Expert Systems in Business

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Introduction to Expert Systems

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 Terminologies
• Data: Unorganized and unprocessed facts; static; a
set of discrete facts about events
• Information: Aggregation of data that makes
decision making easier

Knowledge is derived from

information in the same way
information is derived from data; it
is a person’s range of information

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 What is Knowledge
• Knowledge is understanding of information based on
its perceived importance or relevance to a problem
domain
• Knowledge includes facts about the real world
entities and the relationship between them
– It is an Understanding gained through experience
– familiarity with the way to perform a task
– an accumulation of facts, procedural rules, or heuristics

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 Types of Knowledge
– Shallow
• Surface level
• Input-output
• Based on empirical and heuristic knowledge.
– Deep
• Problem solving
• Difficult to collect, validate
• Interactions betwixt system components
• Based on basic structure, function, and behavior
of objects
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 Types of Knowledge
• Explicit Knowledge
– It is what you see, read, or access
– Formalized and codified (in repositories)
– Know-what
– Easy to identify, store, retrieve and modification
– Less important (Brown and Duguid 1991)
• Tacit Knowledge
– Know-how
– Include intuitions(awarness), values and beliefs stem from experience
– Context dependent and personal in nature
– Hard to communicate (Polanyi 1966)
– It is the most valuable source of knowledge

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.

Explicit
Codified knowledge found
in documents, databases,
etc.
It is essential for transfer
and storage

Tacit Knowledge
• Intuitive knowledge & know-how, which is:
• Rooted in context, experience, practice & values
• Hard to communicate,- resides in the mind of the practitioners
• The best Source of long term competitive advantage and innovation

• Transferred through socialization, mentoring, etc.

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 Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• AI is a branch of computer science that aims to
create intelligent machines that work and react
like humans (technopediA).
• Intelligence is the capacity to acquire and apply
knowledge
• Core problems of AI include programming
computers for certain traits such as speech
recognition, reasoning, learning, planning,
ability to manipulate and move objects.
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 Some areas of AI
. Robotics
Vision

Speech
Natural
Language

Artificial
Neural
Systems Understa
nding

Expert
Systems

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 What is Expert Systems (ES)?
• Expert Systems is one of the successful areas of AI
• ES is an intelligent computer program that uses a knowledge
and inference procedure to solve problems that are difficult
enough to require significant human expertise for their
solution. (Feigenbaum)
• That is, an ES is a computer system that emulate the decision
making ability of human experts
• The term Emulate means that the ES is intended to act in all
respects like a human experts. It can replace the original for
real use. It will have to operate close to real things
• Emulation is much stronger than simulation which is required
to act like the real thing in some respects
• Simulator is a model for study and analysis
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• It’s the branch of AI that makes the extensive use of specialized
knowledge to solve problems at the level of human expert
• Expert is a person who has an expertise (special skills) in
certain area
• It can solve problems that most people cannot solve or can
solve much more efficiently (but not as cheap)
• Firstly attempts were made to develop the general problem
solver type of ES
• But it failed to address the all problems, because the knowledge
acquisition and Knowledge engineering is too vast area
• ES functions well in their restricted domains.
• The knowledge in ES may be either expertise or knowledge
that may be available from books, magazines, or
knowledgeable person.
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 Knowledge Base
• Knowledge base is used to store facts and rules.
• In order to solve problems, the computer needs
an internal model of the world.
– This model contains, for example, the description
of relevant objects and the relations between these
objects.
– All information must be stored in such a way that it
is readily accessible.
– Various methods have been used for KR, such as
logic, semantic networks, frames, scripts, etc...

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 Basic Concept of ES Functions
.

