Knowledge based systems - Assignment Example

Knowledge based systems Abstract Knowledge base systems have become a class of computing class which has attracted a lot of publicity in the recent past. With the increased use of expert systems, there is been need to improve the use of knowledge based to execute this. There has been an influx of the use of systems that are computerized to come up with viable solutions for the many industrial processes in existence today. Knowledge based systems, and by extension expert systems, have played a crucial role in the computerization of the industrial processes in existence today. This paper presents a knowledge based system for the purpose of designing a Java Learning student selection system that is used for coming with recipes so that the information for making the recipes is stored on a long-term purpose. Its main purpose is the integration of the various components of a knowledge based system to come up with a viable system. There has been a lot of concern in the storage of kitchen information in the households for a long time. It is also in this paper that a brief tutorial is given on knowledge base systems and the operational process of the systems. There have been complaints that the people keep on losing information on their best recipes. The paper first presents a history of the start of knowledge base use and the improvements that has been made to it. The heuristic approach finds a final solution for the use of knowledge based system for the design of a Java Learning Institute. It can further synthesize new solutions to come up with the specifications which are required. Details of the features of knowledge based systems in general are given. More details of the system are not in the scope of this paper. An example of the Java Learning Institute Knowledge Based system is given in this paper to show some of the critical aspects of the knowledge based system; it explains the operation of the searching method of the heuristics method which has been proposed. It also shows the effectiveness of the use of knowledge based system in the design of Java Learning student selection system in general. 1.0 Introduction The capability of software which has been popularly known as expert systems is referred as knowledge based systems in this paper. Knowledge based systems has been a very active area of study in the recent past. It is attracting a good significance in software R&D and the capacity of product development; this in not only seen in universities but in corporations and government institutions as well. It has attracted particular attention from within competitive and sectors which are independent of information like financial institutions. This paper will deal with an introduction of knowledge base systems. The papers which have been similar to this are Elam & Henderson (1983) and Ford (1985) which focused on decision support systems (DSS). The significance of this paper is to enable the managers to appreciate the use of technology in storing important information like designing Java Learning student selection systems. There has been an outcry that the loss of important information in the industry sector because their might have been stored in places which are not safe. It also gives the importance of using this technology in specific areas. 1.1 Knowledge based technology Having a clear understanding of this technology poses a challenge given the fact that the term has been used to mean different things for different scenarios. An example is the fact that experts systems has been defined by some people as computer programs which make use of knowledge and inferences to solve a problem which could have been regarded as difficult if it was to be solved by human beings; perhaps difficult enough to require significant expertise (Martin, & Hoover, 2008). Yet others have defined as software which is created by bringing together and codifying the knowledge used by one or more experts and also which is also designed to perform a task which could require special expertise under normal circumstances. The last definition, at least for this paper, gives experts systems as programs which have reasoning by use of information which is symbolic in nature and use heuristics approach as opposed to algorithmic approaches; they are flexible at both runtime and design level. These definitions give a consensus which is broad in nature but gives us an ample scope for discussion as to the meaning of very key terms A knowledge base is special database that is used primarily for management of knowledge. It thus provides a means for the collection, organization, and retrieval of knowledge in a computerized manner. It also represents a collection of data which have related experiences and their results are related to their problems and solutions. For the sake of avoiding the unnecessary confusion in this paper, knowledge base systems will be used in this paper to mean the collection of the inferences that will be used to solve a particular problem that would be particularly difficult if solved by human beings. This is a subset of the experts systems. Beyond this, the knowledge based systems also has a collection of tools and techniques which are used to develop knowledge based systems. It also includes the manner in which the tools are applied, the education, training and the expertise that is needed to explain and expound their use. Software development which is conventional in nature deals with procedures or algorithms which are concerned with the precise organization and maintaining of structured data. Conventional systems analysis have specific problems that they focus on and thus in the process build an understanding by way of accumulating information which are detailed and are concerned with all the cases that must be addressed. On the other hand, knowledge based systems are more concerned with the knowledge that is required for this to happen. Due