Uncertainty in

Rule-Based Expert Systems

• Fundamental ideas
• Bayesian reasoning
• Certainty factors theory
• Comparison

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 Uncertainty
• Uncertainty can be defined as the lack of exact
knowledge to reach a perfectly reliable
conclusion
• Common characteristics of info are
incomplete, inconsistent, uncertain
Æ uncertainty unavoidable
• Without uncertainty, exact rules are feasible

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 Uncertainty
• Without uncertainty, exact rules are feasible
– A = TRUE Æ A = ~FALSE
– B = FALSE Æ B = ~TRUE
• Classical logic permits only exact reasoning:
TRUE, FALSE (clear-cut knowledge)

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 Source of Uncertainty
• We can identify four main sources of uncertainty:
– Weak implications: Rule-based ES suffers from handle
vague association. It is difficult to establish concrete
correlation between condition and action part. (It needs
ability to handle vague association, e.g., by accepting the
degree of correlation.)
– Imprecise language: We describe facts with the terms
“often”, “sometimes”, “hardly”.
– Unknown data: It should accept the value ‘unknown’ and
proceed to approximate reasoning.
– Difficulty of combining the views of different experts
• different conclusion from different experts on the same question. (It
may attach a weight to each expert, then calculate the composite
conclusion.)

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 Expert Systems and Uncertainty
• ES should be able to manage uncertainties
because
– Uncertainty is unavoidable in real-world
applications
– Mechanism to allow some uncertainty in expert
system
– Most popular paradigm:
• Bayesian reasoning
• Certainty factors

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 Definition of Probability
• Probability: proportion of cases in which the
event occurs
• Scientific measure of chance
• Range : [0,1]
# Event_occured
p=
# Possible_event

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 Conditional and Joint Probability
• Conditional probability : probability that event
A will occur if event B occurs
p( A I B)
p( A | B) =
p( B)
• Joint probability (p(A ∩B)) : probability that
both event A and B occur

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 Common Relationships
p ( A ∩ B) = p ( B ∩ A)
p( A ∩ B) = p( A | B) p( B)
p ( A | B) p ( B) = p ( B | A) p ( A)
n
p ( A) = ∑ p ( A | Bi ) p ( Bi )
i =1

p ( B | A) p ( A)
p( A | B) =
p ( B | A) p ( A) + p ( B | ¬A) p (¬A)
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 Bayesian Reasoning
• Rules:
IF E is true
THEN H is true (with probability p),
where E : evidence, H : hypothesis
• When event E occurs, H will occurs with
probability p(H|E)
• p(H|E) : posterior probability

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 Bayesian Reasoning

p( E | H) p( H)
p ( H| E) =
p( E | H) p( H) + p( E | ¬H) p(¬H)
where
p(H) is the prior probability of hypothesis H being true;
p(E|H) is the probability that hypothesis H being true will result in
the evidence E;
p(~H) is the prior probability of hypothesis H being false;
p(E|~H) is the probability of finding evidence E even when
hypothesis H is false.

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 Multiple Hypotheses
• Select a hypothesis from a number of
hypotheses to explain the current evidence

p( E | H i ) p( H i )
p( H i | E ) = m

∑ p( E | H
k =1
k ) p( H k )

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 Multiple Evidences, Multiple Hypothesis
• Select a hypothesis from a number of
hypotheses to support the existing multiple
evidences

p ( E1 E2 ...En | H i ) p ( H i )
p ( H i | E1 E2 ...En ) = m

∑ p( E E ...E
k =1
1 2 n | H k ) p( H k )

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 Difficulty and Solution
• All cases of conditional probabilities must be
known
• Assume conditional independence among
evidences
p ( E1 | H i ) p ( E2 | H i )... p( En | H i ) p ( H i )
p( H i | E1 E2 ...En ) = m

∑ p( E
k =1
1 | H k ) p ( E2 | H k )... p ( En | H k ) p ( H k )

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 Computation Example
Hypothesis
Probability i=1 i=2 i=3
p(Hi) 0.40 0.35 0.25
P(E1|Hi) 0.3 0.8 0.5
P(E2|Hi) 0.9 0.0 0.7
P(E3|Hi) 0.6 0.7 0.9
Find P(Hi|E3), P(Hi|E1E3) and P(Hi|E1E2E3)

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 Case Study: FORECAST
• See Table 3.3 (page 66)
• Two basic rules
– 1: Today is rain. Æ Tomorrow is rain.
– 2: Today is dry. Æ Tomorrow is dry.
– Error: 10 mistakes in 30 forecasts

How to include probability into rules….

