Expert systems for assisting the analysis of hazards

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Evrard, J.M.; Martinez, J.M.; Souchet, Y.

1990-01-01

The advantage of applying expert systems in the analysis of safety in the operation of nuclear power plants is discussed. Expert systems apply a method based on a common representation of nuclear power plants. The main steps of the method are summarized. The applications given concern in the following fields: the analysis of hazards in the electric power supplies of a gas-graphite power plant; the evaluation of the availability of safety procedures in a PWR power plant; the search for the sources of leakage in a PWR power plant. The analysis shows that expert systems are a powerful tool in the study of safety of nuclear power plants [fr

Human-machine interactions: The human element of expert systems for the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nelson, W.R.

1989-01-01

This paper will begin with a brief history of the development of expert systems in the nuclear industry. This discussion will serve to provide the reader with an understanding of how the field of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the nuclear industry has developed. Next, this paper will discuss the general human factors issues relative to the development and implementation of expert systems for the nuclear industry. It will summarize the relevant research that addresses these issues and identify those areas that need the most effort for success. Since much of the prominent work for the application of expert systems has focused on computerized aids for decisionmaking in emergencies, this paper will draw from this area for its examples. This area tends to highlight the issues because of the safety-critical nature of the application. The same issues, however, are relevant to other applications of expert systems in the nuclear industry as well, even though the consequences of failure may not be as dramatic. (orig./GL)

Using Specification and Description Language (SDL) for capturing and reusing human experts' knowledge

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Far, B.H.; Koono, Zenya

1994-01-01

Conventional knowledge engineering techniques for acquiring experts' knowledge can not produce quality knowledge due to improper knowledge documentation and informal knowledge acquisition method. We propose a new method for knowledge documentation and acquisition using Specification and Description Language (SDL). SDL is used to describe both the target system and the reasoning process. The main idea is to follow deterministic problem solving behavior of human experts and document it. Then knowledge can be extracted by comparing documents of the successive steps. This knowledge is recorded and reused in similar or novel cases. We present an implementation of this method in a tool for software design. The implemented system consists of a SDL CASE tool and an expert system for applying the design knowledge. This system serves as an experimental platform for the study of human design by simulating the design at the lowest level. However, we have found that by acquiring enough domain knowledge, this system can simulate general problem solving of human experts. (author)

Generating human reliability estimates using expert judgment. Volume 2. Appendices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comer, M.K.; Seaver, D.A.; Stillwell, W.G.; Gaddy, C.D.

1984-11-01

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a research program to determine the practicality, acceptability, and usefulness of several different methods for obtaining human reliability data and estimates that can be used in nuclear power plant probabilistic risk assessments (PRA). One method, investigated as part of this overall research program, uses expert judgment to generate human error probability (HEP) estimates and associated uncertainty bounds. The project described in this document evaluated two techniques for using expert judgment: paired comparisons and direct numerical estimation. Volume 2 provides detailed procedures for using the techniques, detailed descriptions of the analyses performed to evaluate the techniques, and HEP estimates generated as part of this project. The results of the evaluation indicate that techniques using expert judgment should be given strong consideration for use in developing HEP estimates. Judgments were shown to be consistent and to provide HEP estimates with a good degree of convergent validity. Of the two techniques tested, direct numerical estimation appears to be preferable in terms of ease of application and quality of results

Human factors considerations for expert systems in the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nelson, W.R.

1988-01-01

This paper discusses the general human factors issues relative to the development and implementation of expert systems for the nuclear industry. It summarizes the relevant research that addresses these issues, and identifies those areas that need the most effort for success. Since much of the prominent work for the application of expert systems has focused on computerized aids for decision making in emergencies, this paper draws from this area for its examples. This area tends to highlight the issues because of the safety-critical nature of the application. The same issues, however, are relevant to other applications of expert systems in the nuclear industry as well, even though the consequences of failure may not be as dramatic

Sleep-spindle detection: crowdsourcing and evaluating performance of experts, non-experts and automated methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Warby, Simon C.; Wendt, Sabrina Lyngbye; Welinder, Peter

2014-01-01

to crowdsource spindle identification by human experts and non-experts, and we compared their performance with that of automated detection algorithms in data from middle- to older-aged subjects from the general population. We also refined methods for forming group consensus and evaluating the performance...... of event detectors in physiological data such as electroencephalographic recordings from polysomnography. Compared to the expert group consensus gold standard, the highest performance was by individual experts and the non-expert group consensus, followed by automated spindle detectors. This analysis showed...... that crowdsourcing the scoring of sleep data is an efficient method to collect large data sets, even for difficult tasks such as spindle identification. Further refinements to spindle detection algorithms are needed for middle- to older-aged subjects....

Tools and technologies for expert systems: A human factors perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Rajaram, Navaratna S.

1987-01-01

It is widely recognized that technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), especially expert systems, can make significant contributions to the productivity and effectiveness of operations of information and knowledge intensive organizations such as NASA. At the same time, these being relatively new technologies, there is the problem of transfering technology to key personnel of such organizations. The problems of examining the potential of expert systems and of technology transfer is addressed in the context of human factors applications. One of the topics of interest was the investigation of the potential use of expert system building tools, particularly NEXPERT as a technology transfer medium. Two basic conclusions were reached in this regard. First, NEXPERT is an excellent tool for rapid prototyping of experimental expert systems, but not ideal as a delivery vehicle. Therefore, it is not a substitute for general purpose system implementation languages such a LISP or C. This assertion probably holds for nearly all such tools on the market today. Second, an effective technology transfer mechanism is to formulate and implement expert systems for problems which members of the organization in question can relate to. For this purpose, the LIghting EnGineering Expert (LIEGE) was implemented using NEXPERT as the tool for technology transfer and to illustrate the value of expert systems to the activities of the Man-System Division.

Generating human reliability estimates using expert judgment. Volume 1. Main report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comer, M.K.; Seaver, D.A.; Stillwell, W.G.; Gaddy, C.D.

1984-11-01

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a research program to determine the practicality, acceptability, and usefulness of several different methods for obtaining human reliability data and estimates that can be used in nuclear power plant probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). One method, investigated as part of this overall research program, uses expert judgment to generate human error probability (HEP) estimates and associated uncertainty bounds. The project described in this document evaluated two techniques for using expert judgment: paired comparisons and direct numerical estimation. Volume 1 of this report provides a brief overview of the background of the project, the procedure for using psychological scaling techniques to generate HEP estimates and conclusions from evaluation of the techniques. Results of the evaluation indicate that techniques using expert judgment should be given strong consideration for use in developing HEP estimates. In addition, HEP estimates for 35 tasks related to boiling water reactors (BMRs) were obtained as part of the evaluation. These HEP estimates are also included in the report

Embedding Human Expert Cognition Into Autonomous UAS Trajectory Planning.

Science.gov (United States)

Narayan, Pritesh; Meyer, Patrick; Campbell, Duncan

2013-04-01

This paper presents a new approach for the inclusion of human expert cognition into autonomous trajectory planning for unmanned aerial systems (UASs) operating in low-altitude environments. During typical UAS operations, multiple objectives may exist; therefore, the use of multicriteria decision aid techniques can potentially allow for convergence to trajectory solutions which better reflect overall mission requirements. In that context, additive multiattribute value theory has been applied to optimize trajectories with respect to multiple objectives. A graphical user interface was developed to allow for knowledge capture from a human decision maker (HDM) through simulated decision scenarios. The expert decision data gathered are converted into value functions and corresponding criteria weightings using utility additive theory. The inclusion of preferences elicited from HDM data within an automated decision system allows for the generation of trajectories which more closely represent the candidate HDM decision preferences. This approach has been demonstrated in this paper through simulation using a fixed-wing UAS operating in low-altitude environments.

Cognitive engineering in the design of human-computer interaction and expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salvendy, G.

1987-01-01

The 68 papers contributing to this book cover the following areas: Theories of Interface Design; Methodologies of Interface Design; Applications of Interface Design; Software Design; Human Factors in Speech Technology and Telecommunications; Design of Graphic Dialogues; Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems; Design, Evaluation and Use of Expert Systems. This demonstrates the dual role of cognitive engineering. On the one hand cognitive engineering is utilized to design computing systems which are compatible with human cognition and can be effectively and be easily utilized by all individuals. On the other hand, cognitive engineering is utilized to transfer human cognition into the computer for the purpose of building expert systems. Two papers are of interest to INIS

Tropospheric ozone. Formation, properties, effects. Expert opinion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elstner, E.F.

1996-01-01

The formation and dispersion of tropospheric ozone are discussed only marginally in this expert opinion; the key interest is in the effects of ground level ozone on plants, animals, and humans. The expert opinion is based on an analysis of the available scientific publications. (orig./MG) [de

Dog Experts' Brains Distinguish Socially Relevant Body Postures Similarly in Dogs and Humans

OpenAIRE

Kujala, Miiamaaria; Kujala, Jan; Carlson, Synnove; Hari, Riitta

2012-01-01

We read conspecifics' social cues effortlessly, but little is known about our abilities to understand social gestures of other species. To investigate the neural underpinnings of such skills, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain activity of experts and non-experts of dog behavior while they observed humans or dogs either interacting with, or facing away from a conspecific. The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) of both subject groups dissociated humans facin...

Medical Expert Systems Survey

OpenAIRE

Abu-Nasser, Bassem S.

2017-01-01

International audience; There is an increased interest in the area of Artificial Intelligence in general and expert systems in particular. Expert systems are rapidly growing technology. Expert systems are a branch of Artificial Intelligence which is having a great impact on many fields of human life. Expert systems use human expert knowledge to solve complex problems in many fields such as Health, science, engineering, business, and weather forecasting. Organizations employing the technology ...

Expert Coaching in Weight Loss: Retrospective Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Kushner, Robert F; Hill, James O; Lindquist, Richard; Brunning, Scott; Margulies, Amy

2018-01-01

Background Providing coaches as part of a weight management program is a common practice to increase participant engagement and weight loss success. Understanding coach and participant interactions and how these interactions impact weight loss success needs to be further explored for coaching best practices. Objective The purpose of this study was to analyze the coach and participant interaction in a 6-month weight loss intervention administered by Retrofit, a personalized weight management and Web-based disease prevention solution. The study specifically examined the association between different methods of coach-participant interaction and weight loss and tried to understand the level of coaching impact on weight loss outcome. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed using 1432 participants enrolled from 2011 to 2016 in the Retrofit weight loss program. Participants were males and females aged 18 years or older with a baseline body mass index of ≥25 kg/m², who also provided at least one weight measurement beyond baseline. First, a detailed analysis of different coach-participant interaction was performed using both intent-to-treat and completer populations. Next, a multiple regression analysis was performed using all measures associated with coach-participant interactions involving expert coaching sessions, live weekly expert-led Web-based classes, and electronic messaging and feedback. Finally, 3 significant predictors (Pcoaching session attendance (Pcoaching sessions, attending 60% of live weekly Web-based classes, and receiving a minimum of 1 food log feedback day per week were associated with clinically significant weight loss. Conclusions Participant’s one-on-one expert coaching session attendance, live weekly expert-led interactive Web-based class attendance, and the number of food log feedback days per week from expert coach were significant predictors of weight loss in a 6-month intervention. PMID:29535082

GOTRES: an expert system for fault detection and analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chung, D.T.; Modarres, M.

