What does Artificial Intelligence (AI) mean?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the

creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. Some of the
activities computers with artificial intelligence are designed for include:

 Speech recognition
 Learning
 Planning
 Problem solving

Fuzzy Logic Systems (FLS) produce acceptable but definite output in

response to incomplete, ambiguous, distorted, or inaccurate (fuzzy) input.

What is Fuzzy Logic?

Fuzzy Logic (FL) is a method of reasoning that resembles human
reasoning. The approach of FL imitates the way of decision making in
humans that involves all intermediate possibilities between digital values
YES and NO.

The conventional logic block that a computer can understand takes precise
input and produces a definite output as TRUE or FALSE, which is equivalent
to human’s YES or NO.

The inventor of fuzzy logic, Lotfi Zadeh, observed that unlike computers,
the human decision making includes a range of possibilities between YES
and NO, such as −

CERTAINLY YES
POSSIBLY YES
CANNOT SAY
POSSIBLY NO
CERTAINLY NO
The fuzzy logic works on the levels of possibilities of input to achieve the
definite output.
Implementation
 It can be implemented in systems with various sizes and capabilities ranging
from small micro-controllers to large, networked, workstation-based control
systems.

 It can be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both.

Why Fuzzy Logic?

Fuzzy logic is useful for commercial and practical purposes.

 It can control machines and consumer products.

 It may not give accurate reasoning, but acceptable reasoning.

 Fuzzy logic helps to deal with the uncertainty in engineering.

Fuzzy Logic Systems Architecture

It has four main parts as shown −

 Fuzzification Module − It transforms the system inputs, which are crisp

numbers, into fuzzy sets. It splits the input signal into five steps such as −

LP x is Large Positive

MP x is Medium Positive

S x is Small

MN x is Medium Negative

LN x is Large Negative

 Knowledge Base − It stores IF-THEN rules provided by experts.

 Inference Engine − It simulates the human reasoning process by making

fuzzy inference on the inputs and IF-THEN rules.

 Defuzzification Module − It transforms the fuzzy set obtained by the

inference engine into a crisp value.
The membership functions work on fuzzy sets of variables.

Membership Function
Membership functions allow you to quantify linguistic term and represent
a fuzzy set graphically. A membership function for a fuzzy set A on the
universe of discourse X is defined as μA:X → [0,1].

Here, each element of X is mapped to a value between 0 and 1. It is

calledmembership value or degree of membership. It quantifies the
degree of membership of the element in X to the fuzzy set A.

 x axis represents the universe of discourse.

 y axis represents the degrees of membership in the [0, 1] interval.

There can be multiple membership functions applicable to fuzzify a

numerical value. Simple membership functions are used as use of complex
functions does not add more precision in the output.

All membership functions for LP, MP, S, MN, and LN are shown as below
−
The triangular membership function shapes are most common among
various other membership function shapes such as trapezoidal, singleton,
and Gaussian.

Here, the input to 5-level fuzzifier varies from -10 volts to +10 volts. Hence
the corresponding output also changes.

Example of a Fuzzy Logic System

Let us consider an air conditioning system with 5-level fuzzy logic system.
This system adjusts the temperature of air conditioner by comparing the
room temperature and the target temperature value.
Algorithm

 Define linguistic variables and terms.

 Construct membership functions for them.

 Construct knowledge base of rules.

 Convert crisp data into fuzzy data sets using membership functions.
(fuzzification)

 Evaluate rules in the rule base. (Inference Engine)

 Combine results from each rule. (Inference Engine)

 Convert output data into non-fuzzy values. (defuzzification)

Logic Development
Step 1: Define linguistic variables and terms

Linguistic variables are input and output variables in the form of simple
words or sentences. For room temperature, cold, warm, hot, etc., are
linguistic terms.

Temperature (t) = {very-cold, cold, warm, very-warm, hot}

Every member of this set is a linguistic term and it can cover some portion
of overall temperature values.