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Parameters for Belief in Hypothesis
• Likelihood of Sufficiency (LS): measure of the expert
belief in hypothesis H if evidence E is present.
p( E | H )
LS =
p ( E | ¬H )
• Likelihood of Necessity (LN): measure of discredit to
hypothesis H if evidence E is missing.
p ( ¬E | H )
LN =
p ( ¬E | ¬H )
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 Determination of LN and LS
• Directly decided by experts
• High LS (LS >> 1) : rule strongly supports the
hypothesis
• Low LN (0 < LN < 1): rule strongly opposes
the hypothesis in case of missing evidence
• LN cannot be derived from LS

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 Probability Inclusion
• Assume each event equally possible (p = 0.5)
• Two adapted rules:
– 1: Today is rain {LS 2.5, LN .6} Æ Tomorrow is
rain {prior 0.5}
– 2: Today is dry {LS 1.6, LN .4} Æ Tomorrow is
dry {prior 0.5}

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Calculation for Overall Probability
• Objective: find max. posterior probabilities
• Use prior probability for the 1st calculation
• Update by LS if the evidence is true
• Update by LN if the evidence is false
• Continue until all events are applied

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 Prior Odd
• Define prior odd: ratio of the occurrence to
non-occurrence
p( H )
O( H ) =
1 − p( H )
• Help in easy calculation of the posterior
probability

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Find Posterior Probability by O(H)
O( H | E ) = LS × O( H )
O( H | ¬E ) = LN × O( H )
O( H | E )
p( H | E ) =
1 + O( H | E )
O ( H | ¬E )
p ( H | ¬E ) =
1 + O ( H | ¬E )
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 FORECAST: Rules (1)
• 1: Today is rain (LS 2.5, LN 0.6) Æ Tomorrow
is rain {prior 0.5}
• 2: Today is dry (LS 1.6, LN 0.4) Æ Tomorrow
is dry {prior 0.5}
• 3: Today is rain and rainfall is low (LS 10, LN
1) Æ Tomorrow is dry {prior 0.5}

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 FORECAST: Rules (2)
• 4: Today is rain; rainfall is low and
temperature is cold (LS 1.5, LN 1) Æ
Tomorrow is dry {prior 0.5}
• 5: Today is dry and temperature is warm (LS 2,
LN 0.9) Æ Tomorrow is rain {prior 0.5}
• 6: Today is dry; temperature is warm and sky
is overcast (LS 5, LN 1) Æ Tomorrow is rain
{prior 0.5}

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 Information about Today
• Weather: rain
– use rules with the event on weather
• Rainfall: low
– use rules with the event on rainfall
• Temperature: cold
– use rules with the event on temperature
• Cloud cover: overcast
– use rules with the event on cloud cover
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 Bayesian Inference
• Describes the application domain as a set of
possible outcomes termed hypotheses
• Requires an initial probability for each
hypothesis in the problem, prior probability
• Updates probabilities using evidence
• Each piece of evidence may update the
probability of a set of hypotheses

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 Problems of Bayesian Method
• People are bad probability estimators
• Prior probability may inconsistent with LS &
LN
• Conditional independence of evidence rarely
satisfied
• Requires massive amount of data
• Impractical for large knowledge bases

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 Certainty Factor Theory
• It is a popular alternative to Bayesian
reasoning
• It is not reliable on statistical data of the
problem domain
• Certainty factor (c.f.) is used for measuring
expert believes

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 Certainty Factor Theory
• It expresses belief in an event .
– Fact or hypothesis
• It is based on evidence.
– Expert assessment
• Composite number can be used to guide
reasoning
• Hypotheses are ranked after all evidence has
been considered
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 Certainty Factor Theory
• Certainty factor, cf(x), is a measure of how
confident we are in x
• Range from -1 to +1
– cf = -1 very uncertain
– cf = +1 very certain
– cf = 0 neutral
• Certainty factors are relative measures
• Do not translate to measure of absolute belief
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 Strength of Belief
• Certainty factor, cf(x), combine belief and
disbelief into a single number based on some
evidence
• Measure of Belief, MB(H, E)
• Measure of Disbelief, MD(H, E)
• Strength of belief or disbelief in H depends on
the kind of evidence E observed.

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 Belief
• Positive cf implies evidence supports
hypothesis since MB > MD
• cf of 1 means evidence definitely supports the
hypothesis
• cf of 0 means either there is no evidence or the
belief is cancelled out by the disbelief.
• Negative cf implies that the evidence favors
negation of hypothesis since MB < MD
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 cf and Probabilities
MB( H , E ) − MD( H , E )
cf =
1 − min[MB( H , E ), MD( H , E )]
⎧ 1 ; p(H) = 1
⎪ max[ p ( H | E ), p ( H )] − p ( H )
MB( H , E ) = ⎨
; otherwise
⎪⎩ max[1,0] − p ( H )
⎧ 1 ; p(H) = 0
⎪ min[ p ( H | E ), p ( H )] − p ( H )
MD( H , E ) = ⎨
; otherwise
⎪⎩ min[1,0] − p ( H )
MB : Measure of Belief, MD : Measure of Disbelief
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Rules in Certainty Factors Theory
IF <evidence> THEN <hypothesis> {cf}
Term Certainty factor
Definitely not -1.0
Almost certainly not -0.8
Probably not -0.6
Maybe not -0.4
Unknown -0.2 to 0.2
Maybe +0.4
Probably +0.6
Almost certainly +0.8
Definitely +1.0
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 Example of Rules
• IF A is X
THEN B is Y {cf 0.7}
B is Z {cf 0.2}
• More than one value assigned to B
• For the remaining 10%, anything can happen
including value not yet been observed.

