Architectures for Heterogeneous Reasoning on Interlinguae

The design of any computer system with a multimedia interface involves the designer in fundamental theoretical questions concerning the manipulation of information expressed in a variety of forms. Furthermore, if the system is to be intelligent then it must reason with and about the information that it represents. We use the term heterogeneous reasoning to refer to this task of reasoning with information presented in multiple forms. We define a heterogeneous reasoning system (HRS) as a composite deductive system which includes multiple component subsystems, each with its own syntax, semantics, and proof theory, and which also includes deductive rules which operate between the different subsystems. In the first half of this paper we provide a formal model which is able to distinguish several important types of heterogeneous reasoning. Computer systems designers whose tasks involve the use of an HRS in an intelligent multimedia interface are typically faced with a choice of several impl..