Design and implementation of a reasoning engine using generalized meta-rules to express control knowledge

This paper describes the design and implementation of the reasoning engine developed for the interpretation of FLORIAN rule language. A key feature of the language is to allow the specification of control knowledge using generalized meta-rules. The user can define how to solve conflicts at the object-level, at the meta-level or at any higher level using meta-i-rules. Object-level rules and generalized meta-i-rules share the same rule format. Several examples of meta-rules and higher level rules are presented using the rule syntax. The architecture and working of the rule interpreter is analysed describing the main algorithms and abstract data types implementing the reasoning engine