A general framework for time-aware decision support systems

In this paper we present a general framework for time-aware decision support systems. The framework uses the state-of-the-art tOWL language for the representation of temporal knowledge and enables temporal reasoning over the information that is represented in a knowledge base. Our approach uses state-of-the-art Semantic Web technology for handling temporal data. Through such an approach, the designer of a system can focus on the application intelligence rather than enforcing/checking data related restrictions manually. Also, there is an increased support for reuse of temporal reasoning tools across applications. We illustrate the applicability of our framework by building a market recommendations aggregation system. This system automatically collects market recommendations from online sources and, based on the past performance of the analysts that issued a recommendation, generates an aggregated recommendation in the form of a buy, hold, or sell advice. We illustrate the flexibility of our proposed system by implementing multiple methods for the aggregation of market recommendations.     

The IKBALS project: Multi-modal reasoning in legal knowledge based systems

In attempting to build intelligent litigation support tools, we have moved beyond first generation, production rule legal expert systems. Our work integrates rule based and case based reasoning with intelligent information retrieval.When using the case based reasoning methodology, or in our case the specialisation of case based retrieval, we need to be aware of how to retrieve relevant experience. Our research, in the legal domain, specifies an approach to the retrieval problem which relies heavily on an extended object oriented/rule based system architecture that is supplemented with causal background information. We use a distributed agent architecture to help support the reasoning process of lawyers.Our approach to integrating rule based reasoning, case based reasoning and case based retrieval is contrasted to the CABARET and PROLEXS architectures which rely on a centralised blackboard architecture. We discuss in detail how our various cooperating agents interact, and provide examples of the system at work. The IKBALS system uses a specialised induction algorithm to induce rules from cases. These rules are then used as indices during the case based retrieval process.Because we aim to build legal support tools which can be modified to suit various domains rather than single purpose legal expert systems, we focus on principles behind developing legal knowledge based systems. The original domain chosen was theAccident Compensation Act 1989 (Victoria, Australia), which relates to the provision of benefits for employees injured at work. For various reasons, which are indicated in the paper, we changed our domain to that ofCredit Act 1984 (Victoria, Australia). This Act regulates the provision of loans by financial institutions.The rule based part of our system which provides advice on the Credit Act has been commercially developed in conjunction with a legal firm. We indicate how this work has lead to the development of a methodology for constructing rule based legal knowledge based systems. We explain the process of integrating this existing commercial rule based system with the case base reasoning and retrieval architecture.     

A Strategy of Dynamic Reasoning in Knowledge-Based System with Fuzzy Production Rules

Fuzzy production rules have been successfully applied to represent uncertainty in a knowledge-based system. The knowledge organized as a knowledge base is static. On the other hand, a real system such as the stock market is dynamic in nature. Therefore we need a strategy to reflect the dynamic nature of a system when we make reasoning with a knowledge-based system.This paper proposes a strategy of dynamic reasoning that can be used to takes account the dynamic behavior of decision-making with the knowledge-based system consisted of fuzzy rules. A degree of match (DM) between actual input information and antecedent of a rule is represented by a value in interval [0, 1]. Weights of relative importance of attributes in a rule are obtained by the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. Then these weights are applied as exponents for the DM, and the DMs in a rule are combined, with the Min operator, into a single DM for the rule. In this way, the importance of attributes of a rule, which can be changed from time to time, can be reflected to reasoning in knowledge-based system with fuzzy rules.With the proposed reasoning procedure, a decision maker can take his judgment on the given decision environment into a static knowledge base with fuzzy rules when he makes decision with the knowledge base. This procedure can be automated as a pre-processing system for fuzzy expert systems. Thereby the quality of decisions could be enhanced.     

