A series of monographs have been and are being written for use as
main or supplementary material in advanced undergraduate and graduate
courses addressing the application of expert systems or as a working
introduction to AI by practicing engineers. Four monographs in the
series are available. The purpose of these first four monographs is to
provide detailed discussions on the principles, ideas, techniques,
methodologies and issues of AI as they apply to chemical engineering.
Later monographs will address approaches to specific problems of direct
interest to chemical engineers such as fault diagnosis, design, etc.
Currently available are:
Volume I
“Knowledge-Based Systems in Process Engineering: An Overview” is
authored by George Stephanopoulos of MIT. This volume serves as an
introduction to the monograph series and provides a broad perspective
on AI. Specifically, this volume addresses the scope, history and
market of AI and defines the need and role of knowledge-based systems
in chemical engineering. Particular attention is paid to describing the
general issues surrounding software and hardware environments.
Volume II
“Rule-Based Expert Systems in Chemical Engineering” is authored by
James F. Davis and Murthy S. Gandikota of Ohio State University. This
monograph focuses specifically on the implementation of knowledge-based
systems in rule-based languages. The emphasis is not on the mechanics
of rule-based programming environments, but on the issues which impact
the implementation and performance of a system. While the focus is on
rule-based implementations, many of the issues discussed cut across all
general purpose implementation language. Using specific examples, the
monograph covers these issues in detail. As a stand alone chapter,
several of the most popular methods for various kinds of uncertainty
handling are discussed and compared.
Volume III
“Knowledge Representation” is authored by Lyle Ungar of the
University of Pennsylvania and V. Venkatasubramanian of Purdue
University. The content of this monograph is directed at two distinct
aspects of knowledge representation. In the first part of the
monograph, the problem-independent issues and features of a variety of
knowledge representations are presented. Included are discussions on
semantic networks, frames, scripts and object-oriented programming. The
second part addresses the subject of qualitative physics applied in
chemical engineering. The issues of representing structure and behavior
are discussed in detail. Examples demonstrating two philosophies are
used to illustrate advantages and limitations.
Volume IV
“An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming in Process
Engineering” is authored by Ronald G. Forsythe, Jr. and Suzanne E.
Prickett of the University of Maryland and Michael L. Mavrovouniotis of
Northwestern University. This monograph is intended to provide an
introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and to present examples of
its application in the realm of chemical engineering. The examples that
have been provided are not intended to represent an in-depth
object-oriented analysis of the systems, but are meant to highlight
some of the key features of object-oriented programming. It is our
intent to capture the attention of those that are just starting to work
in the area of computer-aided engineering, as well as those that have
been in the field, but have been using procedural languages such as C
and FORTRAN.
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