Knowledge-Based Systems. Overview and Selected Examples

The Advanced Computer Applications (ACA) project builds on IIASA's traditional strength in the methodological foundations of operations research and applied systems analysis, and its rich experience in numerous application areas including the environment, technology and risk. The ACA group draws on this infrastructure and combines it with elements of AI and advanced information and computer technology to create expert systems that have practical applications. By emphasizing a directly understandable problem representation, based on symbolic simulation and dynamic color graphics, and the user interface as a key element of interactive decision support systems, models of complex processes are made understandable and available to non-technical users. Several completely externally-funded research and development projects in the field of model-based decision support and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) are currently under way, e.g., "Expert Systems for Integrated Development: A Case Study of Shanxi Province, The People's Republic of China." This paper gives an overview of some of the expert systems that have been considered, compared or assessed during the course of our research, and a brief introduction to some of our related in-house research topics

Personalizing Interactions with Information Systems

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms and technologies necessary to customize information access to the end-user. It can be defined as the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to the individual. In this chapter, we study personalization from the viewpoint of personalizing interaction. The survey covers mechanisms for information-finding on the web, advanced information retrieval systems, dialog-based applications, and mobile access paradigms. Specific emphasis is placed on studying how users interact with an information system and how the system can encourage and foster interaction. This helps bring out the role of the personalization system as a facilitator which reconciles the user’s mental model with the underlying information system’s organization. Three tiers of personalization systems are presented, paying careful attention to interaction considerations. These tiers show how progressive levels of sophistication in interaction can be achieved. The chapter also surveys systems support technologies and niche application domains

Overview of database projects

The use of entity and object oriented data modeling techniques for managing Computer Aided Design (CAD) is explored

Development and Specification of Virtual Environments

This thesis concerns the issues involved in the development of virtual environments (VEs). VEs are more than virtual reality. We identify four main characteristics of them: graphical interaction, multimodality, interface agents, and multi-user. These characteristics are illustrated with an overview of different classes of VE-like applications, and a number of state-of-the-art VEs. To further define the topic of research, we propose a general framework for VE systems development, in which we identify five major classes of development tools: methodology, guidelines, design specification, analysis, and development environments. Of each, we give an overview of existing best practices

A knowledge based system to assist in the selection of appropriate geotechnical field tests

The variety in geological conditions and range of geotechnical problems has led to the development of a considerable number of different in-situ test methods. The correct selection of the appropriate in-situ tests allows a safer and cost-efficient design to be achieved. A prototype Knowledge-Based System has been developed to assist in the selection of appropriate geotechnical in-situ tests. The system is model-based and has been implemented using PDC Prolog on a Personal Computer to perform two functions: i) general querying of the knowledge bases which it incorporates and ii) advise on selecting in-situ tests. The system consists of two knowledge bases (the Ground Knowledge Base and the Tests Knowledgebase), an Extended Inference Mechanism consisting of search rules developed to allow inheritance and transitivity inferences (as well as information retrieval facilities), an advisory rule developed for offering assistance in the selection of appropriate field tests, and a menu driven user interface to achieve ease of use. The Extended Inference Mechanism, and the user interface implemented for it, form a basic expert system shell. The knowledge required to be included in the system was obtained in two ways: i) from technical literature and ii) from a small knowledge elicitation exercise in the form of a questionnaire. The representation scheme adopted is the same for both knowledge bases and allows modifications (additions or deletions) of the existing knowledge to be easily made. Towards the completion of this research program, a comparative exercise was performed by re-implementing part of the system using the PROKAPPA software on a Sun Sparkstation 2 (both of which became available at that time). Throughout this exercise, the differences between the two implementation schemes were evaluated and the advantages and disadvantages of each of the schemes were identified

Knowledge Based Systems: A Critical Survey of Major Concepts, Issues, and Techniques

This Working Paper Series entry presents a detailed survey of knowledge based systems. After being in a relatively dormant state for many years, only recently is Artificial Intelligence (AI) - that branch of computer science that attempts to have machines emulate intelligent behavior - accomplishing practical results. Most of these results can be attributed to the design and use of Knowledge-Based Systems, KBSs (or ecpert systems) - problem solving computer programs that can reach a level of performance comparable to that of a human expert in some specialized problem domain. These systems can act as a consultant for various requirements like medical diagnosis, military threat analysis, project risk assessment, etc. These systems possess knowledge to enable them to make intelligent desisions. They are, however, not meant to replace the human specialists in any particular domain. A critical survey of recent work in interactive KBSs is reported. A case study (MYCIN) of a KBS, a list of existing KBSs, and an introduction to the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Project are provided as appendices. Finally, an extensive set of KBS-related references is provided at the end of the report

Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications

In this thesis we present the client-side approach of Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications as the main result of our research into how to bring in time adaptivity to Rich Internet Applications. Our approach leverages previous work on adaptive hypermedia, event processing and other research disciplines. We present a holistic framework covering the design-time as well as the runtime aspects of Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications focusing especially on the run-time aspects