A forward-chaining multiple-context reasoner and its application to logic design

The authors present an extended production system architecture which can deal with forward reasoning in multiple contexts. The proposed architecture consists of a compiler of clauses and defaults into a Rete-like network, a Rete-based inference engine, and an assumption-based truth maintenance system (ATMS). The inference engine gives intermediate justifications to the ATMS and stores intermediate dependent assumptions of two-input nodes in the Rete-like network, allowing faster multiple-context reasoning. By means of this method, the multiple-context reasoner called APRICOT/0 has been implemented. An experiment under the logic design knowledge base shows that APRICOT/0 is about six to ten times faster than a system with a simple combination of a production system and the ATMS