As part of an inter-disciplinary effort, we are visually exploring a current problem in philosophical logic related to information processing. Given a set of inconsistent sentences or inputs, a processor cannot unambiguously infer any specific consequence. Traces represent subsets of possible consequences which can be inferred classically from partitions of the set of inputs. We are interested in the relationship between a given set of Boolean inputs and its respective trace(s). We have developed a visualization paradigm which allows us to view and explore this relationship effectively.

A novel inferential modeling technique (IMT) which aims to first clarify the domain ontology and inferences before proceeding onto the dynamic processing aspects of expertise is presented. The proposed model consists of the four levels of strategy, task, inference, and domain layers. The former two levels constitute the dynamic component and the latter two the static component. The static representation consists of the domain primitives and their interrelations, while the dynamic component represents a variety of tasks or activities which manipulate the domain entities in order to accomplish objectives. It is argued that the technique is useful as a tool in the elicitation and analysis phases of the development of a knowledge-based system. A preliminary application of the technique for constructing a knowledge-based system in the chemical engineering domain is described. >