Enhancing the Knowledge Engineering Process: Contributions from Esprit - Tapa dura

In 1983, the Commission of the European Communities launched an ambitious 10 year programme in information technology called ESPRIT: European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology. The papers in this volume focus on the contributions of the second phase of the programme, ESPRIT II, to the area of knowledge engineering, and more specifically, on the trend towards more disciplined knowledge engineering methodologies. An attempt has been made to establish a coherent volume that will act as a lasting reference source for experts in the field. This has lead to a focus on a small number of projects and topics. Further, contributions have been sourced primarily from those that have established a significant advance in respect of the international state of the art, without losing sight of practical realisability and industrial acceptance. The book captures work centering around the concept of knowledge-level modelling and its use in structuring the complete life-cycle, validating expert systems, acquiring knowledge, enhancing capabilities and achieving genericity and re-use. It shows the high quality and the advanced nature of the research currently being undertaken and indicates that important innovations of extreme relevance to the industry have been achieved. However, further research and advanced development clearly continues to be needed because the European information technology has far from reached the level of competitiveness required to acquire a greater international market share. It is hoped this publication will play an important role in this movement forwards.