I-X and <I-N-CA>: an architecture and related ontology for mixed-initiative synthesis tasks

I-X is a research programme with a number of different aspects intended to create a well-founded approach to allow humans and computer systems to cooperate in the creation or modification of some product such as a plan, design or physical entity – i.e. it supports synthesis tasks. The I-X approach involves the use of shared models for task directed cooperation between human and computer agents who are jointly exploring (via some processes) a range of alternative options for the synthesis of an artifact such as a design or a plan (termed a product). The (Issues – Nodes – Critical and Auxiliary Constraints) ontology is used to represents a product as a set of constraints on the space of all possible products in the application domain. The modular I-X systems integration architecture encourages the creation of systems as components which handle “Issues” related to the design and its requirements, selects “Nodes” as the principal entities to be incorporated into the design, and checks or maintains a set of constraints of various types.