FBRL: A Function and Behavior Representation Language

Abstract

Although a lot of researchers have pointed out the significance of functional representation, the general relations between function and behavior is not fully understood yet. We consider the knowledge of each component in a system as consisting of two elements. One is a necessary and sufficient information for simulation of the component which we call behavior. The other is the interpretation of the behavior under a desirable state which the component is expected to achieve, which we call function. By identifying primitives necessary for the interpretation of the behavior in various domains, we can capture what function is and represent it by selection and combination of them. This paper proposes FBRL, a language for representing function and behavior with the primitives we identified and discuss its application to explanation generation. First half of this paper briefly explains FBRL. We also investigate the relation between function and behavior based on the primitives of FBRL. As FBRL can represent concepts at various levels of abstraction, it contributes to explanation generation by providing informations for mapping behavior of a component to a term which represents its function. Second half of this paper shows an example which shows how FBRL contributes to explanation generation.