Product Description
After World War II, a systems approach to solving complex problems andmanaging complex systems came into vogue among engineers, scientists,and managers, fostered in part by the diffusion of digital computingpower. Enthusiasm for the approach peaked during the Johnsonadministration, when it was applied to everything from military commandand control systems to poverty in American cities. Although its failurein the social sphere, coupled with increasing skepticism about the roleof technology and "experts" in American society, led to a retrenchment,systems methods are still part of modern managerial practice.

This groundbreaking book charts the origins and spread of the systemsmovement. It describes the major players<--including RAND, MITRE,Ramo-Wooldrige (later TRW), and the International Institute of AppliedSystems Analysis--and examines applications in a wide variety ofmilitary, government, civil, and engineering settings. The book isinternational in scope, describing the spread of systems thinking inFrance and Sweden. The story it tells helps to explain engineeringthought and managerial practice during the last sixty years.

Contributors: Atsushi Akera, Harvey Brooks, Glenn Bugos, Davis Dyer,Paul N. Edwards, Gabrielle Hecht, David A. Hounshell, David R. Jardini,Stephen B. Johnson, Arne Kaijser, Lily E. Kay, Roger E. Levien, DonaldMacKenzie, Alan McDonald, David A. Mindell, Erik P. Rau, Joar Tiberg. ... Read more

Product Description
Real-Time Expert Systems Computer Architecture represents an integration of expert systems and real-time systems by analyzing an innovative computer architecture that combines these two areas of study. Shortcomings of existing systems are analyzed and requirements for a new expert systems computer architecture are presented.The key features of the architecture include such topics as priority processing, temporal reasoning, dataflow architecture, and uncertainty processing. The book thoroughly presents all aspects of system design, implementation, and performance analysis.

Since this book combines technologies, it will serve as an excellent reference for professionals in computer engineering, artificial intelligence, computer architecture, system design, and system engineering. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Here's what's in it:
Not being an expert on expert systems, I can't tell you how this book compares with others in the field. But I have a copy sitting next to me, and I can at least tell you what's in it.

For starters, the ISBN is the same, but the volume is number 7, not number 8. It is a collection of papers on expert systems, and an analysis of the latest developments in expert systems.

Here are the invited papers and their abstracts:

1. Making a start: a view from British industry, by A. d'Agapeyeff (Consultants in Information Technology, London). "The technology of expert systems is as much about knowledge as it is about computing. People are reluctant to believe either that they themselves solve important problems in a seemingly rough and ready manner or that they should rely on computers programmed to operate in the same way. This paper defines a meaning and a use of knowledge and gives a management perspective of knowledge-base systems, as well as discussing the possible uses of expert systems and the current involvement of some UK companies."

2. Intelligent front-ends, by A. Bundy (Department of Artificial Intelligence, U. of Edinburgh). "An intelligent front-end is a user-friendly interface to a software package, which uses artificial intelligence techniques to enable the user to interact with the computer using his or her own terminology rather than that demanded by the package. Several such systems exist and provide interfaces for finite-element, statistical and simulation packages. This is an important area of growth for expert systems. This paper discusses the techniques required in an intelligent front-end and debates whether general tools can be provided for their construction."

3. Reasoning about uncertainty: a knowledge representation perspective, by P. R. Cohen and T. R. Gruber (Department of Computer and Information Science, U. of Massachusetts). "Uncertainty is a vague concept. Nonetheless, it denotes a class of issues that must be faced if intelligent systems are to deal with real-world problems adequately. This paper discusses some of the circumstances in which uncertainty arises and thus clarifies what we mean by uncertainty. We will discuss important sources of uncertainty in rule-based inference, then present an organisation of AI approaches to uncertainty and, finally, propse a knowledge-representation view of reasoning about uncertainty."

4. Expert systems for education and training, by M. E. Fox (Lecturer in Modern Sciences, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, UK). "Expert systems for education and training are still at the experimental stage. Their general structure is explained in this paper. Four examples are introduced, to show what has been achieved: SOPHIE (to assist technicians in learning about electronic trouble-shooting), West (an educational computer game), and GUIDON and NEOMYCIN which are being developed to help medical students to learn the diagnosis of certain diseases. The general conclusion is that progress is probably limited by the scientific understanding of discourse, although some kinds of limited system may now be practical for regular classroom use."

5. Knowledge-based expert systems--the state of the art in the US, by F. Hayes-Roth (Teknowledge Inc, Palo Alto, CA). "This paper aims to describe the current state of knowledge systems technology and its commercialisation in the US. First, knowledge systems are defined and placed in a historical context. The introduction is concluded with a preview of major ideas. The paper will assess the technological state of the art and will survey the current state of commercialisation. Finally, some anticipated future trends will be discussed."

