Document retrieval expert system shell with worksheet-based knowledge acquisition facility

ESOCKS, a domain shell for intelligent document retrieval is described. An important feature of ESOCKS is its associative retrieval capability. ESOCKS associates input keywords with other keywords and utilizes the augmented keywords to retrieve documents. Keyword association prevents users from missing suitable documents. The certainty factor attached to each retrieved document enables the user to select suitable documents from certain candidates. Another important feature of ESOCKS is its knowledge acquisition facility, using eight kinds of worksheet. For experts, developing an expert system consists of extracting knowledge according to the format and entering it in worksheets. Experience with ESOCKS indicates that an unassisted expert can built an expert system and that associative retrieval is more intelligent than conventional keyword retrieval