Step 2: Construct membership functions for them

The membership functions of temperature variable are as shown −

Step3: Construct knowledge base rules

Create a matrix of room temperature values versus target temperature

values that an air conditioning system is expected to provide.

RoomTemp.
Very_Cold Cold Warm Hot Very_Hot
/Target

Very_Cold No_Change Heat Heat Heat Heat

Cold Cool No_Change Heat Heat Heat

Warm Cool Cool No_Change Heat Heat

Hot Cool Cool Cool No_Change Heat

Very_Hot Cool Cool Cool Cool No_Change

Build a set of rules into the knowledge base in the form of IF-THEN-ELSE
structures.

Sr. No. Condition Action

IF temperature=(Cold OR Very_Cold) AND target=Warm Heat

1
THEN

IF temperature=(Hot OR Very_Hot) AND target=Warm Cool

2
THEN

3 IF (temperature=Warm) AND (target=Warm) THEN No_Change

Step 4: Obtain fuzzy value

Fuzzy set operations perform evaluation of rules. The operations used for
OR and AND are Max and Min respectively. Combine all results of
evaluation to form a final result. This result is a fuzzy value.

Step 5: Perform defuzzification

Defuzzification is then performed according to membership function for
output variable.

Application Areas of Fuzzy Logic

The key application areas of fuzzy logic are as given −

Automotive Systems

 Automatic Gearboxes

 Four-Wheel Steering

 Vehicle environment control

Consumer Electronic Goods

 Hi-Fi Systems

 Photocopiers

 Still and Video Cameras

 Television

Domestic Goods

 Microwave Ovens

 Refrigerators

 Toasters

 Vacuum Cleaners

 Washing Machines

Environment Control
  Air Conditioners/Dryers/Heaters

 Humidifiers

Advantages of FLSs
 Mathematical concepts within fuzzy reasoning are very simple.

 You can modify a FLS by just adding or deleting rules due to flexibility of fuzzy
logic.

 Fuzzy logic Systems can take imprecise, distorted, noisy input information.

 FLSs are easy to construct and understand.

 Fuzzy logic is a solution to complex problems in all fields of life, including

medicine, as it resembles human reasoning and decision making.

Disadvantages of FLSs
 There is no systematic approach to fuzzy system designing.

 They are understandable only when simple.

 They are suitable for the problems which do not need high accuracy.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural Language Processing (NLP) refers to AI method of communicating
with an intelligent systems using a natural language such as English.

Processing of Natural Language is required when you want an intelligent

system like robot to perform as per your instructions, when you want to
hear decision from a dialogue based clinical expert system, etc.

The field of NLP involves making computers to perform useful tasks with
the natural languages humans use. The input and output of an NLP system
can be −

 Speech

 Written Text

Components of NLP
There are two components of NLP as given −

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

Understanding involves the following tasks −

 Mapping the given input in natural language into useful representations.

 Analyzing different aspects of the language.

Natural Language Generation (NLG)

It is the process of producing meaningful phrases and sentences in the
form of natural language from some internal representation.

It involves −

 Text planning − It includes retrieving the relevant content from knowledge

base.

 Sentence planning − It includes choosing required words, forming

meaningful phrases, setting tone of the sentence.

 Text Realization − It is mapping sentence plan into sentence structure.

The NLU is harder than NLG.

Difficulties in NLU
NL has an extremely rich form and structure.

It is very ambiguous. There can be different levels of ambiguity −

 Lexical ambiguity − It is at very primitive level such as word-level.

 For example, treating the word “board” as noun or verb?

 Syntax Level ambiguity − A sentence can be parsed in different ways.

 For example, “He lifted the beetle with red cap.” − Did he use cap to lift the
beetle or he lifted a beetle that had red cap?

 Referential ambiguity − Referring to something using pronouns. For

example, Rima went to Gauri. She said, “I am tired.” − Exactly who is tired?

 One input can mean different meanings.

 Many inputs can mean the same thing.

