Integrating rules and inheritance networks in a knowledge-based financial marketing consultation system

The integrated use of rule-based inference and an object centered knowledge representation (inheritance network) in a financial marketing consultation system is described. The rules provide a highly flexible pattern match capability and inference cycle for control. The inheritance network provides a convenient way to represent the conceptual structure of the domain. By merging the two techniques, the financial computation can be shared at the most general level, and rule inference is carried out at any appropriate level of generalization. Since domain knowledge is represented independently from control knowledge, knowledge about a particular problem-solving technique is decoupled from the conditions for its invocation. A large financial marketing system has been built, and examples are given.<>