: The EKB layer is expected to integrate a number of knowledge representation languages. In this document we discuss the issues related to the specification of hybrid architectures, and we propose a framework to describe generic hybrid architectures. Such a framework is then used to identify the decision points that we need to tackle in order to design the architecture of the VITAL-KR. Authors: Enrico Motta and Arthur Stutt Collaborators (VITAL Partners): SYSECA - SYSECA TEMPS REEL (Coordinator) * NOTT - UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM *BULL - BULL CEDIAG AC - ANDERSEN CONSULTING ONERA - ONERA PTT - ROYAL PTT NEDERLAND NV * OU - THE OPEN UNIVERSITY * NOKIA - NOKIA RESEARCH CENTER * marked partners are involved in this task Intg. of Heterogeneous Languages. Page 2 The Open University 1991 1. INTRODUCTION In (Motta, 1991b) we put forward an initial proposal for the architecture of the knowledge representation component of the VITAL toolkit (VITAL-KR). In that proposal a two-layer a...

: In this paper the architecture of the VITAL-KR is described. Author: Enrico Motta and Arthur Stutt Collaborators (VITAL Partners): SYSECA - SYSECA TEMPS REEL (Coordinator) * NOTT - UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM * BULL - BULL CEDIAG AC - ANDERSEN CONSULTING ONERA - ONERA PTT - ROYAL PTT NEDERLAND NV * OU - THE OPEN UNIVERSITY * NOKIA - NOKIA RESEARCH CENTER * marked partners are involved in this task page 1 _____________________________________________________________________ The Open University 1991 1. INTRODUCTION As discussed in (Motta, 1991) both the current practice of industrial KBS, and the consensus among researchers (Frisch & Cohn, 1991) suggest that hybrid architectures, embedding a number of specialized representations/reasoners, are required to enable knowledge engineers to build efficient and powerful KBs. This is due to the fact that it has been recognized that no universal knowledge representation language exists, which can efficiently model all types of proble...