Prolog versus Kee — A case study

The selection of the software development tool for the development of an expert system is a difficult and often disputed decision. This paper describes a comparison of a knowledge engineering tool, Kee, and a general purpose language, Prolog, on concrete and real life example from AGATHA, an electronic circuit board diagnosis expert system.Prolog is a high-level programming language with flexible and powerful inference mechanisms. Kee is a big tool that supports a frame-based knowledge representation, an object-oriented programming style and a built-in rule system. It also offers a window environment suitable for rapid development of user-interface prototypes.Prolog's representation is more succinct, implicit and uses problem specific predicates and therefore leaves more room for personal programming styles. Kee is more verbose, explicit and uses standard templates. The maintainability of a Prolog implementation relies heavily on good documentation. In Kee, the unavoidable ‘escapes to Lisp’ require a maintainer to be fluent in Kee and Lisp.Both Prolog and Kee require a considerable investment in learning time.     

基于产生式系统的知识建模

如何建立系统完整的专家知识模型,并将其快速映射为面向计算机推理的人工智能语言是当前专家系统研究的重点和难点,而知识表示是其中的关键.本文将模型驱动的思想引入到专家系统领域,定义了一种基于不确定性产生式知识表示的元模型,设计并实现了相应的图形化建模工具和转换引擎,并基于此提出一种新的产生式系统应用框架.该框架在某健康信息评估专家系统中获得了成功的应用.     

一种基于关系数据库的知识表示和推理方法

获得一种具有广泛的知识表示方法和灵活高效的推理逻辑是专家系统研究中一直追求的一个目标?将日益发展成熟的关系数据库技术引入专家系统,论述了一种基于关系数据库的知识表示方法和推理逻辑,利用关系数据库几乎不受限制的字段个数和丰富的字段类型来表示专家知识和组织推理逻辑,达到了知识表示的广泛性和逻辑推理的高效性。这一方法可广泛应用于各领域的专家系统,在中医专家系统的实例中,取得了令人满意的效果。     

数据库型知识的产生式表示

在专家系统构造中,需要大量的简单信息类知识作为推理的基础。传统的产生式表示,对于这类知识,具有很大的局限性。不仅无法给出知识之间的关系,而且知识库规模庞大。为了解决这个问题,文章引入了数据库型产生式(DatabaseStyleRule,DSR)的概念。某农业节水专家系统的实践应用表明,数据库型产生式(DSR)表示有着很好的效果,可显著降低知识库规模,提高知识之间的关联性。从而提高推理机的效率,减少知识获取的开销,增强知识库的可维护性和可扩展性。     

Strategies for integrating knowledge-based systems techniques within conventional software environments

This article discusses strategies for integrating knowledge-based systems techniques with conventional computer science techniques. The effect of such an approach has led to the production of an intelligent systems development environment called INDEX. INDEX supports a layered architecture to enable expert system functionality to be generated and integrated at language level, tool level, and system level within a traditional software environment. At the language level, INDEX provides a set of expert system primitives describing low-level operations of an expert system. These primitives can be accessed from most of the conventional languages. At tool level, expert system primitives and relevant INDEX facilities are used in producing expert system tools and various mediation tools for tool integration. At the system level, INDEX can be used to build integrated/coordinated systems. Several applications have been given to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, and its future directions. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

LISP as a rapid prototyping environment: The Chinese tutor

LISP provides a powerful interactive environment that supports rapid prototyping of complex software. This has always been a main feature of the language, and one that has contributed to its widespread use for experimental applications. Recent years have also seen the development of LISP systems that provide performance comparable with, or better than, that of more traditional programming languages. The next logical step is to show that systems developed in LISP with a rapid-prototyping approach can also provide excellent performance. As an example of the suitability of LISP for rapid prototyping of efficient systems, this article presents a case study where a system was built in a Common Lisp environment out of a series of existing tools. Reliance on existing tools, as well as the interactive features typical of LISP, resulted in extremely rapid prototyping. The system, a computer-based tutor for beginner-level Chinese, was developed in less than three man-weeks. Very rapid development time, however, did not in any way sacrifice performance: the system's performance is quite good and comparable to that of ad hoc systems. This is true of both the interactive component of the program, i.e. the interface to the student, and the database component, which stores the system's knowledge about the Chinese language. The factors that contributed most to the short development time were the extensive reliance on existing tools, the use of an efficient knowledge representation language to implement most of the data structures, and the use of an integrated programming environment. All of these factors were in turn made possible, or at least greatly facilitated, by the choice of LISP as the programming language.     