Facts
Knowledge base
Expertise

User Expert System

Inference Engine

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• The user supplies facts and other information to the
expert system and receives the expert advice or
expertise in response
• Internally, the ES consists of two main components
(knowledge based & inference engine)
• Knowledge base contains the knowledge with which
the inference engine draws conclusions.
• The conclusions are the ES’s responses to the user’s
queries for expertise
• IE is the brain of the ES

• The control structure (rule interpreter)

• Provides methodology for reasoning

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• Useful KBS have also been designed to act as an
intelligent assistant to a human experts
• These intelligent assistants are designed with expert
system technology (i.e. special ES language,
programs, & hardware designed to aid in
development and execution of ES ) because of the
development advantage.
• As more knowledge is added to intelligent assistant,
it acts like an expert system
• It’s development may be useful milestone in
producing a complete ES.
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• An expert’s knowledge is specific to one problem
domain as opposed to knowledge about general
problem-solving techniques
• A problem domain is special problem area such as
medicine, finance, science, engineering, etc. that an
expert can solve problems in very well
• Like human experts, ES are generally designed to be
experts in one problem domain
• Expertise in one problem domain does not
automatically carry over to another.
• Example: you would not normally expect a chess
expert to have expert knowledge about medicine.
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• Knowledge domain is experts knowledge about
solving specific problem
• For example, a medical expert system designed
to diagnose infectious diseases will have a great
deal of knowledge about certain symptoms
caused by infectious diseases.
• In this case, it consists of knowledge about
diseases, symptoms, and treatments.
• The problem domain is always a superset of the
knowledge domain.
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 Relationship between problem & knowledge
domain
.

Problem domain
Knowledge
domain

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• Notice that, knowledge domain is entirely
included within the problem domain.
• Portion outside the knowledge domain
symbolizes an area in which there is not
knowledge about all the problems.
• That means one medical expert system usually
does not have knowledge about other branches
of medicine such as surgery or others.
• Note: expert system would not know anything
about other knowledge domains unless it should
be programmed with domain knowledge
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 Advantages of Expert Systems
• Increased availability
– Expertise is available on any suitable computer hardware

• Reduced cost
– The cost of providing expertise per user is greatly lowered

• Reduced danger
– ES can be used in environments that might be hazardous for a human

• Permanence-the expertise is permanent

– Unlike human expertise who may retire, quit, die, the ES’s knowledge will last
indefinitely

• Multiple expertise
– The level of expertise combined from several experts may exceed that of a
single human expert

• Increased reliability

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 Advantages continued

• Explanation
– Explain in detail the reasoning that led to conclusion
– A human may bee too tired, unwilling, or may be unable to do this at all time
• Fast response
– Depending on the software and hardware used an ES may respond faster and
more available than human expert
• Steady, unemotional, and complete responses at all time
– It’s very important in real time and emergence situations, when a human expert
can not operate at peak efficiency because of stress and fatigue
• Intelligent tutor
– It may act as an intelligent tutor by letting some programs and explaining the
systems reasoning.
• Intelligent database
– ES can also used to access a database in an intelligent manner

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 Representing a Knowledge
The knowledge of an expert system can be
represented in a number of ways, including IF-
THEN rules:

IF the light is red THEN stop

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 The General Stages in Development of
an Expert System
• The process of building an expert system known as knowledge
engineering and is done by knowledge engineer
Steps:
1. The knowledge engineer establishes a dialog with the human expert to
elicit knowledge
– This stage is analogous to a system designer in conventional programming
disussing the system requirement with client
2. The knowledge engineer codes the knowledge explicitly in the
knowledge base.
3. The expert evaluates the expert system and gives a critique to the
knowledge engineer
This process iterates until the system performance is judged by the expert
to be satisfactory.

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.

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 Development continued
• ES are generally designed differently from
conventional programs because the problems
usually have no algorithmic solution and relay
on inferences to achevie a reasonable solution
• Because ES relies on inference, it must be able
to explain it’s reasoning so that it’s reasoning
can be checked
• An explanation facility is an itegral part of
sophesticated ES.

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 Conventional vs. Expert System
Conventional Expert System
Information and its processing are usually Knowledge base is clearly separated from the
combined into one sequential program processing(inference) mechanism (knowledge
rules separated from control)

Program does not make mistakes Program may make mistakes

(programmers do)
Do not(usually) explain why input data are Explanation is a part of most ES
needed or how conclusions are drawn
Execution is done on a step-by-step(algorithmic) Execution is done by using heuristics and logic
basis

Effective manipulation of large databases Effective manipulation of large knowledge bases

Representation and use of data Representation and use of knowledge

Capture, magnify, and distribute access to Capture, magnify, and distribute access to
numeric data or to information judgment and knowledge

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 Characteristics of ES
• An ES is usually designed to have the following general
characteristics
• High performance:
– Capable of responding at the level of competency equal to or better than that of expert in the
field.
– That is, quality of advice given by the system must be high
• Adequate response time
– System must also perform in a reasonable amount of time, comparable to or better than the time required by an
expert to reach at decision.

