flex Expert System Toolkit - LPIS

Appendix A - Examples 167
default blood is cold .
frame bird is an animal
default skin is feather and
default habitat is a tree and
default motions are { walk or fly } .
This is the most basic form of taxonomy, whereby each sub-class (mammal,
bird and fish) has a single parent class (animal). Furthermore, the
blood characteristic of an animal can be inherited by all three sub-classes.
Fish can inherit the characteristic that their blood is warm even though
there is a local default to the contrary. In effect, there are two solutions to
the query :
Q: What temperature is the blood of a fish ?
A: Firstly, the blood of a fish is cold (from fish itself)
A: Secondly, the blood of a fish is warm (from animal)
Representing Mammals
The following diagram illustrates a few of the different types of mammals,
together with some of their characteristics.
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