EXPERT SYSTEM

UNIT IV
CONTENTS

• Introduction
• Characteristics
• Components
• Development
• Why Expert System
• Capabilities
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Applications
INTRODUCTION

• 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 expert system is a part of AI
• The first ES was developed in the year 1970, which was the first successful
approach of artificial intelligence.
• It solves the most complex issue as an expert by extracting the knowledge stored
in its knowledge base.
INTRODUCTION

• The system helps in decision making for complex problems using both facts and
heuristics like a human expert.
• It is called so because it contains the expert knowledge of a specific domain and
can solve any complex problem of that particular domain.
• These systems are designed for a specific domain, such as medicine,
science, etc.
INTRODUCTION

• 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.
EXPERT SYSTEM

• “Expert systems are interactive computer programs incorporating judgment, rules

of thumb, intuition and other expertise to provide knowledgeable advice about a
variety of tasks.”
• There are two types of knowledge:
• Private knowledge
• Human experts generally possess private knowledge. It consists of rules of thumb called
heuristics.
• Public knowledge
• It includes the published definitions facts and theories, available in textbooks, journals,
research papers etc.
EXPERT SYSTEM

Conventional Software Knowledge-based software

Requires correct data Capable of handling missing or
uncertain information
Fixed procedural structure Sequence determined by inference
engine
Good for numerical processing Good for symbol manipulation
Only a programmer can understand Natural language interface
Mid-run explanation impossible Mid-run explanation possible
Structure: Structure:
Program = Algorithm + Data Expert System = Control + Problem +
Data
DATABASE VS KNOWLEDGE BASE

Database Knowledge-based
Collection of data representation facts Information at a higher level of
abstraction
Operates on a single object Operates on a class of objects rather
than a single object
Information needs to be explicitly Uses inferencing power
stated
Represented by relational of Representation is by logic or rules or
hierarchical or network model frames or scripts or semantics nets
Maintained for operational purpose. Used for data analysis and planning
BLOCK DIAGRAM OF ES
• It is important to remember that an expert system is not used to replace the human experts;
instead, it is used to assist the human in making a complex decision.
• These systems do not have human capabilities of thinking and work on the basis of the
knowledge base of the particular domain.
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.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• High Performance: The expert system provides high performance for solving any
type of complex problem of a specific domain with high efficiency and accuracy.
• Understandable: It responds in a way that can be easily understandable by the
user. It can take input in human language and provides the output in the same
way.
• Reliable: It is much reliable for generating an efficient and accurate output.
• Highly responsive: ES provides the result for any complex query within a very
short period of time.
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• An expert system mainly consists of three components:

• User Interface
• Inference Engine
• Knowledge Base
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM - USER INTERFACE

• With the help of a user interface, the expert system interacts with the user, takes
queries as an input in a readable format, and passes it to the inference engine.
After getting the response from the inference engine, it displays the output to the
user. In other words, it is an interface that helps a non-expert user to
communicate with the expert system to find a solution.
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM - INFERENCE ENGINE(RULES OF
ENGINE)

• Inference Engine(Rules of Engine)

• The inference engine is known as the brain of the expert system as it is the main
processing unit of the system. It applies inference rules to the knowledge base to
derive a conclusion or deduce new information. It helps in deriving an error-free
solution of queries asked by the user.
• With the help of an inference engine, the system extracts the knowledge from the
knowledge base.
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM - INFERENCE ENGINE(RULES OF
ENGINE)

• There are two types of inference engine:

• Deterministic Inference engine: The conclusions drawn from this type of inference
engine are assumed to be true. It is based on facts and rules.
• Probabilistic Inference engine: This type of inference engine contains uncertainty in
conclusions, and based on the probability.

• Inference engine uses the below modes to derive the solutions:

• Forward Chaining: It starts from the known facts and rules, and applies the inference
rules to add their conclusion to the known facts.
• Backward Chaining: It is a backward reasoning method that starts from the goal and
works backward to prove the known facts.
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM - KNOWLEDGE BASE

• The knowledgebase is a type of storage that stores knowledge acquired from the
different experts of the particular domain. It is considered as big storage of
knowledge. The more the knowledge base, the more precise will be the Expert
System.
• It is similar to a database that contains information and rules of a particular
domain or subject.
• One can also view the knowledge base as collections of objects and their
attributes. Such as a Lion is an object and its attributes are it is a mammal, it is not
a domestic animal, etc.
COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEM - KNOWLEDGE BASE

• Components of Knowledge Base

• Factual Knowledge: The knowledge which is based on facts and accepted by
knowledge engineers comes under factual knowledge.
• Heuristic Knowledge: This knowledge is based on practice, the ability to guess,
evaluation, and experiences.

• Knowledge Representation: It is used to formalize the knowledge stored in the

knowledge base using the If-else rules.
• Knowledge Acquisitions: It is the process of extracting, organizing, and
structuring the domain knowledge, specifying the rules to acquire the knowledge
from various experts, and store that knowledge into the knowledge base.
DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEM

Identify
Problem
Domain

Maintain the Design the

System System

Develop and
Develop the
Complete the
Prototype
ES

Test and
Refine the
Prototype
DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEM

Identify Problem Domain

• The problem must be suitable for an expert system to solve it.

