MSc(I.

T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

2-Extert System
What is Expert System?
 An expert system is a computer program that is designed to solve complex problems and
to provide decision-making ability like a human expert.
 It performs this by extracting knowledge from its knowledge base using the reasoning
and inference rules according to the user queries.
 The expert system is a part of AI, and the first ES was developed in the year 1970, which
was the first successful approach of artificial intelligence.
 It solves the most complex issue as an expert by extracting the knowledge stored in its
knowledge base.
 The system helps in decision making for complex problems using both facts and
heuristics like a human expert.
 It is called so because it contains the expert knowledge of a specific domain and can
solve any complex problem of that particular domain.
 These systems are designed for a specific domain, such as medicine, science, etc.
 The performance of an expert system is based on the expert's knowledge stored in its
knowledge base.
 The more knowledge stored in the KB, the more that system improves its performance.
 One of the common examples of an ES is a suggestion of spelling errors while typing in
the Google search box.
Phases in Building Expert System
The phase in Expert System are:
1. Identification
2. Conceptualisation
3. Formalisation (Designing)
4. Implementation
5. Testing (Validation, Verification and Maintenance).

1. Identification:
 Before we can begin to develop an expert system, it is important to describe, with as
much precision as possible, the problem which the system is intended to solve.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
 It is not enough simply to feel that an expert system would be helpful in a certain
situation; we must determine the exact nature of the problem and state the precise goals
which indicate exactly how the expert system is expected to contribute to the solution.

Conceptualization:

 In the conceptualization stage, the knowledge engineer frequently creates a diagram of

the problem to depict graphically the relationships between the objects and processes in
the problem domain.
 It is often helpful at this stage to divide the problem into a series of sub-problems and to
diagram both the relationships among the pieces of each sub-problem and the
relationships among the various sub-problems.

Formalization (Designing):
 In the preceding stages, no effort has been made to relate the domain problem to the
artificial intelligence technology which may solve it.
 During the identification and formalization stages, the focus is entirely on understanding
the problem.
 Now, during the formalization stage, the problem is connected to its proposed solution,
an expert system is supplied by analyzing the relationships depicted in the
conceptualization stage.
 The knowledge engineer begins to select the techniques which are appropriate for
developing this particular expert system.

Implementation:
 During the implementation stage the formalized concepts are programmed into the
computer which has been chosen for system development, using the predetermined
techniques and tools to implement a ‘first-pass’ (prototype) of the expert system.

Testing (Validation, Verification and Maintenance):

 The chance of prototype expert system executing flawlessly the first time it is tested are
so slim as to be virtually non-existent.
 A knowledge engineer does not expect the testing process to verify that the system has
been constructed entirely correctly.
 Rather, testing provides an opportunity to identify the weaknesses in the structure and
implementation of the system and to make the appropriate corrections.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
Components of Expert Systems
The components of ES include −
 Knowledge Base
 Inference Engine
 User Interface

Knowledge Base
 It contains domain-specific and high-quality knowledge.
 Knowledge is required to exhibit intelligence. The success of any ES majorly depends
upon the collection of highly accurate and precise knowledge.
What is Knowledge?
 The data is collection of facts. The information is organized as data and facts about the
task domain. Data, information, and past experience combined together are termed as
knowledge.

Knowledge representation
 It is the method used to organize and formalize the knowledge in the knowledge base. It
is in the form of IF-THEN-ELSE rules.
Knowledge Acquisition
 The success of any expert system majorly depends on the quality, completeness, and
accuracy of the information stored in the knowledge base.
 The knowledge base is formed by readings from various experts, scholars, and
the Knowledge Engineers.
 The knowledge engineer is a person with the qualities of empathy, quick learning, and
case analyzing skills.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
Inference Engine
 Use of efficient procedures and rules by the Inference Engine is essential in deducting a
correct, flawless solution.
 In case of knowledge-based ES, the Inference Engine acquires and manipulates the
knowledge from the knowledge base to arrive at a particular solution.

The Inference Engine uses the following strategies −

 Forward Chaining
 Backward Chaining
Forward Chaining
 It is a strategy of an expert system to answer the question, “What can happen next?”
 Here, the Inference Engine follows the chain of conditions and derivations and finally
deduces the outcome.
 It considers all the facts and rules, and sorts them before concluding to a solution.
 This strategy is followed for working on conclusion, result, or effect. For example,
prediction of share market status as an effect of changes in interest rates.

Backward Chaining
 With this strategy, an expert system finds out the answer to the question, “Why this
happened?”
 On the basis of what has already happened, the Inference Engine tries to find out which
conditions could have happened in the past for this result.
 This strategy is followed for finding out cause or reason. For example, diagnosis of
blood cancer in humans.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

User Interface
 User interface provides interaction between user of the ES and the ES itself.
 It is generally Natural Language Processing so as to be used by the user who is well-
versed in the task domain.
 The user of the ES need not be necessarily an expert in Artificial Intelligence.

