The Intelligent Database Interface
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The Intelligent Database Interface: Integrating AI and Database Systems Donald P. McKay and Timothy W. Finin and Anthony O'Hare Unisys Center for Advanced Information Technology Paoli, Pennsylvania [email protected] and [email protected] Abstract its tuple-at-a-time inference mechanisms. The IDI has also b een used to implement a query server supp orting The Intel ligent Database Interface IDI is a cache-based a database used for an Air Travel Information System interface that is designed to provide Arti cial Intelligence which is accessed byaspoken language system imple- systems with ecient access to one or more databases on one [ ] or more remote database management systems DBMSs. mented in Prolog Dahl, et. al., 1990 . It can b e used to interface with a wide variety of di erent In addition to providing ecient access to remote DBMSs with little or no mo di cation since SQL is used to DBMSs, the IDI o ers several other distinct advan- communicate with remote DBMSs and the implementation tages. It can b e used to interface with a wide vari- of the IDI provides a high degree of p ortability. The query ety of di erent DBMSs with little or no mo di cation language of the IDI is a restricted subset of function-free since SQL is used to communicate with the remote Horn clauses which is translated into SQL. Results from the DBMS. Also, several connections to the same or di er- IDI are returned one tuple at a time and the IDI manages ent DBMSs can exist simultaneously and can b e kept a cache of result relations to improve eciency. The IDI is active across anynumb er of queries b ecause connec- one of the key comp onents of the Intel ligent System Server tions to remote DBMSs are abstract ob jects that are ISS knowledge representation and reasoning system and is also b eing used to provide database services for the Unisys managed as resources by the IDI. Finally, accessing sp oken language systems program. schema information is handled automatically by the IDI, i.e., the application is not required to maintain up-to-date schema information for the IDI. This signif- Intro duction icantly reduces the p otential for errors intro duced by The Intel ligent Database Interface IDI is a p ortable, stale schema information or by hand entered data. cache-based interface designed to provide arti cial intel- The IDI can b e viewed as a stand-alone DBMS inter- ligence systems in general and exp ert systems in par- face which accepts queries in the form of IDIL clauses ticular with ecient access to one or more databases and returns the result relation as a set of tuples i.e., on one or more remote database management systems a list of Lisp atoms and/or strings. IDIL queries are [ DBMS which supp ort SQL Chamb erlin, et. al., translated into SQL and sent to the appropriate DBMS ] 1976 . The query language of the IDI is the Intelligent for execution. The results from the DBMS are then [ ] Database Interface Language IDIL O'Hare, 1989 and transformed by the IDI into tuples of Lisp ob jects. Al- is based on a restricted subset of function-free Horn though the IDI was not designed to b e used directly clauses where the head of a clause represents the tar- by a user, the following descriptions will b e couched get list i.e., the form of the result relation and the in terms of using the IDI as a stand-alone system so b o dy is a conjunction of literals which denote database that wemayavoid complicating our discussions with relations or op erations on the relations and/or their at- the details of an AI system such as the ISS. tributes e.g., negation, aggregation, and arithmetic op- The design of the IDI was heavily in uenced by pre- erations. [ vious research in the area of AI/DB integration Kellog, The IDI is one of the key comp onents of the In- et. al., 1986, O'Hare, 1987, O'Hare and Travis, 1989, [ ] tel ligent System Server ISS Finin, et. al., 1989 ] O'Hare and Sheth, 1989 . One of the more signi cant [ ] which is based on Protem Fritzson and Finin, 1988 design criteria that this lead to is the supp ort of non- and provides a combined logic-based and frame-based trivial queries in IDIL. That is, to allow for queries in- knowledge representation system and supp orts forward- volving more than just a single database relation. This chaining, backward-chaining, and truth maintenance. capability allows the AI system to o -load computa- The IDI was designed to b e compatible with the logic- tions that are more eciently pro cessed by the DBMS based knowledge representation scheme