NLP Terminology
 Phonology − It is study of organizing sound systematically.

 Morphology − It is a study of construction of words from primitive meaningful

units.
  Morpheme − It is primitive unit of meaning in a language.

 Syntax − It refers to arranging words to make a sentence. It also involves

determining the structural role of words in the sentence and in phrases.

 Semantics − It is concerned with the meaning of words and how to combine

words into meaningful phrases and sentences.

 Pragmatics − It deals with using and understanding sentences in different

situations and how the interpretation of the sentence is affected.

 Discourse − It deals with how the immediately preceding sentence can affect
the interpretation of the next sentence.

 World Knowledge − It includes the general knowledge about the world.

Steps in NLP
There are general five steps −

 Lexical Analysis − It involves identifying and analyzing the structure of

words. Lexicon of a language means the collection of words and phrases in a
language. Lexical analysis is dividing the whole chunk of txt into paragraphs,
sentences, and words.

 Syntactic Analysis (Parsing) − It involves analysis of words in the sentence

for grammar and arranging words in a manner that shows the relationship
among the words. The sentence such as “The school goes to boy” is rejected
by English syntactic analyzer.
  Semantic Analysis − It draws the exact meaning or the dictionary meaning
from the text. The text is checked for meaningfulness. It is done by mapping
syntactic structures and objects in the task domain. The semantic analyzer
disregards sentence such as “hot ice-cream”.

 Discourse Integration − The meaning of any sentence depends upon the

meaning of the sentence just before it. In addition, it also brings about the
meaning of immediately succeeding sentence.

 Pragmatic Analysis − During this, what was said is re-interpreted on what it

actually meant. It involves deriving those aspects of language which require
real world knowledge.

Implementation Aspects of Syntactic Analysis

There are a number of algorithms researchers have developed for syntactic
analysis, but we consider only the following simple methods −

 Context-Free Grammar

 Top-Down Parser

Let us see them in detail −

Context-Free Grammar
It is the grammar that consists rules with a single symbol on the left-hand
side of the rewrite rules. Let us create grammar to parse a sentence −
“The bird pecks the grains”

Articles (DET) − a | an | the

Nouns − bird | birds | grain | grains

Noun Phrase (NP) − Article + Noun | Article + Adjective + Noun

= DET N | DET ADJ N

Verbs − pecks | pecking | pecked

Verb Phrase (VP) − NP V | V NP

Adjectives (ADJ) − beautiful | small | chirping

The parse tree breaks down the sentence into structured parts so that the
computer can easily understand and process it. In order for the parsing
algorithm to construct this parse tree, a set of rewrite rules, which describe
what tree structures are legal, need to be constructed.

These rules say that a certain symbol may be expanded in the tree by a
sequence of other symbols. According to first order logic rule, if there are
two strings Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP), then the string
combined by NP followed by VP is a sentence. The rewrite rules for the
sentence are as follows −

S → NP VP

NP → DET N | DET ADJ N

VP → V NP

Lexocon −

DET → a | the

ADJ → beautiful | perching

N → bird | birds | grain | grains

V → peck | pecks | pecking

The parse tree can be created as shown −

Now consider the above rewrite rules. Since V can be replaced by both,
"peck" or "pecks", sentences such as "The bird peck the grains" with wrong
subject-verb agreement are also permitted.

Merit − The simplest style of grammar, therefore widely used one.

Demerits

 They are not highly precise. For example, “The grains peck the bird”, is a
syntactically correct according to parser, but even if it makes no sense, parser
takes it as a correct sentence.

 To bring out high precision, multiple sets of grammar need to be prepared. It

may require a completely different sets of rules for parsing singular and plural
variations, passive sentences, etc., which can lead to creation of huge set of
rules that are unmanageable.

Top-Down Parser
Here, the parser starts with the S symbol and attempts to rewrite it into a
sequence of terminal symbols that matches the classes of the words in the
input sentence until it consists entirely of terminal symbols.
These are then checked with the input sentence to see if it matched. If
not, the process is started over again with a different set of rules. This is
repeated until a specific rule is found which describes the structure of the
sentence.

