5.
1 Expert Systems (ES):
● Expert systems are knowledge based programs which provide expert
quality solutions to the problems in specific domain of applications.
● The core components of expert system are
– knowledge base and
– navigational capability (inference engine)
● Generally its knowledge is extracted from human experts in the domain
of application by knowledge Engineer.
– Often based on useful thumb rules and experience rather than
absolute certainties.
● A process of gathering knowledge from domain expert and codifying it
according to the formalism is called knowledge engineering.
5.2 Phases in building Expert System
● There are different interdependent and overlapping phases in building an
expert system as follows:
● Identification Phase:
– Knowledge engineer finds out important features of the problem
with the help of domain expert (human).
– He tries to determine the type and scope of the problem, the kind
of resources required, goal and objective of the ES.
● Conceptualization Phase:
– In this phase, knowledge engineer and domain expert decide the
concepts, relations and control mechanism needed to describe a
problem solving.
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● Formalization Phase:
– It involves expressing the key concepts and relations in some
framework supported by ES building tools.
– Formalized knowledge consists of data structures, inference rules,
control strategies and languages for implementation.
● Implementation Phase:
– During this phase, formalized knowledge is converted to working
computer program initially called prototype of the whole system.
● Testing Phase:
– It involves evaluating the performance and utility of prototype
systems and revising it if need be. Domain expert evaluates the
prototype system and his feedback help knowledge engineer to
revise it.
5.3. Expert System Architecture
Expert System
Inference Engine
Special Interfaces
Inference & Control
Human Case History
Expert Knowledge Acquisition
& Learning Module
Knowledge Base
Static database
User User Interface
Dynamic database
(working memory)
Explanation Module
Fig: Architecture of Expert System
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Knowledge Base (KB)
KB consists of knowledge about problem domain in the form of static and
dynamic databases.
Static knowledge consists of
– rules and facts which is complied as a part of the system and does
not change during execution of the system.
Dynamic knowledge consists of facts related to a particular consultation
of the system.
– At the beginning of the consultation, the dynamic knowledge base
often called working memory is empty.
– As a consultation progresses, dynamic knowledge base grows and
is used along with static knowledge in decision making.
Working memory is deleted at the end of consultation of the system
Inference Engine
It consists of inference mechanism and control strategy.
Inference means search through knowledge base and derive new
knowledge.
It involve formal reasoning involving matching and unification similar to
the one performed by human expert to solve problems in a specific area
of knowledge.
Inference operates by using modus ponen rule.
Control strategy determines the order in which rules are applied.
There are mainly two types of control mechanism viz., forward chaining
and backward chaining.
Knowledge Acquisition
● Knowledge acquisition module allows system to acquire knowledge about
the problem domain.
● Sources of Knowledge for ES
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– text books, reports, case studies,
– empirical data and
– domain expert experience.
● Updation of Knowledge can be done using knowledge acquisition module
of the system.
– insertion,
– deletion and
– updation of existing knowledge
Case History
● Case History stores the file created by inference engine using the
dynamic database created at the time of consultation.
● Useful for learning module to enrich its knowledge base.
● Different cases with solutions are stored in Case Base system.
● These cases are used for solving problem using Case Base Reasoning
(CBR).
Explanation module
● Most expert systems have explanation facilities that allow the user to ask
the system why it asked some question, and how it reached to
conclusion.
● It contains 'How' and 'Why' modules attached to it.
– The sub-module ‘How’ tells the user about the process through
– which system has reached to a particular solution
– ‘Why' sub-module tells that why is that particular solution offered.
● It explains user about the reasoning behind any particular problem
solution.
● Questions are answered by referring to the system goals, the rules being
used, and any existing problem data.
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Explanation Modules Responses
User Why module
System Do you have running nose?
User Yes.
System I am trying to prove that you have cold. Do you have headache?
User Yes
System Do you have sore throat?
User No
System Then you do not have cold. Do you have fever?
User Yes
System Now I am looking at the possibility of measles. Do you have cough?
User Yes
System I can infer measles using rule “If symptoms are fever, cough,
running_nose, then patient has measles” measles is concluded.
User How Module
System Since you have fever, running_nose and cough and there is a rule “If
symptoms are fever, cough, running_nose, then patient has measles”.
So measles is concluded for you.
User Interfaces
● Allows user to communicate with system in interactive mode and helps
system to create working knowledge for the problem to be solved.
