A functional approach to integrating database and expert systems

Expert systems (ES) and database systems (DBS) are major components of information systems and important assets to companies. The development of these systems represent users' knowledge in the application systems. As computer technologies evolve, and as users requirements change, there is a need to upgrade these system to meet the new application requirements. To preserve the knowledge of the existing information systems, a methodology for integrating ES and DBS into an expert database system (EDS) is proposed. The integrated EDS is a knowledge based system (KBS) which derives and stores knowledge in a frame model consisting of a class header, attributes, methods and constraints. It extracts the ES rules and DBS data for an application into coupling classes at run time only. The attributes of the coupling classes are matched with synonyms in a synonym table which resolves their naming and semantic conflicts with user assistance in knowledge acquisition. The resultant EDS is a KBS ready for application development.

An expert database system is an expert system which is developed on databases using DBMS technology to manage facts and rules. Frame-based expert systems are widely used as the knowledge representation for such expert systems with large knowledge bases. Many systems have the ability to connect to external databases. Facts stored in databases can be loaded into expert system's knowledge base and inference is performed by the inference engine of the expert system. In many cases, such external facts are required several times for each inference. Thus, a lot of communication traffic takes place. This research work present the design and implementation of a frame-based object-relational database system which has a tight coupling between the expert system and the external knowledge base. The external knowledge base also use frame as its knowledge representation. More over, it has its own inference engine so that inference can be perform on the knowledge base side and the results, not only simple facts, are sent back to the expert system for further inference. A medical consultation system is used as an illustrated example an Oracle lOg object relational DBMS is used as the database platform.

An Expert System for Tunnel Design

The authors describe the Distributed Information Storage Architecture (DISA) defined and prototyped at Hewlett-Packard by the Networked Systems Architecture organization. In the first phase of the project, an architecture framework was defined that isolated storage-management functions from database and file-management systems. The idea was to identify and encapsulate functions related to the persistent characteristics of stored data. Only functions common to a large variety of database and file-management systems were of interest. The intent was to build a new storage-management base without altering file or database systems. To validate this idea, a storage-management prototype called StoragePlus was built. The StoragePlus prototype automated several storage-management and administration functions currently done manually. It also demonstrated how one could reduce and control storage administrative costs by doing central administration of distributed storage across a network.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Two types of software that make the handling of huge quantities of data easier are described and compared. The first is an expert system which processes extensive and complicated knowledge. It works interactively with the user when it acquires information which is being compared with the facts and relations contained in the knowledge base. The second type of software is a database system which is a record-keeping system that organizes and maintains information and makes it available on demand. Examples of expert systems and database systems in civil and structural engineering are given.

Knowledge-based system for material selection for design with new materials

The security of the operating system has always been the basis of information systems. Several security frameworks have been proposed to enhance the security of the operating system, such as SELinux and AppArmor. However, the major drawback of these solutions is the complexity of the security policy configuration in which strong professionalism is required. Therefore, there are many related studies on optimizing the process of configuring security policies, but so far the involvement of security experts is still required. In this paper, we aim to further optimize the AppArmor's security policy generating process and propose ASPGen, which is a novel framework for generating AppArmor security policies automatically. ASPGen can autogenerate security policy with the least privilege and RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) for applications, and effectively alleviate the complexity and subjectivity in manually configuring AppArmor's security policy, as well as the security threats that result from the improper policy. We implement the prototype of ASPGen in Ubuntu 16.04. Unlike previous approaches, ASPGen does not depend on experts after the expert system is built. In our experimental evaluation, several typical applications are chosen and generate their AppArmor security policies with ASPGen. The completeness and precision of the generated policies are evaluated and a case of mysql-server is thoroughly analyzed by comparing the default AppArmor security policies with the policies generated by ASPGen. The evaluation demonstrates that the policy generated by ASPGen is complete, precise, and fine-grained, even without expert intervention. Our contribution can be further improved with a more general and intelligent security policy generating mechanism and is being extended to support other security frameworks including SELinux and SEAndroid.

To provide persistent data storage for Prolog programs we propose a simple interface between Prolog and relational data bases with SQL. The intention has been to make relations stored in data base tables behave as much as possible like relations defined by Prolog clauses, except for ordering of solutions. We introduce a syntactical device for simplifying translation of data base relations to efficient SQL queries and we describe the translation. A non-trivial problem has been to implement backtracking over data base relations, simulating the behaviour of Prolog. We suggest three different implementations and provide some benchmark figures for two of them. The data base system and our Prolog system are two components of a distributed and modular tool for writing applications such as expert systems.

Aiming to establish the life term prediction method of existing hydropower steel structures, various techniques which reported previously, such as simplified data aquisition, structural analysis program, data base, and expert system, were investigated.The purpose of this paper is to describe the configuration and knowledge bases of the expert system in detail, and to show the application results of the system to radial gates of 25 sites. Especially, effectiveness of AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) Method to determine the weights among ambiguous qualitative data, such as appearance, operational condition, environment and others, is emphasized, and essential diagnosis rules for the expert system of existing structures are pointed out.