to this, there is therefore a need to have knowledge engineers who will be concerned with descriptions of whole problem-domains. For the testing of the knowledge which is developed by the knowledge engineers, there is the use of individual cases. The method of representing knowledge as rules and heuristics is more advantageous than the previous technology that was used for software development. One of the advantages is the fact that hard knowledge can not only be integrated and trapped into the computer and the associated systems but also has the capability of loosing knowledge which is of great significance also. There are several ways of expressing knowledge. Few authorities clearly define the knowledge should be expressed. There are many ways in which knowledge is expressed by the most commonly used is what is commonly called production rules or antecedent-consequent-rules. They take the form: IF THEN IF THEN Loan-eligibility = ‘N’ The expression shown above can be used in expressing rules which are firm statements defined between variables. They are generally true and their basis is on causal models. They are sometimes used to express heuristics which are always true or may not be in some occasions. Heuristics represents surface knowledge about the domain while rules represent deep knowledge. 1.3 The process Beyond the mere definitions of terms, management needs to understand the process of knowledge based systems. The diagram that is shown below shows the development and use of knowledge based systems as it is being practiced conventionally. There are phases in the development of the knowledge base system. The first is the development phase where the knowledge is extracted from the people with the relevant knowledge which is required in the relevant area. The general term in literature referred to these people is experts but they are referred to as domain specialist in more general terms. The knowledge is commonly expressed in terms of antecedent-consequent rules. There are some cases where the knowledge expert feeds the knowledge directly to the knowledge repository but most of the times it is recommended that the knowledge goes through a programmer with some language used for coding. At some time later in the use of the system, the users will get directly to the knowledge base without consulting the knowledge engineer. The software that is used in the system makes some inferences to the rules that are stored in the knowledge base. The inferences are made to the specific data to particular cases or to the more general cases in the domain. A result is then given to the user in the form of diagnosis, prognosis, decision, or recommendation on what the user should do next. The results will always depend on the nature of the application that is being used. There are some instances that the user may request an explanation about how the software reached a certain conclusion. The software will have the capability to generate this. 1.2.3 Areas of knowledge base systems There are emergent areas of the knowledge base systems that are included in the schema. The areas are described below: a. Acquisition of knowledge which is taken automatically; this is done through the analysis of cases which are historic in nature and are there for the sole purpose of assisting the knowledge engineer so that he can be able to create the knowledge base more directly. b. There is also a general-purpose knowledge-base which has an example of an encyclopedia which is expressed in a form which is appropriate, or expressed in associational knowledge; this knowledge has common knowledge or common sense. This may be used as a basis of building domain specific knowledge base. c. The last area of the knowledge base is inherent machine-learning ability such as the results of new cases that are used to modify the knowledge base which is already in existence. 1.4 Knowledge Base System Tools They are classified into three groups which include knowledge acquisition; this includes rule-induction and other machine-learning models, knowledge representation, including models of semantic networks like order-attribute-value triplets and frames, with production rules; inheritance; plausible reasoning; and logic programming; and Inference procedures, including goal-directed backward-chaining and data-driven forward-chaining, non-monotonic reasoning and depth-first and breadth-first search strategies. They are slightly different from those of conventional programming. The techniques required to develop knowledge based systems cannot be assumed to be available within an existing MIS department therefore, they must be nurtured or purchased and retained. 1.5 Database use The rise of online transactions has led to the use of databases more than before. There has been rise in dynamic knowledge based systems because, unlike the years of yonder where the database tools were today, proprietary, there are good tools that are free and can be used to develop databases which are robust in nature and can handle data very efficiently. What is more, with the use of open source technologies and spirit, more people are using open source tools and technologies to develop databases with the least effort. Many of these databases are the source of information which is being circulated on the Internet, but who cares? There have been online transactions including online banking, education, and online shopping. All these systems make extensive use of databases. The databases are no longer used to facilitate the storage of data alone; they are also used to facilitate the working of these online systems. Although the databases have proved to be of great benefit to the current information systems, there is a problem which is lurking and is a time bomb for the future systems. This is because the systems which are using these databases have insufficient security measures that they have put in place to counter any attacks that may be