Project team: Lonnie Heinke, Wing Keong Loo.
The topic we are proposing is an extension of the work done in Anne's Java and AI class from last semester. We implemented a structured matcher builder, which is an AI tool that allows an expert to build, test and save structured mattchers. The saved structured matcher can then be loaded and be used by someone who is not an expert. A structured matcher is an AI tool which contains a tree of decision tables with questions. When the matcher is executed, these questions will be asked of the user. Depending on the answer given, the decision tables are evaluated and the result percolates up the matcher tree to give a final resolution on the a given problem.
We want to revisit the project to approach it from a proper object-oriented design methodology. In the class we did not use a formal method of analysis and design before implementing the project. We did much of our design during implementation (Isn't this the fountain technique?). We hope that by doing so we can apply the current methods of object-oriented analysis and design and come up with a better product that has more features and is easily extensible.
The project was scaled down to fit the time frame of the class. We would like to redesign it to include the full features( more data types, database connectivity, enhanced result output, more views in the user interface ). This is a fairly large project with some complexity. We have a web page on this tool. It is at http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~wingkeon/StructuredMatcher/ . Please take a look and tell us if this is a viable project.
Lonnie and Wing.