Wang, M-T (1989) Knowledge processing for a construction management database. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
Abstract
The objectives of project control systems go beyond documentation to recognition of problems and evaluation of their causes. Through the use of broad information systems, a construction manager today is able to assemble a wide variety of data about his projects or programs. Retrieval, analysis and interpretation of the meaning of these data, however, usually require the user to have detailed knowledge about the structure and content of the database, the use of a data retrieval language, and have the further programming skills to instruct the computer to perform analyses. The work reported in this thesis has three goals: to ease retrieval with near-natural query capabilities, to acquire and accumulate user defined knowledge in the construction domain, and to exercise such knowledge for translation from English terms to database fields or their values, for access to database or other information sources, or for pre-access and post-access processing. A knowledge-based query system, called Expert-MCA, has been developed in this research by coupling the techniques of natural language processing, knowledge-based expert systems, and database management systems. The architecture of this system is presented, followed by a description of how knowledge is represented and processed in answering English-like queries. An object-oriented formalism is applied to represent knowledge required in the process of reasoning. Expert-MCA's reasoning capabilities have been extended by using context-driven reasoning, a generalization of reasoning mechanisms used in framed-based systems.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Logcher, R D |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | control system; reasoning; skills; documentation; expert system; information system; programming; project control |
| Index terms: | exercise, knowledge processing, project control, information system, reasoning, data retrieval, program, construction manager, programming, coupling, management system, control system, documentation, meaning, database, expert system |
| Subjects: | profession, health behaviours and lifestyles, knowledge management, sociology, programming, monitoring and control, software systems, professional development, information systems, control systems, cognitive psychology, systems engineering, management, data management |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Information Management, Digital Applications, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Project Management, Health and Safety |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here