Merit − It is simple to implement.

Demerits

 It is inefficient, as the search process has to be repeated if an error occurs.

 Slow speed of working.

AI AGENT & ENVIRONMENT

An AI system is composed of an agent and its environment. The agents
act in their environment. The environment may contain other agents.

What are Agent and Environment?

An agent is anything that can perceive its environment
through sensors and acts upon that environment through effectors.

 A human agent has sensory organs such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin
parallel to the sensors, and other organs such as hands, legs, mouth, for
effectors.

 A robotic agent replaces cameras and infrared range finders for the sensors,
and various motors and actuators for effectors.
  A software agent has encoded bit strings as its programs and actions.

Agent Terminology
 Performance Measure of Agent − It is the criteria, which determines how
successful an agent is.

 Behavior of Agent − It is the action that agent performs after any given
sequence of percepts.

 Percept − It is agent’s perceptual inputs at a given instance.

 Percept Sequence − It is the history of all that an agent has perceived till
date.

 Agent Function − It is a map from the precept sequence to an action.

Rationality
Rationality is nothing but status of being reasonable, sensible, and having
good sense of judgment.

Rationality is concerned with expected actions and results depending upon

what the agent has perceived. Performing actions with the aim of obtaining
useful information is an important part of rationality.

What is Ideal Rational Agent?

An ideal rational agent is the one, which is capable of doing expected
actions to maximize its performance measure, on the basis of −

 Its percept sequence

 Its built-in knowledge base

Rationality of an agent depends on the following four factors −

 The performance measures, which determine the degree of success.

 Agent’s Percept Sequence till now.

 The agent’s prior knowledge about the environment.

 The actions that the agent can carry out.

A rational agent always performs right action, where the right action
means the action that causes the agent to be most successful in the given
percept sequence. The problem the agent solves is characterized by
Performance Measure, Environment, Actuators, and Sensors (PEAS).

The Structure of Intelligent Agents

Agent’s structure can be viewed as −

 Agent = Architecture + Agent Program

 Architecture = the machinery that an agent executes on.

 Agent Program = an implementation of an agent function.

Simple Reflex Agents

 They choose actions only based on the current percept.

 They are rational only if a correct decision is made only on the basis of
current precept.

 Their environment is completely observable.

Condition-Action Rule − It is a rule that maps a state (condition) to an

action.
Model Based Reflex Agents
They use a model of the world to choose their actions. They maintain an
internal state.

Model − The knowledge about “how the things happen in the world”.

Internal State − It is a representation of unobserved aspects of current

state depending on percept history.

Updating the state requires the information about −

 How the world evolves.

 How the agent’s actions affect the world.

Goal Based Agents
They choose their actions in order to achieve goals. Goal-based approach
is more flexible than reflex agent since the knowledge supporting a
decision is explicitly modeled, thereby allowing for modifications.

Goal − It is the description of desirable situations.

Utility Based Agents

They choose actions based on a preference (utility) for each state. Goals
are inadequate when −

 There are conflicting goals, out of which only few can be achieved.
  Goals have some uncertainty of being achieved and you need to weigh
likelihood of success against the importance of a goal.

AI – POPULAR SEARCH ALGORITHMS

Searching is the universal technique of problem solving in AI. There are
some single-player games such as tile games, Sudoku, crossword, etc. The
search algorithms help you to search for a particular position in such
games.

Single Agent Pathfinding Problems

The games such as 3X3 eight-tile, 4X4 fifteen-tile, and 5X5 twenty four
tile puzzles are single-agent-path-finding challenges. They consist of a
matrix of tiles with a blank tile. The player is required to arrange the tiles
by sliding a tile either vertically or horizontally into a blank space with the
aim of accomplishing some objective.

