Created using a set of assertions, which collectively form the “working memory”, a database which maintains data about current state or knowledge, a set of rules, specifying how to act on the assertion set, and a rule-engine or interpreter. Basically, rule-based systems can consisting of little more than a set of if-then statements, but provide the basis for so-called “expert systems”.
Published in Chapter:
Rule Engines and Agent-Based Systems
Agostino Poggi (Università di Parma, Italy) and Michele Tomaiuolo (Università di Parma, Italy)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 7
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-849-9.ch206
Abstract
Expert systems are successfully applied to a number of domains. Often built on generic rule-based systems, they can also exploit optimized algorithms. On the other side, being based on loosely coupled components and peer to peer infrastructures for asynchronous messaging, multi-agent systems allow code mobility, adaptability, easy of deployment and reconfiguration, thus fitting distributed and dynamic environments. Also, they have good support for domain specific ontologies, an important feature when modelling human experts’ knowledge. The possibility of obtaining the best features of both technologies is concretely demonstrated by the integration of JBoss Rules, a rule engine efficiently implementing the Rete-OO algorithm, into JADE, a FIPA-compliant multi-agent system.