XcelLog: A User - Centered Deductive Spreadsheet System

In this Phase I SBIR proposal XSB, Inc. will explore the technical feasibility of building XcelLog - a user-centered deductive spreadsheet system. Using XcelLog end users can program intelligent applications using the spreadsheet metaphor without having a programming background. These applications are characterized by a knowledge base encoding knowledge of the application domain, and an inference engine that reasons over it to deduce new knowledge. XSB, Inc. will undertake a three-pronged approach to this feasibility study, namely: 1. Conducting a language design for deductive spreadsheets. This will include syntax and semantics of textual and gestural operators that will be used by end users for encoding their problem. 2. Developing translators for converting the encoded problems in deductive spreadsheets into logic programs that will execute on the XSB tabled logic programming system. 3. Developing the computing infrastructure to experiment with the language design choices from the twin perspectives of their expressive power and end user usability. These design choices will emerge from the exercise of encoding a variety of problems using the spreadsheet metaphor. This exercise will be conducted in Phase I and the problems will be drawn from different application domains to provide the breadth needed to design a robust language.