The concept of loose coupling of artificial intelligence systems and database systems is defined. The issues that arise in determining the scope of loose integration are identified. A cache-based architecture being implemented in a knowledge management system project is described. The objective is to develop an interface that is useful for generalized database access from an expert system. >

This paper addresses the threat to multilevel security that arises from logical inference and the semantics of the application. Such compromises of security are particularly challenging since they circumvent traditional security mechanisms and rely on a user's knowledge of the application. The problems of inference and security have heretofore been amorphous and difficult to circumscribe. We focus on these problems in the context of a multilevel database system and show their relevance to knowledge-based systems, sometimes referred to as expert systems. Here we establish a framework for studying these inference control problems, describe a representation for relevant semantics of the application, develop criteria for safety and security of a system to prevent these problems, and outline algorithms for enforcing these criteria.

Although the use of expert systems (ESs) as a problem-solving tool is relatively new in the transportation profession, it has been recognized that a well-designed ES can contribute in areas where knowledge domain requires an integration of expertise from various disciplines or is very complex and difficult to quantify. To minimize the effort involved in developing essential ES mechanisms, researchers often prefer to use ES shells which provide a standard inference procedure, knowledge representation, and a user-friendly design environment. However, commercial ES shells tend to be designed for only certain classes of problems, and are not as general and flexible as programming languages. More than 150 commercial ES shells are available in the microcomputer market. Most ES shells are ususally claimed by their vendors to be usable for almost any conceivable applications, but such claims have often proved to be extravagant. Hence, the selection of an efficient yet cost-effective commercial shell is one of the most critical tasks in ES development. In reviewing the the vital task of ES shell selection, this paper presents our experience in evaluating more than 30 ES shells for developing an ES for signal design. The proposed ES includes signal settings, phasing plans, controllers, and detector locations.

The future of computer aided design is in object oriented programming. If the database community hopes to participate in this future, it must reexamine some basic assumptions about the architecture of database systems. Database system functionality can be added to object systems but if the performance cost is too high, it will never survive. Below are some suggestions for what can be done at a reasonable performance cost. The object oriented paradigm provides a more practical approach to the partitioning of the global database than horizontal and vertical partitioning of relational tables. Each partition should itself be an independent database containing related data such as the geometry of a part or the spacial relationship of parts in an assembly. A meta-database would be used to control access to collections of these partitions. A collection of partitions comprise the database for a user's design session. The overhead of traditional database transaction management is not acceptable for high performance CAD systems. With the partitioning scheme described above, transaction management can be performed at a partition/session granularity. Once the user has composed the collection of partitions, he has a single user database. There is no need for concurrency control or transaction logging except at the meta-database level. This type of transaction management can in fact be more functional than traditional transaction management, allowing for versioning, long transactions, integrity checking and archival. Object oriented databases need a message model, not a data model. Any object which responds to the same messages as an object of “Duck” class (walk and quack) is, for all intents and purposes, a duck. An attempt to design a data model based on instance variables of an object or based on collections of objects of like class violates the data abstraction facilities of object oriented languages and diminishes their power. An attempt to implement a relational database system with an object oriented language yields a relational database system where you get abstract data types for free. It does not yield an object oriented database system. For object oriented queries, the message is the media. A query can be transformed into an execution plan consisting of messages sent to database objects. Optimization decisions can be made by sending messages to referenced objects. Collection classes can be implemented for new access methods with cost and selectivity methods to provide optimization information. In this way, the query language can grow with the application. Data representation is an important aspect of object oriented systems. Most object systems are typeless in that all instance variables of an object are object references. For performance sake, object systems should provide enough of a type mechanism to allow simple data items (integers, floats, characters … ) to be represented in the form intrinsic to the machine. Methods can then be compiled for access to typed data. In conclusion, object systems provide enormous potential for the development of CAD systems. Performance influences the approach taken to an application. WYSIWYG publishing applications were not attempted until performance was adequate. Functionality is what sells CAD systems. Database system functionality can be added to object systems at a reasonable cost.

This report describes the development of an operator procedure prompting aid for startup of a nuclear reactor. This operator aid is a preliminary design for a similar aid that eventually will be used with the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) presently in the design stage. Two approaches were used to develop this operator procedure prompting aid. One method uses an expert system software shell, and the other method uses database software. The preliminary requirements strongly pointed toward features traditionally associated with both database and expert systems software. Database software usually provides data manipulation flexibility and user interface tools, and expert systems tools offer sophisticated data representation and reasoning capabilities. Both methods, including software and associated hardware, are described in this report. Proposals for future enhancements to improve the expert system approach to procedure prompting and for developing other operator aids are also offered. 25 refs., 14 figs.

The development of an expert menu planning system using the database management system Ingres and the programming language “C” is presented. There are many factors involved in menu planning that tend to make the dietitian's job tedious and long. Therefore, the overall goal of the system is to generate menus for an individual (taking into account his particular nutrient requirements and preferences) in a more efficient and accurate manner than when done manually by the nutritionist. There are five phases involved in developing an expert system [1] : problem identification, conceptualization, formalization, implementation, and testing. These phases encompass such things as: defining the characteristics of the problem, choosing an appropriate knowledge representation scheme, selecting a knowledge engineering tool, building a prototype system, refining the system, and evaluating the final product. Each phase will be addressed to explain the actual implementation of the menu planning system. [1] B.G. Buchanan et al. “Constructing an Expert System.” In F. Hayes-Roth et al. eds., Building Expert Systems. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., (1983) 127