Top-down knowledge acquisition

This paper presents an approach to support the top-down development of knowledge based systems. We propose to use predefined knowledge elements for eliciting, structuring, and formalizing the knowledge. The predefined elements are arranged in a library. We differentiate between three types of reusable knowledge elements: generic problem solving methods (PSMs), generic concept taxonomies and template forms from which rule templates are generated in accordance to the concrete application. The generic PSMs as well as the generic concept taxonomies of our library is described informally and formally so that they can be used at the one hand as guidelines for elicitation and on the other hand as basis for the formalization which has to be modified according to the application. For integrating the principle of reuse we propose different tools that support the usage of the predefined methods. concepts and template forms from the library. The paper gives an overview of our library components as well as of our reuse principles. Moreover, the tools supporting the top-down knowledge acquisition are introduced