Reuse, CORBA, and knowledge-based systems

By applying recent advances in the standards for distributed computing, we have developed an architecture for a CORBA implementation of a library of platform-independent, sharable problem-solving methods and knowledge bases. The aim of this library is to allow developers to reuse these components across different tasks and domains. Reuse should be cost-effective; therefore, the library will include standard problem-solving methods whose semantics are well understood and are described with a language for stating the requirements and capabilities of a component. In addition, when a developer needs to adapt a component to a new task, the adaptation costs should be minimal. Thus, we advocate the use of separate mediating components that isolate these adaptations from the original component. We demonstrate our approach with an example: an implementation of a problem-solving method, a knowledge-base server, and mediating components that adapt the method to different knowledge bases and tasks. (C) 1998 Academic Press.