COLLEGE OF INFORMATICS

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM

Expert System Individual Assignment

SECTION: B
NAME: ID.NO
Dagnaw Metalem 0600/11

Submitted to: T/Getachew Wassie

Submitted date: 02/10/2013
Contents
1,Reasoning...........................................................................................................................................1
Why is reasoning important in our daily life?....................................................................................1
How do you do reasoning?................................................................................................................1
Logical Reasoning..........................................................................................................................1
2,Rule-based reasoning (RBR)................................................................................................................2
Advantages of the rule-based reasoning...........................................................................................2
Disadvantages of the rule-based reasoning.......................................................................................2
Limitations of Rule-Based Representations.......................................................................................3
3,Case-based reasoning.........................................................................................................................3
4,Reasoning under uncertainty.............................................................................................................4
Why Reason Probabilistically?...........................................................................................................4
5,Fuzzy Expert System...........................................................................................................................5
What are fuzzy systems?...................................................................................................................6
6,Heuristic expert system......................................................................................................................7
What Are Heuristics?.........................................................................................................................7
7, Knowledge-based systems (KBS).......................................................................................................7
Advantages OF Heuristic expert system............................................................................................8
Disadvantages OF Heuristic expert system........................................................................................8
8, Knowledge engineering.....................................................................................................................9
 Role of the Knowledge Engineer................................................................................................9
1,Reasoning
 Reasoning is the act of driving a conclusion from certain premises using
a given methodology.
 Reasoning is a process of thinking; reasoning is logically arguing;
reasoning is drawing inference.
 Any knowledge system must reason, if it is required to do something,
which has not been told explicitly.
 For reasoning, the system must figure (find) out what it needs to know
from what it already knows.
 Why is reasoning important in our daily life?
o Reasoning actually checks your mental ability as in your decision makings skills or
your ability to analyze different aspects etc. Reasoning makes you think rationally, it
will help you to make decisions efficiently and very effectively
o Reasoning consists of tests for your mental skills like decision making, analysis
ability, knowledge of variables etc. which make you able to think more rationally,
take decision efficiently and effectively and making you an overall astute. ... So, this
is why reasoning is important in our daily life.
o Reasoning practically in our daily lives involves deciding what to do and when
successful, issuing in anintention. Importantly, we are to remember that a problem of
reasoning about actions is given in terms of aninitial situation, a terminal situation, a
set of feasible actions, a set of constraints and such alike. actually accomplishing by
arriving for Thanksgiving. As we take each step by stepthought and action,
we are reminded to do so logically and with good reasoning for the best
results. In additionwe often apply common sense in our daily routine.

 How do you do reasoning?

 Familiarity is key. Logical reasoning tests can look very complex at first glance. ...
 Have a system. ...
 Don't spend your first moments looking at the answers. ...
 Practice thinking logically. ..
 Practice makes perfect

 Logical Reasoning

 Logic is a language for reasoning. It is a collection of rules called Logic

arguments, we use when doing logical reasoning.

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  Logic reasoning is the process of drawing conclusions from premises
using rules of inference.
 The study of logic is divided into formal and informal logic. The formal
logic is sometimes called symbolic logic.
 Symbolic logic is the study of abstractions (construct) that capture the
formal features of logical inference by a formal system.
 Formal system consists of two components, a formal language plus a
set of inference rules. The formal system has axioms.
 Axiom is a sentence that is always true within the system.
 Sentences are derived using the system’s axioms and rules of derivation
are called theorems.

