Steps Toward Formalizing Context
Varol Akman, Mehmet Surav, Maria Simi Fausto Giunchiglia, His Group Here · CogPrints (University of Southampton) · 1996
I wish honorable gentlemen would have the fairness to give the entire context of what I did say and not pick out detached words Cobden Speeches quoted in the OED The importance of contextual reasoning is emphasized by various researchers in AI A partial list includes John McCarthy and his group R V Guha Yoav Shoham Giuseppe Attardi and Maria Simi Fausto Giunchiglia and his group Here we will survey the problem of formalizing context and explore what is needed for an acceptable account of this abstract notion The issue of context arises in assorted areas of AI including knowledge represen tation natural language processing and intelligent information retrieval Although the word context is frequently employed in descriptions explanations and analyses of computer programs in these areas its meaning is frequently left to the readers understanding ie it is used in an implicit and intuitive manner An example of how contexts may help in AI is found in McCarthys constructive criticism of MYCIN a program for advising physicians on treating bacterial infections of the blood and meningitis When MYCIN is told that the patient has Chlorae Vibrio in his intestines it would immediately recommend two weeks of tetracycline treatment and nothing else While this would indeed do away with the bacteria the patient would perish long before that due to diarrhea A contextual version of MYCIN should know about the context of a treatment and would realize that any prescription must be made in the light of the fact that there is alarming dehydration Thus in the contextual MYCIN the circumstances surrounding a patient would have to be made explicit using a formal approach and would be used as such by the program