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Question 1:

The role of an inference engine in an expert system

The use of Inference engine also known as rule interpreter is to interpret and evaluate
the facts in the knowledge base in order to provide an answer. Its a main processing
element of the expert system. The inference engine chooses the rules from agenda to
fire. If there is no rules in the agenda, the inference engine have to obtain information
from the user in order to add more rules to the agenda. This will make use of knowledge
base, in order to draw conclusions for situations. The inference engines responsible is
to gather the information from the user and ask various questions and apply it wherever
necessary. Inference engine operates by using modus ponen rule. The control strategy
determines the order in which rules are applied.
Inference engine work primarily in one of two modes which are forward chaining and
backward chaining. Forward chaining starts with the known facts and asserts new
facts. However backward chaining takes goals to prove and works backward
determining what must be true to assert the goals.

Shows you how the components of an expert system interact to provide advice.
The Explanation facility in an expert system

Explanation facility explains the reasoning of the system to the user that allows the user
to ask why it asked some question and how it reached some conclusion. The questions
are answered by referring to the system goals, the rules being used, and any existing
problem data. Giving such an explanation facility includes, at least, recording what rules
are used in drawing conclusions, and using these records to compose explanations.
Giving simple explanations is not very difficult because the answers always have a
simple set form and is sometimes quite useful. Besides that, the explanation facilities in
expert systems are often not widely used, and where used not viewed as acceptable by
their users. There are a whole lot of reasons for this, motivating current research in the
area. One reason is that the explanations just reference the ``surface'' knowledge
encoded in the rules, rather than the ``deep'' knowledge about the domain which
originally motivated the rules (but which is usually not represented). So, the system will
say that it concluded X because of rule23, but not explain what rule23 is all about.
Another stated reason for the frequent failure of explanation facilities is the fact that, if
the user fails to understand or accept the explanation, the system can't re-explain in
another way (as people can). Explanation generation is a fairly large (and fascinating)
area of research, concerned with effective communication: how to we present things so
that people are really satisfied with the explanation, and what implications does this
have for how we represent the underlying knowledge.
Question 2:

a) A=Load_weight
B=Water_Amount
C=Detergent_amount
D=Wash_Amount
E=Spinning_speed F=Wash_type

b) A=Load_weight [light,medium,heavy]
B=Water_Amount [small,medium,large]
C=Detergent_amount [small,medium,large]
D=Wash_Amount [light,medium,heavy]
E=Spinning_speed [slow,normal,fast]
F=Temperature[cold,medium, warm,hot]
F=Wash_type [light color, bright color, nylon, cotton]

c) IF A is heavy and F is nylon THEN B is large and E is slow and F is medium

IF A is light and F is nylon THEN B is small and E is slow and F is medium
IF A is heavy and F is cotton THEN B is large and E is normal and F is warm
IF A is medium and F is light color THEN B is medium and E is normal and F is
cold
Question 3:

a)

Genetic algorithm is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural selection.
This heuristic is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search
problems.Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms,which
generate solutions to optimization problems using techniques inspired by natural
evolution, such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover.
b)

There are various flavours of GAs in circulation, varying in implementation of these

three parameters, but in essence the algorithms all follow a standard procedure:
1. Start with a randomly generated population of n l-bit stringsCalculate the fitness
f(x) of each string in the population.
2. Repeat the following steps until n new strings have been created:
Select a pair of parent strings from the current population, the probability
of selection being an increasing function of fitness. Selection is done "with
replacement" meaning that the same string can be selected more than
once to become a parent.
With the crossover probability, cross over the pair at a randomly chosen
point to form two new strings. If no crossover takes place, form two new
strings that are exact copies of their respective parents.
Mutate the two new strings at each locus with the mutation probability, and
place the resulting strings in the new population.
3. Replace the current population with the new population.
4. Go to step 2.
c)

A fitness function is a particular type of objective function that is used to summarise, as

a single figure of merit, how close a given design solution is to achieving the set aims.
In particular, in the fields of genetic programming and genetic algorithms, each design
solution is represented as a string of numbers. After each round of testing, or
simulation, the idea is to delete the 'n' worst design solutions, and to breed 'n' new ones
from the best design solutions. Each design solution, therefore, needs to be awarded a
figure of merit, to indicate how close it came to meeting the overall specification, and
this is generated by applying the fitness function to the test, or simulation, results
obtained from that solution.The reason that genetic algorithms are not a lazy way of
performing design work is precisely because of the effort involved in designing a
workable fitness function. Even though it is no longer the human designer, but the
computer, that comes up with the final design, it is the human designer who has to
design the fitness function. If this is designed wrongly, the algorithm will either converge
on an inappropriate solution, or will have difficulty converging at all.Moreover, the fitness
function must not only correlate closely with the designer's goal, it must also be
computed quickly. Speed of execution is very important, as a typical genetic algorithm
must be iterated many times in order to produce a usable result for a non-trivial
problem.Fitness approximation may be appropriate, especially in the following cases:
Fitness computation time of a single solution is extremely high
Precise model for fitness computation is missing
The fitness function is uncertain or noisy.
Two main classes of fitness functions exist: one where the fitness function does not
change, as in optimizing a fixed function or testing with a fixed set of test cases; and
one where the fitness function is mutable, as in niche differentiation or co-evolving the
set of test cases.Another way of looking at fitness functions is in terms of a fitness
landscape, which shows the fitness for each possible chromosome.Definition of the
fitness function is not straightforward in many cases and often is performed iteratively if
the fittest solutions produced by GA are not what is desired. In some cases, it is very
hard or impossible to come up even with a guess of what fitness function definition
might be. Interactive genetic algorithms address this difficulty by outsourcing evaluation
to external agents.

Reference link:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference_engine
http://cinuresearch.tripod.com/ai/www-cee-hw-ac-
uk/_alison/ai3notes/subsection2_5_3_2.html
http://expertise2go.com/webesie/tutorials/inference/