2,Rule-based reasoning (RBR)

 Rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR) are
two complementary alternatives for building knowledge-based
“intelligent” decision-support systems.
 The first approach is closely related to expert systems. 
 Expert Systems (ES) are typically defined as computer programs
that emulate the decision-making ability of a human expert.
 Advantages of the rule-based reasoning
 Availability: Availability of the system for the user is not an issue
 Cost efficient: This system is cost efficient and accurate in terms of its end result
 Speed: You can optimize the system as you know all the parts of the system. So to
provide output in a few seconds is not a big issue
 Accuracy and less error rate: Although coverage for different scenarios is less,
whatever scenarios are covered by the RB system will provide high accuracy.
Because of these predefined rules, the error rate is also less

 Disadvantages of the rule-based reasoning

 Disadvantages of rule-based reasoning include:
 Often the rules obtained from human experts are highly heuristic in nature, and do not
capture functional or modelbased knowledge of the domain.
 Heuristic rules tend to be “brittle” and can have difficulty handling missing
information or unexpected data values.
 Another aspect of the brittleness of rules is a tendency to degrade rapidly near the
“edges” of the domain knowledge. Unlike humans, rule-based systems are usually

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 unable to fall back on first principles of reasoning when confronted with novel
problems.

 Limitations of Rule-Based Representations

 Can be difficult to create

 the “knowledge engineering” problem

 Can be difficult to maintain

 in large rule-bases, adding a rule can cause many unforeseen

interactions and effects => difficult to debug

 Many types of knowledge are not easily represented by rules

 Uncertain knowledge: “if it is cold it will probably rain”

 Information which changes over time.

 Procedural information (e.g. a sequence of tests to diagnose a

disease).

3,Case-based reasoning
o Case-based reasoning solves problems by retrieving similar,
previously solved problems and reusing their solutions.
o Experiences are memorized as cases in a case base. Each experience
is learned as a problem or situation together with its corresponding
solution or action.
o The experience need not record how the solution was reached, simply
that the solution was used for the problem.
o The case base acts as a memory, and remembering is achieved using
similarity-based retrieval and reuse of the retrieved solutions.
o Newly solved problems may be retained in the case base and so the
memory is able to grow as problem-solving occurs.
 Case-based reasoning (CBR), broadly construed, is the process of solving
new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems.An
auto mechanic who fixes an engineby recalling another car that exhibited
similar symptoms is using case-based reasoning.
 Case-based reasoning has been formalized for purposes of computer
reasoning as a four-step process:

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 1. Retrieve: Given a target problem, retrieve from memory cases relevant to
solving it. A case consists of a problem, its solution, and, typically,
annotations about how the solution was derived. For example, suppose
Fred wants to prepare blueberry pancakes. Being a novice cook, the most
relevant experience he can recall is one in which he successfully made
plain pancakes.
2. Reuse: Map the solution from the previous case to the target problem.
This may involve adapting the solution as needed to fit the new situation.
In the pancake example, Fred must adapt his retrieved solution to include
the addition of blueberries.
3. Revise: Having mapped the previous solution to the target situation, test
the new solution in the real world (or a simulation) and, if necessary,
revise. Suppose Fred adapted his pancake solution by adding blueberries
to the batter. After mixing, he discovers that the batter has turned blue
an undesired effect. This suggests the following revision: delay the
addition of blueberries until after the batter has been ladled into the pan.
4. Retain: After the solution has been successfully adapted to the target
problem, store the resulting experience as a new case in memory. Fred,
accordingly, records his new-found procedure for making blueberry
pancakes, thereby enriching his set of stored experiences, and better
preparing him for future pancake-making demands.

4,Reasoning under uncertainty

 Reasoning under uncertainty is also known as probabilistic reasoning. A

resolution is explained in which the support of the information for the
diagnosis or prognosis is measured by the comparison of two
probabilities, a statistic also known as the likelihood ratio.
 Why Reason Probabilistically?

 In many problem domains it isn't possible to create complete, consistent

models of the world. Therefore agents (and people) must act in uncertain
worlds (which the real world is).
 Want an agent to make rational decisions even when there is not enough
information to prove that an action will work.
 Some of the reasons for reasoning under uncertainty:
o True uncertainty. E.g., flipping a coin.
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 o Theoretical ignorance. There is no complete theory which is known
about the problem domain. E.g., medical diagnosis.
o Laziness. The space of relevant factors is very large, and would
require too much work to list the complete set of antecedents and
consequents. Furthermore, it would be too hard to use the
enormous rules that resulted.
o Practical ignorance. Uncertain about a particular individual in the
domain because all of the information necessary for that individual
has not been collected.
 Probability theory will serve as the formal language for representing and
reasoning with uncertain knowledge.

