Page 242 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Unit 14: Knowledge-based Decision Support

access to useful, organized and timely information. It is important to understand that the KBDSS Notes
for the management of variation orders is not designed to make decisions for users, but rather
it provides pertinent information in an efficient and easy-to-access format that allows users to
make more informed decisions. The model contains two main components, i.e., a knowledge-
base and a decision support shell, for selecting appropriate potential controls for variation
orders for educational buildings. The database is developed through collecting data from source
documents of the 79 educational projects, questionnaire survey, literature review and interview
sessions with the professionals. The knowledge-base was developed through initial sieving and
organization of data from the database. The segment that contained information pertinent to
possible effects and controls of the causes of variation orders for educational buildings was
integrated with a decision support shell. The decision support shell provided decision support
through a structured process consisting of building the hierarchy among the main criterions and
the suggested controls, rating the controls, and techniques. The KBDSS is developed in the MS
Excel environment using numerous macros for developing the user-interface that carry out
stipulated functions. These are incorporated within a decision support shell. In this unit, we will
discuss the concepts of artificial intelligence and expert system.

14.1 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of Science which deals with helping machines finding
solutions to complex problems in a more human-like fashion. This generally involves borrowing
characteristics from human intelligence, and applying them as algorithms in a computer friendly
way. A more or less flexible or efficient approach can be taken depending on the requirements
established, which influences how artificial the intelligent behaviour appears.

AI is generally associated with Computer Science, but it has many important links with other
fields such as Maths, Psychology, Cognition, Biology and Philosophy, among many others. Our
ability to combine knowledge from all these fields will ultimately benefit our progress in the
quest of creating an intelligent artificial being.

AI is one of the newest disciplines. It was formally initiated in 1956, when the name was coined,
although at that point work had been under way for about five years. However, the study of
intelligence is one of the oldest disciplines. For over 2000 years, philosophers have tried to
understand how seeing, learning, remembering, and reasoning could, or should, be done. The
advent of usable computers in the early 1950s turned the learned but armchair speculation
concerning these mental faculties into a real experimental and theoretical discipline. Many felt
that the new “Electronic Super-Brains” had unlimited potential for intelligence. “Faster than
Einstein” was a typical headline. But as well as providing a vehicle for creating artificially
intelligent entities, the computer provides a tool for testing theories of intelligence, and many
theories failed to withstand the test. AI has turned out to be more difficult than many at first
imagined, and modern ideas are much richer, more subtle, and more interesting as a result.

AI currently encompasses a huge variety of subfields, from general-purpose areas such as
perception and logical reasoning, to specific tasks such as playing chess, proving mathematical
theorems, writing poetry, and diagnosing diseases. Often, scientists in other fields move gradually
into artificial intelligence, where they find the tools and vocabulary to systematize and automate
the intellectual tasks on which they have been working all their lives. Similarly, workers in AI
can choose to apply their methods to any area of human intellectual endeavour. In this sense, it
is truly a universal field.

14.1.1 Definitions of Artificial Intelligence

It is often difficult to construct a definition of a discipline that is satisfying to all of its practitioners.
AI research encompasses a spectrum of related topics. Broadly, AI is the computer-based

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 235