WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

Knowledge is the body of facts and principles. Knowledge can be language, concepts,
procedures, rules, ideas, abstractions,places,customs, and so on. study of knowledge is
called Epistemology.
Types of knowledge
The types of knowledge include procedural knowledge, declarative knowledge and
heuristic knowledge.
Procedural knowledge
Procedural knowledge is compiled or processed form of information. Procedural
knowledge is related to the performance of some task. For example, sequence of steps to
solve a problem is procedural knowledge.
Declarative knowledge
Declarative knowledge is passive knowledge in the form of statements of facts about the
world. For example, mark statement of a student is declarative knowledge.
Heuristic knowledge
Heuristics knowledge are rules of thumb or tricks. Heuristic knowledge is used to make
judgments and also to simplify solution of problems. It is acquired through experience.
An expert uses his knowledge that he has gathered due to his experience and learning.

semantic net
A semantic net (or semantic network) is a knowledge representation technique used
for propositional information. So it is also called a propositional net. Semantic nets
convey meaning. They are two dimensional representations of knowledge .
Mathematically a semantic net can be defined as a labelled directed graph.

Semantic nets consist of nodes, links (edges) and link labels. In the semantic network
diagram, nodes appear as circles or ellipses or rectangles to represent objects such as
physical objects, concepts or situations. Links appear as arrows to express the
relationships between objects, and link labels specify particular relations. Relationships
provide the basic structure for organizing knowledge . The objects and relations involved
need not be so concrete. As nodes are associated with other nodes semantic nets are also
referred to as associative nets.

Figure: A Semantic Network

In the above figure all the objects are within ovals and connected using labelled arcs.
Note that there is a link betweenJill and FemalePersons with label MemberOf. Simlarly
there is a MemberOf link between Jack and MalePersons and SisterOf link between Jill
and Jack. The MemberOf link between Jill and FemalePersons indicates that Jill belongs
to the category of female persons.
INHERITANCE REASONING
Unless there is a specific evidence to the contrary, it is assumed that all members of a
class (category) will inherit all the properties of their superclasses. So semantic
network allows us to perform inheritance reasoning. For example Jill inherits the property
of having two legs as she belongs to the category of FemalePersons which in turn belongs

to the category of Persons which has a boxed Legs link with value 2. Semantic nets
allows multiple inheritance. So an object can belong to more than one category and a
category can be a subset of more than one another category.
INVERSE LINKS
Semantic network allows a common form of inference known as inverse links. For
example we can have a HasSister link which is the inverse of SisterOf link.The inverse
links make the job of inference algorithms much easier to answer queries such as who the
sister of Jack is. On discovering that HasSister is the inverse of SisterOf the inference
algorithm can follow that link HasSister from Jack to Jill and answer the query.
DISADVANTAGE OF SEMANTIC NETS
One of the drawbacks of semantic network is that the links between the objects represent
only binary relations. For example, the sentence Run(ChennaiExpress,
Chennai,Bangalore,Today) cannot be asserted directly.
There is no standard definition of link names.
ADVANTAGES OF SEMANTIC NETS
Semantic nets have the ability to represent default values for categories. In the above
figure Jack has one leg while he is a person and all persons have two legs. So persons
have two legs has only default status which can be overridden by a specific value.
They convey some meaning in a transparent manner.
They nets are simple and easy to understand.
They are easy to translate into PROLOG.

WHAT ARE FRAMES?

Natural language understanding requires inference i.e., assumptions about what is
typically true of the objects or situations under consideration. Such information can be
coded in structures known as frames.
NEED OF FRAMES
Frame is a type of schema used in many AI applications including vision andnatural
language processing . Frames provide a convenient structure for representing objects

that are typical to a stereotypical situations. The situations to represent may be visual
scenes, structure of complex physical objects, etc. Frames are also useful for representing
commonsense knowledge. As frames allow nodes to have structures they can be regarded
as three-dimensional representations of knowledge.
A frame is similar to a record structure and corresponding to the fields and values are
slots and slot fillers. Basically it is a group of slots and fillers that defines a stereotypical
object. A single frame is not much useful. Frame systems usually have collection of
frames connected to each other. Value of an attribute of one frame may be another frame.
A frame for a book is given below.