6. Overview of expert systems in Japan, by M. Ishizuka (Institute of Industrial Science, U. of Tokyo) and T. Moto-oka (Faculty of Engineering, U. of Tokyo). "In the move towards an advanced information society, novel technologies in the areas of computer hardware and software are urgently needed, in Japan as well as in other countries. The design concept of expert, or knowledge-based, systems holds promise for highly intelligent systems in a new era. Many R&D programmes exploring the possibilities of expert systems have been initiated. The Fifth Generation Computer Project has been a significant influence in this field. The project is expected to provide fundamental tools, including hardware and software for knowledge information processing systems. PROLOG, the enhanced version of which has been chosen as the kernel language of the Fifth Generation computer, is being used increasingly in Japan. This paper introduces a variety of activities involving expert systems in Japan. The focus is on the application side, rather than on basic technologies."

7. Knowledge acquisition, by A. Kidd and M. Welbank (British Telecom Research Laboratories). "The paper considers the important problem of acquiring knowledge from human experts. It describes the important objectives at each stage of this difficult taks, reviews the associated problems and critically examines a number of commonly used acquisition techniques. The paper argues that knowledge engineers have tended to adopt a rather limited approach towards the problems of knowledge acquisition in the past and that a much richer and broader view of expert knowledge is necessary in order to construct expert systems which will act as powerful and usable decision aids in real-world applications."

8. Knowledge-based systems in medicine: a review, by A. L. Rector (Medical Computation Unit, U. of Manchester, UK). "Medicine, especially medical diagnosis, has proved a fertile field for reserach in knowledge-based systems. Paradoxically, practical use of knowledge-based systems is still something of a rarity. This paper discusses the projects hat represent the continuing development of the Stanford University Heuristic Programming Project and looks at the many other knowledge-based systems being used in medical research today." (Discusses MYCIN, NEOMYCIN, EMYCIN, and ONCOCIN; PIP, ANNA, and ABEL; and others.) ... Read more

Product Description
The most popular basic introduction to Expert Systems is revised and updated to include new information on blackboard systems and has extended coverage of reasoning.Amazon.com Review
Written for the computer science student or more advanced developer interested in expert systems, the new edition of Peter Jackson's Introduction to Expert Systems provides a truly magisterial tour of several decades of artificial intelligence (AI) and expert system research. This comprehensive book compiles past efforts to get computers to reason like experts as well as explaining how today's expert systems work.

The notable strength of this title is the author's impressive command of the computer science literature in the field of AI and expert systems. In chapter after chapter, the author reviews research-quality (and some production-level) projects that have attempted to reproduce human expertise using computers in such areas as medical diagnosis. Besides explaining essential expert system topics such as knowledge representation and the rules used for arriving at decisions, this book also provides numerous samples using the CLIPS programming language.

This textbook-style treatment of this subject features plenty of mathematical notation (such as the propositional calculus) and exercises at the end to stimulate your own thinking. For the general reader, the author's explanation of the history of AI (which has offered mixed results in the face of high expectations in the 1980s, for instance) is quite accessible and probably worth the price of the book. Rich with detail for the expert, this title shows off the best of expert systems--both in the past and today--as well as the reasonably bright prospects for the future of intelligent machines that think more like human experts. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Introduction to expert systems; representing knowledge; history of artificial intelligence (AI) research: Classical, Romantic, and Modern Periods; knowledge representation: STIPS and MYCIN applications; symbolic representation and LISP; rule-based and canonical systems; associative nets and frame systems: graphs, trees, and networks; object-oriented programming and its usefulness in expert systems; programming languages: LOOPS, Flavors, CLOS, CLIPS, C++, and PROLOG; uncertainty and fuzzy logic; knowledge acquisition; heuristic classification; strategies for problem solving; blackboard architectures; machine learning; police networks; case-based reasoning (CBR); hybrid systems; and the future of expert systems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pleasant Sommer Holidays Reading
Peter Jackson takes you by the hand through a vast and difficult subject. He explains even advanced topics in a surprisingly accessible form. But if you try to make some steps of your own and are not already well versed in that specific topic, be prepared to get lost immediately. If you are well versed, expect to be surprised by his elegant approaches.