1989-01-01

This paper describes a deep-knowledge expert system shell for diagnosing faults in process operations. The expert program shell is called GOTRES (GOal TRee Expert System) and uses a goal tree-success tree deep-knowledge structure to model its knowledge-base. To demonstrate GOTRES, we have built an on-line fault diagnosis expert system for an experimental nuclear reactor facility using this shell. The expert system is capable of diagnosing fault conditions using system goal tree as well as utilizing accumulated operating knowledge to predict plant causal and temporal behaviours. The GOTRES shell has also been used for root-cause detection and analysis in a nuclear plant. (author)

Expert Systems

OpenAIRE

Lucas, P.J.F.

2005-01-01

Expert systems mimic the problem-solving activity of human experts in specialized domains by capturing and representing expert knowledge. Expert systems include a knowledge base, an inference engine that derives conclusions from the knowledge, and a user interface. Knowledge may be stored as if-then rules, orusing other formalisms such as frames and predicate logic. Uncertain knowledge may be represented using certainty factors, Bayesian networks, Dempster-Shafer belief functions, or fuzzy se...

Expert Coaching in Weight Loss: Retrospective Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Painter, Stefanie Lynn; Ahmed, Rezwan; Kushner, Robert F; Hill, James O; Lindquist, Richard; Brunning, Scott; Margulies, Amy

2018-03-13

Providing coaches as part of a weight management program is a common practice to increase participant engagement and weight loss success. Understanding coach and participant interactions and how these interactions impact weight loss success needs to be further explored for coaching best practices. The purpose of this study was to analyze the coach and participant interaction in a 6-month weight loss intervention administered by Retrofit, a personalized weight management and Web-based disease prevention solution. The study specifically examined the association between different methods of coach-participant interaction and weight loss and tried to understand the level of coaching impact on weight loss outcome. A retrospective analysis was performed using 1432 participants enrolled from 2011 to 2016 in the Retrofit weight loss program. Participants were males and females aged 18 years or older with a baseline body mass index of ≥25 kg/m², who also provided at least one weight measurement beyond baseline. First, a detailed analysis of different coach-participant interaction was performed using both intent-to-treat and completer populations. Next, a multiple regression analysis was performed using all measures associated with coach-participant interactions involving expert coaching sessions, live weekly expert-led Web-based classes, and electronic messaging and feedback. Finally, 3 significant predictors (Pcoaching session attendance (Pcoaching sessions, attending 60% of live weekly Web-based classes, and receiving a minimum of 1 food log feedback day per week were associated with clinically significant weight loss. Participant's one-on-one expert coaching session attendance, live weekly expert-led interactive Web-based class attendance, and the number of food log feedback days per week from expert coach were significant predictors of weight loss in a 6-month intervention. ©Stefanie Lynn Painter, Rezwan Ahmed, Robert F Kushner, James O Hill, Richard Lindquist, Scott

Estimation of the human error probabilities in the human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Haibin; He Xuhong; Tong Jiejuan; Shen Shifei

2006-01-01

Human error data is an important issue of human reliability analysis (HRA). Using of Bayesian parameter estimation, which can use multiple information, such as the historical data of NPP and expert judgment data to modify the human error data, could get the human error data reflecting the real situation of NPP more truly. This paper, using the numeric compute program developed by the authors, presents some typical examples to illustrate the process of the Bayesian parameter estimation in HRA and discusses the effect of different modification data on the Bayesian parameter estimation. (authors)

System reliability analysis with natural language and expert's subjectivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Onisawa, T.

1996-01-01

This paper introduces natural language expressions and expert's subjectivity to system reliability analysis. To this end, this paper defines a subjective measure of reliability and presents the method of the system reliability analysis using the measure. The subjective measure of reliability corresponds to natural language expressions of reliability estimation, which is represented by a fuzzy set defined on [0,1]. The presented method deals with the dependence among subsystems and employs parametrized operations of subjective measures of reliability which can reflect expert 's subjectivity towards the analyzed system. The analysis results are also expressed by linguistic terms. Finally this paper gives an example of the system reliability analysis by the presented method

EXPERT SYSTEMS

OpenAIRE

Georgiana Marin; Mihai Catalin Andrei

2011-01-01

In recent decades IT and computer systems have evolved rapidly in economic informatics field. The goal is to create user friendly information systems that respond promptly and accurately to requests. Informatics systems evolved into decision assisted systems, and such systems are converted, based on gained experience, in expert systems for creative problem solving that an organization is facing. Expert systems are aimed at rebuilding human reasoning on the expertise obtained from experts, sto...

Psychological scaling of expert estimates of human error probabilities: application to nuclear power plant operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Comer, K.; Gaddy, C.D.; Seaver, D.A.; Stillwell, W.G.

1985-01-01

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Sandia National Laboratories sponsored a project to evaluate psychological scaling techniques for use in generating estimates of human error probabilities. The project evaluated two techniques: direct numerical estimation and paired comparisons. Expert estimates were found to be consistent across and within judges. Convergent validity was good, in comparison to estimates in a handbook of human reliability. Predictive validity could not be established because of the lack of actual relative frequencies of error (which will be a difficulty inherent in validation of any procedure used to estimate HEPs). Application of expert estimates in probabilistic risk assessment and in human factors is discussed

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO EXPERT EVALUATION OF PRECLINICAL AND CLINICAL TRIALS OF HUMAN IMMUNOGLOBULIN PRODUCTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. B. Ivanov

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article considers the experience of Russian and leading foreign regulatory agencies in organisation and conduction of preclinical and clinical trials of human immunoglobulin products. The authors suggest a classification of human immunoglobulins and provide updated information on authorization of these products in Russia. The article summarizes methodological approaches, basic scientific principles and criteria relating to expert evaluation of preclinical and clinical trials of blood products. The authors further define the expert body’s requirements for data on preclinical and clinical trials of human normal immuniglobulins and human specific immunoglobulins for the prevention and/or treatment of infectious and non-infectious diseases which are submitted as part of applications for marketing authorization or marketing authorization variation. The article suggests programs of preclinical and clinical trials for human normal immunoglobulins and human specific immunoglobulins for the prevention and/or treatment of infectious and non-infectious diseases that are aligned with the Russian legislation and Eurasian Economic Union’s regulations on medicines circulation, and have been elaborated with respect to the guidelines of the European Medicines Agency.

Inclusion of task dependence in human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Su, Xiaoyan; Mahadevan, Sankaran; Xu, Peida; Deng, Yong

2014-01-01

Dependence assessment among human errors in human reliability analysis (HRA) is an important issue, which includes the evaluation of the dependence among human tasks and the effect of the dependence on the final human error probability (HEP). This paper represents a computational model to handle dependence in human reliability analysis. The aim of the study is to automatically provide conclusions on the overall degree of dependence and calculate the conditional human error probability (CHEP) once the judgments of the input factors are given. The dependence influencing factors are first identified by the experts and the priorities of these factors are also taken into consideration. Anchors and qualitative labels are provided as guidance for the HRA analyst's judgment of the input factors. The overall degree of dependence between human failure events is calculated based on the input values and the weights of the input factors. Finally, the CHEP is obtained according to a computing formula derived from the technique for human error rate prediction (THERP) method. The proposed method is able to quantify the subjective judgment from the experts and improve the transparency in the HEP evaluation process. Two examples are illustrated to show the effectiveness and the flexibility of the proposed method. - Highlights: • We propose a computational model to handle dependence in human reliability analysis. • The priorities of the dependence influencing factors are taken into consideration. • The overall dependence degree is determined by input judgments and the weights of factors. • The CHEP is obtained according to a computing formula derived from THERP

Analysis of the application of decontamination technologies to radioactive metal waste minimization using expert systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bayrakal, Suna [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)

1993-09-30

Radioactive metal waste makes up a significant portion of the waste currently being sent for disposal. Recovery of this metal as a valuable resource is possible through the use of decontamination technologies. Through the development and use of expert systems a comparison can be made of laser decontamination, a technology currently under development at Ames Laboratory, with currently available decontamination technologies for applicability to the types of metal waste being generated and the effectiveness of these versus simply disposing of the waste. These technologies can be technically and economically evaluated by the use of expert systems techniques to provide a waste management decision making tool that generates, given an identified metal waste, waste management recommendations. The user enters waste characteristic information as input and the system then recommends decontamination technologies, determines residual contamination levels and possible waste management strategies, carries out a cost analysis and then ranks, according to cost, the possibilities for management of the waste. The expert system was developed using information from literature and personnel experienced in the use of decontamination technologies and requires validation by human experts and assignment of confidence factors to the knowledge represented within.

Analysis of the application of decontamination technologies to radioactive metal waste minimization using expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bayrakal, S.

1993-01-01

Radioactive metal waste makes up a significant portion of the waste currently being sent for disposal. Recovery of this metal as a valuable resource is possible through the use of decontamination technologies. Through the development and use of expert systems a comparison can be made of laser decontamination, a technology currently under development at Ames Laboratory, with currently available decontamination technologies for applicability to the types of metal waste being generated and the effectiveness of these versus simply disposing of the waste. These technologies can be technically and economically evaluated by the use of expert systems techniques to provide a waste management decision making tool that generates, given an identified metal waste, waste management recommendations. The user enters waste characteristic information as input and the system then recommends decontamination technologies, determines residual contamination levels and possible waste management strategies, carries out a cost analysis and then ranks, according to cost, the possibilities for management of the waste. The expert system was developed using information from literature and personnel experienced in the use of decontamination technologies and requires validation by human experts and assignment of confidence factors to the knowledge represented within

Computers Simulate Human Experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Roberts, Steven K.

1983-01-01

Discusses recent progress in artificial intelligence in such narrowly defined areas as medical and electronic diagnosis. Also discusses use of expert systems, man-machine communication problems, novel programing environments (including comments on LISP and LISP machines), and types of knowledge used (factual, heuristic, and meta-knowledge). (JN)

Working group of experts on rare events in human error analysis and quantification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goodstein, L.P.

1977-01-01

In dealing with the reference problem of rare events in nuclear power plants, the group has concerned itself with the man-machine system and, in particular, with human error analysis and quantification. The Group was requested to review methods of human reliability prediction, to evaluate the extent to which such analyses can be formalized and to establish criteria to be met by task conditions and system design which would permit a systematic, formal analysis. Recommendations are given on the Fessenheim safety system

Integrating Expert Knowledge with Statistical Analysis for Landslide Susceptibility Assessment at Regional Scale

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christos Chalkias

2016-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, an integration landslide susceptibility model by combining expert-based and bivariate statistical analysis (Landslide Susceptibility Index—LSI approaches is presented. Factors related with the occurrence of landslides—such as elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, lithology, land cover, Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP and Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA—were analyzed within a GIS environment. This integrated model produced a landslide susceptibility map which categorized the study area according to the probability level of landslide occurrence. The accuracy of the final map was evaluated by Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC analysis depending on an independent (validation dataset of landslide events. The prediction ability was found to be 76% revealing that the integration of statistical analysis with human expertise can provide an acceptable landslide susceptibility assessment at regional scale.