The other examples of single agent pathfinding problems are Travelling

Salesman Problem, Rubik’s Cube, and Theorem Proving.

Search Terminology
 Problem Space − It is the environment in which the search takes place. (A
set of states and set of operators to change those states)

 Problem Instance − It is Initial state + Goal state.

  Problem Space Graph − It represents problem state. States are shown by
nodes and operators are shown by edges.

 Depth of a problem − Length of a shortest path or shortest sequence of

operators from Initial State to goal state.

 Space Complexity − The maximum number of nodes that are stored in

memory.

 Time Complexity − The maximum number of nodes that are created.

 Admissibility − A property of an algorithm to always find an optimal solution.

 Branching Factor − The average number of child nodes in the problem space
graph.

 Depth − Length of the shortest path from initial state to goal state.

Brute-Force Search Strategies

They are most simple, as they do not need any domain-specific knowledge.
They work fine with small number of possible states.

Requirements −

 State description

 A set of valid operators

 Initial state

 Goal state description

Breadth-First Search
It starts from the root node, explores the neighboring nodes first and
moves towards the next level neighbors. It generates one tree at a time
until the solution is found. It can be implemented using FIFO queue data
structure. This method provides shortest path to the solution.

If branching factor (average number of child nodes for a given node) =

b and depth = d, then number of nodes at level d = bd.

The total no of nodes created in worst case is b + b2 + b3 + … + bd.

Disadvantage − Since each level of nodes is saved for creating next one,
it consumes a lot of memory space. Space requirement to store nodes is
exponential.
Its complexity depends on the number of nodes. It can check duplicate
nodes.

Depth-First Search
It is implemented in recursion with LIFO stack data structure. It creates
the same set of nodes as Breadth-First method, only in the different order.

As the nodes on the single path are stored in each iteration from root to
leaf node, the space requirement to store nodes is linear. With branching
factor band depth as m, the storage space is bm.

Disadvantage − This algorithm may not terminate and go on infinitely on

one path. The solution to this issue is to choose a cut-off depth. If the ideal
cut-off isd, and if chosen cut-off is lesser than d, then this algorithm may
fail. If chosen cut-off is more than d, then execution time increases.

Its complexity depends on the number of paths. It cannot check duplicate

nodes.

Bidirectional Search
It searches forward from initial state and backward from goal state till both
meet to identify a common state.

The path from initial state is concatenated with the inverse path from the
goal state. Each search is done only up to half of the total path.
Uniform Cost Search
Sorting is done in increasing cost of the path to a node. It always expands
the least cost node. It is identical to Breadth First search if each transition
has the same cost.

It explores paths in the increasing order of cost.

Disadvantage − There can be multiple long paths with the cost ≤ C*.
Uniform Cost search must explore them all.

Iterative Deepening Depth-First Search

It performs depth-first search to level 1, starts over, executes a complete
depth-first search to level 2, and continues in such way till the solution is
found.

It never creates a node until all lower nodes are generated. It only saves
a stack of nodes. The algorithm ends when it finds a solution at depth d.
The number of nodes created at depth d is bd and at depth d-1 is bd-1.

Comparison of Various Algorithms Complexities

Let us see the performance of algorithms based on various criteria −

Breadth Depth Uniform Interactive

Criterion Bidirectional
First First Cost Deepening

Time bd bm bd/2 bd bd

Space bd bm bd/2 bd bd
Optimality Yes No Yes Yes Yes

Completeness Yes No Yes Yes Yes

Informed (Heuristic) Search Strategies

To solve large problems with large number of possible states, problem-
specific knowledge needs to be added to increase the efficiency of search
algorithms.

Heuristic Evaluation Functions

They calculate the cost of optimal path between two states. A heuristic
function for sliding-tiles games is computed by counting number of moves
that each tile makes from its goal state and adding these number of moves
for all tiles.

Pure Heuristic Search

It expands nodes in the order of their heuristic values. It creates two lists,
a closed list for the already expanded nodes and an open list for the
created but unexpanded nodes.

