Discusses the current problems associated with computer viruses that affect system and software users and the frequency with which they occur. System security is discussed, steps to take to safeguard against damage by computer viruses are suggested, and anti-viral programs, or vaccines, are described. (LRW)

This paper reviews the research leading from the GUIDON rule-based tutoring system, including the reconfiguration of MYCIN into NEOMYCIN and NEOMYCIN's generalization into the heuristic classification shell, HERACLES. The presentation is organized chronologically around pictures and dialogues that represent turning points and crystallize the basic…

A poorly designed knowledge base can be as cryptic as an arbitrary program and just as difficult to maintain. Representing inference procedures abstractly, separately from domain facts and relations, makes the design more transparent and explainable. The combination of abstract procedures and relational language for organizing domain knowledge…

The concept of a qualitative model provides a unifying perspective for understanding how expert systems differ from conventional programs. Knowledge bases contain qualitative models of systems in the world, that is, primarily non-numeric descriptions that provide a basis for explaining and predicting behavior and formulating action plans. The…

Argues that advent of computer-aided instruction (CAI) systems for teaching introductory computer programing makes it imperative that software be developed to automate assessment and grading of student programs. Examples of typical student programing problems are given, and application of the Unix tools Lex and Yacc to the automatic assessment of…

This paper compares two alternative computer architectures that have been proposed to provide the control mechanism that enables an intelligent tutoring system to decide what instructional action to perform next, i.e., discourse management networks and blackboards. The claim that an intelligent tutoring system controlled by a blackboard…

Discusses the teaching consultant process in computer programing courses, describes a teaching consultant model from both the teachers' and students' perspectives, and shows how this model can be used to develop an intelligent teaching consultant (ITC). Differences between this collection of expert systems and conventional intelligent tutoring…

Notecards is a computer environment designed to help people work with ideas by providing a set of tools for a variety of specific activities, which can range from sketching on the back of an envelope to formally representing knowledge. The basic framework of this hypermedia system is a semantic network of electronic notecards connected by…

Hypermedia and object oriented programming systems (OOPs) represent examples of "open" computer environments that allow the user access to parts of the code or operating system. Both systems share fundamental intellectual concepts (objects, messages, methods, classes, and inheritance), so that an understanding of hypermedia can help in…

This report describes the application of a shell expert system from the medical diagnostic system, Neomycin, to Caster, a diagnostic system for malfunctions in industrial sandcasting. This system was developed to test the hypothesis that starting with a well-developed classification procedure and a relational language for stating the…

This paper describes the evolution and development of an intelligent information system, i.e., a knowledge base for steel structures being undertaken as part of the Technical Information Center for Steel Structures at Lehigh University's Center of Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS). The initial development of the Technical…

Arguing that an explicit representation of the problem-solving method of an expert system shell as abstract control knowledge provides a powerful foundation for learning, this paper describes the abstract control knowledge of the Heracles expert system shell for heuristic classification problems, and describes how the Odysseus apprenticeship…

This project report details the design of an interactive authoring system for the development of computer assisted instructional (CAI) software. This system is possible because the development of more powerful computing and software systems has facilitated authoring systems which allow the development of courseware in an interactive mode and…

Intermedia, a hypermedia system developed at Brown University's Institute for Research (Rhode Island) in Information and Scholarship, is first described, and then used as a case study to explore a number of key issues that software designers must consider in the development of hypermedia document systems. A hypermedia document system is defined as…

Written in ADA language, SAIDA, a Help System for Data Implementation, is an experimental teaching and learning environment which uses artificial intelligence techniques to teach a computer science course on abstract data representations. The application domain is teaching advanced programming concepts which have not received much attention from…