KADS

Book excerpt: KADS is a structured methodology for the development of knowledge based systems which has been adopted throughout the world by academic and industrial professionals alike. KADS approaches development as a modeling activity. Two key characteristics of KADS are the use of multiple models to cope with the complexity of knowledge engineering and the use of knowledge-level descriptions as an immediate model between system design and expertise data. The result is that KADS enables effective KBS construction by building a computational model of desired behavior for a particular problem domain. KADS contains three section: the Theoretical Basis of KADS, Languages and Tools, and Applications. Together they form a comprehensive sourcebook of the how and why of the KADS methodology. KADS will be required reading for all academic and industrial professionals concerned with building knowledge-based systems. It will also be a valuable source for students of knowledge acquisition and KBS. * SPECIAL FEATURES: * KADS is the most widely used commercial structured methodology for KBS development in Europe and is becoming one of the few significant AI exports to the US. * Describes KADS from its Theoretical Basis, through Language and Tool Developments, to real Applications.