The system specification support environment presented in this paper, PROSPEX (Product Specification Expert), supports the RT-SA methodology. It not only provides graphic support for drawing, but also helps the engineer in the analysis and design process itself. PROSPEX analyses the quality and correctness of the RT-SA diagrams using knowledge-based techniques. PROSPEX also includes features fo...

The ship design process is a highly data-oriented, dynamic, iterative and multi-stage algorithm. It utilizes multiple abstraction levels and concurrent engineering techniques. Specialized techniques for knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation and reasoning must be developed to solve these problems for a ship design expert system. Consequently, very few attempts have been made to model t...

The decision to examine a message at a particular point in time should be made rationally and economically if the message recipient is to operate efficiently. Electronic message distribution systems, electronic bulletin board systems, and telephone systems capable of leaving digitized voice messages can contribute to “information overload,” defined as the economic loss associated with the exami...

The paper introduces the notion of Dynamic Expert System. It shows that by restarting a common (static) expert system periodically it is possible to cope with dynamic environments. This quasi-static approach to dynamics is suitable if the environment is changing slowly enough in comparison with the inference engine operation and the user reaction time. Implementation of this scheme in "pure" Ex...

We describe the weaknesses of an existing expert diagnosis-recommendation system we have developed for SMEs. In good part, these weaknesses are related to the fact that the system was not implemented with appropriate artificial intelligence techniques. We recently decided to tackle the problem and re-engineered the core of the system with the help of an up-to-date expert system shell. In the pr...

Knowledge acquisition is a key phase in construction of expert systems. This process is very much dependent on the nature of the domain knowledge. In particular, knowledge acquisition is a tedious task when modeling domains with tacit knowledge. Despite fuzzy logic has been used for knowledge acquisition in such domains, a large portion of the process is manually operated. This paper presents a...

OBJECTIVES This study demonstrates the feasibility of using expert system shells for rapid clinical decision support module development. METHODS A readily available expert system shell was used to build a simple rule-based system for the crude diagnosis of vaginal discharge. Pictures and 'canned text explanations' are extensively used throughout the program to enhance its intuitiveness and ed...

This article presents an approach to embedding expert systems within an object oriented simulation environment. The basic idea is to create classes of expert system models that can be interfaced with other model classes. An expert system shell is developed within a knowledge-based design and simulation environment which combines artificial intelligence and systems modeling concepts. In the give...

This chapter describes an expert system for the identification of micro-fossils. This graphic expert system shell was designed to allow users to enter information about a fossil in pictorial form: On the basis of this information, the system selects a best-match set of fossils. By computerizing knowledge elicitation and entry into the system, it was possible to reduce development time and cost....