Hierarchical decision making for proactive quality control: system development for defect reduction in automotive coating operations

Product quality control (QC) in manufacturing usually relies solely on inspection. Once a quality problem is found, a solution is sought usually based on experience, which is basically ad hoc. A new generation of QC requires the integration of both quality prediction and inspection. Automotive coating is a typical example. In the paint shop of an automotive assembly plant, topcoat filmbuild quality on vehicle surface has been a major concern. In production, defects are frequently generated in the very thin coating layers, which can degrade severely both coating appearance and durability. Trial and error in troubleshooting is a usual practice.In this paper, we introduce a proactive QC approach by resorting to artificial intelligence and engineering fundamentals. The approach is developed for solving a class of engineering problems for which conventional reactive QC approaches are feeble due to system complexity and uncertainties, such as that in paint applications. The main focus of the approach is on-process, rather than post-process. Thus, the domain knowledge about a process is fully explored and correlation of the process to product quality is established in a systematic way. In this approach the knowledge is expressed either symbolically or numerically, and structured in a hierarchy as reasoning progresses. Decision making is performed by a fuzzy MIN–MAX algorithm for heuristic knowledge and optimization for fundamental knowledge. To demonstrate the efficacy of the methodology, an application to QC of automotive topcoat is illustrated through developing an intelligent decision support system. This system is capable of evaluating process performance, and providing various valuable decision supports for defect prevention in different stages of a topcoat application process.     

一种CBR与RBR相结合的快速预案生成系统

将范例推理(case based reasoning,CBR)与规则推理(rule based reasoning,RBR)两种人工智能技术相结合,实现一种快速预案生成系统.它有效地解决了单纯RBR系统在预案生成过程中的时间延迟缺陷和知识库难以获取的瓶颈.通过CBR工具,能够把以前发生的紧急事件和解决方案生成预案.一旦新的事件发生,首先从预案库中进行案例的相似性检索,如果没有检索到预案或者检索到的预案匹配度很低,再采用RBR系统对紧急事件进行规则推理,然后把推理结果重新存入预案库.实验数据表明,这种方法对单纯RBR系统在时间响应上进行了有效的优化.另外,因为案例的获取比专家系统推理规则的获取容易得多,它同时解决了RBR系统推理规则难以获取的瓶颈.根据这种思想,实现了CBR与RBR结合的快速预案生成系统.目前,它已经应用到抗洪抢险的预案生成和城市应急联动的决策支持上,效果表明它在预案生成速度以及实际可操作性上都具有明显优势.     

Id+: Enhancing medical knowledge acquisition with machine learning

Learning from patient records may aid medical knowledge acquisition and decision making. Decision tree induction, based on ID3, is a well-known approach of learning from examples. In this article we introduce a new data representation formalism that extends the original ID3 algorithm. We propose a new algorithm, ID+, which adopts this representation scheme. ID+ provides the capability of modeling dependencies between attributes or attribute values and of handling multiple values per attribute. We demonstrate our work via a series of medical knowledge acquisition experiments that are based on a ''real-world'' application of acute abdominal pain in children. In the context of these experiments, we compare ID+ with C4.5, NewId, and a Naive Bayesian classifier. Results demonstrate that the rules acquired via ID+ improve decision tree clinical comprehensibility and complement explanations supported by the Naive Bayesian classifier, while in terms of classification, accuracy decrease is marginal.     

An approach to fuzzy default reasoning for function approximation

This paper discusses fuzzy reasoning for approximately realizing nonlinear functions by a small number of fuzzy if-then rules with different specificity levels. Our fuzzy rule base is a mixture of general and specific rules, which overlap with each other in the input space. General rules work as default rules in our fuzzy rule base. First, we briefly describe existing approaches to the handling of default rules in the framework of possibility theory. Next, we show that standard interpolation-based fuzzy reasoning leads to counterintuitive results when general rules include specific rules with different consequents. Then, we demonstrate that intuitively acceptable results are obtained from a non-standard inclusion-based fuzzy reasoning method. Our approach is based on the preference for more specific rules, which is a commonly used idea in the field of default reasoning. When a general rule includes a specific rule and they are both compatible with an input vector, the weight of the general rule is discounted in fuzzy reasoning. We also discuss the case where general rules do not perfectly but partially include specific rules. Then we propose a genetics-based machine learning (GBML) algorithm for extracting a small number of fuzzy if-then rules with different specificity levels from numerical data using our inclusion-based fuzzy reasoning method. Finally, we describe how our approach can be applied to the approximate realization of fuzzy number-valued nonlinear functions     

