This book presents innovative and high-quality research on the implementation of conceptual frameworks, strategies, techniques, methodologies, informatics platforms and models for developing advanced knowledge-based systems and their application in different fields, including Agriculture, Education, Automotive, Electrical Industry, Business Services, Food Manufacturing, Energy Services, Medicine and others. Knowledge-based technologies employ artificial intelligence methods to heuristically address problems that cannot be solved by means of formal techniques. These technologies draw on standard and novel approaches from various disciplines within Computer Science, including Knowledge Engineering, Natural Language Processing, Decision Support Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Databases, Software Engineering, etc. As a combination of different fields of Artificial Intelligence, the area of Knowledge-Based Systems applies knowledge representation, case-based reasoning, neural networks, Semantic Web and TICs used in different domains. The book offers a valuable resource for PhD students, Master’s and undergraduate students of Information Technology (IT)-related degrees such as Computer Science, Information Systems and Electronic Engineering.

Current experimental systems in industry, government, and the military take advantage of knowledge-based processing. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are supporting the develop ment of information systems that contain diverse, vast, and growing repositories of data (e.g., vast databases storing geographic informa tion). These systems require powerful reasoning capabilities and pro cessing such as data processing, communications, and multidisciplinary of such systems will scientific analysis. The number and importance grow significantly in the near future. Many of these systems are severely limited by current knowledge base and database systems technology. Currently, knowledge-based system technology lacks the means to provide efficient and robust knowledge bases, while database system technology lacks knowledge representation and reasoning capabilities. The time has come to face the complex research problems that must be solved before we can design and implement real, large scale software systems that depend on knowledge-based processing. To date there has been little research directed at integrating knowledge base and database technologies. It is now imperative that such coordinated research be initiated and that it respond to the urgent need for a tech nology that will enable operational large-scale knowledge-based system applications.

Knowledge acquisition has become a major area of artificial intelligence and cognitive science research. The papers in this book show that the area of knowledge acquisition for knowledge-based systems is still a diverse field in which a large number of research topics are being addressed. However, several main themes run through the papers. First, the issues of integrating knowledge from different sources and K.A. tools is a salient topic in many papers. A second major topic in the papers is that of knowledge modelling. Research in knowledge-based systems emphasises the use of generic models of reasoning and its underlying knowledge. An important trend in the area of knowledge modelling aims at the formalisation of knowledge models. Where the field of knowledge acquisition was without tools and techniques years ago, now there is a rapidly growing body of techniques and tools. Apart from the integrated workbenches already mentioned above, several papers in this book present new tools. Although knowledge acquisition and machine learning have been considered as separate subfields of AI, there is a tendency for the two fields to come together. This publication combines machine learning techniques with more conventional knowledge elicitation techniques. A framework is presented in which reasoning, problem solving and learning together form a knowledge intensive system that can acquire knowledge from its own experience.

A knowledge-based system (KBS) is a system that uses artificial intelligence techniques in problem-solving processes to support human decision-making, learning, and action. Ideal for advanced-undergraduate and graduate students, as well as business professionals, this text is designed to help users develop an appreciation of KBS and their architecture and understand a broad variety of knowledge-based techniques for decision support and planning. It assumes basic computer science skills and a math background that includes set theory, relations, elementary probability, and introductory concepts of artificial intelligence. Each of the 12 chapters is designed to be modular, providing instructors with the flexibility to model the book to their own course needs. Exercises are incorporated throughout the text to highlight certain aspects of the material presented and to simulate thought and discussion. A comprehensive text and resource, Knowledge-Based Systems provides access to the most current information in KBS and new artificial intelligences, as well as neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, and soft systems.

Offering an introduction to the field of expert/knowledge based systems, this text covers current and emerging trends as well as future research areas. It considers both the system shell and programming environment approaches to expert system development.

Knowledge-based systems are increasingly found in a wide variety of settings and this handbook has been written to meet a specific need in their widening use. While there have been many successful applications of knowledge-based systems, some applications have failed because they never received the corrective feedback that evaluation provides for keeping development focused on the users' needs in their actual working environment. This handbook provides a conceptual framework and compendium of methods for performing evaluations of knowledge-based systems during their development. Its focus is on the users' and subject matter experts' evaluation of the usefulness of the system, and not on the developers' testing of the adequacy of the programming code. The handbook permits evaluators to systematically answer the following kinds of questions: Does the knowledge-based system meet the users' task requirements? Is the system easy to use? Is the knowledge base logically consistent? Does it meet the required level of expertise? Does the system improve performance? The authors have produced a handbook that will serve two audiences: a tool that can be used to create knowledge-based systems (practitioners, developers, and evaluators) and a framework that will stimulate more research in the area (academic researchers and students). To accomplish this, the handbook is built around a conceptual framework that integrates the different types of evaluations into the system of development process. The kinds of questions that can be answered, and the methods available for answering them, will change throughout the system development life cycle. And throughout this process, one needs to know what can be done, and what can't. It is this dichotomy that addresses needs in both the practitioner and academic research audiences.