publisher
title
author
edition
year
pages
The above example is simple one but most of the frames are complex. Moreover with
filler slots and inheritance provided by frames powerful knowledge representation
systems can be built.
Frames can represent either generic or frame. Following is the example for generic frame.
Slot
name
specialization_of
types
speed
location
under_warranty

The fillers may values such as computer in the name slot or a range of values as in types
slot. The procedures attached to the slots are called procedural attachments. There are
mainly three types of procedural attachments: if-needed, default and if-added. As the
name implies if-needed types of procedures will be executed when a filler value is
needed. Default value is taken if no other value exists. Defaults are used to
represent commonsense knowledge. Commonsense is generally used when no more
situation specific knowledge is available.
The if-added type is required if any value is to be added to a slot. In the above example, if
a new type of computer is invented ADD_COMPUTER procedure should be executed to
add that information. An if-removed type is used to remove a value from the slot.

WHAT IS EXPERT SYSTEM?

Expert system is an artificial
intelligence program that has expertlevelknowledge about a particular domain and knows how to use its knowledge to
respond properly. Domain refers to the area within which the task is being performed.
Ideally the expert systems should substitute a human expert . Edward Feigenbaum of
Stanford University has defined expert system as an intelligent computer program that
uses knowledge and inference procedures to solve problems that are difficult enough to
require significant human expertise for their solutions. It is a branch of artificial
intelligence introduced by researchers in the Stanford Heuristic Programming
Project .
The expert systems is a branch of AI designed to work within a particular domain. As an
expert is a person who can solve a problem with the domain knowledge in hands it
should be able to solve problems at the level of a human expert. The source of knowledge
may come come from a human expert and/or from books, magazines and internet. As
knowledge play a key role in the functioning of expert systems they are also known as
knowledge-based
systems
and
knowledge-based
expert
systems.
The
experts knowledge about solving the given specific problems is called knowledge
domain of the expert.

COMPONENTS OF EXPERT SYSTEMS

Figure: Expert System

Basic Concept of an Expert System Function
The expert system consists of two major components: knowledge base and inference
engine.
Knowledge base contains the domain knowledge which is used by the inference engine
to draw conclusions. The inference engine is the generic control mechanism that applies
the axiomatic knowledge to the task-specific data to arrive at some conclusion. When a
user supplies facts or relevant information of query to the expert system he receives
advice or expertise in response. That is given the facts it uses the inference engine which
in turn uses the knowledge base to infer the solution.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPERT SYSTEMS
High performance: They should perform at the level of a human expert.
Adequate response time: They should have the ability to respond in a reasonable
amount of time. Time is crucial especially for real time systems.
Reliability: They must be reliable and should not crash.
Understandable: They should not be a black box instead it should be able explain the
steps of the reasoning process. It should justify its conclusions in the same way a human
expert explains why he arrived at particular conclusion.

SHELL
A shell is a special purpose tool designed based on the requirements of particular
applications. User should supply the knowledge base to the shell. Example for the shell
is EMYCIN (Empty MYCIN) shell. Shell manages the input and output. It processes the
information given by the user, relates it to the concepts contained in the knowledge base,
and provides solution for a particular problem.
ADVANTAGES OF EXPERT SYSTEMS
Availability: Expert systems are available easily due to mass production software.
Cheaper: The cost of providing expertise is not expensive.
Reduced danger: They can be used in any risky environments where humans cannot
work with.
Permanence: The knowledge will last long indefinitely.
Multiple expertise: It can be designed to have knowledge of many experts.
Explanation: They are capable of explaining in detail the reasoning that led to a
conclusion.
Fast response: They can respond at great speed due to the inherent advantages of
computers over humans.
Unemotional and response at all times: Unlike humans, they do not get tense, fatigue
or panic and work steadily during emergency situations.