Expert System

Semester: August 2021.

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 What is an Expert System?

• An expert system is a computer program that is designed to solve complex

problems and to provide decision-making ability like a human expert.
• It performs this by extracting knowledge from its knowledge base using the
reasoning and inference rules according to the user queries.
• The performance of an expert system is based on the expert's knowledge
stored in its knowledge base.
• The more knowledge stored in the KB, the more that system improves its
performance.
• One of the common examples of an ES is a suggestion of spelling errors while
typing in the Google search box.
 What is an Expert System? Cont..

• The expert systems are the computer applications developed to solve

complex problems in a particular domain, at the level of extra-ordinary
human intelligence and expertise.

• Characteristics of Expert Systems

– High performance
– Understandable
– Reliable
– Highly responsive
 Capabilities of Expert Systems

• The expert systems are capable of −

– Advising
– Instructing and assisting human in decision making
– Demonstrating
– Deriving a solution
– Diagnosing
– Explaining
– Interpreting input
– Predicting results
– Justifying the conclusion
– Suggesting alternative options to a problem
 Components of Expert Systems

The components of ES include

−
• Knowledge Base
• Inference Engine
• User Interface
 Popular examples of the Expert System
• DENDRAL: It was an artificial intelligence project that was made as a chemical
analysis expert system. It was used in organic chemistry to detect unknown organic
molecules with the help of their mass spectra and knowledge base of chemistry.
• MYCIN: It was one of the earliest backward chaining expert systems that was
designed to find the bacteria causing infections like bacteraemia and meningitis. It
was also used for the recommendation of antibiotics and the diagnosis of blood
clotting diseases.
• PXDES: It is an expert system that is used to determine the type and level of lung
cancer. To determine the disease, it takes a picture from the upper body, which
looks like the shadow. This shadow identifies the type and degree of harm.
• CaDeT: The CaDet expert system is a diagnostic support system that can detect
cancer at early stages.
 Knowledge Base

What is Knowledge?
• The data is collection of facts. The information is organized as data and facts
about the task domain. Data, information, and past experience combined
together are termed as knowledge.
Components of Knowledge Base
• The knowledge base of an ES is a store of both, factual and heuristic
knowledge.
• Factual Knowledge − It is the information widely accepted by the Knowledge
Engineers and scholars in the task domain.
• Heuristic Knowledge − It is about practice, accurate judgement, one’s ability
of evaluation, and guessing.
 Inference Engine

Use of efficient procedures and rules by the Inference Engine is essential in

deducting a correct, flawless solution.
In case of rule based ES, it −
Applies rules repeatedly to the facts, which are obtained from earlier rule application.
Adds new knowledge into the knowledge base if required.
Resolves rules conflict when multiple rules are applicable to a particular case.
To recommend a solution, the Inference Engine uses the following strategies −
Forward Chaining
Backward Chaining
 Forward Chaining

It is a strategy of an expert system

to answer the question, “What can
happen next?”

This strategy is followed for working

on conclusion, result, or effect.
For example, prediction of share
market status as an effect of
changes in interest rates.
 Backward Chaining

With this strategy, an expert system

finds out the answer to the question,
“Why this happened?”
On the basis of what has already
happened, the Inference Engine tries to
find out which conditions could have
happened in the past for this result.
This strategy is followed for finding out
cause or reason.
For example, diagnosis of blood cancer
in humans.
 User Interface
User interface provides interaction between user of the ES and the ES itself.
It explains how the ES has arrived at a particular recommendation. The
explanation may appear in the following forms −
Natural language displayed on screen.
Verbal narrations in natural language.
Listing of rule numbers displayed on the screen.
Requirements of Efficient ES User Interface
It should help users to accomplish their goals in shortest possible way.
It should be designed to work for user’s existing or desired work practices.
Its technology should be adaptable to user’s requirements; not the other way
round.
It should make efficient use of user input.
 Limitations of Expert Systems

ESs have their limitations which include −

Limitations of the technology
Difficult knowledge acquisition
ES are difficult to maintain
High development costs
 Applications of Expert System

Application Description
Design Domain Camera lens design, automobile design.
Diagnosis Systems to deduce cause of disease from observed data,
Medical Domain conduction medical operations on humans.

Comparing data continuously with observed system or with prescribed

Monitoring Systems behavior such as leakage monitoring in long petroleum pipeline.

Process Control Controlling a physical process based on monitoring.

Systems
Knowledge Domain Finding out faults in vehicles, computers.

Detection of possible fraud, suspicious transactions, stock market

Finance/Commerce trading, Airline scheduling, cargo scheduling.
 Expert System Technology

There are several levels of ES technologies available. Expert systems technologies include −
• Expert System Development Environment − The ES development environment includes
hardware and tools. They are −
• Workstations, minicomputers, mainframes.
• High level Symbolic Programming Languages such as LISt Programming (LISP) and PROgrammation
en LOGique (PROLOG).
• Large databases.
• Tools − They reduce the effort and cost involved in developing an expert system to large extent.
• Powerful editors and debugging tools with multi-windows.
• They provide rapid prototyping
• Have Inbuilt definitions of model, knowledge representation, and inference design
 Expert System Technology Cont…

• Shells − A shell is nothing but an expert system without knowledge

base. A shell provides the developers with knowledge acquisition,
inference engine, user interface, and explanation facility. For
example, few shells are given below −
• Java Expert System Shell (JESS) that provides fully developed Java
API for creating an expert system.
• Vidwan, a shell developed at the National Centre for Software
Technology, Mumbai in 1993. It enables knowledge encoding in the
form of IF-THEN rules.
 Benefits of Expert Systems

• Availability − They are easily available due to mass production of

software.
• Less Production Cost − Production cost is reasonable. This makes
them affordable.
• Speed − They offer great speed. They reduce the amount of work an
individual puts in.
• Less Error Rate − Error rate is low as compared to human errors.
• Reducing Risk − They can work in the environment dangerous to
humans.
• Steady response − They work steadily without getting motional, tensed
or fatigued.
Q &A
Thank you.