A Methodology for Developing Correct Rule-Based Programs for Parallel Implementation

Production systems, also called rule-based systems, are very useful in automating certain human expert tasks, but the current technology exhibits many problems. We believe that parallelism is difficult to exploit in production system programs for two reasons. First, the original serial programs are designed with a priori knowledge of an explicit global control mechanism which must be simulated for correct execution in parallel. The second reason for the difficulty is that no formal language exists in which to express these programs and no verification techniques are utilized to prove properties which guarantee correct execution in parallel. With these two obstacles removed, a correct rule-based program can be designed to exploit increased parallelism when mapped to a parallel production system model for execution. This research will concentrate on the development of parallel production system programs. The objective is to define a theoretical foundation to describe parallel production systems for implementation in parallel architectures. The Swarm language will be used as the vehicle for encoding the programs. Swarm's associated proof theory will be used, and possibly... Read complete abstract on page 2.