In each iteration, a node with a minimum heuristic value is expanded, all

its child nodes are created and placed in the closed list. Then, the heuristic
function is applied to the child nodes and they are placed in the open list
according to their heuristic value. The shorter paths are saved and the
longer ones are disposed.

A * Search
It is best-known form of Best First search. It avoids expanding paths that
are already expensive, but expands most promising paths first.

f(n) = g(n) + h(n), where

 g(n) the cost (so far) to reach the node

 h(n) estimated cost to get from the node to the goal

 f(n) estimated total cost of path through n to goal. It is implemented using

priority queue by increasing f(n).

Greedy Best First Search

It expands the node that is estimated to be closest to goal. It expands
nodes based on f(n) = h(n). It is implemented using priority queue.
Disadvantage − It can get stuck in loops. It is not optimal.

Local Search Algorithms

They start from a prospective solution and then move to a neighboring
solution. They can return a valid solution even if it is interrupted at any
time before they end.

Hill-Climbing Search
It is an iterative algorithm that starts with an arbitrary solution to a
problem and attempts to find a better solution by changing a single
element of the solution incrementally. If the change produces a better
solution, an incremental change is taken as a new solution. This process
is repeated until there are no further improvements.

function Hill-Climbing (problem), returns a state that is a local maximum.

inputs: problem, a problem

local variables: current, a node
neighbor, a node
current <-Make_Node(Initial-State[problem])
loop
do neighbor <- a highest_valued successor of current
if Value[neighbor] ≤ Value[current] then
return State[current]
current <- neighbor

end

Disadvantage − This algorithm is neither complete, nor optimal.

Local Beam Search

In this algorithm, it holds k number of states at any given time. At the
start, these states are generated randomly. The successors of these k
states are computed with the help of objective function. If any of these
successors is the maximum value of the objective function, then the
algorithm stops.

Otherwise the (initial k states and k number of successors of the states =

2k) states are placed in a pool. The pool is then sorted numerically. The
highest k states are selected as new initial states. This process continues
until a maximum value is reached.

function BeamSearch( problem, k), returns a solution state.

start with k randomly generated states
loop
generate all successors of all k states
if any of the states = solution, then return the state
else select the k best successors
end

Simulated Annealing
Annealing is the process of heating and cooling a metal to change its
internal structure for modifying its physical properties. When the metal
cools, its new structure is seized, and the metal retains its newly obtained
properties. In simulated annealing process, the temperature is kept
variable.

We initially set the temperature high and then allow it to ‘cool' slowly as
the algorithm proceeds. When the temperature is high, the algorithm is
allowed to accept worse solutions with high frequency.

Start

 Initialize k = 0; L = integer number of variables;

 From i → j, search the performance difference Δ.

 If Δ <= 0 then accept else if exp(-Δ/T(k)) > random(0,1) then accept;

 Repeat steps 1 and 2 for L(k) steps.

 k = k + 1;

Repeat steps 1 through 4 till the criteria is met.

End

Travelling Salesman Problem

In this algorithm, the objective is to find a low-cost tour that starts from a
city, visits all cities en-route exactly once and ends at the same starting
city.

Start
Find out all (n -1)! Possible solutions, where n is the total number of cities.
Determine the minimum cost by finding out the cost of each of these (n -1)! solutions.
 Finally, keep the one with the minimum cost.
end

INFERENCE FIRST ORDER LOGIC VIDEO -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdx6E2w9Td0

Building Knowledge Bases

Introduction

Before the presentation of the techniques and characteristics of building knowledge

bases, it is necessary to establish the groundwork for that by first defining
knowledge and how it differs from data and information.

In order to clearly distinguish these concepts, they can be thought as part of a

hierarchy where data is the base of the pyramid, followed by information,
knowledge and wisdom the top (Tuthill, 1990). Data consists of raw facts that has
no useful meaning or has little application until they are interrelated and processed
to generate what we call information. For example, a file can store a sequence of
names and dates (data) which has no meaning until they are related to company X
and represent the employees of X (information). Furthermore, the stored data
become information when they can be processed to generate a meaningful output
to a community of users.

