Knowledge Acquisition, Representation \& Manipulation in Decision Support Systems

In this paper we present a methodology and discuss some implementation issues for a project on statistical/expert approach to data analysis and knowledge acquisition. We discuss some general assumptions underlying the project. Further, the requirements for a user-friendly computer assistant are specified along with the nature of tools aiding the researcher. Next we show some aspects of belief network approach and Dempster-Shafer (DST) methodology introduced in practice to system SEAD. Specifically we present the application of DS methodology to belief revision problem. Further a concept of an interface to probabilistic and DS belief networks enabling a user to understand the communication with a belief network based reasoning system is presented