This book presents an innovative approach to verifying and validating rule-based expert systems. It features a complete set of techniques and tools that provide a more formal, objective, and automated means of carrying out verification and validation procedures. Many of the concepts behind these procedures have been adapted from conventional software, while others have required that new techniques or tools be created because of the uniqueness of rule-based expert systems. Verification and Validation of Rule-Based Expert Systems is a valuable reference for electrical engineers, software engineers, artificial intelligence experts, and computer scientists involved with object-oriented development, expert systems, and programming languages.

The purpose of this book is to introduce and explain research at the boundary between two fields that view problem solving from different perspectives. Researchers in operations research and artificial intelligence have traditionally remained separate in their activities. Recently, there has been an explosion of work at the border of the two fields, as members of both communities seek to leverage their activities and resolve problems that remain intractable to pure operations research or artificial intelligence techniques. This book presents representative results from this current flurry of activity and provides insights into promising directions for continued exploration. This book should be of special interest to researchers in artificial intelligence and operations research because it exposes a number of applications and techniques, which have benefited from the integration of problem solving strategies. Even researchers working on different applications or with different techniques can benefit from the descriptions contained here, because they provide insight into effective methods for combining approaches from the two fields. Additionally, researchers in both communities will find a wealth of pointers to challenging new problems and potential opportunities that exist at the interface between operations research and artificial intelligence. In addition to the obvious interest the book should have for members of the operations research and artificial intelligence communities, the papers here are also relevant to members of other research communities and development activities that can benefit from improvements to fundamental problem solving approaches.

Knowledge-based systems are increasingly found in a wide variety of settings and this handbook has been written to meet a specific need in their widening use. While there have been many successful applications of knowledge-based systems, some applications have failed because they never received the corrective feedback that evaluation provides for keeping development focused on the users' needs in their actual working environment. This handbook provides a conceptual framework and compendium of methods for performing evaluations of knowledge-based systems during their development. Its focus is on the users' and subject matter experts' evaluation of the usefulness of the system, and not on the developers' testing of the adequacy of the programming code. The handbook permits evaluators to systematically answer the following kinds of questions: Does the knowledge-based system meet the users' task requirements? Is the system easy to use? Is the knowledge base logically consistent? Does it meet the required level of expertise? Does the system improve performance? The authors have produced a handbook that will serve two audiences: a tool that can be used to create knowledge-based systems (practitioners, developers, and evaluators) and a framework that will stimulate more research in the area (academic researchers and students). To accomplish this, the handbook is built around a conceptual framework that integrates the different types of evaluations into the system of development process. The kinds of questions that can be answered, and the methods available for answering them, will change throughout the system development life cycle. And throughout this process, one needs to know what can be done, and what can't. It is this dichotomy that addresses needs in both the practitioner and academic research audiences.

This book presents the latest findings in the areas of data management and smart computing, machine learning, big data management, artificial intelligence, and data analytics, along with advances in network technologies. The book is a collection of peer-reviewed research papers presented at Fifth International Conference on Data Management, Analytics and Innovation (ICDMAI 2021), held during January 15–17, 2021, in a virtual mode. It addresses state-of-the-art topics and discusses challenges and solutions for future development. Gathering original, unpublished contributions by scientists from around the globe, the book is mainly intended for a professional audience of researchers and practitioners in academia and industry.

Computing systems are employed in the health care environment in efforts to increase reliability of care and reduce costs. Software verification and validation (V&V) is an aid in determining that the software requirements are implemented correctly and completely and are traceable to system requirements. It helps to ensure that those system functions controlled by software are secure, reliable, and maintainable. Software V&V is conducted throughout the planning, development and maintenance of software systems, including knowledge based systems, and may assist in assuring appropriate reuse of software.

When men of knowledge impart this knowledge, I do not mean they will convince your reason. I mean they will awaken in you the faith that it is so. - Sri Krishna, Bhagavadgita BACKGROUND The use of computers has led to significant productivity increases in the en gineering industry. Most ofthe computer-aided engineering applications were . restricted to algorithmic computations, such as finite element programs and circuit analysis programs. However, a number ofproblems encountered in en gineering are not amenable to purely algorithmic solutions. These problems are often ill-structured; the term ill-structured problems is used here to de note problems that do not have a clearly defined algorithmic solution. An experienced engineer deals with these ill-structured problems using his/her judgment and experience. The knowledge-based systems (KBS) technology, which emerged out of research in artificial intelligence (AI), offers a method ologyto solve these ill-structuredengineering problems. The emergenceofthe KBS technology can be viewed as the knowledge revolution: other important events that led to increased productivity are the industrial revolution (17th century); the invention of the transistor and associated developments (first half of the 20th century); and the world-wide web (towards the end of the 20th century). Kurzweil, in a lecture at M. LT on December 3, 1987, linked the progress of automation to two industrial revolutions: the first industrial PREFACE xxxii revolution leveraged our physical capabilities, whereas the second industrial revolution - the knowledge revolution - is expected leverage oUr mental ca pabilities.