A human error probability estimate methodology based on fuzzy inference and expert judgment on nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nascimento, C.S. do; Mesquita, R.N. de

2009-01-01

Recent studies point human error as an important factor for many industrial and nuclear accidents: Three Mile Island (1979), Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl and Challenger (1986) are classical examples. Human contribution to these accidents may be better understood and analyzed by using Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), which has being taken as an essential part on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) of nuclear plants. Both HRA and PSA depend on Human Error Probability (HEP) for a quantitative analysis. These probabilities are extremely affected by the Performance Shaping Factors (PSF), which has a direct effect on human behavior and thus shape HEP according with specific environment conditions and personal individual characteristics which are responsible for these actions. This PSF dependence raises a great problem on data availability as turn these scarcely existent database too much generic or too much specific. Besides this, most of nuclear plants do not keep historical records of human error occurrences. Therefore, in order to overcome this occasional data shortage, a methodology based on Fuzzy Inference and expert judgment was employed in this paper in order to determine human error occurrence probabilities and to evaluate PSF's on performed actions by operators in a nuclear power plant (IEA-R1 nuclear reactor). Obtained HEP values were compared with reference tabled data used on current literature in order to show method coherence and valid approach. This comparison leads to a conclusion that this work results are able to be employed both on HRA and PSA enabling efficient prospection of plant safety conditions, operational procedures and local working conditions potential improvements (author)

A demonstration of expert systems applications in transportation engineering : volume I, transportation engineers and expert systems.

Science.gov (United States)

1987-01-01

Expert systems, a branch of artificial-intelligence studies, is introduced with a view to its relevance in transportation engineering. Knowledge engineering, the process of building expert systems or transferring knowledge from human experts to compu...

The digital storytelling process: A comparative analysis from various experts

Science.gov (United States)

Hussain, Hashiroh; Shiratuddin, Norshuhada

2016-08-01

Digital Storytelling (DST) is a method of delivering information to the audience. It combines narrative and digital media content infused with the multimedia elements. In order for the educators (i.e the designers) to create a compelling digital story, there are sets of processes introduced by experts. Nevertheless, the experts suggest varieties of processes to guide them; of which some are redundant. The main aim of this study is to propose a single guide process for the creation of DST. A comparative analysis is employed where ten DST models from various experts are analysed. The process can also be implemented in other multimedia materials that used the concept of DST.

How Can Big Data Complement Expert Analysis? A Value Chain Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kyungtae Kim

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In the world of big data, there is a need to investigate how data-driven approaches can support expert-based analyses during a technology planning process. To meet this goal, we examined opportunities and challenges for big data analytics in the social sciences, particularly with respect to value chain analysis. To accomplish this, we designed a value chain mapping experiment that aimed to compare the results of expert-based and data-based mappings. In the expert-based approach, we asked an industry expert to visually depict an industry value chain based on insights and collected data. We also reviewed a previously published value chain developed by a panel of industry experts during a national technology planning process. In the data-driven analysis, we used a massive number of business transaction records between companies under the assumption that the data would be useful in identifying relationships between items in a value chain. The case study results demonstrated that data-driven analysis can help researchers understand the current status of industry structures, enabling them to develop more realistic, although less flexible value chain maps. This approach is expected to provide more value when used in combination with other databases. It is important to note that significant effort is required to develop an elaborate analysis algorithm, and data preprocessing is essential for obtaining meaningful results, both of which make this approach challenging. Experts’ insights are still helpful for validating the analytic results in value chain mapping.

System Experts and Decision Making Experts in Transdisciplinary Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Mieg, Harald A.

2006-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims at a better understanding of expert roles in transdisciplinary projects. Thus, the main purpose is the analysis of the roles of experts in transdisciplinary projects. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis of the ETH-UNS case studies from the point of view of the psychology of expertise and the sociology of professions…

Procedures for using expert judgment to estimate human-error probabilities in nuclear power plant operations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seaver, D.A.; Stillwell, W.G.

1983-03-01

This report describes and evaluates several procedures for using expert judgment to estimate human-error probabilities (HEPs) in nuclear power plant operations. These HEPs are currently needed for several purposes, particularly for probabilistic risk assessments. Data do not exist for estimating these HEPs, so expert judgment can provide these estimates in a timely manner. Five judgmental procedures are described here: paired comparisons, ranking and rating, direct numerical estimation, indirect numerical estimation and multiattribute utility measurement. These procedures are evaluated in terms of several criteria: quality of judgments, difficulty of data collection, empirical support, acceptability, theoretical justification, and data processing. Situational constraints such as the number of experts available, the number of HEPs to be estimated, the time available, the location of the experts, and the resources available are discussed in regard to their implications for selecting a procedure for use

Expert system for transuranic waste assay

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zoolalian, M.L.; Gibbs, A.; Kuhns, J.D.

1989-01-01

Transuranic wastes are generated at the Savannah River Site (SRS) as a result of routine production of nuclear materials. These wastes contain Pu-238 and Pu-239 and are placed into lined 55-gallon waste drums. The drums are placed on monitored storage pads pending shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. A passive-active neutron (PAN) assay system is used to determine the mass of the radioactive material within the waste drums. Assay results are used to classify the wastes as either low-level or transuranic (TRU). During assays, the PAN assay system communicates with an IBM-AT computer. A Fortran computer program, called NEUT, controls and performs all data analyses. Unassisted, the NEUT program cannot adequately interpret assay results. To eliminate this limitation, an expert system shell was used to write a new algorithm, called the Transuranic Expert System (TRUX), to drive the NEUT program and add decision making capabilities for analysis of the assay results. The TRUX knowledge base was formulated by consulting with human experts in the field of neutron assay, by direct experimentation on the PAN assay system, and by observing operations on a daily basis. TRUX, with its improved ability to interpret assay results, has eliminated the need for close supervision by a human expert, allowing skilled technicians to operate the PAN assay system. 4 refs., 1 fig., 4 tabs.

Expert system for transuranic waste assay

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zoolalian, M.L.; Gibbs, A.; Kuhns, J.D.

1989-01-01

Transuranic wastes are generated at the Savannah River Site (SRS) as a result of routine production of nuclear materials. These wastes contain Pu-238 and Pu-239 and are placed into lined 55-gallon waste drums. The drums are placed on monitored storage pads pending shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. A passive-active neutron (PAN) assay system is used to determine the mass of the radioactive material within the waste drums. Assay results are used to classify the wastes as either low-level or transuranic (TRU). During assays, the PAN assay system communicates with an IBM-AT computer. A Fortran computer program, called NEUT, controls and performs all data analyses. Unassisted, the NEUT program cannot adequately interpret assay results. To eliminate this limitation, an expert system shell was used to write a new algorithm, called the Transuranic Expert System (TRUX), to drive the NEUT program and add decision making capabilities for analysis of the assay results. The TRUX knowledge base was formulated by consulting with human experts in the field of neutron assay, by direct experimentation on the PAN assay system, and by observing operations on a daily basis. TRUX, with its improved ability to interpret assay results, has eliminated the need for close supervision by a human expert, allowing skilled technicians to operate the PAN assay system. 4 refs., 1 fig., 4 tabs

Task Decomposition in Human Reliability Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boring, Ronald Laurids [Idaho National Laboratory; Joe, Jeffrey Clark [Idaho National Laboratory

2014-06-01

In the probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) used in the nuclear industry, human failure events (HFEs) are determined as a subset of hardware failures, namely those hardware failures that could be triggered by human action or inaction. This approach is top-down, starting with hardware faults and deducing human contributions to those faults. Elsewhere, more traditionally human factors driven approaches would tend to look at opportunities for human errors first in a task analysis and then identify which of those errors is risk significant. The intersection of top-down and bottom-up approaches to defining HFEs has not been carefully studied. Ideally, both approaches should arrive at the same set of HFEs. This question remains central as human reliability analysis (HRA) methods are generalized to new domains like oil and gas. The HFEs used in nuclear PSAs tend to be top-down— defined as a subset of the PSA—whereas the HFEs used in petroleum quantitative risk assessments (QRAs) are more likely to be bottom-up—derived from a task analysis conducted by human factors experts. The marriage of these approaches is necessary in order to ensure that HRA methods developed for top-down HFEs are also sufficient for bottom-up applications.

An expert image analysis system for chromosome analysis application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Q.; Suetens, P.; Oosterlinck, A.; Van den Berghe, H.

1987-01-01

This paper reports a recent study on applying a knowledge-based system approach as a new attempt to solve the problem of chromosome classification. A theoretical framework of an expert image analysis system is proposed, based on such a study. In this scheme, chromosome classification can be carried out under a hypothesize-and-verify paradigm, by integrating a rule-based component, in which the expertise of chromosome karyotyping is formulated with an existing image analysis system which uses conventional pattern recognition techniques. Results from the existing system can be used to bring in hypotheses, and with the rule-based verification and modification procedures, improvement of the classification performance can be excepted

Analysis of core damage frequency from internal events: Expert judgment elicitation. Part 1: Expert panel results. Part 2: Project staff results

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wheeler, T A; Cramond, W R [Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM (United States); Hora, S C [University of Hawii at Hilo (United States); Unwin, S D [Brookhaven National Laboratory (United States)

1989-04-01

Quantitative modeling techniques have limitations as to the resolution of important issues in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Not all issues can be resolved via the existing set of methods such as fault trees, event trees, statistical analyses, data collection, and computer simulation. Therefore, an expert judgment process was developed to address issues perceived as important to risk in the NUREG-1150 analysis but which could not be resolved with existing techniques. This process was applied to several issues that could significantly affect the internal event core damage frequencies of the PRAs performed on six light water reactors. Detailed descriptions of these issues and the results of the expert judgment elicitation are reported here, as well as an explanation of the methodology used and the procedure followed in performing the overall elicitation task. The process is time-consuming and expensive. However, the results are very useful, and represent an improvement over the draft NUREG-1150 analysis in the areas of expert selection, elicitation training, issue selection and presentation, elicitation of judgment and aggregation of results. The results are presented in two parts. Part documents the expert panel elicitations, where the most important issues were presented to a panel of experts convened from throughout the nuclear power risk assessment community. Part 2 documents the process by which the project staff performed expert judgment on other important issues, using the project staff as panel members. (author)

Expert system for the CPCS-initiated trip analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sohn, Sedo; Im, Inyoung; Kuh, Jungeui

1991-01-01

In Yonggwang nuclear units 3 and 4, the core protection calculator system (CPCS) performs various protection logics against many transients and certain accidents. The CPCS is a real-time computer system calculating the departure from nucleate boiling ratio (DNBR), and local power density, and other protection logics. It takes process variables such as neutron flux, hot-leg temperature, cold-leg temperature, control element assembly positions, and reactor coolant pump shaft speed. Since the CPCS protection logics are quite complex, it is difficult for an operator to tell immediately which parameter is the major cause of the reactor trip. Thus, whenever the reactor trip signal is generated, the process input variables and calculated results, including selected intermediate variables, are frozen in the specified computer memory for later analysis. These frozen variables are called the trip buffer. Analysis of the trip buffer requires an expert in the CPCS and related documents containing algorithms and a data base for algorithms. The Trip Buffer Analysis Program (TBAP) is an expert system that pinpoints the causes of the CPCS initiated reactor trip, thus relieving the operator from the burden of analyzing the trip buffer

Spectral information interpretation of X-ray analysis based on expert system approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drakunov, Yu.M.; Lezin, A.N.; Pukha, N.P.; Silachev, I.Yu.

