AIC Seminar Series

We report on our experience in developing a query-answering system that integrates multiple knowledge sources. The system is based on a novel architecture for combining knowledge sources in which the sources can produce new subgoals as well as ground facts in the search for answers to existing subgoals. The system uses a query planner that takes into account different query-processing capabilities of individual sources and augments them gracefully. A reusable ontology provides a mediated schema that serves as the basis for integration. We have evaluated the system on a suite of test queries in a realistic application to verify the practicality of our approach.

Dr. Vinay K. Chaudhri is the Program Director for Knowledge Management and Engineering in the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI. My research focuses on the science and engineering of large knowledge base systems and spans knowledge representation and reasoning, deductive question answering, knowledge acquisition, and innovative applications. I am also interested in entreprenurship, and transitioning research ideas into commercial products. My two current main projects are to build a system to acquire knowledge from science text books to answer advance placement questions, and to construct a knowledge base and question answering service for a cognitive agent designed to operate in an office.