Abstract
Having gained an understanding of expert systems, we can now turn to how they are implemented. In common with conventional computer systems, expert systems are created, used, modified, re-used, and eventually discarded in much the same way as any other system. To the software engineer they are just another piece of software and subject to the same disciplines. But they also show marked differences in most phases of their life-cycle. When conceiving likely applications, we need to match suitability of the problem with feasibility of the technique as applied to the problem. This can be a difficult problem, which we shall return to in chapter 8.
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Further reading
William J. van Melle describes EMYCIN in great detail in System Aids in Constructing Consultation Programs (UMI Research Press, 1981).
An overview of languages and tools for knowledge engineering is chapter 9 in F. Hayes-Roth, D.A. Waterman and D.B. Lenat’s Building Expert Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1983). They discuss EMYCIN, KAS, EXPERT, OPS5, RLL, ROSIE and AGE.
Avron Barr and Edward Feigenbaum’s three volume compendium, The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence (Pitman, 1981–3) is a rich source of very accessible material on various aspects of AI. Volume I devotes an entire chapter to knowledge repesentation. In Volume II you will find a section on EXPERT.
Probably the best description and analysis of semantic nets is chapter 9 in Nils Nilsson’s book, Principles of Artificial Intelligence (Springer-Verlag, 1982).
Emil Post’s paper ‘Formal reductions of the general combinatorial decision problem’ appeared in American Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 65 (1943). Marvin Minsky describes its essential ideas and gives the proof for Turing completeness in Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines (Prentice-Hall, 1967), as does J. Anderson in Language, Memory and Thought (Erlbaum Associates, 1976).
Allen Newell and Herbert Simon’s Human Problem Solving (Prentice-Hall, 1972) is an in-depth examination of how we use productions to tackle problems. It is worth reading not only for the theory it propounds, but also for the wealth of example rules and production systems.
R. Davis and J. King’s monograph, ‘An overview of production systems’ appeared in E.W. Elcock and D. Michie (eds), Machine Intelligence 8 (Ellis Horwood, 1977).
Richard Bornat’s excellent book, Understanding and Writing Compilers (Macmillan, 1979) is full of practical advice for compiler writers.
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© 1985 Peter S. Sell
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Sell, P.S. (1985). Creation. In: Expert Systems — A Practical Introduction. Macmillan Computer Science Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07416-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07416-7_4
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