of the ISS and instead of the AI system e.g., join op erations. In many cases, this also has the e ect of reducing the size of data current address: IBM, ResearchTriangle Park, North Carolina set that is returned by the DBMS. the AI system is extended with DBMS capabilities to vide ecient access to, and management of, large AI AI DB pro ts of stored data. In general, such systems do DB amoun hnology. Rather, the Extending the AI system Loose coupling not incorp orate full DBMS tec emphasis is on the AI system and the DBMS capabil- ities are added in an ad hoc and limited manner, e.g., DB AI Interface DB [ ] al., 1986 implements only the data access AI Ceri, et. yer. Alternatively, a new generation knowledge-based Extending the DB system Enhanced AI/DB interface la [ ] system such as LDL Chimenti, et. al., 1987 maybe constructed. In either case, this approach e ectively Figure 1: Of the four alternative approaches to AI/DB inte- involves \re-inventing" some or all of DBMS technol- gration, the Intel ligent Database Interface is an example of ogy. While such systems typically provide sophisticated an enhanced AI/DB interface. to ols and environments for the development of applica- tions such as exp ert systems, they can not readily make use of existing databases. Thus, the developmentofAI While the IDI is to some small degree system dep en- applications whichmust access existing databases will dent, it do es o er a high degree of p ortability b ecause b e exceedingly dicult if not imp ossible e.g., when the it is implemented in Common Lisp, communicates with database is routinely accessed and up dated via more remote DBMSs using SQL and standard UNIX pip es, traditional kinds of applications. and represents IDIL queries and their results as Com- mon Lisp ob jects. Extending the DBMS System: This approach extends a DBMS to provide knowledge representation In the following sections we present a brief overview [ and reasoning capabilities, e.g., POSTGRES Stone- of the area of AI/DB integration which represents a ] breaker, et. al., 1987 . Here, the DBMS capabilities are large part of the motivation for the IDI, a discussion the central concern and the AI capabilities are added in of some of the more signi cant features of the IDI, the an ad hoc manner. The knowledge representation and organization and ma jor comp onents of the IDI, and - reasoning capabilities are generally quite limited and nally an example of how the IDI is b eing used in two they lack the sophisticated to ols and environments of applications. most AI systems. Such systems do not directly sup- p ort the use of existing DBMSs nor can they directly AI/DB Integration supp ort existing AI applications e.g., exp ert systems The integration of AI and DBMS technologies promises without substantial e ort on the part of the applica- to play a signi cant role in shaping the future of com- tion develop er. In some sense, this is the opp osite of [ ] puting. As noted in Bro die, 1988 , AI/DB integration the previous approach. is crucial not only for next generation computing but Lo ose Coupling: The lo ose coupling approachto also for the continued development of DBMS technology AI/DB integration uses a simple interface b etween the and for the e ective application of muchofAItechnol- twotyp es of systems to provide the AI system with ac- ogy. [ cess to existing databases, e.g., KEE-connection Abar- While b oth DBMS and AI systems, particularly ex- ] banel and Williams, 1986 . While this approach has p ert systems, representwell established technologies, the distinct advantage of integrating existing AI sys- research and development in the area of AI/DB inte- tems and existing DBMSs, the relatively low level of gration is comparatively new. The motivations driv- integration results in p o or p erformance and limited use ing the integration of these two technologies include of the DBMS by the AI system. In addition, access the need for a access to large amounts of shared to data from the database, as well as the data itself, data for knowledge pro cessing, b ecient manage- is p o orly integrated into the representational scheme of ment of data as well as knowledge, and c intelli- the AI system. The highly divergent metho ds repre- gent pro cessing of data. In addition to these moti- senting data e.g., relational data mo dels vs. frames is vations, the design of IDI was also motivated by the generally left to the application develop er or knowledge desire to preserve the substantial investment repre- engineer with only minimal supp ort from the AI/DB sented by most existing databases.