Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-5bvrz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T14:40:22.099Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expert systems and hypertext

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Roy Rada  and
Judith Barlow
Roy Rada
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, England
Judith Barlow
Affiliation:
US WEST Advanced Technologies, Englewood, Colorado 80111, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Expert systems and hypertext are technologies which are coming together. This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of expert systems and hypertext. Then the complementarity of the two is both argued and illustrated. Translating expertise from documents into expert systems is difficult, but hypertext systems exploit the information in documents. Expert systems don't explain their decisions as well as some people would like, but hypertext is basically designed to provide explanations. On the other hand, people have difficulty deciding what links to follow in hypertext, but an expert system is designed to help people make decisions. When a hypertext reader is confused as to what step to follow next, an expert system might review the path taken thus far and suggest the appropriate next step. An annotated bibliography of the principal literature is provided.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 285 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

6 References

Alty, J L, 1987. “The limitations of rule-based expert systems” In: Knowledge-Based Expert Systems in Industry, Jiri Kriz (Ed.), pp. 17–22. A critical review of expert systems which emphasizes their strengths and weaknesses.Google Scholar
Belkin, N, Borgman, C, Brooks, H, Bylander, T, Croft, W, Daniels, P, Deerwester, S, Fox, E, Ingwersen, P, Rada, R, Jones, K, Thompson, R and Walker, D, 1987. “Distributed expert-based information systems: an interdisciplinary approach,” Information Processing and Management 23 (5) 395–409. A workshop report on the role of expert systems in document retrieval systems.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benchimol, G, Levine, P and Pomerol, J C, 1987. Developing Expert Systems for Business, North Oxford Academic Publishers Limited. A modern introductory text which includes a description of expert system tools and business applications.Google Scholar
Buchanan, B and Shortliffe, E, 1984. “Major lessons from this work,” In: Rule-Based Expert Systems: The MYCIN Experiments of the Stanford Heuristic Programming Project, ed. Shortliffe, E (Ed.), pp. 669–702, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts. This chapter from the book about the MYCIN experiments summarizes the major insights that were gained. The authors are the fathers of the MYCIN experiments.Google Scholar
Carroll, John and Aaronson, Amy, 1988. “Learning by doing with simulated intelligent help,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31 (9) 1064–1079, September. The difficulties in designing intelligent help and explanation facilities are addressed.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clancey, William, 1983. “The epistemology of a rule-based expert system—a framework for explanation,” Artificial intelligence 20 (3) 215–251. An early influential paper on the need for additional knowledge in MYCIN in order that explanation be satisfying.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forsyth, Richard and Rada, Roy, 1986. Machine Learning: Expert Systems and information Retrieval, Ellis Norwood, London. Methods for semi-automatically improving the performance of intelligent systems are described.Google Scholar
Gallaire, H, 1985. “Logic programming: further developments,” In: Proceedings 1985 Symposium on Logic Programming, pp. 88–96. Meeting occurred in July 1985 in Boston. A historical overview of logic programming and a critical analysis of its present and future applications.Google Scholar
Hayes-Roth, F, Waterman, D and Lenat, D, 1983. Building Expert Systems, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts. This book contains chapters written by participants in a workshop on building expert systems. The target audience includes practitioners and administrators.Google Scholar
Mili, Hafedh and Rada, Roy, 1988. “Merging thesauri: principles and evaluation,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 10(2) 204–220. The system from the National Library of Medicine is discussed with respect to knowledge acquisition.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, R, Pople, H and Myers, J, 1982. “INTERNIST-1,” New England Journal of Medicine 307, pp. 468–476. A report to physicians on the successes with the expert system INTERNIST.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rada, Roy, 1985. “Gradualness facilitates knowledge refinement,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 7(5) 523–530, September. Methods for allowing small changes in the weights on rules of an expert system to lead to improved performance of the expert system are presented.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schutzer, Daniel, 1985. “Artificial intelligence-based very large data base organization and management,” In: Applications in Artificial Intelligence, Stephen, Andriole (Ed.), pp. 251–277, Petrocelli Books. An application for large intelligent heterogeneous databases is clearly described.Google Scholar