This is an introduction through the breadth of Expert Systems. It is not a guide to get practical results fast. It doesn't please the mathematical minded readers. In fact it only contains very little explicit mathematics at all. But it delivers an enormous amount of material. The pages are filled to the rim with small but well readable print. The writing is moderately dense. "Introduction to Expert Systems" will keep you entertained for quite some time if you choose to read it all. For people in a hurry there are many shortcut tracks outlined and the chapters are quite selfcontained

Mediocre
The 1986 edition of the book starts out saying that it is not "a course in how to construct knowledge-based systems (page v preface)" and that is so true. As the book attempts to give an informative overview of various expert system techniques it fails to clearly communicate them due to its lack of clear "how to" instructions which are absolutely necessary to explain the complex principles covered. I have a Master's degree in Communications myselfand find this book to be one of the types assigned to students due to its industry status rather than because it gets the job of education done.

The book provides an excellent introduction to the subject.
I read all the editions of Peter Jackson's Expert System book. All the editions were equally good with respect to the developments of the subject at that time.The current edition covers a wide disciplines of subject witha very simple but elegant style of presentation. I liked the book for itscoverage and simplicity. Irecommend the book for my graduate studentsspecializing in knowledge-based computing. I wish you all to see the bookonce and recommend it to your colleagues. ... Read more

Product Description
Presented at the University of Warwick in December 1985, these papers reflect the two streams of the conference: techniques and applications. Techniques examined in the first stream covered many aspects of expert systems research, including knowledge acquisition, knowledge-based planning and different inference methods, while applications in statistics, diagnosis, process control and design were included in the second stream. Expert systems are making significant contributions to an ever-widening range of activities, from academic research in computer science to industry, business and, indeed, to society at large. This book reports from practitioners at the forefront of this expanding field and will be essential reading for all who wish to keep pace with it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Principles of Expert Systems
PLEASE DON'T BUY THIS BOOK,If you have to read up on Expert systems don't try this one.In my opinion Peter Lucas is the most boring person on the subject.The book is not written well an the examples are to complicated. STEER CLEAR ... Read more

Product Description
This volume directly applies discussion of expert systems and computer simulation models to the area of marketing management. Drawing on original research, the authors show how the use of knowledge-based systems and computerized modelling procedures can improve managerial decision-making. The first section looks at the concepts involved, giving examples of spreadsheets and databases, and a review of marketing expert systems. The second section then concentrates on the background and operation of several knowledge bases designed for specific marketing problems. The emphasis throughout is on practical application, and the provision of a variety of case studies and interesting examples aims to assist readers to develop their own models in a variety of different settings. This volume presents a framework for development in this growing area and should be of significant interest to students and researchers in information technology, marketing and related disciplines. ... Read more

Product Description
This groundbreaking book charts the origins and spread of thesystems movement. ... Read more

Product Description
These 68 papers demonstrate the dual role of cognitive engineering which, on the one hand, is utilized to design computer systems compatible with human cognition and which can be effectively and easily used by all individuals, and on the other hand, is used to transfer human cognition into the computer for the purpose of building expert systems. The papers were selected from a total of 752 papers submitted to the conference, from 31 countries around the world. A further 43 selected papers are published in a companion volume entitled Social, Ergonomic and Stress Aspects of Work with Computers, edited by G. Salvendy, S.L. Sauter and J.J. Hurrell, Jr. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Review of Business, published by St. John's University, College of Business Administration on December 22, 1990. The length of the article is 4048 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The effects of cognitive style on the design of expert systems. (simulation of human intelligence in the design of expert systems or computers)
Author: Helen G. Vassallo
Publication: Review of Business (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1990
Publisher: St. John's University, College of Business Administration
Volume: v12Issue: n3Page: p37(7)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This book comprises papers presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Expert Systems, held at the University of Warwick in December 1984, augmented by an initial overview paper placing the work in context. The papers cover many aspects of current research and development in Expert Systems, including Expert System shells, reasoning and inference in diagnostic systems, the man-machine interface, the representation of knowledge, and knowledge elicitation and acquisition, together with discussions of various applications of such systems. In addition, the texts of lectures by invited speakers on natural language processing and on the representation of knowledge are provided. The field of Expert Systems has developed very rapidly in recent years. This collection provides an up-to-date survey of the current state of the art by leading practitioners. It is essential reading for all who wish to keep up to date with both the achievements and the problems in this important field. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

R & D in Expert Systems by Bramer
The work teaches how to reduce a large body of knowledge to a
precise set of facts and rules. A cognitive psychological
model may be formulated because humans have a highly anticipatory
system of modeling the world to increase the likelihood of
survival.

The author sets forth some fairly sophisticated rule structures
at the meta level. For instance:
o A meta meta system sets forth distinctions that specify
further relations amongst distinctions on lower levels of
the decision-making process
o A set of distinctions sets forth the basis of the comparisons
o Models generate data on comparative relationships between
and amongst individual models
o Distinctions about particular events are analyzed
o Same or similar systems distinctions are made

This book is for the student at the intermediate level of
artificial intelligence sophistication and model-building. ... Read more