2000-01-01

An expert subprogram for automated identification for element composition of the samples of different nature according to the result of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis is elaborated, The flowchart of the subprogram is presented, brief description of expert system structure and its algorithm is given. (author)

A Computer Clone of Human Expert for Mobility Management Scheme (E-MMS): Step toward Green Transportation

Science.gov (United States)

Resdiansyah; O. K Rahmat, R. A.; Ismail, A.

2018-03-01

Green transportation refers to a sustainable transport that gives the least impact in terms of social and environmental but at the same time is able to supply energy sources globally that includes non-motorized transport strategies deployment to promote healthy lifestyles, also known as Mobility Management Scheme (MMS). As construction of road infrastructure cannot help solve the problem of congestion, past research has shown that MMS is an effective measure to mitigate congestion and to achieve green transportation. MMS consists of different strategies and policies that subdivided into categories according to how they are able to influence travel behaviour. Appropriate selection of mobility strategies will ensure its effectiveness in mitigating congestion problems. Nevertheless, determining appropriate strategies requires human expert and depends on a number of success factors. This research has successfully developed a computer clone system based on human expert, called E-MMS. The process of knowledge acquisition for MMS strategies and the next following process to selection of strategy has been encode in a knowledge-based system using a shell expert system. The newly developed computer cloning system was successfully verified, validated and evaluated (VV&E) by comparing the result output with the real transportation expert recommendation in which the findings suggested Introduction

MERS-CoV at the Animal-Human interface: inputs on exposure pathways from an Expert-Opinion elicitation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Funk

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Nearly four years after the first report of the emergence of Middle-East respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV and nearly 1800 human cases later, the ecology of MERS-CoV, its epidemiology, and risk factors of MERS-CoV transmission between camels are poorly understood. Knowledge about the pathways and mechanisms of transmission from animals to humans is limited; as of yet, transmission risks have not been quantified. Moreover the divergent sanitary situations and exposures to animals among populations in the Arabian Peninsula, where human primary cases appear to dominate, vs. other regions in the Middle East and Africa, with no reported human clinical cases and where the virus has been detected only in dromedaries, represents huge scientific and health challenges. Here, we have used expert opinion elicitation in order to obtain ideas on relative importance of MERS-CoV risk factors and estimates of transmission risks from various types of contact between humans and dromedaries. Fourteen (14 experts with diverse and extensive experience in MERS-CoV relevant fields were enrolled and completed an online questionnaire that examined pathways based on several scenarios e.g. camels-camels, camels-human, bats/other species to camels/humans and the role of diverse biological substances (milk, urine etc. and potential fomites.Experts believed that dromedary camels play the largest role in MERS-CoV infection of other dromedaries; however, they also indicated a significant influence of the season (i.e. calving or weaning periods on transmission risk. All experts thought that MERS-CoV infected dromedaries and asymptomatic humans play the most important role in infection of humans, with bats and other species presenting a possible, but yet undefined, risk. Direct and indirect contact of humans with dromedary camels were identified as the most risky types of contact, when compared to consumption of various camel products, with estimated 'most

[Psychoanalysis and Psychiatrie-Enquete: expert interviews and document analysis].

Science.gov (United States)

Söhner, Felicitas Petra; Fangerau, Heiner; Becker, Thomas

2017-12-01

Background The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perception of the role of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in the coming about of the Psychiatrie-Enquete in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Methods We performed a qualitative content analysis of expert interviews with persons involved in the Enquete (or witnessing the events as mental health professionals active at the time), a selective literature review and an analysis of documents on the Enquete process. Results Expert interviews, relevant literature and documents point to a role of psychoanalysis in the Enquete process. Psychoanalysts were considered to have been effective in the run-up to the Enquete and the work of the commission. Conclusion Psychoanalysis and a small number of psychoanalysts were perceived as being relevant in the overall process of the Psychiatrie-Enquete in West Germany. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Artificial intelligence and medical imaging. Expert systems and image analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wackenheim, A.; Zoellner, G.; Horviller, S.; Jacqmain, T.

1987-01-01

This paper gives an overview on the existing systems for automated image analysis and interpretation in medical imaging, especially in radiology. The example of ORFEVRE, the system for the analysis of CAT-scan images of the cervical triplet (c3-c5) by image analysis and subsequent expert-system is given and discussed in detail. Possible extensions are described [fr

An expert system for integrated structural analysis and design optimization for aerospace structures

Science.gov (United States)

1992-04-01

The results of a research study on the development of an expert system for integrated structural analysis and design optimization is presented. An Object Representation Language (ORL) was developed first in conjunction with a rule-based system. This ORL/AI shell was then used to develop expert systems to provide assistance with a variety of structural analysis and design optimization tasks, in conjunction with procedural modules for finite element structural analysis and design optimization. The main goal of the research study was to provide expertise, judgment, and reasoning capabilities in the aerospace structural design process. This will allow engineers performing structural analysis and design, even without extensive experience in the field, to develop error-free, efficient and reliable structural designs very rapidly and cost-effectively. This would not only improve the productivity of design engineers and analysts, but also significantly reduce time to completion of structural design. An extensive literature survey in the field of structural analysis, design optimization, artificial intelligence, and database management systems and their application to the structural design process was first performed. A feasibility study was then performed, and the architecture and the conceptual design for the integrated 'intelligent' structural analysis and design optimization software was then developed. An Object Representation Language (ORL), in conjunction with a rule-based system, was then developed using C++. Such an approach would improve the expressiveness for knowledge representation (especially for structural analysis and design applications), provide ability to build very large and practical expert systems, and provide an efficient way for storing knowledge. Functional specifications for the expert systems were then developed. The ORL/AI shell was then used to develop a variety of modules of expert systems for a variety of modeling, finite element analysis, and

Contextual Factors for Finding Similar Experts

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hofmann, Katja; Balog, Krisztian; Bogers, Toine

2010-01-01

-seeking models, are rarely taken into account. In this article, we extend content-based expert-finding approaches with contextual factors that have been found to influence human expert finding. We focus on a task of science communicators in a knowledge-intensive environment, the task of finding similar experts......, given an example expert. Our approach combines expertise-seeking and retrieval research. First, we conduct a user study to identify contextual factors that may play a role in the studied task and environment. Then, we design expert retrieval models to capture these factors. We combine these with content......-based retrieval models and evaluate them in a retrieval experiment. Our main finding is that while content-based features are the most important, human participants also take contextual factors into account, such as media experience and organizational structure. We develop two principled ways of modeling...

Integrating clinicians, knowledge and data: expert-based cooperative analysis in healthcare decision support.

Science.gov (United States)

Gibert, Karina; García-Alonso, Carlos; Salvador-Carulla, Luis

2010-09-30

Decision support in health systems is a highly difficult task, due to the inherent complexity of the process and structures involved. This paper introduces a new hybrid methodology Expert-based Cooperative Analysis (EbCA), which incorporates explicit prior expert knowledge in data analysis methods, and elicits implicit or tacit expert knowledge (IK) to improve decision support in healthcare systems. EbCA has been applied to two different case studies, showing its usability and versatility: 1) Bench-marking of small mental health areas based on technical efficiency estimated by EbCA-Data Envelopment Analysis (EbCA-DEA), and 2) Case-mix of schizophrenia based on functional dependency using Clustering Based on Rules (ClBR). In both cases comparisons towards classical procedures using qualitative explicit prior knowledge were made. Bayesian predictive validity measures were used for comparison with expert panels results. Overall agreement was tested by Intraclass Correlation Coefficient in case "1" and kappa in both cases. EbCA is a new methodology composed by 6 steps:. 1) Data collection and data preparation; 2) acquisition of "Prior Expert Knowledge" (PEK) and design of the "Prior Knowledge Base" (PKB); 3) PKB-guided analysis; 4) support-interpretation tools to evaluate results and detect inconsistencies (here Implicit Knowledg -IK- might be elicited); 5) incorporation of elicited IK in PKB and repeat till a satisfactory solution; 6) post-processing results for decision support. EbCA has been useful for incorporating PEK in two different analysis methods (DEA and Clustering), applied respectively to assess technical efficiency of small mental health areas and for case-mix of schizophrenia based on functional dependency. Differences in results obtained with classical approaches were mainly related to the IK which could be elicited by using EbCA and had major implications for the decision making in both cases. This paper presents EbCA and shows the convenience of

Integrating clinicians, knowledge and data: expert-based cooperative analysis in healthcare decision support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

García-Alonso Carlos

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Decision support in health systems is a highly difficult task, due to the inherent complexity of the process and structures involved. Method This paper introduces a new hybrid methodology Expert-based Cooperative Analysis (EbCA, which incorporates explicit prior expert knowledge in data analysis methods, and elicits implicit or tacit expert knowledge (IK to improve decision support in healthcare systems. EbCA has been applied to two different case studies, showing its usability and versatility: 1 Bench-marking of small mental health areas based on technical efficiency estimated by EbCA-Data Envelopment Analysis (EbCA-DEA, and 2 Case-mix of schizophrenia based on functional dependency using Clustering Based on Rules (ClBR. In both cases comparisons towards classical procedures using qualitative explicit prior knowledge were made. Bayesian predictive validity measures were used for comparison with expert panels results. Overall agreement was tested by Intraclass Correlation Coefficient in case "1" and kappa in both cases. Results EbCA is a new methodology composed by 6 steps:. 1 Data collection and data preparation; 2 acquisition of "Prior Expert Knowledge" (PEK and design of the "Prior Knowledge Base" (PKB; 3 PKB-guided analysis; 4 support-interpretation tools to evaluate results and detect inconsistencies (here Implicit Knowledg -IK- might be elicited; 5 incorporation of elicited IK in PKB and repeat till a satisfactory solution; 6 post-processing results for decision support. EbCA has been useful for incorporating PEK in two different analysis methods (DEA and Clustering, applied respectively to assess technical efficiency of small mental health areas and for case-mix of schizophrenia based on functional dependency. Differences in results obtained with classical approaches were mainly related to the IK which could be elicited by using EbCA and had major implications for the decision making in both cases. Discussion This

Contribution of a fuzzy expert system to regulatory impact analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Antônio da Cunha

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA has been consolidating in Brazilian regulatory agencies throughout the last decades. The RIA methodology aims to examine the regulatory process, measure the costs and benefits generated, as well as other effects of social, political or economic nature caused by a new or an existing regulation. By analysing each regulatory option, the expert or regulator faces a myriad of variables, usually of qualitative nature, that are difficult to measure and with a high degree of uncertainty. This research complements the existing literature, given the scarcity of decision support models in RIA that – regardless of the problem treated – incorporate the tacit knowledge of the regulation expert. This paper proposes an exploratory approach using a Fuzzy Expert System, which therefore helps to enrich the decision process in the final stage of comparison of the regulatory options.

An expert system for uranium exploration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chhipa, V.K.; Sengupta, M.

1989-01-01

Artificial intelligence is an emerging technology in the field of computer application. Expert systems have been developed to imitate human intelligence and reasoning process. Expert systems have much scope of application in the decision making process in mineral exploration as such decisions are highly subjective and expert opinions are very helpful. This paper presents a small expert system to analyze the reasoning process in exploring for uranium deposits in sandstone

Expert systems and nuclear safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beltracchi, L.

