KM: The Knowledge Machine
KM: The Knowledge Machine
KM is a powerful, frame-based language with
clear first-order logic semantics. It contains sophisticated
machinery for reasoning, including selection by description,
unification, classification, and reasoning about actions using a
situations mechanism. Its origins were the Theo language and the (now
obsolete) language KRL. It is implemented in Lisp.
Tutorials
- KM Tutorial (Fall 2006) (powerpoint),
covering the main features of KM.
(an older version of this tutorial is also available here)
- km-overview.script
- An annotated, sample session with KM, illustrating some of the language's main features. (This script
is approximately the same one used through the tutorial above).
Manuals
Software
KM is released under the Simplified BSD Licence. A copy of the licence is
below and also bundled with the software. If you would like a copy
under a different licencing agreement, please contact one of the
authors. KM comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are wlecome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See
the LICENCE below for details.
Important! Please see the RELEASE-NOTES for changes made to KM
since the manuals were written.
- LICENCE.txt
- A copy of the Simplified BSD Licence, under which KM is
released.
- km-2-5-45-packaged.lisp
- the very latest version of KM! (in one single file) (Recommended version to use).
- RELEASE-NOTES.txt
- Important release notes. This documents changes to KM since the manuals were written.
- test-suite.km
- Test suite (for current release), includes the examples from the manuals.
- Alternative packagings of KM 2.5.45:
- km-2-5-45.lisp Single file version, unpackaged release, for users not familiar with packages (identical to the single file, packaged release above except the package declarations are commented out). However, use of this is discouraged as using packages is good practice. For information on how to use packages, see:
Support Tools
- KMGen -
a very nice ontology editor for the KM language. See these
screenshots showing some of these new features and the Component Library in KMgen. Created by,
and with thanks to, Francis Leboutte.
KM Mailing List
You can stay up-to-date with KM, post and answer questions, be alerted to new
releases of KM, etc. by joining the KM Users Group hosted by Google Groups
at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/km-qa.
Additional Background Information
- KM's Algorithm (powerpoint),
providing a top-level description of KM's inference algorithm.
- P. Clark and B. Porter.
Using Access Paths to Guide Inference with Conceptual Graphs.
In Proc Int Conf on Conceptual Structures - ICCS'97
(Lecture Notes in AI vol 1257), pages 521-535, Eds:
D. lukose, H. Delugach, M. Keeler, L. Searle, J. Sowa, Berlin:Springer, 1997.
This provides details of KM's inferencing algorithm, and gives examples of how
backward chaining (path following) and automatic classification interleave to
solve problems.
(PDF,
compressed postscript,
animated powerpoint slide presentation,
HTML slide presentation)
- The implementation
of situations (pdf) - A brief note on the implementation of KM's situation mechanism.
- P. Clark and B. Porter.
Building Concept Representations from Reusable Components.
In AAAI'97, pages 369-376, CA:AAAI Press, 1997.
(PDF,
compressed postscript).
Includes an illustrated example of KM's interleaving of backward chaining and classification.
- The Representation of Actions in KM and Cyc - A comparison by
Aarati Parmar (Stanford University Technical Report FRG-1, 2001).
(PDF report and
Powerpoint
presentation).
Other
Back to KBS Group Home Page
porter@cs.utexas.edu