5,Fuzzy Expert System

 A Fuzzy Expert System (FES) is a type of rule-based form of artificial

intelligence using a collection of membership functions and rules to
reason about data.
 Put as simply as possible, a fuzzy expert system is an expert system that
uses fuzzy logic instead of Boolean logic.
 In other words, a fuzzy expert system is a collection of membership
functions and rules that are used to reason about data.
 Unlike conventional expert systems, which are mainly symbolic
reasoning engines, fuzzy expert systems are oriented toward numerical
processing.
 The rules in a fuzzy expert system are usually of a form similar to the
following:
 if x is low and y is high then z = medium
 where xand y are input variables (names for know data values),
 zis an output variable (a name for a data value to be computed), low is
a membership function (fuzzy subset) defined on x, high is a
membership function defined on y, and medium is a membership
function defined on z.
 The part of the rule between the "if" and "then" is the rule's premise or
antecedent.
 This is a fuzzy logic expression that describes to what degree the rule is
applicable.

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  The part of the rule following the "then" is the rule's _conclusion_ or
consequent.
 This part of the rule assigns a membership function to each of one or
more output variables. Most tools for working with fuzzy expert
systems allow more than one conclusion per rule.
 A typical fuzzy expert system has more than one rule.
 The entire group of rules is collectively known as arulebase_ or _knowledge
base.

What are fuzzy systems?

 It works on fuzzy logic, which superset of conventional (Boolean) logic that has been
extended to handle the concept of partial truth -- truth values between "completely
true" and "completely false".
 It provides a systematic, intuitive and mathematical means of handling uncertainty in
natural and artificial systems

 The benefits of using Fuzzy Logic systems are as follows:

 It is a robust system where no precise inputs are required
 These systems are able to accommodate several types of inputs
including vague, distorted or imprecise data
 In case the feedback sensor stops working, you can reprogram it
according to the situation
 The Fuzzy Logic algorithms can be coded using less data, so they do
not occupy a huge memory space
 As it resembles human reasoning, these systems are able to solve
complex problems where ambiguous inputs are available and take
decisions accordingly
 These systems are flexible and the rules can be modified
 The systems have a simple structure and can be constructed easily
 You can save system costs as inexpensive sensors can be
accommodated by these systems.

 Let us look at the drawbacks of Fuzzy Logic systems:

 The accuracy of these systems is compromised as the system mostly
works on inaccurate data and inputs

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  There is no single systematic approach to solve a problem using Fuzzy
Logic. As a result, many solutions arise for a particular problem,
leading to confusion
 Due to inaccuracy in results, they are not always widely accepted
 A major drawback of Fuzzy Logic control systems is that they are
completely dependent on human knowledge and expertise
 You have to regularly update the rules of a Fuzzy Logic control
system
 These systems cannot recognize machine learning or neural networks
 The systems require a lot of testing for validation and verification.

6,Heuristic expert system

What Are Heuristics?
 A heuristic, or a heuristictechnique, is any approach to problem solving
that uses a practical method or various shortcuts in order to produce
solutions that may not be optimal but are sufficient given a limited
timeframe or deadline.

 Heuristics methods are intended to be flexible and are used for quick
decisions, especially when finding an optimal solution is either
impossible or impractical and when working with complex data.

 Heuristics are methods for solving problems in a quick way that delivers
a result that is sufficient enough to be useful given time constraints.

 Investors and financial professionals use a heuristic approach to speed up

analysis and investment decisions.

 Heuristics can lead to poor decision making based on a limited data set,
but the speed of decisions can sometimes make up for the disadvantages.

 Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more experiential and more

judgmental knowledge of performance or what commonly constitutes the
rules of "good judgement" or the art of "good guessing" in a field.

 A wisely used representation for the knowledge base is the rule or if /then
statement.

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7, Knowledge-based systems (KBS)
 A knowledge-based system (KBS) is a form of artificial intelligence
(AI) that aims to capture the knowledge of human experts to support
decision-making.
 Examples of knowledge-based systems include expert systems, which
are so called because of their reliance on human expertise.
Every expert system consists of two principal parts: the knowledge base and the inference
engine. The knowledge base contains both factual and heuristic knowledge. Factual
knowledge consists of items commonly agreed upon by spokesmen in a particular field.
Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more experiential and more judgmental knowledge
of performance or what commonly constitutes the rules of "good judgement" or the art of
"good guessing" in a field. A wisely used representation for the knowledge base is the rule or
if /then statement. The "if part" lists a set of conditions in some logical combination. Once the
"if part" of the rule is satisfied, the "then part" can be concluded or problem solving action
taken. Expert systems with knowledge represented in rule form are called rule-based systems.

The inference engine makes inferences by determining which rules are satisfied by facts,
ordering the satisfied rules, and executing the rule with the highest priority.

Expert data editing systems make so-called intelligent imputations based on a specified
hierarchy of methods to be used in imputing an item. One item may use a deterministic
approach followed by a hot-deck approach, while another item might require a model-based
approach. Each item on the questionnaire would be resolved according to its own hierarchy of
approaches, the next being automatically tried when the previous method has failed.

Advantages OF Heuristic expert system

o It can provide some quick and relatively inexpensive feedback to designers.
o You can obtain feedback early in the design process.
o Assigning the correct heuristic can help suggest the best corrective measures to
designers.
o You can use it together with other usability testing methodologies.
o You can conduct usability testing to further examine potential issues.

Disadvantages OF Heuristic expert system

o It requires knowledge and experience to apply the heuristics effectively.
o Trained usability experts are sometimes hard to find and can be expensive.
o You should use multiple experts and aggregate their results.
o The evaluation may identify more minor issues and fewer major issues

 A knowledge-based system is a computer program that uses

a knowledge base with an inference engine in order to solve problems
that usually require significant specialized human expertise.
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  It embodies the problem-solving knowledge of a human expert in a
narrowly defined domain and it is able to extend that body
of knowledge through its inference engine or query system.
 Knowledge Representation: It is used to formalize the knowledge stored
in the knowledge base using the If-else rules.

8, Knowledge engineering
 Knowledge engineering is a field of artificial intelligence (AI) that tries
to emulate the judgment and behaviour of a human expert in a given field. 
 Knowledge engineering is the technology behind the creation of expert
systems to assist with issues related to their programmed field
of knowledge.
 Knowledge engineering is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that
develops rules that are applied to data in order to imitate the thought
process of a human that is an expert on a specific topic.
 In its initial form, knowledge engineering focused on the transfer process;
transferring the expertise of a problem-solving human into a program that
could take the same data and make the same conclusions.
 It was determined that transfer processing had its limitations, as it did not
accurately reflect how humans make decisions. It did not consider
intuition and gut feeling, known as analogous reasoning and nonlinear
thinking that often may not be logical.
 Today, knowledge engineering uses a modelling process that creates a
system that touches upon the same results as the expert without following
the same path or using the same information sources.

 The goal of knowledge engineering is for it to be implemented into

software that will make decisions that human experts would, such as
financial advisors.
 Knowledge engineering is already being used in decision support
software and it is expected that at some point it will be used to make
better decisions than human experts.
 Role of the Knowledge Engineer
The knowledge engineer focuses on eliciting knowledge from experts, analyzing complex
decision making by experts, and turning these into rules and guidance that less-experienced
people can use. It's a vital part of developing any knowledge base and key input into other
areas of AI

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