1990-01-01

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Electric Power Research Institute have initiated a broad-based exploration of means to evaluate the potential applications of expert systems in the nuclear industry. This exploratory effort will assess the use of expert systems to augment the diagnostic and decision-making capabilities of personnel with the goal of enhancing productivity, reliability, and performance. The initial research effort is the development and documentation of guidelines for verifying and validating (V and V) expert systems. An initial application of expert systems in the nuclear industry is to aid operations and maintenance personnel in decision-making tasks. The scope of the decision aiding covers all types of cognitive behavior consisting of skill, rule, and knowledge-based behavior. For example, procedure trackers were designed and tested to support rule-based behavior. Further, these systems automate many of the tedious, error-prone human monitoring tasks, thereby reducing the potential for human error. The paper version of the procedure contains the knowledge base and the rules and thus serves as the basis of the design verification of the procedure tracker. Person-in-the-loop tests serve as the basis for the validation of a procedure tracker. When conducting validation tests, it is important to ascertain that the human retains the locus of control in the use of the expert system

Online-Expert: An Expert System for Online Database Selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Zahir, Sajjad; Chang, Chew Lik

1992-01-01

Describes the design and development of a prototype expert system called ONLINE-EXPERT that helps users select online databases and vendors that meet users' needs. Search strategies are discussed; knowledge acquisition and knowledge bases are described; and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision analysis technique that ranks databases,…

ALICE Expert System

CERN Document Server

Ionita, C

2014-01-01

The ALICE experiment at CERN employs a number of human operators (shifters), who have to make sure that the experiment is always in a state compatible with taking Physics data. Given the complexity of the system and the myriad of errors that can arise, this is not always a trivial task. The aim of this paper is to describe an expert system that is capable of assisting human shifters in the ALICE control room. The system diagnoses potential issues and attempts to make smart recommendations for troubleshooting. At its core, a Prolog engine infers whether a Physics or a technical run can be started based on the current state of the underlying sub-systems. A separate C++ component queries certain SMI objects and stores their state as facts in a Prolog knowledge base. By mining the data stored in dierent system logs, the expert system can also diagnose errors arising during a run. Currently the system is used by the on-call experts for faster response times, but we expect it to be adopted as a standard tool by reg...

Accident Sequence Evaluation Program: Human reliability analysis procedure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swain, A.D.

1987-02-01

This document presents a shortened version of the procedure, models, and data for human reliability analysis (HRA) which are presented in the Handbook of Human Reliability Analysis With emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications (NUREG/CR-1278, August 1983). This shortened version was prepared and tried out as part of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) funded by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and managed by Sandia National Laboratories. The intent of this new HRA procedure, called the ''ASEP HRA Procedure,'' is to enable systems analysts, with minimal support from experts in human reliability analysis, to make estimates of human error probabilities and other human performance characteristics which are sufficiently accurate for many probabilistic risk assessments. The ASEP HRA Procedure consists of a Pre-Accident Screening HRA, a Pre-Accident Nominal HRA, a Post-Accident Screening HRA, and a Post-Accident Nominal HRA. The procedure in this document includes changes made after tryout and evaluation of the procedure in four nuclear power plants by four different systems analysts and related personnel, including human reliability specialists. The changes consist of some additional explanatory material (including examples), and more detailed definitions of some of the terms. 42 refs

Improving Human/Autonomous System Teaming Through Linguistic Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Meszaros, Erica L.

2016-01-01

An area of increasing interest for the next generation of aircraft is autonomy and the integration of increasingly autonomous systems into the national airspace. Such integration requires humans to work closely with autonomous systems, forming human and autonomous agent teams. The intention behind such teaming is that a team composed of both humans and autonomous agents will operate better than homogenous teams. Procedures exist for licensing pilots to operate in the national airspace system and current work is being done to define methods for validating the function of autonomous systems, however there is no method in place for assessing the interaction of these two disparate systems. Moreover, currently these systems are operated primarily by subject matter experts, limiting their use and the benefits of such teams. Providing additional information about the ongoing mission to the operator can lead to increased usability and allow for operation by non-experts. Linguistic analysis of the context of verbal communication provides insight into the intended meaning of commonly heard phrases such as "What's it doing now?" Analyzing the semantic sphere surrounding these common phrases enables the prediction of the operator's intent and allows the interface to supply the operator's desired information.

Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; Lans, Ivo A. van der; Frewer, Lynn J.

2012-01-01

Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; van der Lans, Ivo A.; Frewer, Lynn J.

2012-05-01

Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

Human reliability analysis data obtainment through fuzzy logic in nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nascimento, C.S. do; Mesquita, R.N. de

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► Human Error Probability estimates from operator's reactions to emergency situations. ► Human Reliability Analysis input data obtainment through fuzzy logic inference. ► Performance Shaping Factors evaluation influence level onto the operator's actions. - Abstract: Human error has been recognized as an important factor for many industrial and nuclear accidents occurrence. Human error data is scarcely available for different reasons among which, lapses in historical database registry methodology is an important one. Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is an usual tool employed to estimate the probability that an operator will reasonably perform a system required task in required time without degrading the system. This meta-analysis requires specific Human Error Probability estimates for most of its procedure. This work obtains Human Error Probability (HEP) estimates from operator's actions in response to emergency situations hypothesis on Research Reactor IEA-R1 from IPEN, Brazil. Through this proposed methodology HRA should be able to be performed even with shortage of related human error statistical data. A Performance Shaping Factors (PSF's) evaluation in order to classify and estimate their influence level onto the operator's actions and to determine their actual state over the plant was also done. Both HEP estimation and PSF evaluation were done based on expert judgment using interviews and questionnaires. Expert group was established based on selected IEA-R1 operators, and their evaluation were put into a knowledge representation system which used linguistic variables and group evaluation values that were obtained through Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Set theory. HEP obtained values show good agreement with literature published data corroborating the proposed methodology as a good alternative to be used on HRA.

An expert system for turbogenerator diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bessenyei, Z.; Tomcsanyi, T.; Toth, Z.; Laczay, I.

1992-01-01

In 1990, an expert system for turbo-generator diagnostics (EST-D) was installed at the 3rd and 4th units of the Paks NPP (Hungary). The expert system is strongly integrated to the ARGUS II vibration monitoring and diagnostics system. The system works on IBM PC AT. The VEIKI's and the NPP's human experts were interviewed to fill up the knowledgebase. The system is able to identify 13 different faults of the parts of a turbogenerator. The knowledgebase consists of ca 200 rules. The rules were built in and the system was verified and validated using a model of the turbines and using the experiences gathered with ARGUS II during the last 3 years. The maintenance personnel is authorized to modify and/or extend the knowledgebase. The input data for evaluation come from measured vibration patterns produced by the ARGUS II system, database of events, and maintenance data input by the maintenance personnel. The expert system is based on the modified GENESYS 2.1 shell (developed by SZAMALK, Hungary). Some limitations from PC application were eliminated, and a new, independent explanation module and man-machine interface were developed. Using this man-machine interface, one of the basic goals of the expert system developments was achieved: the human experts contribution is not necessary for diagnoses. The operator of the diagnostics system is able to produce the reports of diagnoses. Of course the interface allows the human experts to see the diagnoses through. It should be mentioned, at the beginning of 1991, we installed a similar expert system at the 1st 1000 MW WWER type unit of the Kalinin NPP (Soviet Union). In this paper, the operation of the EST-D, the man-machine interface and the operational experiences of the first 4 months work are explained. 2 refs., 14 figs

An investigation into the use of ''expert systems'' for system-wide diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Booth, A.W.; Carroll, J.T.

1987-01-01

This paper has explained how expert systems function and how they might be used to provide a FASTBUS system-wide diagnostic program. The authors propose that the system be used to diagnose the FASTBUS system at FERMILAB's CDF experiment. There are many important areas which have not been addressed in great detail in this paper (such as the roles of the knowledge engineer and the expert during the knowledge acquisition phase), but the central idea of the embodiment of an expert skill in a computer is clear. Development of a system-wide diagnostic program requires building knowledge from all our system experts, into the system. To expand the expert system beyond its network diagnostic ability, to include finding faulty modules would be worthwhile. Having an ''intelligent'' assistant who is on shift 24 hours each day would relieve the ''real'' experts from laborious, time-consuming and sometimes repetitive tasks undertaken during the debugging process. The system could also provide a testbed for evaluation and comparison when considering future expert-system applications such as ''run-control'' and ''data analysis''. In the context of a system-wide diagnostic program, an ''expert system'' is not intended to replace human experts but simply to help them. It is envisaged that there will always be important interaction between the human expert and the ''expert system''. The incremental development of the ''expert system'' should ensure that it is useful in the short term (by debugging to the S.I./segment level for example), and even more useful in the medium to longer term as it acquires more and more knowledge and the ability to debug to the module level. Expert systems exist and are working successfully in many problem domains. See the bibliography for examples of ''expert systems'' built in the high energy physics environment

Common problems in the elicitation and analysis of expert opinion affecting probabilistic safety assessments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meyer, M.A.; Booker, J.M.

1990-01-01

Expert opinion is frequently used in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), particularly in estimating low probability events. In this paper, we discuss some of the common problems encountered in eliciting and analyzing expert opinion data and offer solutions or recommendations. The problems are: that experts are not naturally Bayesian. People fail to update their existing information to account for new information as it becomes available, as would be predicted by the Bayesian philosophy; that experts cannot be fully calibrated. To calibrate experts, the feedback from the known quantities must be immediate, frequent, and specific to the task; that experts are limited in the number of things that they can mentally juggle at a time to 7 {plus minus} 2; that data gatherers and analysts can introduce bias by unintentionally causing an altering of the expert's thinking or answers; that the level of detail the data, or granularity, can affect the analyses; and the conditioning effect poses difficulties in gathering and analyzing of the expert data. The data that the expert gives can be conditioned on a variety of factors that can affect the analysis and the interpretation of the results. 31 refs.

A Study on Satellite Diagnostic Expert Systems Using Case-Based Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Young-Tack Park

1997-06-01

Full Text Available Many research works are on going to monitor and diagnose diverse malfunctions of satellite systems as the complexity and number of satellites increase. Currently, many works on monitoring and diagnosis are carried out by human experts but there are needs to automate much of the routine works of them. Hence, it is necessary to study on using expert systems which can assist human experts routine work by doing automatically, thereby allow human experts devote their expertise more critical and important areas of monitoring and diagnosis. In this paper, we are employing artificial intelligence techniques to model human experts' knowledge and inference the constructed knowledge. Especially, case-based approaches are used to construct a knowledge base to model human expert capabilities which use previous typical exemplars. We have designed and implemented a prototype case-based system for diagnosing satellite malfunctions using cases. Our system remembers typical failure cases and diagnoses a current malfunction by indexing the case base. Diverse methods are used to build a more user friendly interface which allows human experts can build a knowledge base in as easy way.

Reflection group on 'Expert Culture'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eggermont, G.