Dialogue Module (User Interface)
System Do you have fever?
User Yes
System Do you have bad throat?
User No
System Do you have cough?
User Yes
System Are you suffering from running nose?
User Yes
System Are you suffering from headache?
User No
Special interfaces
● It may be used for specialized activities such as handling uncertainty in
knowledge.
● This is a major area of expert systems research that involves methods for
reasoning with uncertain data and uncertain knowledge.
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● Knowledge is generally incomplete and uncertain.
● To deal with uncertain knowledge, a rule may have associated with it a
confidence factor or a weight.
● The set of methods for using uncertain knowledge in combination
with uncertain data in the reasoning process is called reasoning with
uncertainty.
5.4 Rule Based Expert Systems
● A rule based expert system is one in which knowledge base is in the form
of rules and facts.
– Knowledge in the form of rules and facts is most popular way in
designing expert systems.
● It is also called production system.
● Example: Suppose doctor gives a rule for measles as follows:
"If symptoms are fever, cough, running_nose, rash and conjunctivitis
then patient probably has measles".
● Prolog is most suitable for implementing such systems.
hypothesis(measles) :- symptom(fever), symptom(cough),
symptom(running_nose),symptom(conjunctivitis), symptom(rash).
Simple Medical diagnostic system with dynamic databases:
● The system starts with consultation predicate, that initiates dialog with
user to get information about various symptoms.
● Positive and negative symptoms are recorded in dynamic database and
'hypothesis(Disease)' is satisfied based on stored facts about symptoms.
● If the hypothesis goal is satisfied then the disease is displayed otherwise
display 'sorry not able to diagnose'.
● Finally in both the situations, symptom database for a particular user is
cleared.
Query:?-consultation.
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Medical Consultation System
consultation :- writeln(‘Welcome to MC System’),
writeln(‘Input your name),
readln(Name),
hypothesis(Dis), !,
writeln(Name, ‘probably has’, Dis),
clear_consult_facts.
consultation :- writeln(‘Sorry, not able to diagnose’),
clear_consult_facts
hypothesis(flu) :- symptom(fever),
symptom(headache),
symptom(body_ache),
symptom(sore_throat),
symptom(cough),
symptom(chills),
symptom(running_nose),
symptom(conjunctivitis).
symptom(fever) :- positive_ symp(‘Do you have
fever(y/n) ?’, fever).
symptom(cough) :- positive_ symp(‘Do you have
cough (y/n) ?’, cough).
symptom(chills) :- positive_ symp(‘Do you have
chills (y/n) ?’, chills).
positive_ symp(_, X) :- positive(X), !.
positive_ symp(Q, X) :- not(negative(X)),
query(Q, X, R), R = ‘y’.
query(Q, X, R) :- writeln(Q), readln(R),
store(X, R).
store(X, ‘y’) :- asserta(positive(X)).
store(X, ‘n’) :- asserta(negative(X)).
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clear_consult_facts :- retractall(positive(_)).
clear_consult_facts :- retractall(negative(_)).
5.5. Forward Chaining
● Prolog uses backward chaining as a control strategy, but forward
chaining can be implemented in Prolog.
● In forward chaining, the facts from static and dynamic knowledge bases
are taken and are used to test the rules through the process of
unification.
● The rule is said to be fired and the conclusion (head of the rule) is added
to the dynamic database when a rule succeeds.
● Prolog rules are coded as facts with two arguments, first argument be
left side of rule and second is the list of sub goals in the right side of
the rule.
● Represent prolog rule as a fact by rule_fact predicate and simple facts
by fact predicate.
● Consider the following Prolog rules and facts with their corresponding
new fact representations.
a:-brule_fact(a, [b]).
c:-b, e, f.rule_fact(c, [b, e, f]). b.fact(b).
e.fact(e).
f.fact(f).
– Here a, b, c, e, f are atoms (predicates with arguments, if any).
– Newly generated facts are stored in database file ‘dfile’ which is
consulted in the prolog program.
5.6. Blackboard System – BS
● Blackboard systems are used to capture dynamic environment with the
help of domain experts.
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● BS uses a functional modularization of expertise knowledge in the form
of Knowledge Sources (KS).
● KS are independent computational modules containing the expert
knowledge needed to solve the problem.
– Blackboard approach has an ability to integrate contributions
dynamically for which relationships would be difficult to specify
by the KS writer in advance.