带Rough算子的决策规则及数据挖掘中的软计算

文中讨论决策规则及其与演绎推理中的假言推理规则之间的关系,通过数据挖掘中的软计算使决策表中的属性简化和性值区间化,从而找到一种具有广泛表达能力的数据隐含格式,从中选择有代表性的,并删去冗余或过剩的规则,并保持决策表的原有用途和的有性能,我们通过开发一个中医诊疗专家系统的实例说明了这种软计算的过程,并分别用于统计或专家计算带可信度因子的产生式规则和基于Ｒｏｕｇｈ集方法计算带Ｒｏｕｇｈ算子的决策规则两     

A Rule-Based Object-Oriented OWL Reasoner

In this paper, we describe O-DEVICE, a memory-based knowledge-based system for reasoning and querying OWL ontologies by implementing RDF/OWL entailments in the form of production rules in order to apply the formal semantics of the language. Our approach is based on a transformation procedure of OWL ontologies into an object-oriented schema and the application of inference production rules over the generated objects in order to implement the various semantics of OWL. In order to enhance the performance of the system, we introduce a dynamic approach of generating production rules for ABOX reasoning and an incremental approach of loading ontologies. O-DEVICE is built over the CLIPS production rule system, using the object-oriented language COOL to model and handle ontology concepts and RDF resources. One of the contributions of our work is that we enable a well-known and efficient production rule system to handle OWL ontologies. We argue that although native OWL rule reasoners may process ontology information faster, they lack some of the key features that rule systems offer, such as the efficient manipulation of the information through complex rule programs. We present a comparison of our system with other OWL reasoners, showing that O-DEVICE can constitute a practical rule environment for ontology manipulation.     

Dominance relation and rules in an incomplete ordered information system

Rough sets theory has proved to be a useful mathematical tool for classification and prediction. However, as many real‐world problems deal with ordering objects instead of classifying objects, one of the extensions of the classical rough sets approach is the dominance‐based rough sets approach, which is mainly based on substitution of the indiscernibility relation by a dominance relation. In this article, we present a dominance‐based rough sets approach to reasoning in incomplete ordered information systems. The approach shows how to find decision rules directly from an incomplete ordered decision table. We propose a reduction of knowledge that eliminates only that information that is not essential from the point of view of the ordering of objects or decision rules. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 13–27, 2005.     

From decision tables to expert system shells

Building and maintaining high quality knowledge based systems is not a trivial task. Decision tables have sometimes been recommended in this process, mainly in verification and validation. In this paper, however, it is shown how decision tables can also be used to generate, and not just to validate, knowledge bases and how the transformation process from decision tables to knowledge bases can be organized. Several options to generate rules or other knowledge representation from decision tables are described and evauluated.

The proposed generation strategy enables the knowledge engineer to concentrate on the acquisition and modelling issues and allows him to isolate the knowledge body from its implementation. The generation process has been implemented for two commercial tools, AionDS and KBMS and has been applied to real world applications.     

Reasoning in inconsistent knowledge bases

Databases and knowledge bases could be inconsistent in many ways. For example, during the construction of an expert system, we may consult many different experts. Each expert may provide us with a group of rules and facts which are self-consistent. However, when we coalesce the facts and rules provided by these different experts, inconsistency may arise. Alternatively, knowledge bases may be inconsistent due to the presence of some erroneous information. Thus, a framework for reasoning about knowledge bases that contain inconsistent information is necessary. However, existing frameworks for reasoning with inconsistency do not support reasoning by cases and reasoning with the law of excluded middle (“everything is either true or false”). In this paper, we show how reasoning with cases, and reasoning with the law of excluded middle may be captured. We develop a declarative and operational semantics for knowledge bases that are possibly inconsistent. We compare and contrast our work with work on explicit and non-monotonic modes of negation in logic programs and suggest under what circumstances one framework may be preferred over another     