Shortlifle, E, Scott, A, Bischoff, M, Campbel, A, van Melle, W and Jacobs, C, 1981. “ONCOCIN: expert system for oncology protocol management,” Proceedings International Joint Conference Artificial Intelligence, pp. 876–881. One of the first published papers on the ONCOCIN project which represents the intellectual and pragmatic descendant of MYCIN.Google Scholar
Slatter, Philip E, 1987. “Cognitive emulation in ES design,” The Knowledge Engineering Review 2(1) 27–42, March. A study of how cognitive emulation can be used as a strategy for designing more effective expert systems.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stenton, S P, 1987. “Dialog management for co-operative knowledge based systems,” The Knowledge Engineering Review 2(2) 99–122. A review of user interaction with knowledge-based systems and approaches for improving communications between users and expert systems.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timpka, Toomas, 1986. “LIMEDS knowledge-based decision support for general practitioners: an integrated design,” Proceedings Tenth Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, pp. 394–402, IEEE Computer Society, October. The Scandinavians have implemented some sophisticated, intelligent, hypertext systems in their ambulatory care facilities.Google Scholar
Waterman, Donald A, 1985. A Guide to Expert Systems, Addison Wesley. An introductory text which includes an overview of expert system tools and applications.Google Scholar
Zaniolo, Carlo, Ait-Kaci, Hassan, Beech, David, Cammarata, Stephanie and Maier, David, 1986. “Object oriented database systems and knowledge systems,” In: Expert Database Systems, Larry, Kerschberg (Ed.), pp. 49–65, Benjamin/Cummings Publishing. This report from a workshop covers many of the major relationships between object-oriented databases and knowledge bases.Google Scholar
Acksyn, R, McCracken, D and Yoder, E, 1988. “KMS: a distributed hypermedia system for managing knowledge in organizations,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31, 7, pp. 820–835.Google Scholar
Brown, P J, 1987. “Turning ideas into products: the guide system,” Hypertext ' 87, pp. 33–40, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, November 13–15. The Guide system focuses on a few simple link types, and this paper by the developer of Guide cogently argues why that approach is a good one.Google Scholar
Bush, Vannevar, 1945. “As we may think,” The Atlantic Monthly, pp. 101–108, July. The first widely read paper to seriously predict the advent of hypertext.Google Scholar
Campbell, Brad and Goodman, Joseph M, 1988. “HAM: a general-purpose hypertext abstract machine,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31(7) 856–861 (also appeared in Hypertext '87). The HAM system allows ready simulation of many hypertext systems, as this paper shows.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, George, 1987. “Thoth-II: hypertext with explicit semantics,” Hypertext '87, pp. 269–289, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, November 13–15. The independent and embedded link networks of hypertext are described in this analysis of different types of networks in hypertext.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conklin, Jeff, 1987. “Hypertext: an introduction and survey,” Computer 20(9) 17–41, September. This introduction to hypertext was one of the first comprehensive, scholarly review of this discipline to appear in a major computer journal.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englebart, D C and English, W K, 1968. “A research center for augmenting human intellect,” Proceedings of the Fall Joint Computer Conference, 33, pp. 395–410, AFPIS Press, Reston, Virginia. The senior author pioneered the implementation of hypertext systems.Google Scholar
Garg, Pankaj K 1988. “Abstraction mechanisms in hypertext,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31(7) 862–870. This model of hypertext has more definitions than theorems but is noteworthy for attempting to model hypertext and for appearing in a widely available journal.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Danny, 1987. “HyperCard,” MacIntosh Today, pp. 60–64, August 11. HyperCard was first made publicly available in the summer of 1987 and this paper was one of the early, informative descriptions of the system.Google Scholar