• Good reliability
– It should be reliable and not prone to crashes or it will not be used

• Understandable
– It should be able to explain the steps of it’s reasoning while executing so
that it is understandable.
– It should have an explanation capability in the same way as a human expert
explain their reasoning

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• Explanation feature is very important for several
reasons
– Human life and property may depend on the answers
of expert system
– In the development phase of ES to confirm that the
knowledge has been correctly acquired and being
correctly used by the system
• Flexibility
– Because of large amount of knowledge that an ES may have it’s
important to have an efficient mechanism for adding, changing, and
deleting knowledge

• Depending on the system, an explanation

facility may be simple or elaborate
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 Early Expert Systems
• DENDRAL
– Used to identify the structure of chemical
compounds. First used in 1965
• MYCIN
– Medical diagnosis of illness
• DIPMETER
– Geological data analysis for oil
• PROSPECTOR
– Geological data analysis for minerals
• XCON/R1
– Configuring computer systems

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 Elements of Expert System
• User interface – mechanism by which user and
system communicate.
– NLP, or menus and graphics
• Exploration facility – explains reasoning of
expert system to user.
• Working memory – global database of facts
used by rules.
• Inference engine – makes inferences deciding
which rules are satisfied and prioritizing.
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• Agenda – a prioritized list of rules created by the
inference engine, whose patterns are satisfied (activated
or instantiated) by facts or objects in working memory.
• Multiple activated rules may be on agenda at the same
time, in which case IE must select one rule for firing
• Knowledge acquisition facility (optional in many
systems) – automatic way for the user to enter
knowledge in the system bypassing the explicit coding
by knowledge engineer.
– For example
• Knowledge Base – includes the rules of the expert
system

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Structure of Rule Based ES

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 Elements continued
• The KB is also called the production memory in rule based
ES
• For example, consider the problem of deciding to
cross a street
• The production for two rules are as follows, where
the arrow mean the system will perform the action
on the right of the arrow if the conditions on the
left are true
The light is red stop
The light is green go

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 Elements continued
• The production rules can be expressed in an equivalent pseudo code
IF…THEN format as:
Rule: Red_light
IF
the light is red
THEN
stop
Rule: Green_light
IF
the light is green
THEN
go

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 General Methods of Inference
• Forward chaining is reasoning from facts to the conclusions
resulting from those facts
– E.g. If you see that it is raining before leaving home (the fact)
then you should take an umbrella (the conclusion)
– Examples: CLIPS, OPS5
• Backward chaining involves reasoning in reverse from a
hypothesis, a potential conclusion to be proved to the facts that
support the hypothesis
– E.g. If you have not looked outside and someone enters with
wet(rainy) shoes and an umbrella, your hypothesis is that it is
raining. In order to support this hypothesis you could ask the
person if it was, in fact, raining. If response is yes, then the
hypothesis is proved true and become fact.
– Examples: MYCIN
• Hypothesis is the fact whose truth is in doubt and needs to be
established
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 Inference Engine Cycle

• Inference Engine operates in cycles. It determine the execution

of the rules by the following cycles.
• Conflict resolution
– Select the rule with the highest priority from the agenda
•Act ( execution)
– Sequentially perform the actions of the selected rules
– Remove rule with non satisfied agendas
•Match
• Update the agendas
– Add rules whose antecedents are satisfied to the agenda
– Remove with non satisfied agendas
• Check for halt
• End if halt action or break command performed
• Accept a new use command

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 Difference between ES and KBS
• Knowledge based systems can be built more
easily and quickly than expert systems. What
distinguishes expert systems from knowledge
based systems is their the amount of expertise
they have.
• Debates surrounding ES (Reading
Assignment)

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 Limitations (why ES fails)
• Uncertainty in data, knowledge
• Technological limitations

