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Knowledge-refinement is a central problem in the field of expert
systems. For rule-based systems, refinement implies the addition,
deletion and modification of rules in the system so as to improve the
system's overall performance. The goal of this research effort is to
understand the methodology for refining large rule-based systems, as
well as to develop tools that will be useful in refining such systems.
The vehicle for our investigation is SPAM, a production
system (rule-based system) for the interpretation of aerial imagery.
Complex and computer-intensive systems like SPAM impose
some unique constraints on knowledge refinement. More specifically,
the credit/blame assignment problem for locating pieces of knowledge
to refine becomes difficult. Given that constraint, we approach the
problem in a bottom-up fashion, i.e., begin by refining portions of
SPAM's knowledge base, and then attempt to understand the
interactions between them. We begin by identifying gaps and/or faults
in the knowledge base by comparing SPAM's intermediate
output to that of an expert, then modifying the knowledge base so that
the system's output more accurately matches the expert's output.
While this approach leads to some improvements, it also raises some
interesting issues concerning the evaluation of refined knowledge at
intermediate levels and of interaction between the refinements. This
paper presents our initial efforts toward addressing these issues.
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