Most of the well-known mathematical software systems are batch oriented, though in the past few years there have been attempts to incorporate ``knowledge'' or ``expertise'' into these systems. A number of developments have helped in making the systems more powerful and user-friendly: algorithm/parameter selection for the solution of well-defined mathematical engineering problems; parallel computing; computer graphics technology; interface development tools; and of course the years of experience with these systems and the increase in available computing power have made it practical to fulfill the potential seen in the early years of their development.This book covers four main areas of the subject: Application Oriented Expert Systems, Advisory Systems, Knowledge Manipulation Issues, and User Interfaces.

As its title suggests, "Uncertainty Management in Information Systems" is a book about how information systems can be made to manage information permeated with uncertainty. This subject is at the intersection of two areas of knowledge: information systems is an area that concentrates on the design of practical systems that can store and retrieve information; uncertainty modeling is an area in artificial intelligence concerned with accurate representation of uncertain information and with inference and decision-making under conditions infused with uncertainty. New applications of information systems require stronger capabilities in the area of uncertainty management. Our hope is that lasting interaction between these two areas would facilitate a new generation of information systems that will be capable of servicing these applications. Although there are researchers in information systems who have addressed themselves to issues of uncertainty, as well as researchers in uncertainty modeling who have considered the pragmatic demands and constraints of information systems, to a large extent there has been only limited interaction between these two areas. As the subtitle, "From Needs to Solutions," indicates, this book presents view points of information systems experts on the needs that challenge the uncer tainty capabilities of present information systems, and it provides a forum to researchers in uncertainty modeling to describe models and systems that can address these needs.

The resurgence of artificial intelligence has been fueled by the availability of the present generation of high-performance computational tools and techniques. This book is designed to provide introductory guidance to artificial intelligence, particularly from the perspective of digital systems engineering. Artificial Intelligence and Digital Systems Engineering provides a general introduction to the origin of AI and covers the wide application areas and software and hardware interfaces. It will prove to be instrumental in helping new users expand their knowledge horizon to the growing market of AI tools, as well as showing how AI is applicable to the development of games, simulation, and consumer products, particularly using artificial neural networks. This book is for the general reader, university students, and instructors of industrial, production, civil, mechanical, and manufacturing engineering. It will also be of interest to managers of technology, projects, business, plants, and operations.