experienced in their system. With the coming up of knowledge based systems and being adopted by many data firms, the safety of the databases is of paramount importance to many organization. Also, the rise in computer fraud of late is enough reason to keep companies and IT professionals on their toes in databases security. Of late, computer hackers are no longer youngsters who are idling on the Internet but they are full time computer professionals who are aiming to get personal information so that they can use in online shops and online banks to wreck havoc to the owners of this personal information. The coming up of the Information system to manage the recipes is of paramount importance because any leakage in the system will disorganize the recipes. The Information Technology is growing very fast and in that sense, there are a lot of important data that are being posted to the Internet everyday and this data need to be protected from attack. Unfortunately, many companies are not aware of this threat and leave their information in the hands of unqualified staff that have less concern for this information. Part 2: 2.1 Java Learning student selection management system The use of a knowledge base would be the best option for my Java Learning student selection management system. The problem with the current situation is that most users keep on losing relevant information dealing with the required ingredients for the best foods in the restaurants. The use of a knowledge base would be handy in this situation because the knowledge base will not be lost in this situation. The system being described here is that of a Java Learning student selection which is used for creating categories and then adding recipes to the databases (Geelan, 2009). The purpose of creating this Java Learning student selection management system is due to the fact that it has been hard and tedious to manage the process of getting the right people to take the Java Learning System. There have been therefore the concerns to come up with a management system that will be used to store this important information. The system will be developed using JAVA. The purpose for the choice of this programming language is the fact that it supports Internet applications (Gronroos, & Ojasolo, 2004). With the shift to Internet applications, there has been need to have systems which support Internet applications so there is easy compatibility with most of Web 2.0 applications. Since most of the new systems that are being developed today support Web 2.0 technology, there is need that the knowledge based systems that are developed also support this technology. The database that will be used in the deployment of this system will be MySQL. This is preferred because it has high compatibility with Java. They are developed to complement each other. The connectivity to the database will be through the package that is available in Java. Someone will have to have an account in order to log into the system and perform the necessary queries that will be required to come up with the recipe that is desired (Fowler, & Worthen, 2009). 2.2 Components of the Java Learning student selection system The Java Learning student selection system that will be developed will include: a) Rule based reasoning. The most common features of knowledge based systems that have been developed with a structure of a Rule based Expert system include user interface, they are friendly, they may contain some element of intelligence, may contain knowledge of how information representation is done, and have knowledge of user preferences with time. b) Databases. The database will contain all the data that will of great interest to the system. This will be the mathematical skills. The skills desired for the course include Automata, Binary, Statistics, and other related course. The database will be connected to popular learning institutions’ databases so that for the courses which are foreign in nature will be got from the foreign databases. c) Inference engine. This will represent the methods and knowledge of solving particular problems in the system. The use of interpreter will be handy because it will be the interpreter who will analyze and process the rules. The scheduler will be concerned with which rule it will process next. The search part of the system will be used to process queries which will be fed to the system. There will be situations where the users will want to search particular course but they don’t have all the required information to get it directly for the system. In such occasions, they will use the search system which is in the system. d) Knowledge base (rule base). This is the place where most of the problem solving knowledge is stored. These are the IF conditions and THEN action. Much of the logistics are handled in this place. The condition of the rules is usually considered as a fact. 3.0 Conclusion Knowledge based systems have great potential which have to be tapped and exploited. Although it appears to be a new technology, there are a lot that can be achieved in the use of this knowledge. There some dangers and challenges which must be appreciated and confronted for this technology to reach the scale of heights in which it is expected to. This paper has looked widely at the use of this technology in the development of a Java Learning student selection which will be used in the management of recipes for the most interesting meals. References Fowler, G, & Worthen, B 2009, ‘The potential of Knowledge based system’, World Street Journal, pp A1. Geelan, J 2009, ‘The top 150 players in expert systems’, Expert System Computing Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 76, Pg. 53-58. Gronroos, C & Ojasolo, K 2004, ‘Experts Systems Realities’, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62, Issue 62, Pg. 73-78. Martin, R, & Hoover, N 2008, ‘Guide to knowledge based systems’, Information Week Journal, Vol. 62, No. 23, pp. 21-23. Read More