Synopses & Reviews
This is the first book to provide a detailed process for planning, designing, implementing, and testing knowledge-based systems for natural resource management. It presents material on all these major aspects of building a deliverable system. Equipped with these techniques, managers and scientists will improve their ability to solve complex resource problems that are multidisciplinary in scope and for which mathematical approaches prove insufficient. Fully describing the various components of these systems, this important work includes discussions on system design, knowledge acquisition, prototyping, knowledge verification and validation, implementation, and system delivery. To further illuminate the material presented, it contains a tutorial on the knowledge-based programming environment PROLOG as well as many examples of expert system development, including one for forest management. Building Knowledge-Based Systems for Natural Resource Management demonstrates how knowledge can be effectively organized and administered, enabling natural resource professionals to respond intelligently to natural resource problems. This book also provides researchers and students with an essential resource for understanding this useful technology.
Synopsis
If one were forced to use a single key word to describe the decade of the 1980's, a very prominent one would be "technology. " Leading the forefront of tech nology advancement were breakthroughs in electronics. Devices that were uncommon or unknown in 1980 became commonplace, and almost indispens able, by 1989. This trend has continued into the 1990's and it does not seem to be abating in any way. Microwave ovens, video recorders, telephone answer ing machines, compact disc players, computers, and a host of smaller or less sophisticated devices now appear in most households. The development of small and inexpensive computers, i. e., personal computers, has placed computing resources within reach of many more people. In addition, many traditional, and largely mechanical devices, have been enhanced by electronics. For example, specialized microprocessors are combined with arrays of electronic sensors to control and monitor sophisticated engineering components in most new auto mobiles. In this and many other ways, we are touched by the new electronics in almost every aspect of our daily lives. Initially, personal computers were little more than toys. They contained only a small fraction of the computing power of their immediate ancestors, the mini computers and mainframe computers. However, rapid improvements in integ rated circuit design and chip manufacture produced regular reductions in size and cost of computer components. During the same time, processor speed and sophistication increased."
Table of Contents
AI and natural resource management. Knowledge-based systems: representation and search. Other knowledge system components. Planning the application. Knowledge acquisition. Designing the application. Programming knowledge systems in Prolog. An initial prototype using native PROLOG. A PROLOG toolkit approach to developing forest management knowledge-based systems; System evaluation and delivery. Appendix A: Roots of artificial intelligence. Bibliography. Glossary. Index.