Contents    Page-10    Prev    Next    Page+10    Index   

EMYCIN Antecedent CF

The antecedent (``if part'') of a rule is usually a conjunction of conditions, using the EMYCIN $AND function:


($AND (SAME CNTXT GRAM GRAMNEG) 
      (SAME CNTXT MORPH COCCUS))

$AND operates as follows:

  1. If any clause is false ( nil) or has CF ≤ .2 , $AND returns false ( nil). Thus, .2 is used as a cutoff threshold. Any data believed less strongly than .2 is considered to be false.
  2. If every clause has CF > .2, $AND returns the minimum of the clause CF values.

There is also a function $OR that returns the maximum of its argument CF values.