Abstract
We have realized the help system SINIX Consultant (SC) for SINIX1 users. The system is capable of answering – in German – natural language questions concerning SINIX commands, objects, and concepts. But not only does this help system react to inquiries – additionally, the system is capable of activating itself. If the user employs a sequence of SINIX commands (a plan) in order to reach a specific goal, the help system proposes a sequence which reaches the same goal, but, with fewer commands. In this paper, a brief survey of the SINIX Consultant and the realized plan recognizer REPLIX is first given. Then, an initial attempt of a theoretical treatment of plan recognition is presented. This is done within the logical framework. We show how we can use an interval-based logic of time to describe actions, atomic plans, non-atomic plans, action execution, and simple plan recognition. We also show that the recognition of inserted sub-plans managed by REPLIX can be handled as well. Then, we present a problem which cannot be treated in the formalism. Thus, in this paper, we don't present a full developed theory but nevertheless, a step towards it.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allen, J. (1983). Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals. Communications of the ACM 26: 832–843.
Allen, J. (1984). Towards a general theory of action and time. Artificial Intelligence 23: 123–154.
Boggs, W. M., Carbonell, J. G. & Monarch, J. G. (1984). DYPAR - I: Tutorial and Reference Manual. Technical Report, Dept. of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh (PA).
Brown, F. M. (1987). The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos, California.
Dengler, D., Gutmann, M. & Hector, G. (1987). Der Planerkenner REPLIX. Memo No. 16, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, W. Germany.
Finin, T. W. (1983). Providing help and advice in task oriented systems. In Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 176–178.
Finkler, W. & Neumann, G. (1986). MORPHIX - Ein hochportables Lemmatisierungsmodul für das Deutsche. Memo No. 8, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, W. Germany.
Genesereth, M. R. & Nilsson, N. J. (1987). Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos, California.
Hecking, M. (1987). How to Use Plan Recognition to Improve the Abilities of the Intelligent Help System SINIX Consultant. Proceedings of the Second IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, held at the University of Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany, 1–4 September, 1987, 657–662.
Hecking, M. (1988). Towards a Belief-Oriented Theory of Plan Recognition. Report No. 50, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, W. Germany.
Hecking, M. & Harbusch, K. (1987). Plan Recognition through Attribute Grammars. Memo No. 17, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, W. Germany.
Hecking, M., Kemke, C., Nessen, E., Dengler, D., Gutmann, M. & Hector, G. (1988). The SINIX Consultant - A Progress Report. Memo No. 28, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrücken, W. Germany.
Kautz, H. A. & Allen, J. F. (1986). Generalized plan recognition. Proceedings of the 5th National Conference of the American Association on Artificial Intelligence, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 32–37.
Kautz, H. A. (1987). A Formal Theory of Plan Recognition. Report No. TR 215, University of Rochester, Department of Computer Science, 5.
Kemke, C. (1987). Representation of Domain Knowledge in an Intelligent Help System. Proceedings of the Second IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, held at the University of Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany, 1–4 September, 1987, 215–220.
Konolige, K. (1986). A Deduction Model of Belief. Research Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos, California. Prior, A. (1957). Time and Modality. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Quilici, A., Dyer, M. & Flowers, M. (1986). AQUA: AN INTELLIGENT UNIX ADVISOR. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 33–38.
Th. Schwab. (1984). AKTIVIST - Ein aktives Hilfesystem für den bildschirmorientierten Editor BISY. Diplomarbeit Nr. 232, Institut für Informatik, Universität Stuttgart.
Wilensky, R., Arens, Y. & Chin, D. (1984). Talking to UNIX in English: An Overview of UC. Communications of the ACM 27: 574–593, 6.
Wilensky, R., Myfield, J., Albert, A., Chin, D., Cox, C., Luria,M., Martin, J. & Wu, D. (1986). UC - A Progress Report. Report No. UCB/CSD 87/303, Computer Science Division (EECS), University of California, Berkeley, 7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hecking, M. The SINIX Consultant – Towards a Theoretical Treatment of Plan Recognition. Artificial Intelligence Review 14, 153–180 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006618430675
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006618430675