An inference procedure is a key component of the knowledge engineering process, sometimes known as abduction. After all preliminary information gathering and modeling is completed, queries are passed to the inference procedure to get answers. In this step, we let the inference procedure operate on the axioms and problem-specific facts to derive the information we are interested in knowing.
During this process, abduction is used to seek out assumptions which, when combined with a theory, can achieve some desired goal for the system without contradicting known facts. By seeking out more and more assumptions, worlds are generated with consistent (non-contradicting) knowledge.
Inference is the act or process of drawing a conclusion based solely on what one already knows.
Note that while an inference that leads from true premisses to a wrong conclusion is necessarily incorrect, true premises and a true conclusion do not necessarily imply that the inference was correct.
But even if those facts were certain, the inference is of an inductive nature: perhaps you have often heard your neigbour at night, and the best explanation you have found is that he or she is an insomniac.
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