Halasz, Frank G, Moran, T P and Trigg, Randal H, 1987. “NoteCards in a nutshell,” Proceedings of the ACM CHI+ GI Conference, pp. 45–52, Toronto, Ontario, April. A description of the NoteCards system.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halasz, Frank G, 1988. “Reflections on NoteCards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31(7) pp. 836–855. Beginning with a critique of the first, major commercial hypertext system, the author then carefully delineates seven major problems which researchers in hypertext must address over the next generation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, John R, Flower, Linda, Schriver, Karen A, Stratman, James F and Carey, Linda, 1987. “Cognitive processes in revision,” In: Advances in Applied Psycholinguistics, Sheldon, Rosenberg (Ed.), pp. 176–240, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. The authors have performed some of the best recognized work in the psychology of writing and here describe their model of writing with an emphasis on the revision process.Google Scholar
Koved, Larry and Shneiderman, Ben, 1986. “Embedded menus: selecting items in context,” Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 29(4) 312–318. Careful human-factors analyses are used to support arguments for a certain interface style with a hypertext system.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCracken, Donald and Akscyn, Robert, 1984. “Experience with the ZOG human-computer interface system,” International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 21 pp. 293–310. A decade of experience with ZOG is summarized.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mili, Hafedh and Rada, Roy, 1988. “Merging thesauri: principles and evaluation,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 10(2) 204–220. The system from the National Library of Medicine is discussed with respect to knowledge acquisition.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Lynne A, 1982. “Thumb: an interactive tool for accessing and maintaining text,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 12(2) 155–161, March/April. An early project for loading traditional documents into a hypertext system and for adding links to the document so that browsing can follow more paths.Google Scholar
Raskin, Jef, 1987. “The hype in hypertext,” Hypertext '87, pp. 325–330, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, November 13–15. The difficulties of finding practical applications for hypertext are outlined in this paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shneiderman, Ben and Morariu, Janis, 1986. “Design and research on the interactive encyclopedia system (TIES),” Proceedings 29th Conference of the Association for the Development of Computer Based Instructional Systems, pp. 19–21, November. TIES is another one of the academic hypertext systems that has been modestly successful in the commercial world.Google Scholar
Smith, John B, Weiss, Stephen F, Ferguson, Gordon F, Bolter, Jay D, Lansman, Marcy and Beard, David V, 1986. “WE: A Writing Environment for Professionals,” Technical Report TR86–025, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, August. Innovative early work on the testing of a writing environment on a graphical workstation.Google Scholar
Stotts, P David and Furuta, Richard, 1988. “Adding browsing semantics to the hypertext model,” Technical Report CS-TR-2046, Computer Science Department, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, June. As hypertext has become more popular, theoretical models are beginning to appear, and this report is one of the best early models.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, William and Kintsch, Walter, 1985. “Automatic and strategic aspects of knowledge retrieval,” Cognitive Science 9 261–283. Memory retrieval experiments show that the representational schemes focus on episodes.Google Scholar
Weyer, Stephen A and Borning, Alan H, 1985. “A prototype electronic encyclopedia,” ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 3(1) 63–88. Description of a system for translating an encylopedia into hypertext and browsing the hypertext. While the particular project has stopped, the ideas are sound.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaniolo, Carlo, Akscyn, Robert, McCracken, Donald and Yoder, Elise, 1988. “KMS: a distributed hypermedia system for managing knowledge in organizations,” Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 31(7) 820–835 (also appeared in Hypertext '87). KMS is the descendant of ZOG which was developed in the 1970s and has been extensively used at Carnegie-Mellon University.Google Scholar
Garg, Pankaj K and Scacchi, Walt, 1987. “On designing intelligent hypertext systems for information management in software engineering,” Hypertext '87, pp. 409–432, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, November 13–15. Issues underlying the implementation of an intelligent hypertext software engineering tool.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, Geoffrey, 1985. Document Databases, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York. An unpretentious book with many examples that focuses on a software hypertext system that is actually used.Google Scholar
Sommerville, Ian, 1985. Software Engineering, Addison-Wesley. A standard textbook on software engineering.Google Scholar