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 Propagation of cf
• cf(H,E) = cf(E) × cf
• E.g.
IF the sky is clear
THEN the forecast is sunny {cf 0.8}
Current cf for the sky is clear= 0.5
cf(H,E) = 0.5 × 0.8 = 0.4
Æ It maybe sunny

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 Propagation of cf
• Factor, cf, assigned by the rule is propagated
through the reasoning chain.
• Calculates the net certainty of the consequent
when the evidence for the antecedent is
uncertain

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 Stanford Certainty Factor Algebra
• There are rules to combine cfs of several facts
– cf(x1) AND cf(x2) = min((cf(x1), cf(x2))
– cf(x1) OR cf(x2) = max(cf(x1), cf(x2))
• A rule may also have a certainty factor cf(rule)
– cf(action) = cf(condition) cf(rule)

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 Multiple Evidences: Conjunctive Rules
• A hypothesis implied from a number of evidences
cf ( H , E1 ∩ E 2 ∩ ... ∩ E n ) =
min[ cf ( E1 ), cf ( E 2 ),..., cf ( E n )] × cf
• Example
IF sky is clear {cf 0.9}
AND the forecast is sunny {cf 0.7}
THEN the action is “wear sunglasses” {cf 0.8}

cf(H, E1 and E2) = min(0.9,0.7) x 0.8 = 0.7 x 0.8 = 0.56

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 Multiple Evidence: Disjunctive Rules
• A hypothesis implied from one or more evidences
cf ( H , E1 ∪ E2 ∪ ... ∪ En ) =
max[cf ( E1 ), cf ( E2 ),..., cf ( En )] × cf
• Example
IF sky is overcast {cf 0.6}
OR the forecast is rain {cf 0.8}
THEN the action is “take an umbrella” {cf 0.8}
cf(H, E1 or E2) = max(0.6, 0.8) x 0.8 = 0.8 x 0.9 =0.72

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 Rules Combination
• Rules that lead to the same hypothesis
• Rule 1: IF A is X
THEN C is Z {cf 0.8}
• Rule 2: IF B is Y
THEN C is Z {cf 0.6}
How to combine the two rules…

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 Combined cf

⎧cf1 + cf 2 (1 − cf1 ) ; cf1 > 0 ∩ cf 2 > 0

⎪⎪ cf1 + cf 2
cf (cf1 , cf 2 ) = ⎨ ; cf1 < 0 ∪ cf 2 < 0
⎪1 − min( cf1 , cf 2 )
⎪⎩cf1 + cf 2 (1 + cf1 ) ; cf1 < 0 ∩ cf 2 < 0

Combine according to the confidence of the

hypothesis from each evidence.

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 Consequent from multiple rules
• cf(E1) = cf(E2) =1.0
• cf1(H,E1) = cf(E1) x cf = 1.0 x 0.8 = 0.8
• cf2(H,E2) = cf(E2) x cf = 1.0 x 0.6 = 0.6
• cf(cf1, cf2) = cf1(H, E1)
+ cf2(H, E2) x [1 – cf1(H, E1)]
= 0.8 + 0.6 x (1 – 0.8) = 0.92

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 FORECAST: Rules for cf (1)
• Control cf
• Control “threshold 0.01”
• 1: Today is rain Æ Tomorrow is rain {cf 0.5}
• 2: Today is dry Æ Tomorrow is dry {cf 0.5}
• 3: Today is rain and rainfall is low Æ
Tomorrow is day {cf 0.6}

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 FORECAST: Rules for cf (2)
• 4: Today is rain; rainfall is low and
temperature is cold Æ Tomorrow is dry {cf
0.7}
• 5: Today is dry and temperature is warm Æ
Tomorrow is rain {cf 0.65}
• 6: Today is dry; temperature is warm and sky
is overcast Æ Tomorrow is rain {cf 0.55}
• Seek tomorrow
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 Information about Today
• Weather: rain
• Rainfall: low with cf of 0.8
• Temperature: cold with cf of 0.9

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 Certainty Factors
• Practical alternative to Bayesian reasoning
• Heuristic manner of combining certainty
factors differs from the way in which they
would be combined if they were probabilities
• Not mathematically pure
• Does mimic thinking process of human expert

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Comparison of Bayesian Reasoning &
Certainty Factors
• Bayesian Reasoning
– Use probability theory
– Works well in areas such as forecasting &
planning, or the areas where statistical data are
available and probability statements made.
– Relies on statistical information
– If the assumption of conditional independence
cannot be made, it may lead to dissatisfaction with
the method.
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Comparison of Bayesian Reasoning &
Certainty Factors
• Certainty Factors
– Lack mathematical correctness of probability
theory
– Outperforms Bayesian reasoning in areas such as
diagnostics and particularly medicine
– Used in cases where probabilities are not known
or too difficult or expensive to obtain
– Evidential reasoning
– Provide better explanations of control flow
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 Bayesian Reasoning VS cf
Bayesian Reasoning Certainty Factor Theory
• Example: • Example:
PROSPECTOR MYCIN

Both aim for ES to be able to quantify personal,

subjective and qualitative information.

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