4 research outputs found
Chess Endgames and Neural Networks
The existence of endgame databases challenges us to extract higher-grade information and knowledge from their basic data content. Chess players, for example, would like simple and usable endgame theories if such holy grail exists: endgame experts would like to provide such insights and be inspired by computers to do so. Here, we investigate the use of artificial neural networks (NNs) to mine these databases and we report on a first use of NNs on KPK. The results encourage us to suggest further work on chess applications of neural networks and other data-mining techniques
Inductive Acquisition of Expert Knowledge
Expert systems divide neatly into two categories: those in which ( 1) the expert decisions result in
changes to some external environment (control systems), and (2) the expert decisions merely seek
to describe the environment (classification systems). Both the explanation of computer-based
reasoning and the "bottleneck" (Feigenbaum, 1979) of knowledge acquisition are major issues in
expert systems research. We have contributed to these areas of research in two ways. Firstly, we
have implemented an expert system shell, the Mugol environment, which facilitates knowledge
acquisition by inductive inference and provides automatic explanation of run-time reasoning on
demand. RuleMaster, a commercial version of this environment, has been used to advantage
industrially in the construction and testing of two large classification systems. Secondly, we have
investigated a new technique called sequence induction which can be used in the construction of
control systems. Sequence induction is based on theoretical work in grammatical learning. We
have improved existing grammatical learning algorithms as well as suggesting and theoretically
characterising new ones. These algorithms have been successfully applied to the acquisition of
knowledge for a diverse set of control systems, including inductive construction of robot plans and
chess end-game strategies