenght as a truth
value, we have no reason to prefer a particular implication
Thus, the conjunctive and disjunctive combinations of operation.
elementary conditions ei, can be evaluated in a
straightforward manner:
3 -7 Aggregation of uncertainty
Uncertainty aggregation is the operation involving
combination of evidences supporting the same hypothesis and
issued from different rules (or sources). In UMS, two kinds
of aggregation operators are available:
- The JOIN operator (or conjunctive consensus operator),
used for absolutely reliable sources, considers as m e the
agreeing part of the infortnation shared by all the sources and
allocates the conflicting pieces of information to ignorance.
The policy of allocating the weight of conflict to ignorance is
a more refined way of ensuring the normalization of the result
than those of Dempster's rule of combination, which is
discontinuous and thus instable in the neighborhood of total
conflict. For two couples of certainty values pertaining to a
same proposition P and evaluated from two different sources,
1a n d 2
where pi and pu refer respectively to lower and upper JOIN(P1 ,P2) =(J1,Ju] with:
bounds of the degree of dependency between the ei
considered as a whole. These values can be easely evaluated, JI = Spu(N(P1),N(P2)J -WCp,(P, 9P2)
given the degrees of dependency between couples of J, =TPl(n(P1) J ( P 2 ) ) +WCp,(PiJ'2)
elementary conditions:
where pu=pu(Pi,P2) and WCp,(P1,P2) is the weight of
PI = in (pi(ei,ej)) conflict between the two sources:

P,, =
i=l,n ;j = l , n ; i t j

M= (Pc(ei vej ))
WCp,Pi.PZ) =Min[Sp,PW")PPZ)) . Sp,((l - n(PiM1 - n(PdN]
i=l.n ;j = l , n ; i#j
- The MEET operator (or disjunctive consensus
operator), used for not completely reliable sources,
3.6 Propagation of uncertainty cautiously considers as possibly true the union of pieces of
We are now in a position to discuss the uncertainty information given by at least one of the sources. Then, the
propagation step, when the certainty values bearing on the gain in confidence is counterbalanced by a loss in precision.
rule antecedent are combined with the lower bounds of For two couples of uncertainty values pertaining to a same
degrees of necessity, sufficiency and dependency bearing on proposition P and evaluated from two different sources, 1 and
the rule, so as to produce the certainty values of the 2:
conclusion. Since rules are interpreted in terms of
conditioning, the inference scheme is a direct consequence MEET(P1 rP2)+p1(N(PI )",) 9 spl(n(P1)m(P2))]
from the definition given for conditionnal fuzzy measures [6] The use of degrees of dependency is an innovative
171: approach to theoretically quantize the reinforcement effect
involved when uncertain facts confirming each other through
IFE THEN H with Necessity LN, a JOIN operator have independentjustitications.
Sufficiency 2s
Dependency& 4 Acyclic inference network
E with certainty in W(E),lT(E)]
The representation of uncertainty in UMS requires
smctures, which effectively incorporate known evidence and
can be efficiently updated in the presence of new data. Since

64
causal links are directed, no cycle is allowed in a network of
rules. Moreover, to minimize the size of the working
knowledge base and to speed execution time in a way Input fact
compatible with the requirements of embedded systems, the
English-like rules are compiled into a more compact form
aimed at the inference engine. All the rules are stored in a
graph where two types of elements are supplied: nodes and
links.The element is an active element, not just a passive
wire and has a single input and a single output. The u k is
an active element and can have an arbitrary number of inputs
0
a) Remise link (Chnpariscm opmtoc IS)
and outputs.

4.1 Nodes output fact

D 0
Each node is associated to one set of inputs and one set of
outputs, each of which can have an arbitrary number of
elements (links). All that can be passed through an input or
output is a certainty value. There are two different types of
nodes: rule nodes and fact nodes. These two families only
differ in the combining function perfmed on their input sets. b) Cmscquentlink
The kind of combining function used and the degree of
dependency between the inputs are set, when a node is
created at compile time. For a rule, the combining function Figure 2. Diagram of links
corresponds to multivalued-logic versions of AND and OR
connectives, while for a fact it embodies the aggregating A premise link, either directly transmits the certainty
operators MEET and JOIN. A particular kind of facts nodes, value of a fact to a rule, or processes this value before
detected at compile time, consists of input and outputs nodes. transmitting it. Available data-processing are negation and
Only these nodes are connected to the "outside world" and are comparisan to reference certainty values.
the I/o of the inference network. A consequent link combines the certainty values of its
input fact with the sufficiency and necessity weights bearing
on its deduction power, for directly performing propagation
of un-y.

4.3 Evaluating degrees of dependency

For all combining functions, we are faced with the task of
defining the degree of dependency parameter. Depending on
what kind of knowledge is available, two classes of
dependency can be ide&i&
a) Rule node combiningfunuim: AND. OR Dendency is involved when the
evidence-are htrhically dependent, i.e there
Degreeof exists information suggesting this dependency.
dEpendarcy - The s-al de- is caused by the structure
of the inference network, when it is necessary to combine
out tliks pieces of evidence that share information provided by the

I I
status

E3
I

b) Fact node cunbiniig function: MEET, JOIN

same knowledge sources.
The degrees of dependency used as parameters by
comparison functions and propagation ones must not be
regarded as significative of some dependency between
knowledge sources. However, with their related wheights
they constitute purely unary operators (pattern-matching,
interpolation), of which degrees of dependency should not be
Figure 1. Diagram of nodes taken into account for evaluating the degrees of dependency
supplied to combining functions. The degrees of dependency
choosen for each operator are those yielding to widest
4.2 Links intervals for resulting certainty values.
There are two kinds of directed links, premise and Inherent dependency only concerns the input facts of the
consequent links. A premise link connects the output of one inference network. At compile time, the user is asked for all
fact node to the input of one rule node; a consequent link degrees of dependency between pairs of input facts that are
connects the output of one rule node to the input of one fact necessary for further data-processing. Then, the inherent
node. Each link has a single input and output and may be degrees of dependency will be combined with the structure of
asserted or negated. Negated links correspond to negated the inference network for heuristically evaluating structural
facts. degrees of dependency.

