Structure and Performance of the Meta Inference Engine

This study presents the structure and the performance of a new inference engine: the MIE (Meta Inference Engine). It is able to manipulate not only the rules but also the metarules. The article first describes the architecture of the MIE and gives an example to illustrate its use. A comparison of performance between an RETE network and the MIE is then made. This shows that the MIE is more efficient at manipulating metaknowledge (metarules) but that an RETE network is quicker when the system inserts or deletes a fact.