...

Quaestor is a software framework for developing and using knowledge based systems containing computational methods and data. With  With these systems, you are able to streamline analysis, design and engineering processes.

The general architecture can be sketched as follows:

...

The combination of a project (a project file), a knowledge base (a knowledge file) and the Quaestor program makes a knowledge-based system to streamline design and engineering processes (workflows).

 Advantages

Knowledge-based systems in Quaestor enable research, engineering and design departments to simplify the tasks of:

...

This makes Quaestor one of the most powerful environments currently available for the development and use of knowledge-based computational models, applications and configurators.

Technical details

Quaestor can be used in three ways, depending on your personal requirements and user license. See user See user levels documentation for documentation for more detail:

1. As an application development and knowledge management platform (knowledge engineering);
2. As an user platform (domain expert use)
3. As a results viewer (end use),

...

Please note that in addition to providing single values for parameters, the user can provide ranges of values for several parameters. This makes it possible to compute matrices of parameter variations to perform trade-off studies or to check the robustness of solutions. 

License options

The software can be purchased with an annual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, user license.
A demo version of Quaestor is available for free. This version provides full user rights up to 100 frames per knowledge base (i.e. 100 parameters, relations and constraints in total).

The fee for an annual user licence will depend on (A) the user modus of the software (stand-alone or concurrent use) and (B) the user level (End-User, Domain Expert, Knowledge Engineer).

A. User modes

You can use Quaestor systems in two modes:

1. Stand-alone: 
   Quaestor is installed on every individual PC with its own licence and activation string.
2. Concurrent use: 
   Quaestor is installed as client version on any PC in a Local Area Network Additional software (the Qnowledge Licence Manager) manages the concurrent licenses. Concurrent user licenses are more expensive but require a smaller number of licenses, depending on the desired availability of the system.

B.

...

User levels

Quaestor systems can be used in two levels:

1. End-user or user or run time licence: 
   In this case Quaestor is usually part of a specific application (knowledge base) and can only be used with this application. Knowledge and models can neither be changed or added, nor removed. Without the application (knowledge base) Quaestor can be used as demo version.
2. Domain expert: 
   In addition to an end-user, a “Domain expert” (DE) is allowed to assemble any model (Solution) using any (protected) knowledge base. Knowledge bases protected by knowledge engineers can sometimes still only be used as End user.

In addition you have a development level:

Knowledge engineer:

...

 A “Knowledge engineer” (KE) has full rights to develop and maintain knowledge bases. Knowledge bases protected by other knowledge engineers can still only be used as Domain expert or End user.

For more details see also: User levels and rights

Papers about Quaestor

These articles give more insight and show the power of Quaestor.

• [Knowledge Based Computational Model Assembling]
• [HME Innovation Award Qnowledge](Dutch)
• [Schip & Werf](Dutch)