Optimization of information bases

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The following Detailed Description begins with an overview of the invention and then proceeds to a detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof.
OVERVIEW OF THE INVENTION: FIGS.
5 AND 6 FIG.
5 shows an artificial intelligence system 501 which employs the logicist approach and which is implemented using the present invention.
The major components are the following: User interface (UINT) 507 is the interface between the system and the user.
Query processor (QP) 513 processes queries received via user interface 507 from the user.
Knowledge base (KB) 519 is a set of formulas used to answer queries.
Operation of system 501 is as follows: A user of the system inputs user input 503 specifying a query to user interface 507.
User interface 507 uses the user input to form query input data 509, which it supplies to query processor 513.
Query processor 513 forms a query (Q) 515 from query input data 509 and applies the query to knowledge base 519.
As a result of the application, an answer 517 is received in query processor 513.
Query processor 513 converts answer 517 to query output data 511, which it provides to user interface 507, which in turn uses query output data 511 to produce user output 505, which indicates the result of the query to the user.
System 501 may be implemented in any computer system.
Typically, user interface 507 is a program which controls a terminal and which receives UI 503 from the user at the terminal and outputs UO 505 to the terminal display; however, user interface 507 may be any source of query input data 509.
Query processor 513 is typically a program which applies queries Q 515 to knowledge base 519; knowledge base 519 may be implemented in any storage system, such as memory, a file system, or a data base system.
System 501 differs from standard artificial intelligence systems which employ the logicist approach in that knowledge base 519 contains two sets of formulas.
The first of these, unrestricted representation formulas (URF) 521 is a set of formulas written in a unrestricted representation language