Computers for symbolic processing

Author

Wah, Benjamin W. ; Lowrie, Matthew B. ; Li, Guo-Jie

Author_Institution

Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL, USA

Volume

77

Issue

4

fYear

1989

fDate

4/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

509

Lastpage

540

Abstract

A detailed survey on the motivations, design, applications, current status, and limitations of computers designed for symbolic processing is provided. Symbolic processing computations are performed at the word, relation, or meaning levels, and the knowledge used in symbolic applications may be fuzzy, uncertain, indeterminate, and ill represented. Various techniques for knowledge representation and processing are discussed from both the designers´ and users´ points of view. The design and choice of a suitable language for symbolic processing and the mapping of applications into a software architecture are then considered. The process of refining the application requirements into hardware and software architectures is treated, and state-of-art sequential and parallel computers designed for symbolic processing are discussed

Keywords

computer architecture; knowledge representation; special purpose computers; symbol manipulation; fuzzy; ill represented; indeterminate; knowledge representation; meaning levels; parallel computers; relation level; sequential computers; software architecture; symbolic processing; uncertain; word level; Application software; Computer applications; Computer languages; Concurrent computing; Data structures; Hardware; Logic programming; Process design; Shape; Software architecture;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Proceedings of the IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9219

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/5.24142

Filename

24142