Expert Systems Limitations

No technology can offer easy and complete solution. Large systems are costly, require
significant development time, and computer resources. ESs have their limitations which include
−
 Limitations of the technology
 Difficult knowledge acquisition
 ES are difficult to maintain
 High development costs

Applications of Expert System

The following table shows where ES can be applied.
Application Description

Design Domain Camera lens design, automobile design.

Medical Domain Diagnosis Systems to deduce cause of disease from observed data,
conduction medical operations on humans.

Monitoring Systems Comparing data continuously with observed system or with prescribed
behavior such as leakage monitoring in long petroleum pipeline.

Process Control Systems Controlling a physical process based on monitoring.

Knowledge Domain Finding out faults in vehicles, computers.

Finance/Commerce Detection of possible fraud, suspicious transactions, stock market

trading, Airline scheduling, cargo scheduling.

Expert System Technology

There are several levels of ES technologies available. Expert systems technologies include −
 Expert System Development Environment − The ES development environment
includes hardware and tools. They are −
o Workstations, minicomputers, mainframes.
o High level Symbolic Programming Languages such as LISt Programming (LISP)
and PROgrammation en LOGique (PROLOG).
o Large databases.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
Tools − They reduce the effort and cost involved in developing an expert system to large
extent.
o Powerful editors and debugging tools with multi-windows.
o They provide rapid prototyping
o Have Inbuilt definitions of model, knowledge representation, and inference
design.
 Shells − A shell is nothing but an expert system without knowledge base. A shell
provides the developers with knowledge acquisition, inference engine, user interface,
and explanation facility. For example, few shells are given below −
o Java Expert System Shell (JESS) that provides fully developed Java API for
creating an expert system.
o Vidwan, a shell developed at the National Centre for Software Technology,
Mumbai in 1993. It enables knowledge encoding in the form of IF-THEN rules.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXPERT SYSTEM AND CONVENTIONAL SYSTEM
 In conventional applications, problem expertise is encoded in both program and data
structures. In the expert system approach all of the problem related expertise is encoded
in data structures only, none is in programs.

 Generally in expert systems, the use of knowledge is vital. But in conventional system
data is used more efficiently than knowledge.

 Conventional systems are not capable of explaining a particular conclusion for a problem.
These systems try to solve in a straight forward manner. But expert systems are capable
of explaining how a particular conclusion is reached and why requested information is
needed during a process. However, the problems are solved more efficiently than a
conventional system by an expert system.

 Generally in an expert system, it uses the symbolic representations for knowledge i.e. the
rules, different forms of networks, frames, scripts etc. and performs their inference
through symbolic computations. But conventional systems are unable to express these
terms.

 Perform knowledge and decision reasoning tasks vs. performing programmed step-by-
step procedures

Rule-based Expert System (also known as production systems or expert systems)

Rule Base System
 If-then rules are one of the most common forms of knowledge representation used in expert
systems.
 Systems employing such rules as the major representation paradigm are called rule based
systems.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
 Some people refer to them as production systems. There are some differences between rule
based systems and production systems, but we will ignore these differences and use the terms
interchangeably.
 In computer science, a rule-based system is used to store and manipulate knowledge to
interpret information in a useful way. It is often used in artificial intelligence applications and
research.
 Rule-based systems constructed using automatic rule inference, such as rule-based machine
learning.
 One of the first popular computational uses of rule based systems was the work by Newell and
Simon on the General Problem Solver [Newell and Simon, 1972].

Applications
 A classic example of a rule-based system is the domain-specific expert system that uses rules to
make deductions or choices.
 For example, an expert system might help a doctor choose the correct diagnosis based on a
cluster of symptoms, or select tactical moves to play a game.
 Rule-based systems can be used to perform analysis to compile or interpret computer programs,
or in natural language processing.
 Rule-based programming attempts to derive execution instructions from a starting set of data
and rules.
 This is a more indirect method than that employed by an imperative programming language,
which lists execution steps sequentially.
 Rule Base
 The rule base (also called the knowledge base) is the set of rules which represents the
knowledge about the domain. The general form of a rule is:

If cond1
and cond2
and cond3
...
then action1, action2, ...

The conditions cond1, cond2, cond3, etc((also known as antecedents)).

Some systems would allow disjunctions in the antecedents. For example, rules like the following would
be allowed.

If cond1 and cond2 or cond3

...

then action1, action2, ...