面向广电节目的虚拟人手语合成显示平台研究

基于中国手语合成技术的虚拟人手语视频显示平台技术是一个全新的课题.为了满足广电新闻节目对手势运动流畅性要求,实现了一种上下文相关的手势运动平滑算法,该方法能够充分利用前后两帧的差异来实现手势运动的平滑过渡,其视觉感观效果较传统插值算法更加平滑自然;同时提出了一种基于统计和规则相结合的手势运动重定向算法,在统计方法的基础上针对不同骨架大小以及运动特性进行规则约束,使得标准模型手势运动数据应用到新模型上而不失其准确性;最后,通过扩展基本手语词表达形式并基于alpha融合技术实现了面向广电新闻节目的虚拟人手语合成显示平台并取得很好的结果.     

Applications of a novel fuzzy expert system shell

Abstract: Much of the information resident in the knowledge base of a typical expert system is imprecise, incomplete or not totally reliable. The special features of a novel expert system shell based on fuzzy logic and numbers are presented. This rule-based system can deal with exact, inexact (fuzzy) and combined reasoning as well as uncertainty represented by fuzzy numbers. Natural language interface is built in naturally using fuzzy logic representation. Several application areas, namely, classification, risk analysis and information retrieval, are discussed with four appropriate sample expert systems actually built using this shell. Through these expert systems, the additional power and advantages over traditional expert systems are illustrated. It has been demonstrated that the introduction of fuzzy concepts into expert systesms is not feasible but highly desirable.     

面向对象知识表示在起重机专家系统中的应用

知识表示是专家系统的关键组成部分。在对知识表示的方法进行探究的基础上,根据起重机操作专家系统的特点,采用面向对象与产生式表示方法相结合的混合表示方法对其专家知识进行表示,并在C＋＋程序语言环境下实现起童机操作知识的表示,同时给出起重机操作的知识表示实例,用此法开发的专家系统具有代码短、易维护、易修改和易扩充的优点。阐述了起重机操作专家系统如何用面向对象方法封装规则、建立知识库、实现知识推理和具体的应用要点。     

A knowledge representation and inference system for procedural law

KRIP-2 is a name of a software tool for building expert systems of a legal problem. It was developed to build an expert system for the Patent Law. Laws can be classified into the substantive laws and the procedural laws, and the Patent Law contains both of them. As these laws have different features, it is inconvenient to develop the knowledge base of these in the same knowledge representation. To develop a knowledge base of laws, a knowledge representation language KRIP/L was introduced. KRIP/L was an integration of the object oriented concept and extended Prolog, and has useful mechanisms to describe the phenomena occured in the legal problem. KRIP/L-2 is the second version of KRIP/L. KRIP-2 is an implementation of KRIP/L-2, and composed of some utility modules. KRIP-2 is implemented in Prolog, and an expert system for the Patent Law is developed in KRIP-2.     

ES技术在软件开发中的应用研究

专家系统（ＥＳ）的威力在于它的知识。该文主要阐述了ＥＳ作为新的先进软件技术表达软件程序中领域知识的思想，详细介绍了在实际的软件编程中用Ｃ／Ｃ＋＋实现合成的ＥＳ技术的方法，从而提高软件的智能化水平。文中列举了常规程序中不确定性知识的规则实现以及用Ｃ＋＋中的类构造框架结构的步骤。     

KET: A knowledge engineering tool

The paper describes a knowledge engineering tool (named KET) designed to facilitate the development of expert systems in various application areas. As an architecture and basic function the system implements the most essential features of domain-independent expert systems: knowledge base interactive development and refinement, forward as well as backward logical inference, utilisation of uncertain knowledge, etc.The KET language integrates a fairly rich subset of the first-order predicate logic with the production systems architecture, covering in this way the advantages of two basic approaches to the knowledge representation problem. The frame-oriented methodology is presented by the following options: the user can define simple concepts by specifying named collections of attribute-value pairs and interconceptual relations; he (or she) can also describe specific objects in a similar way, refering them to already defined concepts in particular. The language achieves additional power by allowing arbitrary terms to be used as values. It is relatively natural in the sense that the knowledge and system behaviour are easily understood in convenient to a naive user terms, i.e. concepts, objects, facts, rules, questions and commands.KET consists of compiler, interpreter, editor, front-end and input-output modules. Its prototype version is written in BASIC and is operational on an IMCO 2 (compatible with Apple II) computer.The paper also aims to compare the system with the logic programming language PROLOG as well as to discuss some issues of implementation and the applicational methodology.     