2000-01-01

As part of SCK-CEN's social sciences and humanities programme, a reflection group on 'Expert Culture' was established. The objectives of the reflection group are: (1) to clarify the role of SCK-CEN experts; (2) to clarify the new role of expertise in the evolving context of risk society; (3) to confront external views and internal SCK-CEN experiences on expert culture; (4) to improve trust building of experts and credibility of SCK-CEN as a nuclear actor in society; (5) to develop a draft for a deontological code; (6) to integrate the approach in training on assertivity and communication; (7) to create an output for a topical day on the subject of expert culture. The programme, achievements and perspectives of the refection group are summarised

An examination of expert systems activities within the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bernard, J.A.; Washio, Takashi.

1988-01-01

This paper provides an overview of a detailed evaluation that the authors recently completed on expert systems applications within the nuclear industry. That evaluation examined the motivation for utilizing expert systems, identified the areas to which they were being applied, and provided an assessment of their utility. Listed here are some of the salient findings of that report. (1) Utilities are developing their own artificial intelligence tools rather than using commercial products. (2) Few expert systems are being developed for the express purpose of capturing human expertise. (3) A number of successful expert systems have been developed to assist in plant design, management, and maintenance scheduling. (4) Interactive diagnostic systems are being developed for the analysis of physical processes that vary slowly. (5) Real-time diagnostic expert systems are currently at the cutting edge of the technology. (6) Operator adviser and emergency response expert systems constitute ∼25% of the total. (7) Research on the use of expert systems for reactor control is quite active. (8) Too few quantitative evaluations of the benefits of expert systems to reactor operators have been performed. The operator's need is for timely, factual information on plant status. Hence, the true challenge to expert systems is real-time diagnostics

Prototype of an expert system to help nuclide identification in gamma spectrum analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jayanthi, Kasi Annapurna; Corcuera, Raquel Paviotti; Oliveira, Gina Maira B.

1995-01-01

This report describes the development and use of IDENT, prototype of an expert system that helps the researcher to identify radionuclides in gamma-ray spectroscopy. Normally the method adopted by the researcher is iterative, time consuming and becomes complicated in the analysis of large and complex gamma-ray spectra. The present expert system is based on the knowledge transmitted by expert and specialists in this area and the results show that it is helpful for researches who perform nuclide identification through gamma-ray spectroscopy. The gamma-ray spectrum of a material sample with about 140 peaks would take about a week or two be analysed by a specialist. The same task can be done in a few minutes using this expert system. (author). 14 refs., 2 figs

The impact of human-technology cooperation and distributed cognition in forensic science: biasing effects of AFIS contextual information on human experts*

OpenAIRE

Dror, Itiel E.; Wertheim, Kasey; Fraser-Mackenzie, Peter; Walajtys, Jeff

2012-01-01

Experts play a critical role in forensic decision making, even when cognition is offloaded and distributed between human and machine. In this paper, we investigated the impact of using Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) on human decision makers. We provided 3680 AFIS lists (a total of 55,200 comparisons) to 23 latent fingerprint examiners as part of their normal casework. We manipulated the position of the matching print in the AFIS list. The data showed that latent fingerpri...

ALICE Expert System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ionita, C; Carena, F

2014-01-01

The ALICE experiment at CERN employs a number of human operators (shifters), who have to make sure that the experiment is always in a state compatible with taking Physics data. Given the complexity of the system and the myriad of errors that can arise, this is not always a trivial task. The aim of this paper is to describe an expert system that is capable of assisting human shifters in the ALICE control room. The system diagnoses potential issues and attempts to make smart recommendations for troubleshooting. At its core, a Prolog engine infers whether a Physics or a technical run can be started based on the current state of the underlying sub-systems. A separate C++ component queries certain SMI objects and stores their state as facts in a Prolog knowledge base. By mining the data stored in different system logs, the expert system can also diagnose errors arising during a run. Currently the system is used by the on-call experts for faster response times, but we expect it to be adopted as a standard tool by regular shifters during the next data taking period

Top-down and bottom-up definitions of human failure events in human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boring, Ronald Laurids

2014-01-01

In the probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs) used in the nuclear industry, human failure events (HFEs) are determined as a subset of hardware failures, namely those hardware failures that could be triggered by human action or inaction. This approach is top-down, starting with hardware faults and deducing human contributions to those faults. Elsewhere, more traditionally human factors driven approaches would tend to look at opportunities for human errors first in a task analysis and then identify which of those errors is risk significant. The intersection of top-down and bottom-up approaches to defining HFEs has not been carefully studied. Ideally, both approaches should arrive at the same set of HFEs. This question is crucial, however, as human reliability analysis (HRA) methods are generalized to new domains like oil and gas. The HFEs used in nuclear PRAs tend to be top-down - defined as a subset of the PRA - whereas the HFEs used in petroleum quantitative risk assessments (QRAs) often tend to be bottom-up - derived from a task analysis conducted by human factors experts. The marriage of these approaches is necessary in order to ensure that HRA methods developed for top-down HFEs are also sufficient for bottom-up applications.

Human reliability analysis methods for probabilistic safety assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pyy, P.

2000-11-01

Human reliability analysis (HRA) of a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) includes identifying human actions from safety point of view, modelling the most important of them in PSA models, and assessing their probabilities. As manifested by many incidents and studies, human actions may have both positive and negative effect on safety and economy. Human reliability analysis is one of the areas of probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) that has direct applications outside the nuclear industry. The thesis focuses upon developments in human reliability analysis methods and data. The aim is to support PSA by extending the applicability of HRA. The thesis consists of six publications and a summary. The summary includes general considerations and a discussion about human actions in the nuclear power plant (NPP) environment. A condensed discussion about the results of the attached publications is then given, including new development in methods and data. At the end of the summary part, the contribution of the publications to good practice in HRA is presented. In the publications, studies based on the collection of data on maintenance-related failures, simulator runs and expert judgement are presented in order to extend the human reliability analysis database. Furthermore, methodological frameworks are presented to perform a comprehensive HRA, including shutdown conditions, to study reliability of decision making, and to study the effects of wrong human actions. In the last publication, an interdisciplinary approach to analysing human decision making is presented. The publications also include practical applications of the presented methodological frameworks. (orig.)

Expert Systems for the Analytical Laboratory.

Science.gov (United States)

de Monchy, Allan R.; And Others

1988-01-01

Discusses two computer problem solving programs: rule-based expert systems and decision analysis expert systems. Explores the application of expert systems to automated chemical analyses. Presents six factors to consider before using expert systems. (MVL)

NEPHRUS: model of intelligent multilayers expert system for evaluation of the renal system based on scintigraphic images analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silva, Jose W.E. da; Schirru, Roberto; Boasquevisque, Edson M.

1997-01-01

This work develops a prototype for the system model based on Artificial Intelligence devices able to perform functions related to scintigraphic image analysis of the urinary system. Criteria used by medical experts for analysis images obtained with 99m Tc+DTPA and/or 99m Tc+DMSA were modeled and a multi resolution diagnosis technique was implemented. Special attention was given to the programs user interface design. Human Factor Engineering techniques were considered so as to ally friendliness and robustness. Results obtained using Artificial Neural Networks for the qualitative image analysis and the knowledge model constructed shows the feasibility of Artificial Intelligence implementation that use 'inherent' abilities of each technique in the resolution of diagnosis image analysis problems. (author). 12 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs

Conceptualizing physical activity parenting practices using expert informed concept mapping analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Mâsse, Louise C; O'Connor, Teresia M; Tu, Andrew W; Hughes, Sheryl O; Beauchamp, Mark R; Baranowski, Tom

2017-06-14

Parents are widely recognized as playing a central role in the development of child behaviors such as physical activity. As there is little agreement as to the dimensions of physical activity-related parenting practices that should be measured or how they should be operationalized, this study engaged experts to develop an integrated conceptual framework for assessing parenting practices that influence multiple aspects of 5 to 12 year old children's participation in physical activity. The ultimate goal of this study is to inform the development of an item bank (repository of calibrated items) aimed at measuring physical activity parenting practices. Twenty four experts from 6 countries (Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, & United States (US)) sorted 77 physical activity parenting practice concepts identified from our previously published synthesis of the literature (74 measures) and survey of Canadian and US parents. Concept Mapping software was used to conduct the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis and a cluster analysis of the MDS solution of the Expert's sorting which was qualitatively reviewed and commented on by the Experts. The conceptual framework includes 12 constructs which are presented using three main domains of parenting practices (neglect/control, autonomy support, and structure). The neglect/control domain includes two constructs: permissive and pressuring parenting practices. The autonomy supportive domain includes four constructs: encouragement, guided choice, involvement in child physical activities, and praises/rewards for their child's physical activity. Finally, the structure domain includes six constructs: co-participation, expectations, facilitation, modeling, monitoring, and restricting physical activity for safety or academic concerns. The concept mapping analysis provided a useful process to engage experts in re-conceptualizing physical activity parenting practices and identified key constructs to include in

Back-and-Forth Methodology for Objective Voice Quality Assessment: From/to Expert Knowledge to/from Automatic Classification of Dysphonia

Science.gov (United States)

Fredouille, Corinne; Pouchoulin, Gilles; Ghio, Alain; Revis, Joana; Bonastre, Jean-François; Giovanni, Antoine

2009-12-01

This paper addresses voice disorder assessment. It proposes an original back-and-forth methodology involving an automatic classification system as well as knowledge of the human experts (machine learning experts, phoneticians, and pathologists). The goal of this methodology is to bring a better understanding of acoustic phenomena related to dysphonia. The automatic system was validated on a dysphonic corpus (80 female voices), rated according to the GRBAS perceptual scale by an expert jury. Firstly, focused on the frequency domain, the classification system showed the interest of 0-3000 Hz frequency band for the classification task based on the GRBAS scale. Later, an automatic phonemic analysis underlined the significance of consonants and more surprisingly of unvoiced consonants for the same classification task. Submitted to the human experts, these observations led to a manual analysis of unvoiced plosives, which highlighted a lengthening of VOT according to the dysphonia severity validated by a preliminary statistical analysis.

Back-and-Forth Methodology for Objective Voice Quality Assessment: From/to Expert Knowledge to/from Automatic Classification of Dysphonia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Corinne Fredouille

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses voice disorder assessment. It proposes an original back-and-forth methodology involving an automatic classification system as well as knowledge of the human experts (machine learning experts, phoneticians, and pathologists. The goal of this methodology is to bring a better understanding of acoustic phenomena related to dysphonia. The automatic system was validated on a dysphonic corpus (80 female voices, rated according to the GRBAS perceptual scale by an expert jury. Firstly, focused on the frequency domain, the classification system showed the interest of 0–3000 Hz frequency band for the classification task based on the GRBAS scale. Later, an automatic phonemic analysis underlined the significance of consonants and more surprisingly of unvoiced consonants for the same classification task. Submitted to the human experts, these observations led to a manual analysis of unvoiced plosives, which highlighted a lengthening of VOT according to the dysphonia severity validated by a preliminary statistical analysis.

Accident Sequence Evaluation Program: Human reliability analysis procedure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Swain, A.D.