When the information is synthesized it is called knowledge and it is considered in a

higher level in the hierarchy just described. In other words, knowledge is a
collection of facts, relationships and behavior of objects in a model represented by
complex structures derived from the information considered in a particular domain.

Sometimes the terms data and information are used interchangeably, as in the
following example that Feigenbaum (1983) use to emphasize the difference
between data and knowledge.

A physician treating a patient uses both knowledge and data. The data is the
patient's record, including patient history, measurements of vital signs, drugs
given, response to drugs, and so on, whereas knowledge is what the physician has
learned in medical school and in the years of internship, residency, specialization,
and practice. Knowledge is what the physician now learns in journals. It consists of
facts, prejudices, beliefs, and most importantly, heuristic knowledge.

The wisdom is the result of applying judgment and moral concepts to the
knowledge and it is not regarded as a base for the construction of knowledge-based
systems.

The knowledge-based systems (also known as expert systems) have an architecture

that includes an I/O interface, an editor, an inference engine, an working memory
and most importantly, an knowledge base. Some more sophisticated systems
include the explanation and learning modules and case history files.

What should define a system as more or less intelligent is the quality and quantity
of knowledge built on it. "In the knowledge lies the power!". This idea became
stronger and stronger since the early 70s and Edward Feigenbaum express this
paradigm in a paper at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
(IJCAI) in 1977. He emphasized this idea by saying: "the real power of an expert
system comes from the knowledge it possesses rather than the particular inference
schemas and other formalisms it employs".

Sometimes the knowledge in particular domain can be difficult to find or it is not

expressed precisely and completely. In these cases, acquire and represent the
knowledge is a challenge task for the engineer responsible for that. In order to
establish an accurate and thoroughly knowledge base, it is essential to use the right
techniques and sources to acquire the knowledge and to use the best representation
schema to model this particular domain.

In the next sections the methods and aspects related to acquisition and
representation of knowledge will be discussed. First, a brief description of
knowledge-based systems is presented to show how the knowledge base is defined
and used in intelligent systems.

Knowledge-based Systems X Conventional Systems

In traditional systems based on algorithms the knowledge is incorporated in the

program code. Should the systems' knowledge be increased, it is necessary to
redefine the code in such a way that it can deal with the new systems'
requirements. The development of knowledge-based systems (KBS) is not based
on an algorithm process. It relies on symbolic representation and manipulation.
Using those symbols it is possible to build a complete knowledge base that
represents a model for a well-defined domain.

In KBS the knowledge is created and maintained separated from the inference
engine, which is the module responsible for processing and deriving conclusions
from the knowledge base. The knowledge base represents facts, rules and
relationship between objects in a specialized domain. As a consequence of this, the
same inference engine can be used to derive conclusions making analysis upon
different knowledge bases.

The KBS provides the knowledge engineer with a mechanism to create, delete and
change the knowledge base as the system' requirements change. This process
should be done carefully and precisely in order to avoid inconsistency, redundancy
and incorrectness. The user is allowed to interact with the KBS through an I/O
interface, where he/she can issue queries asking for conclusion, diagnosis or
whatever solution the KBS is designed for.

Another point that distinguishes KBS from conventional systems is the fact that
they can provide explanations about how they reach a specific conclusion.
Moreover, when the user is asked for some information, he/she is allowed to know
why the question has been made or why this information is important for solving a
particular problem. In other words, the KBS are able to show what is the reasoning
strategy used to derive conclusions and solve problems.

Based on the characteristics of KBS described below, it is clear that the process of
building knowledge bases is critical when it comes to develop intelligent systems.
As it was already pointed out, building knowledge bases involves two steps,
namely knowledge acquisition and knowledge representation. The next two
sections cover the features and techniques related to both phases