Domain-Wide Expert System Applications

This chapter addresses the use of multiple expert systems and varieties of multiple expert systems are categorized. A special category is described of multiple expert systems that belong to the same problem domain and have certain characteristics. A notion of equivalent entities is developed that permits a linkage between the expert systems in such a way that they may be used in combination. A distinction is made between domain-level procedures (or queries) that may be applied to any individual expert system in the domain, and domain-wide procedures that are applied using all, or more than one expert system. Domain-wide procedures make use of domain-specific equivalence functions. Examples are drawn from two quite different areas - namely transport and academia, and equivalence in these areas is discussed. XML is used to define the problem domains and Prolog is used to implement knowledge bases, equivalence functions and procedures.