● BS consists of three main components viz., Knowledge Sources,
Blackboard and Control Shell.
– BS does not allow direct interaction among modules, as all
communication is done via the blackboard through control shell.
5.7. Blackboard System Architecture
Blackboard
Control Shell
Knowledge Sources
Knowledge Source – KS
● KS can be widely diverse in their internal representation and
computational techniques and they do not interact directly with each
other.
● KS is a specialist at solving certain aspects of the overall application and
is separate and independent of all other KSs.
● Once it finds the information it needs on the blackboard, it can proceed
without any assistance from other KSs.
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● Additional KSs can be added to the blackboard system, existing KS can
be upgraded or even can be removed.
● Each KS is aware of its conditions under which it can contribute toward
solving the problem.
Blackboard
The blackboard is a global data repository and shared data structure
available to all KSs
It contains raw input data, partial solutions and final solutions, control
information, communication medium etc.
The system can retain the results of problem-solved earlier, thus
avoiding re-computing them later.
Structuring of information on blackboard is important issue.
It should enable a KS to efficiently inspect the blackboard to see if
relevant information is present.
Control Shell
● The control shell directs the problem-solving process by allowing KSs to
respond opportunistically to changes made to the blackboard.
● The control shell reports about the kind of events in which each KS is
interested in.
● It maintains this triggering information and directly considers the KS for
activation whenever that kind of event occurs.
Information Representation on Blackboard
● There are two ways for storing information on blackboard viz.,
– specialized representation and
– fully general representation.
● In specialized representation,
– KSs may only operate on a few classes of blackboard objects.
– Sharing data by only a few KSs limits the extendibility and
scalability of the system.
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● In fully general representation, all aspects of blackboard data are
understood by all KSs.
There is a trade-off between these two representations
Blackboard System verses Rule Based System
● A blackboard system is different from a rule-based system especially
in the size and scope of rules versus the size and complexity of KSs.
● The KSs are substantially larger and more complex than each isomorphic
rule in an expert system.
● While expert systems work by firing a rule in response to stimuli, a
blackboard system works by executing an entire KS in response to an
event.
● A single KS in a blackboard system could be implemented as a complete
rule-based system.
5.8. Truth Maintenance System (TMS)
● Truth maintenance system (TMS) works with inference engines for
solving problems within large search spaces.
● The TMS and inference engine both put together can solve problems
where algorithmic solutions do not exist.
TMS maintains the beliefs for general problem solving systems.
Problem Solver
IE TMS
KB
● TMS can be used to implement monotonic or non-monotonic systems.
● In monotonic system, once a fact or piece of knowledge is stored in KB,
it can not change.
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– In monotonic reasoning, the world of axioms continually
increases in size and keeps on expending.
– Predicate logic is an example of monotonic form of reasoning. It is
a deductive reasoning system where new facts are derived from the
known facts.
● Non-monotonic system allows retraction of truths that are present in
the system whenever contradictions arise.
– So number of axioms can both increase and decrease and
depending upon the changes in KB, it can be updated.
Example – Monotonic TMS
● Suppose we are given the premise set = {P, W} and the
internal constraint set
{P Q, (P W) R, (Q R) S}.
● TMS are able to derive S from these constraints and the premise set .
● TMS should provide the justifications of deriving S from constraints and
premises.
● Therefore, for any given set of internal constraints and premise set , if a
formula S can be derived from these, then justification functions
generate a justification tree for S.
Justification Tree
(Q R) S
{Q, R}
PQ Q R (P W) R
{P} {P, W}
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Non-Monotonic TMS:
● TMS basically operates with two kinds of objects
– ‘Propositions’ declaring different beliefs and
– ‘Justifications’ related to individual propositions for backing up the
belief or disbelief expressed by the proposition.
● For every TMS, there are two kinds of justifications required
namely ‘Support list’ and ‘Conditional proof’.
Support list (SL):
● It is defined as “SL(IN-node)(OUT-node)”, where IN-node is a list of all IN-
nodes (propositions) that support the considered node as true.
– Here IN means that the belief is true.
– OUT-node is a list of all OUT nodes for the considered node to be
true. OUT means that belief is not true.
Node number Facts/assertions Justification (justified belief)
1 It is sunny SL(3) (2,4)
2 It rains SL() ()
3 It is warm SL(1) (2)
4 It is night time SL() (1)
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