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

 Such rules are interpreted to mean that if the antecedents of the rule together evaluate to true
(i.e., if the Boolean combination of the conditions is true), the actions in the consequents (i.e.,
action1, action2, etc.) can be executed.
 For example, an antecedent in a rule in a medical expert system could be: the patient has
previously undergone heart surgery.
 The complexity of antecedents can vary a lot depending on the type of language used. For
instance, in some languages.
 In this chapter we will consider rules with only one consequent and one or more antecedents
which are combined with the operator and. We will use a representation of the form:

ruleid: If antecedent1 and antecedent2 .... then consequent

For instance, to represent the rule that all birds can fly, we use:
f1: If bird(X) then can_fly(X)

 if you want to represent the knowledge that either a bird or 1 a plane can fly, you can do this by
using two rules f1 and f2 as follows:

f1: If bird(X) then can fly(X)

f2: If plane(X) then can fly(X)

 Therefore the disjunction (ORing) of a set of antecedents can be achieved by having different
rules with the same consequent.
 Similarly, if multiple consequents follow from the conjunction (ANDing) of a set of antecedents,
this knowledge can be expressed in the form of a set of rules with one consequent each. Each
rule in this set will have the same set of antecedents.

Advantages of Rule Based Systems

Some of the advantages of rule based systems are:

Because of the uniform syntax, the meaning and interpretation of each rule can be easily analyzed.

1. Homogeneity
 Because of the uniform syntax, the meaning and interpretation of each rule can be easily
analyzed.
 Simplicity Since the syntax is simple, it is easy to understand the meaning of rules.
 Domain experts can often understand the rules without an explicit translation.
 Rules therefore can be self-documenting to a good extent.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

2. Independence
 While adding new knowledge one need not be worried about where in the rule base the rule is
added, or what the interactions with other rules are.
 In theory, each rule is an independent piece of knowledge about the domain.
 However, in practice, this is not completely true, as we shall see in the next section.
 Modularity The independence of rules leads to modularity in the rule base.
 You can create a prototype system fairly quickly by creating a few rules.
 This can be improved by modifying the rules based on performance and adding new rules.

3. Knowledge is separated from Use and Control

 The separation of the rule base from the inference engine separates the knowledge from how it
is used to solve the problem.
 This means that the same inference engine can be used with different rule bases and a rule base
can be used with different inference engines.
 This is a big advantage over conventional programs where data and control are intermixed.
 Procedural Interpretations Apart from declarative interpretation, rule based systems have
procedural interpretations also, which enable them to be viewed as computational models.

Blackboard System

 A blackboard system is an artificial intelligence approach based on the blackboard architectural

model, where a common knowledge base, the "blackboard", is iteratively updated by a diverse
group of specialist knowledge sources, starting with a problem specification and ending with a
solution.
 Each knowledge source updates the blackboard with a partial solution when its internal
constraints match the blackboard state.
 In this way, the specialists work together to solve the problem. The blackboard model was
originally designed as a way to handle complex problems, where the solution is the sum of its
parts.

Blackboard System for Problem Solving

 A blackboard system can be viewed as a group of sitting human specialists next to a large
blackboard. They are working cooperatively in order to solve the problem and they use the
blackboard as a workplace for solution development.
 Problem solving begins with announcement of a problem and writing initial data onto the
blackboard. The specialists are watching the blackboard looking for an opportunity in order to
make contribution for solution development.
 When a specialist finds this opportunity, he records the contribution on the blackboard, in hope
that others will use his contribution for final problem solving. This process continues until the
problem is solved.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
 A group of specialists are seated in a room with a large blackboard. They work as a team to
brainstorm a solution to a problem, using the blackboard as the workplace for cooperatively
developing the solution.
 The session begins when the problem specifications are written onto the blackboard.
 The specialists all watch the blackboard, looking for an opportunity to apply their expertise to
the developing solution.
 When someone writes something on the blackboard that allows another specialist to apply their
expertise, the second specialist records their contribution on the blackboard, hopefully enabling
other specialists to then apply their expertise.
 This process of adding contributions to the blackboard continues until the problem has been
solved.
Components of Blackboard System
 A blackboard system consists of three components:
1) Knowledge sources (KSs);
2) Blackboard;
3) Control component.
Knowledge sources
 Knowledge sources are independent modules that contain the knowledge needed for
Problem solving.
 They don’t need to know about the existence of the others, but they have to Understand the
state of problem-solving process and the representation of relevant information
on the blackboard.
 Knowledge sources can be represented with different kind of knowledge; they can include rule-
based systems, case-based systems, neural networks, fuzzy logic systems, genetic algorithms,
legacy software systems.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI
Blackboard
 Blackboard is used as a global database for sharing different information as input data,partial
solutions, alternatives and final solutions.
 Blackboard applications tend to have complex blackboard structures, with multiple levels of
analysis or abstraction.
Control
Control component makes runtime decisions which of knowledge sources to execute next for optimal
problem solution.

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MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

Compiled by Prof. Ansari Mohd. Shahid([email protected]) Mob. 7977-079-345 / 9821-77-1054

MSc(I.T) PART-2 SEM-III Subject : Applied AI

Compiled by Prof. Ansari Mohd. Shahid([email protected]) Mob. 7977-079-345 / 9821-77-1054