Study on shop floor control system in semiconductor fabrication by self-organizing map-based intelligent multi-controller

To confirm semiconductor wafer fabrication (FAB) operating characteristics, the scheduling decisions of shop floor control systems (SFCS) must develop a multiple scheduling rules (MSRs) approach in FABs. However, if a classical machine learning approach is used, an SFCS in FABs knowledge base (KB) can be developed by using the appropriate MSR strategy (this method is called an intelligent multi-controller in this study) as obtained from training examples. A classical machine learning approach main disadvantage is that the classes (scheduling decision variables) to which training examples are assigned must be pre-defined. This process becomes an intolerably time-consuming task. In addition, although the best decision rule can be determined for each scheduling decision variable, the combination of all the decision rules may not simultaneously satisfy the global objective function. To address these issues, this study proposes an intelligent multi-controller that incorporates three main mechanisms: (1) a simulation-based training example generation mechanism, (2) a data preprocessing mechanism, and (3) a self-organizing map (SOM)-based MSRs selection mechanism. These mechanisms can overcome the long training time problem of the classical machine learning approach in the training examples generation phase. Under various production performance criteria over a long period, the proposed intelligent multi-controller approach yields better system performance than fixed decision scheduling rules for each of the decision variables at the start of each production interval.     

Automated reasoning based user interface

Motivation: The ability to directly trace how requirements are implemented in a software system is crucial in domains that require a high level of trust (e.g. medicine, law, crisis management). This paper describes an approach that allows a high level of traceability to be achieved with model-driven engineering supported by automated reasoning. The paper gives an introduction to the novel, automated user interface synthesis in which a set of requirements is automatically translated into a working application. It is presented as a generalization of the current state of the art model-driven approaches both from the conceptual perspective as well as the concrete implementation is discussed together with its advantages like the alignment of business logic with the application and ease of adaptability. It also presents how a high level of traceability can be obtained if runtime support of automated reasoning over models is applied.Results: We have defined the Automated Reasoning-Based User Interface (ARBUI) approach and implemented a framework for application programming that follows our definition. The framework, called Semantic MVC, is based on model-driven engineering principles enhanced with W3C standards for the semantic web. We will present the general architecture and main ideas underlying our approach and framework. Finally, we will present a practical application of the Semantic MVC that we created in the medical domain as a Clinical Decision Support System for GIST cancer in cooperation with the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology in Warsaw. The discussed expert system allows the expert to directly modify the executable knowledge on the fly, making the overall system cost effective.     

基于知识粗糙度的决策树生成方法

决策树是一种重要的数据分类方法,测试属性的选择直接影响到决策树中结点的个数和深度,本文提出了一种基于知识粗糙度的方法。通过比较我们发现：在决策树的构造上,粗集理论中知识粗糙度的方法计算量较小,构造的决策树比经典ID3算法简洁,并且具有较高的分类精度。     

基于知识粗糙度的决策树生成方法

决策树是一种重要的数据分类方法,测试属性的选择直接影响到决策树中结点的个数和深度,本文提出了一种基于知识粗糙度的方法.通过比较我们发现:在决策树的构造上,粗集理论中知识粗糙度的方法计算量较小,构造的决策树比经典ID3算法简洁,并且具有较高的分类精度.     

基于属性相关性的决策树规则生成算法

决策树方法因结构简单、便于理解和具有较高的分类精度而在数据挖掘中被广泛采用,其规则生成算法实现对决策树规则的提取和化简。属性相关性分析的基本思想是计算某种度量,用于量化属性与给定概念的相关性。提出了一种基于属性相关性的c4．5决策树规则生成算法c—c4．5rules,可替代c4．5原有的规则生成算法。c—c4．5rules在对规则进行化简时充分考虑了属性之间的关联性,实验表明该算法在保持原有分类精度的前提下,能有效提高规则生成时的计算速度和效率。