An application of artificial intelligence to object-orientedperformance design for real-time systems

The paper describes an application of artificial intelligence technology to the implementation of a rapid prototyping method in object-oriented performance design (OOPD) for real-time systems. OOPD consists of two prototyping phases for real-time systems. Each of these phases consists of three steps: prototype construction, prototype execution, and prototype evaluation. We present artificial intelligence based methods and tools to be applied to the individual steps. In the prototype construction step, a rapid construction mechanism using reusable software components is implemented based on planning. In the prototype execution step, a hybrid inference mechanism is used to execute the constructed prototype described in declarative knowledge representation. MENDEL, which is a Prolog based concurrent object-oriented language, can be used as a prototype construction tool and a prototype execution tool. In the prototype evaluation step, an expert system which is based on qualitative reasoning is implemented to detect and diagnose bottlenecks and generate an improvement plan for them     

Implementation of rule-based information systems for integratedmanufacturing

Focuses on the development of a methodology within a software environment for automating the rule-based implementation of specifications of integrated manufacturing information systems. The specifications are initially formulated in a natural language and subsequently represented in terms of a graphical representation by the system designer. A new graphical representation tool is based on updated Petri nets (UPN) that we have developed as a specialized version of colored Petri nets. The rule-based implementation approach utilizes the similarity of features between UPN and the general rule specification language used for the implementation. The automation of the translation of UPN to the rule specification language is expected to considerably reduce the life-cycle for design and implementation of the system. The application presented deals with the control and management of information flow between the computer-aided design, process planning, manufacturing resource planning and shop floor control databases. This provides an integrated information framework for computer integrated manufacturing systems     

实现渔业资源评估专家系统的一种方法

本文介绍了一种用计算机专家系统实现我国东海渔业资源评估的方法。这一渔业资源评估专家系统是用面向对象的知识处理系统（ＯＫＰＳ）构造而成。ＯＫＰＳ是我们自主开发的一套可视化专家系统工具。本文着重阐述了ＯＫＰＳ系统和该专家系统的原理、模型选择的规则、专家知识库的构造与实现等问题。     

Mapping knowledge to rules for scheduling expert systems

Although the theoretical framework of expert systems has been well established, the process of developing a non-trivial expert system is still considered a difficult task. The main reason for this is that the nature of expert systems is knowledge-intensive. Also, it is usually difficult for domain experts to explain or communicate their expertise to the system professionals. Many methodologies have been proposed to overcome this domain knowledge representation problem. Most of them require the assistance of an expert system shell (tool). However, with a purpose of helping the system development in mind, most of them were not satisfactory. This research takes the experience of implementing a course scheduling expert system, and suggests two analysis methods to describe the characteristics of course scheduling knowledge. It is shown that these methods provide assistance on clarifying the complicated scheduling problem. Another favorable advantage of this method is its capability helping the transferring of domain knowledge to rules in the knowledge base.     

Developing maintainable expert systems using case-based reasoning

Abstract: Maintainability problems associated with traditional software systems are exacerbated in rule-based systems. The very nature of that approach — separation of control knowledge and data-driven execution — hampers maintenance. While there are widely accepted techniques for maintaining conventional software, the same is not true for rule-based systems. In most situations, both a knowledge engineer and a domain expert are necessary to update the rules of a rule-based system. This paper presents, first, an overview of the software engineering techniques and object-oriented methods used in maintaining rule-based systems. It then discusses alternate paradigms for expert system development. The benefits of using case-based reasoning (from the maintenance point of view) are illustrated through the implementation of a case-based scheduler. The main value of the scheduler is that its knowledge base can be modified by the expert without the assistance of a knowledge engineer. Since changes in application requirements can be given directly to the system by the expert, the effort of maintaining the knowledge base is greatly reduced.     

Visual programming environment for hybrid expert systems

This paper proposes an architecture for hybrid expert system development which combines expert problem-solving functions and other conventional computational functions by visual programming technology. The visual programming technique is used both for task-specific knowledge representation and for procedural programming for connecting functional components. In knowledge representation, knowledge is visually represented in the form of decision tables and decision trees. In procedural visual programming, each functional object is displayed as a box-shaped icon with accessible ports which are connected by wires on the graphic editor. Based on the architecture, an expert system shell for the classification task, called HOLON/VP(DT), is incorporated in a visual programming system called HOLON/VP. This paper briefly describes the tool and its evaluation based on some application systems developed with the tool.     

An Intelligent Tool to Support Requirements Analysis and Conceptual Design of Database Design

As an application of artificial intelligence and expert system technology to database design,this paper presents an intelligent design tool NITDT,which comprises a requirements specification language NITSL,a knowledge representation language NITKL,and an inference engine with uncertainty reasoning capability.NITDT now covers the requirements analysis and conceptual design of database design.However,it is possible to be integrated with another database design tool,NITDBA,developed also at NIT to become an integrated design tool supporting the whole process of database design.