1987-02-01

This document presents a shortened version of the procedure, models, and data for human reliability analysis (HRA) which are presented in the Handbook of Human Reliability Analysis With emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications (NUREG/CR-1278, August 1983). This shortened version was prepared and tried out as part of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) funded by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and managed by Sandia National Laboratories. The intent of this new HRA procedure, called the ''ASEP HRA Procedure,'' is to enable systems analysts, with minimal support from experts in human reliability analysis, to make estimates of human error probabilities and other human performance characteristics which are sufficiently accurate for many probabilistic risk assessments. The ASEP HRA Procedure consists of a Pre-Accident Screening HRA, a Pre-Accident Nominal HRA, a Post-Accident Screening HRA, and a Post-Accident Nominal HRA. The procedure in this document includes changes made after tryout and evaluation of the procedure in four nuclear power plants by four different systems analysts and related personnel, including human reliability specialists. The changes consist of some additional explanatory material (including examples), and more detailed definitions of some of the terms. 42 refs.

WES: A well test analysis expert system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mensch, A.

1988-06-01

This report describes part of the development of an expert system in the domain of well-test analysis. This work has been done during my final internship, completed at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The report is divided in three parts: the first one gives a description of the state of the project at the time I first began to work on it, and raises some problems that have to be solved. The second section shows the results that have been reached, and the last one draws conclusions from these results and proposes extensions that would be useful in the future

Human reliability analysis data obtainment through fuzzy logic in nuclear plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nascimento, C.S. do, E-mail: claudio.souza@ctmsp.mar.mil.br [Centro Tecnologico da Marinha em Sao Paulo (CTMSP), Av. Professor Lineu Prestes 2468, 05508-000 Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil); Mesquita, R.N. de, E-mail: rnavarro@ipen.br [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN - SP), Av. Professor Lineu Prestes 2242, 05508-000 Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2012-09-15

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Human Error Probability estimates from operator's reactions to emergency situations. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Human Reliability Analysis input data obtainment through fuzzy logic inference. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Performance Shaping Factors evaluation influence level onto the operator's actions. - Abstract: Human error has been recognized as an important factor for many industrial and nuclear accidents occurrence. Human error data is scarcely available for different reasons among which, lapses in historical database registry methodology is an important one. Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is an usual tool employed to estimate the probability that an operator will reasonably perform a system required task in required time without degrading the system. This meta-analysis requires specific Human Error Probability estimates for most of its procedure. This work obtains Human Error Probability (HEP) estimates from operator's actions in response to emergency situations hypothesis on Research Reactor IEA-R1 from IPEN, Brazil. Through this proposed methodology HRA should be able to be performed even with shortage of related human error statistical data. A Performance Shaping Factors (PSF's) evaluation in order to classify and estimate their influence level onto the operator's actions and to determine their actual state over the plant was also done. Both HEP estimation and PSF evaluation were done based on expert judgment using interviews and questionnaires. Expert group was established based on selected IEA-R1 operators, and their evaluation were put into a knowledge representation system which used linguistic variables and group evaluation values that were obtained through Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Set theory. HEP obtained values show good agreement with literature published data corroborating the proposed methodology as a good alternative to be used on HRA.

The integration of expert-defined importance factors to enrich Bayesian Fault Tree Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Darwish, Molham; Almouahed, Shaban; Lamotte, Florent de

2017-01-01

This paper proposes an analysis of a hybrid Bayesian-Importance model for system designers to improve the quality of services related to Active Assisted Living Systems. The proposed model is based on two factors: failure probability measure of different service components and, an expert defined degree of importance that each component holds for the success of the corresponding service. The proposed approach advocates the integration of expert-defined importance factors to enrich the Bayesian Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) approach. The evaluation of the proposed approach is conducted using the Fault Tree Analysis formalism where the undesired state of a system is analyzed using Boolean logic mechanisms to combine a series of lower-level events.

ADONIA, an expert help-system for the control of a data analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Malvache, P.; Reissan, S.

1986-04-01

ADONIA is designed from pre-existing computer codes and integrates a know-how of the utilization of these tools and in the interpretation of their results. This system is aimed to users who are not experts in Data Analysis. This paper describes the original structure of such a system which couples symbolic and digital processing of data. The analysis of multidimensional data is used at the C.E.A. for the exploitation of experimental data sets and for the constitution of training tools aimed at application to Pattern Recognition. So ADONIA is the result of a joint work between the CEA and the GIA of Luminy who used to work with expert systems [fr

Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gupta, Nidhi, E-mail: nidhi.gupta@wur.nl; Fischer, Arnout R. H., E-mail: arnout.fischer@wur.nl; Lans, Ivo A. van der, E-mail: Ivo.vanderLans@wur.nl [Wageningen University, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group (Netherlands); Frewer, Lynn J., E-mail: lynn.frewer@newcastle.ac.uk [Newcastle University, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (United Kingdom)

2012-05-15

Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

Expert Approaches to Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

1999-03-01

analysis that takes place in anatomy or circuit diagrams. The goal is to break an entity down into a set of non- overlapping parts, and to specify the...components. For example, one subject in predicting the fate of different species, broke them into three types: animals that humans would save (e.g., gorillas

Study on Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs) Quantification Method in Human Reliability Analysis (HRA)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ar Ryum; Jang, Inseok Jang; Seong, Poong Hyun; Park, Jinkyun; Kim, Jong Hyun

2015-01-01

The purpose of HRA implementation is 1) to achieve the human factor engineering (HFE) design goal of providing operator interfaces that will minimize personnel errors and 2) to conduct an integrated activity to support probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). For these purposes, various HRA methods have been developed such as technique for human error rate prediction (THERP), simplified plant analysis risk human reliability assessment (SPAR-H), cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM) and so on. In performing HRA, such conditions that influence human performances have been represented via several context factors called performance shaping factors (PSFs). PSFs are aspects of the human's individual characteristics, environment, organization, or task that specifically decrements or improves human performance, thus respectively increasing or decreasing the likelihood of human errors. Most HRA methods evaluate the weightings of PSFs by expert judgment and explicit guidance for evaluating the weighting is not provided. It has been widely known that the performance of the human operator is one of the critical factors to determine the safe operation of NPPs. HRA methods have been developed to identify the possibility and mechanism of human errors. In performing HRA methods, the effect of PSFs which may increase or decrease human error should be investigated. However, the effect of PSFs were estimated by expert judgment so far. Accordingly, in order to estimate the effect of PSFs objectively, the quantitative framework to estimate PSFs by using PSF profiles is introduced in this paper

Expert group formation using facility location analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Neshati, M.; Beigy, H.; Hiemstra, Djoerd

In this paper, we propose an optimization framework to retrieve an optimal group of experts to perform a multi-aspect task. While a diverse set of skills are needed to perform a multi-aspect task, the group of assigned experts should be able to collectively cover all these required skills. We

Expert group formation using facility location analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Neshati, Mahmood; Beigy, Hamid; Hiemstra, Djoerd

2014-01-01

In this paper, we propose an optimization framework to retrieve an optimal group of experts to perform a multi-aspect task. While a diverse set of skills are needed to perform a multi-aspect task, the group of assigned experts should be able to collectively cover all these required skills. We

Environmental Modeling and Bayesian Analysis for Assessing Human Health Impacts from Radioactive Waste Disposal

Science.gov (United States)

Stockton, T.; Black, P.; Tauxe, J.; Catlett, K.

2004-12-01

Bayesian decision analysis provides a unified framework for coherent decision-making. Two key components of Bayesian decision analysis are probability distributions and utility functions. Calculating posterior distributions and performing decision analysis can be computationally challenging, especially for complex environmental models. In addition, probability distributions and utility functions for environmental models must be specified through expert elicitation, stakeholder consensus, or data collection, all of which have their own set of technical and political challenges. Nevertheless, a grand appeal of the Bayesian approach for environmental decision- making is the explicit treatment of uncertainty, including expert judgment. The impact of expert judgment on the environmental decision process, though integral, goes largely unassessed. Regulations and orders of the Environmental Protection Agency, Department Of Energy, and Nuclear Regulatory Agency orders require assessing the impact on human health of radioactive waste contamination over periods of up to ten thousand years. Towards this end complex environmental simulation models are used to assess "risk" to human and ecological health from migration of radioactive waste. As the computational burden of environmental modeling is continually reduced probabilistic process modeling using Monte Carlo simulation is becoming routinely used to propagate uncertainty from model inputs through model predictions. The utility of a Bayesian approach to environmental decision-making is discussed within the context of a buried radioactive waste example. This example highlights the desirability and difficulties of merging the cost of monitoring, the cost of the decision analysis, the cost and viability of clean up, and the probability of human health impacts within a rigorous decision framework.

Expert system for eddy current signal analysis: non destructive testing of steam generator tubings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Benoist, B.

1991-01-01

Automatic analysis, by computer, of defect signals in steam generator tubes, based on Eddy current multifrequency technique, is must often inefficient due to pilgrim noise. The first step is to use a method that allows us to eleminate the noise: the adaptative interpolation. Thanks to this method, which ensures reliable data on each channel, the analysis can be realised by taking into account the data corresponding to each basic or mixed channel. By correlating these diverse data, we can class the signals according to two types of defects: single defects (symmetrical), multiple defects (several in the same place). The second step is to use an expert system which allows a reliable diagnosis for whatever family the defect belongs to. According to this classification, analysis is continued and results in the characterization of the defect. The expert system has already been developed with the general purpose application expert system shell SUPER, which is briefly described. The knowledge base (SOCRATE) and the specific tools developed for this application are thoroughly described. The first results obtained with signals corresponding to real defects, that have been recorded in different places, are presented and discussed. The expert system is revealed efficient in all the studied cases, even with signals obtained in very noisy environments [fr

The objective assessment of experts' and novices' suturing skills using an image analysis program.

Science.gov (United States)

Frischknecht, Adam C; Kasten, Steven J; Hamstra, Stanley J; Perkins, Noel C; Gillespie, R Brent; Armstrong, Thomas J; Minter, Rebecca M

2013-02-01

To objectively assess suturing performance using an image analysis program and to provide validity evidence for this assessment method by comparing experts' and novices' performance. In 2009, the authors used an image analysis program to extract objective variables from digital images of suturing end products obtained during a previous study involving third-year medical students (novices) and surgical faculty and residents (experts). Variables included number of stitches, stitch length, total bite size, travel, stitch orientation, total bite-size-to-travel ratio, and symmetry across the incision ratio. The authors compared all variables between groups to detect significant differences and two variables (total bite-size-to-travel ratio and symmetry across the incision ratio) to ideal values. Five experts and 15 novices participated. Experts' and novices' performances differed significantly (P 0.8) for total bite size (P = .009, d = 1.5), travel (P = .045, d = 1.1), total bite-size-to-travel ratio (P algorithm can extract variables from digital images of a running suture and rapidly provide quantitative summative assessment feedback. The significant differences found between groups confirm that this system can discriminate between skill levels. This image analysis program represents a viable training tool for objectively assessing trainees' suturing, a foundational skill for many medical specialties.

Models and data requirements for human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-03-01

It has been widely recognised for many years that the safety of the nuclear power generation depends heavily on the human factors related to plant operation. This has been confirmed by the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Both these cases revealed how human actions can defeat engineered safeguards and the need for special operator training to cover the possibility of unexpected plant conditions. The importance of the human factor also stands out in the analysis of abnormal events and insights from probabilistic safety assessments (PSA's), which reveal a large proportion of cases having their origin in faulty operator performance. A consultants' meeting, organized jointly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was held at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria, December 7-11, 1987, with the aim of reviewing existing models used in Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) for Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) and of identifying the data required. The report collects both the contributions offered by the members of the Expert Task Force and the findings of the extensive discussions that took place during the meeting. Refs, figs and tabs

Expert Systems Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Duda, Richard O.; Shortliffe, Edward H.

