UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2016/2017
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BIT4405 EXPERT SYSTEMS
FULL TIME/PART TIME/DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: AUGUST, 2017 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE
a) What characteristics would you use to identify an expert system? (8 Marks)
b) Differentiate between shallow reasoning and causal reasoning (6 Marks)
c) Explain the following concepts
i) Expert system (2 Marks)
ii) Artificial intelligence (2 Marks)
iii) Turing test (2 Marks)
iv) Knowledge-based systems (2 Marks)
d) Examine the features of a decision tree as used in decision analysis (4 Marks)
e) Explain the following statements
i) Tautology (1 Mark)
ii) Contradiction (1 Mark)
iii) Contingent (1 Mark)
iv) closed sentence (1 Mark)
QUESTION TWO
a) Describe the axioms used to explain the theory of probability as used in expert systems
(12 Marks)
b) Examine the different ways the concept of certainty factor is used to measure belief and
disbelief (8 Marks)
QUESTION THREE
Using examples discuss how the following techniques are used in expert systems
i) propositional logic (5 Marks)
ii) Semantic Networks (5 Marks)
iii) Schemata (5 Marks)
iv) Frame (5 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
a) Explain why production systems are popular (6 Marks)
b) Elaborate on the initial idea of production system as given by Post (4 Marks)
c) Explain the operating principle of the inference engine (6 Marks)
d) Given the following rules:
R1:If corn is grown on poor soil, then it will rot.
R2:If soil hasn’t enough nitrogen, then it is poor soil
Explain how you the rules will be applied in forward chaining and backward chaining
(4 Marks)
QUESTION FIVE
a) Explain why heuristic reasoning is necessary in knowledge based systems
(6 Marks)
b)
The function of a financial advisor is to help the user decide whether to invest in a savings
account, or the stock market, or both. The recommended investment depends on the
investor’s income and the current amount they have saved:
Individuals with inadequate savings should always increase the amount saved as their first
priority, regardless of income.
Individuals with adequate savings and an adequate income should consider riskier but
potentially more profitable investment in the stock market.
Individuals with low income who already have adequate savings may want to consider
splitting their surplus income between savings and stocks, to increase the cushion in savings
while attempting to increase their income through stocks
The adequacy of both savings and income is determined by the number of dependants an
individual must support.There must be at least £3000 in the bank for each dependant. An
adequate income is a steady income, and it must supply at least £9000 per year, plus 2500
dependant for each dependant
Required
Produce an AND-OR graph for the provided information
(14 Marks)