• Find the experts in task domain for the ES project.
• Establish cost-effectiveness of the system.

Design the System

• Identify the ES Technology

• Know and establish the degree of integration with the other systems and databases.
• Realize how the concepts can represent the domain knowledge best.

Develop the Prototype

• From Knowledge Base: The knowledge engineer works to −

• Acquire domain knowledge from the expert.
• Represent it in the form of If-THEN-ELSE rules.
DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEM

Test and Refine the Prototype

• The knowledge engineer uses sample cases to test the prototype for any
deficiencies in performance.
• End users test the prototypes of the ES.
Develop and Complete the ES

• Test and ensure the interaction of the ES with all elements of its environment,
including end users, databases, and other information systems.
• Document the ES project well.
• Train the user to use ES.

Maintain the System

• Keep the knowledge base up-to-date by regular review and update.

• Cater for new interfaces with other information systems, as those systems evolve.
PARTICIPANTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• There are three primary participants in the building of Expert System:

1.Expert: The success of an ES much depends on the knowledge provided by
human experts. These experts are those persons who are specialized in that
specific domain.
2.Knowledge Engineer: Knowledge engineer is the person who gathers the
knowledge from the domain experts and then codifies that knowledge to the
system according to the formalism.
3.End-User: This is a particular person or a group of people who may not be
experts, and working on the expert system needs the solution or advice for his
queries, which are complex.
WHY EXPERT SYSTEM?
WHY EXPERT SYSTEM?

1.No memory Limitations: It can store as much data as required and can memorize it
at the time of its application. But for human experts, there are some limitations to
memorize all things at every time.
2.High Efficiency: If the knowledge base is updated with the correct knowledge, then it
provides a highly efficient output, which may not be possible for a human.
3.Expertise in a domain: There are lots of human experts in each domain, and they all
have different skills, different experiences, so it is not easy to get a final output for the
query. But if we put the knowledge gained from human experts into the expert system,
then it provides an efficient output by mixing all the facts and knowledge
4.Not affected by emotions: These systems are not affected by human emotions such
as fatigue, anger, depression, anxiety, etc.. Hence the performance remains constant.
WHY EXPERT SYSTEM?

5. High security: These systems provide high security to resolve any query.
6. Considers all the facts: To respond to any query, it checks and considers all the
available facts and provides the result accordingly. But it is possible that a human
expert may not consider some facts due to any reason.
7. Regular updates improve the performance: If there is an issue in the result
provided by the expert systems, we can improve the performance of the system by
updating the knowledge base.
CAPABILITIES OF THE EXPERT SYSTEM

• Advising: It is capable of advising the human being for the query of any domain
from the particular ES.
• Provide decision-making capabilities: It provides the capability of decision
making in any domain, such as for making any financial decision, decisions in
medical science, etc.
• Demonstrate a device: It is capable of demonstrating any new products such as
its features, specifications, how to use that product, etc.
• Problem-solving: It has problem-solving capabilities.
CAPABILITIES OF THE EXPERT SYSTEM

• Explaining a problem: It is also capable of providing a detailed description of an

input problem.
• Interpreting the input: It is capable of interpreting the input given by the user.
• Predicting results: It can be used for the prediction of a result.
• Diagnosis: An ES designed for the medical field is capable of diagnosing a disease
without using multiple components as it already contains various inbuilt medical
tools.
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.
EXPERT SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY

• 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

• 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.
ADVANTAGES OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• These systems are highly reproducible.

• They can be used for risky places where the human presence is not safe.
• Error possibilities are less if the KB contains correct knowledge.
• The performance of these systems remains steady as it is not affected by
emotions, tension, or fatigue.
• They provide a very high speed to respond to a particular query.
LIMITATIONS OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• The response of the expert system may get wrong if the knowledge base contains
the wrong information.
• Like a human being, it cannot produce a creative output for different scenarios.
• Its maintenance and development costs are very high.
• Knowledge acquisition for designing is much difficult.
• For each domain, we require a specific ES, which is one of the big limitations.
• It cannot learn from itself and hence requires manual updates.
APPLICATIONS OF EXPERT SYSTEM

• In designing and manufacturing domain

It can be broadly used for designing and manufacturing physical devices such as camera lenses and
automobiles.
• In the knowledge domain
These systems are primarily used for publishing the relevant knowledge to the users. The two popular ES
used for this domain is an advisor and a tax advisor.
• In the finance domain
In the finance industries, it is used to detect any type of possible fraud, suspicious activity, and advise
bankers that if they should provide loans for business or not.
• In the diagnosis and troubleshooting of devices
In medical diagnosis, the ES system is used, and it was the first area where these systems were used.
• Planning and Scheduling
The expert systems can also be used for planning and scheduling some particular tasks for achieving the
goal of that task.