ICOT: An Integrated C-Object Tool for Knowledge-Based Programming

In this paper, an Integrated C-Object Tool, namely ICOT, is proposed for knowledge-based programming. A major drawback of current rule-based expert system languages is that they have difficulty in handling composite objects as a unit of inference. An object-oriented model is a powerful alternative to complement the drawback. Each of these alone cannot capture all the semantics of knowledge, particularly in complex engineering domains. For a knowledge-based approach to be effective, both the object-oriented paradigm and the rule-based mechanism may need to be integrated into one framework. The framework may also need to support manipulation of fuzzy knowledge to model the real world as close as possible. Three types of fuzzy information are identified, and a proper way of representing and inferencing them is developed. ICOT provides a new framework into which rule-based deduction, object-oriented modeling, and fuzzy inferencing are combined altogether. This can become especially useful for developing knowledge-based engineering applications.