• Implementation hindrances from human experts

• Inconsistency in the knowledge base

• Choosing the incompatible ES model.
• Knowledge is not always readily available

• Expertise can be hard to extract from humans

• ES work well only in a narrow domain of knowledge

• Knowledge engineers are rare and expensive

• Lack of trust by end-users

• ES may not be able to arrive at valid conclusions

• ES sometimes produce incorrect recommendations

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 Individual assignment 1
Total Mark 10% (Report 5%, Question answering 5%)
1. Discuss in detail the different types of expert
systems
Submission date: Monday, 22/04/2019

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 Expert System Today
• Today Expert systems are involve in every field for
decision making and consultation from ES have achieved
a degree of confidence.
• Increased use of expert systems in business and
technological applications.
• Integration with other systems DSS,ESS
• More intelligent domain specific decision support
becoming object oriented, frame based, integrated,
component based.
• Replacement of expert: long term revenue
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 Market understanding of ES
• The first successful expert system DENDRAL, developed
by Fiegenbaum, demonstrated a focused problem-solving
• The Expert system market is growing at the rapid speed
• In the recent past there have been much more
developments academic , research and development based
ES ,training and simulation based ES, Medical expert
systems, configuration and the process control ES.
• There are built in tools and components available for the
different sectors in which an organization can purchase
the required Expert system components.
•
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• The installation, implementation and the ES in
components form is easy to accommodate in the
market because they can immediately start working.
• Even they can start working in the process of
development, there is no need to stop all the work of
the organization who want to install and use the
expert system in future business operations.
• Different companies have started to integrate their
Decision Support System and Executive information
systems with the expert systems so that decision
making process is more accurate.

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 Expert system for competitive advantage
• How the organizations get competitive advantage by using expert
systems?
• The Expert systems are providing the organizations support in
every field today, and organization which use the expert systems
for decision making is getting more business, more revenue, better
allocation of resources, saving the costs, making their products
more better by taking the advices of expert system.
• So we call them that the organizations are competing for getting
their knowledge stored in better way. The different organizations
has proven that they successfully developed the computer based
expert system in the past.
• Previously all the work which was done by experts is now done by
expert systems.

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The organizations get following advantages over others by using the expert systems:
1. Provision of training: The Expert systems can provide the training to
the new employees of a company, therefore the company which has
expert systems have greater advantage on other
companies/organizations.
2. Enhancement of problem solving: organizations increases their
skills in problem solving by simply using the expert systems in more
decision making processes.
3. Ability to solve complex problems: The Expert systems can not only
solve the general problems but now a days they are being used in
solving the complex problems also.
4. Knowledge transfer to the remote locations: Expert systems
are software based and they can be easily installed at a
computer in remote areas where human expert is not available

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 Application of Expert Systems
• The spectrum of applications of expert systems technology to industrial
and commercial problems is so wide as to defy easy characterization.
• Applications tend to cluster into seven major classes.
• Diagnosis and Troubleshooting of Devices and Systems of All Kinds
– Comprises systems that deduce faults and suggest corrective actions
for a malfunctioning device or process
– Medical diagnosis was one of the first knowledge areas to which ES
technology was applied
• Planning and Scheduling
– To determine a set of actions to achieve those goals, and/or provide a
detailed temporal ordering of those actions, taking into account
personnel, materiel, and other constraints.
– Examples involve airline scheduling of flights, personnel, and gates;
manufacturing job-shop scheduling; and manufacturing process
planning. 46
• Financial Decision Making
– ES assist bankers in determining whether to make loans to businesses and
individuals (advisory).
– Insurance companies to assess the risk presented by the customer and to
determine a price for the insurance.
– Foreign exchange trading.
• Knowledge Publishing
– Advisor which counsels a user on appropriate grammatical usage in a text
– Tax advisor that accompanies a tax preparation program and advises the
user on tax strategy, tactics, and individual tax policy
• Process Monitoring and Control
– Analyze real-time data from physical devices with the goal of noticing
anomalies, predicting trends, and controlling for both optimality and failure
correction
• Design and Manufacturing
– Assist in the design of physical devices and processes,

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