65

DefinitionL An input fact node I is called a factor
of non terminal node N if N is a descendent of I. The set of
factors of node N is called the factor set S of N. The degree
of dependency D(A,B) between two inner nodes A and B is
defined to be the widest interval including all degrees of
dependency between pairs of facts from S(A) and S(B). It
must be noticed that two versions of a same facts
simultaneously pertaining to S(A) and S(B) are considered to
be maximally dependent(D=[l,l]). Thus:
where, all the D(nA,ng) for which nAfng have been
defined by the pr0gra”er and D(nA.ng)=[l,l] ifnA-g.
4.4 Straightforward real-time mechanism
Many definitions of real-time exist. Perhaps the most
common usage of the term real-time is “fast”, in the sense that
a system is considered as real-time if it processes data
quickly. Another common definition is that real-time means
“perceptually fast” or, at least, “faster than a human can do
it”. A better definition of real-time states that “the system
responds to incoming data at a rate as fast or fatser than it is
arriving”. Although scarcely precise, this definition does link
the concept of real-time to problem-relevant performances
measures.
To understand the philosophy of our real-time inference
mechanism, let us consider an asynchrounous forward-
chaining inference engine, where input facts are processed as
soon as they arrive. This inferencing scheme has the
advantage of being highly reactive upon the environment.
Unfortunately, for particularly critical situations, it may spend
all of its time in modifying input facts without being able,
either to propagate uncertainty, or to deduce output facts. In
figure 3, the curve output-rate of information as a function of
input-rate of information clearly underlines that, to be really
efficient, the inference mechanism must work at the
neighborhood of an optimal operating point. To avoid
reaching saturation point, a straightforward solution consists
in limiting input data, if necessary.
optimal input rate
Input rate
Figure 3. Flow of information through a purely
asynchronous forwardchaining
inference engine
Taking into account the above remark, our inference
mechanism is based upon the principle of separating the
inference-engine process and the process receiving input
facts. The first process, the scheduler is dedicated to supply
the inference engine with selected input data, while the second
66
process, the inference engine has the task to propagate
uncertainty in the inference network.
To limit inference processing, the scheduler filters input
data, so that only events of direct relevance are passed
through to the inference engine. During scheduling, input data
are sorted according to orders of priority (or urgency) which
have been alloted to input facts by the programmer, at compile
time. The maximal amount of data to be transmitted to the
inference engine is limited by the size of the bounded priority
queue where input facts are stored. in case of overflow, the
less urgent ones are forbidden. This step is performed until
the inference engine is deciding to process the input data and
to read the queue. Selecting the optimal size of the bounded
priority queue corresponds to limiting the rate of input-data at
a level as closed as possible to those of the optimal operating
point of figure 3.
For the inference engine process, the first thing to do is to
read the selected input data supplied by the scheduler. At each
time a fact is examined, the emanating links are traversed,
adding the related rules to a priority queue. The priority of a
rule is inversely proportional to its depth in the inference
network, calculated as the number of links in the longest path
from an input fact to the rule in question. Once all the input
facts have been processed, at each inference step, the rule at
the head of the queue is evaluated so as to deduce certainty
values of its consequents and to add to the priority queue the
rules conditionned by these facts. When the rule queue is
empty, the inference engine asks the scheduler for a new set
of input data.
4.5 User interface
The capability for an expert system to be able to explain
what it is doing and justify its decisions in a way that can be
understood by the user, is both important when developing a
rule set so that it is easy to debug, and when using a rule set
so that the user feels more confident about the decisions and
can catch mistakes.
The user is allowed to ask “why” whenever an output fact
changes. Then the system gives a trace of the causes of the
state in question by going backward through the inference
network and listing all the rules and facts met, with their
certainty values. Moreover, real-valued data output from the
network are pre-processed in order to find, in the available
verbal scale, the closest lexical value to be provided to the
user.
5 Conclusion
This paper have been dedicated to describing the
uncertainty management in UMS which is critical to the
performance of knowledge-based systems in domains where
inference through formal logic is inappropriate. The proposed
technique is intended to cope with the weaknesses of the
existing methods that preclude their universal acceptance. By
opposition to the existing methods which need a global
assumption on the exact nature of the dependency between
pieces of information manipulated, the degree of dependency
is accurately modelled at a local level.
For clarity purposes, the system allows the user to specify
knowledge using a set of verbal scales of linguistic
approximations, without being conscious of data-processing
internally performed on interval values.
The UMS shell is designed for building efficient
diagnosing and decisionmaking expert systems for complex
embedded applications, which will typically need to respond
to a changing task environment involving an asynchronous
flow of noisy input data and dynamically changing
requirements with limitations on time. hardware, and other
resources. In both cases, compact fast code is produced in the
target environment, as an ADA package mainly consisting of
one scheduling task which receives and filters input data,and
one inferencing task which deals with u n c e M ~ .
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