Understanding Knowledge Engineering - Ellis Horwood Series in Information Technology.

An overview of currently available techniques in knowledge engineering, setting out the principles which support their design and exploring their potential for the future.;After introducing knowledge-based systems and discussing the way in which they use human knowledge to solve problems, give advice and explain their reasoning, the authors look at the difficulties caused by the need for "rule of thumb" rather than well-structured data combined with algorithms. They emphasize the need for an adaptive user interface which can both enable the system to justify and explain its actions, and facilitate communication with the user in the acquisition and restructuring of knowledge.;The difficulties encountered in eliciting knowledge from a human expert and transforming that knowledge into an implementable form is discussed, and the book sets out the main concerns of knowledge engineering, looking at the high degree of expertise required and the sparsity of principles and techniques available in the field of knowledge engineering, as compared with traditional software development. The book will be of value to all those interested in information technology.