1983-01-01

Discusses a class of artificial intelligence computer programs (often called "expert systems" because they address problems normally thought to require human specialists for their solution) intended to serve as consultants for decision making. Also discusses accomplishments (including information systematization in medical diagnosis and…

SeTES, a Self-Teaching Expert System for the analysis, design and prediction of gas production from shales and a prototype for a new generation of Expert Systems in the Earth Sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Kuzma, H. A.; Boyle, K.; Pullman, S.; Reagan, M. T.; Moridis, G. J.; Blasingame, T. A.; Rector, J. W.; Nikolaou, M.

2010-12-01

A Self Teaching Expert System (SeTES) is being developed for the analysis, design and prediction of gas production from shales. An Expert System is a computer program designed to answer questions or clarify uncertainties that its designers did not necessarily envision which would otherwise have to be addressed by consultation with one or more human experts. Modern developments in computer learning, data mining, database management, web integration and cheap computing power are bringing the promise of expert systems to fruition. SeTES is a partial successor to Prospector, a system to aid in the identification and evaluation of mineral deposits developed by Stanford University and the USGS in the late 1970s, and one of the most famous early expert systems. Instead of the text dialogue used in early systems, the web user interface of SeTES helps a non-expert user to articulate, clarify and reason about a problem by navigating through a series of interactive wizards. The wizards identify potential solutions to queries by retrieving and combining together relevant records from a database. Inferences, decisions and predictions are made from incomplete and noisy inputs using a series of probabilistic models (Bayesian Networks) which incorporate records from the database, physical laws and empirical knowledge in the form of prior probability distributions. The database is mainly populated with empirical measurements, however an automatic algorithm supplements sparse data with synthetic data obtained through physical modeling. This constitutes the mechanism for how SeTES self-teaches. SeTES’ predictive power is expected to grow as users contribute more data into the system. Samples are appropriately weighted to favor high quality empirical data over low quality or synthetic data. Finally, a set of data visualization tools digests the output measurements into graphical outputs.

A CLIPS expert system for clinical flow cytometry data analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Salzman, G. C.; Duque, R. E.; Braylan, R. C.; Stewart, C. C.

1990-01-01

An expert system is being developed using CLIPS to assist clinicians in the analysis of multivariate flow cytometry data from cancer patients. Cluster analysis is used to find subpopulations representing various cell types in multiple datasets each consisting of four to five measurements on each of 5000 cells. CLIPS facts are derived from results of the clustering. CLIPS rules are based on the expertise of Drs. Stewart, Duque, and Braylan. The rules incorporate certainty factors based on case histories.

Paradigms and building tools for real-time expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Behrens, U.; Flasinski, M.; Hagge, L.; Ohrenberg, K.

1994-01-01

An expert system is a software which can simulate the problem solving behavior of a human expert. The rule-based paradigm is chosen to describe the different aspects involved in expert system development. Differences between expert systems and common procedural or object-oriented programs are investigated. Expert system shells are introduced as a building tool for expert systems, together with some guidelines on the evaluation of such shells. A discussion of special needs for real-time expert system development concludes the paper

WWER expert system for fuel failure analysis using the RTOP-CA code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Likhanskii, V.; Evdokimov, I.; Sorokin, A.; Khromov, A.; Kanukova, V.; Apollonova, O.; Ugryumov, A.

2008-01-01

The computer expert system for fuel failure analysis of WWER during operation is presented. The diagnostics is based on the measurement of specific activity of reference nuclides in reactor primary coolant and application of a computer code for the data interpretation. The data analysis includes an evaluation of tramp uranium mass in reactor core, detection of failures by iodine and caesium spikes, evaluation of burnup of defective fuel. Evaluation of defective fuel burnup was carried out by applying the relation of caesium nuclides activity in spikes and relations of activities of gaseous fission products for steady state operational conditions. The method of burnup evaluation of defective fuel by use of fission gas activity is presented in details. The neural-network analysis is performed for determination of failed fuel rod number and defect size. Results of the expert system application are illustrated for several fuel campaigns on operating WWER NPPs. (authors)

Expert assessments and content analysis of crew communication during ISS missions

Science.gov (United States)

Yusupova, Anna

During the last seven years, we have analyzed the communication patterns between ISS crewmembers and mission control personnel and identified a number of different communication styles between these two groups (Gushin et al, 2005). In this paper, we will report on an external validity check we conducted that compares our findings with those of another study using the same research material. For many years the group of psychologists at the Medical Center of Space Flight Control (TCUMOKO) at the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow has been analyzing audio communication sessions of Russian space crews with the ground-based Mission Control during long-duration spaceflight conditions. We compared week by week texts of the standard weekly monitoring reports made by the TsUP psychological group and audiocommunication of space crews with mission control centers. Expert assessments of the crewmembers' psychological state are made by IBMP psychoneurologists on the basis of daily schedule fulfillment, video and audio materials, and psychophysiological data from board. The second approach was based on the crew-ground communication analysis. For both population of messages we applied two corresponding schemas of content analysis. All statements made in communication sessions and weekly reports were divided into three groups in terms of their communication function (Lomov, 1981): 1) informative function (e.g., demands for information, requests, professional slang); 2) socio-regulatory function (e.g., rational consent or discord, operational complaint, refusal to cooperate); and 3) affective (emotional) function (e.g., encouragement, sympathy, emotional consent or discord). Number of statements of the audiocommunication sessions correlated with corresponding functions (informative, regulatory, affective) of communication in weekly monitioring reports made by experts. Crewmembers verbal behavior expresses its psycho-emotional state which is formulated by expert

Analysis of operational events by ATHEANA framework for human factor modelling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bedreaga, Luminita; Constntinescu, Cristina; Doca, Cezar; Guzun, Basarab

2007-01-01

In the area of human reliability assessment, the experts recognise the fact that the current methods have not represented correctly the role of human in prevention, initiating and mitigating the accidents in nuclear power plants. The nature of this deficiency appears because the current methods used in modelling of human factor have not taken into account the human performance and reliability such as it has been observed in the operational events. ATHEANA - A Technique for Human Error ANAlysis - is a new methodology for human analysis that has included the specific data of operational events and also psychological models for human behaviour. This method has included new elements such as the unsafe action and error mechanisms. In this paper we present the application of ATHEANA framework in the analysis of operational events that appeared in different nuclear power plants during 1979-2002. The analysis of operational events has consisted of: - identification of the unsafe actions; - including the unsafe actions into a category, omission ar commission; - establishing the type of error corresponding to the unsafe action: slip, lapse, mistake and circumvention; - establishing the influence of performance by shaping the factors and some corrective actions. (authors)

Naming it 'nano': Expert views on 'nano' terminology in informed consent forms of first-in-human nanomedicine trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Satalkar, Priya; Elger, Bernice Simone; Shaw, David

2016-04-01

Obtaining valid informed consent (IC) can be challenging in first-in-human (FIH) trials in nanomedicine due to the complex interventions, the hype and hope concerning potential benefits, and fear of harms attributed to 'nano' particles. We describe and analyze the opinions of expert stakeholders involved in translational nanomedicine regarding explicit use of 'nano' terminology in IC documents. We draw on content analysis of 46 in-depth interviews with European and North American stakeholders. We received a spectrum of responses (reluctance, ambivalence, absolute insistence) on explicit mention of 'nano' in IC forms with underlying reasons. We conclude that consistent, clear and honest communication regarding the 'nano' dimension of investigational product is critical in IC forms of FIH trials.

Cost Reduction and Business Strategy Matters to Human Resource Outsourcing? A Validation by HR Experts from Government Link Companies (GLC’s.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mansor Mohd Fitri

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The phenomenon of outsourcing has spawned a rich body scholarly reseach in sveral decades. However, the answer to one of the pertinent question has remained elusive: Does cost reduction and business strategy really matters to the human resource outsourcing impacts. Looking at this question it is important for the organization to embark on the practice of human resource outsourcing to save operating cost and remain competitive. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the effects of cost reduction and business starategy towards human resource outsourcing impacts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed and the top management in Malaysian Government Link Companies (GLC’ is the unit of analysis. The findings revelaved that, both variables are significant statistically and non statically i.e from the experts opinion. Finally, the study also provides useful directions for future research, HR Practitioners and policy maker particularly in managing and organizing human reseouce matters.

Expert finding by the Dempster‐Shafer theory for evidence combination

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Torkzadeh mahani, N.; Dehghani, M.; Mirian, M.S.; Shakery, A.; Taheri, K.

The expertise of human experts can be formally extracted from their written documents, research projects, and everyday activities. The process whereby experts are recognized according to their activities is called expert finding. In this paper, we propose an approach to identify the experts in a

Bayesian belief networks for human reliability analysis: A review of applications and gaps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mkrtchyan, L.; Podofillini, L.; Dang, V.N.

2015-01-01

The use of Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) in risk analysis (and in particular Human Reliability Analysis, HRA) is fostered by a number of features, attractive in fields with shortage of data and consequent reliance on subjective judgments: the intuitive graphical representation, the possibility of combining diverse sources of information, the use the probabilistic framework to characterize uncertainties. In HRA, BBN applications are steadily increasing, each emphasizing a different BBN feature or a different HRA aspect to improve. This paper aims at a critical review of these features as well as at suggesting research needs. Five groups of BBN applications are analysed: modelling of organizational factors, analysis of the relationships among failure influencing factors, BBN-based extensions of existing HRA methods, dependency assessment among human failure events, assessment of situation awareness. Further, the paper analyses the process for building BBNs and in particular how expert judgment is used in the assessment of the BBN conditional probability distributions. The gaps identified in the review suggest the need for establishing more systematic frameworks to integrate the different sources of information relevant for HRA (cognitive models, empirical data, and expert judgment) and to investigate algorithms to avoid elicitation of many relationships via expert judgment. - Highlights: • We analyze BBN uses for HRA applications; but some conclusions can be generalized. • Special review focus on BBN building approaches, key for model acceptance. • Gaps relate to the transparency of the BBN building and quantification phases. • Need for more systematic framework to integrate different sources of information. • Need of ways to avoid elicitation of many relationships via expert judgment

Expert Systems: A Challenge for the Reading Profession.

Science.gov (United States)

Balajthy, Ernest

The expert systems are designed to imitate the reasoning of a human expert in a content area field. Designed to be advisors, these software systems combine the content area knowledge and decision-making ability of an expert with the user's understanding and knowledge of particular circumstances. The reading diagnosis system, the RD2P System…

Human reliability analysis approach to level 1 PSA - shutdown and low power operation of Mochovce NPP, Unit 1, Slovakia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stojka, Tibor; Holy, Jaroslav

2003-01-01

The paper presents general approach, used methods and form of documentation of the results as have been applied within the Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) task of the shutdown and low power PSA (SPSA) study for Mochovce nuclear power plant, Unit 1, Slovakia. The paper describes main goals of the HRA task within the SPSA project, applied methods and data sources. Basic steps of the HRA task and human errors (HE) classification are also specified in its first part. The main part of the paper deals with pre-initiator human errors, human-induced initiators and response to initiator human errors. Since the expert judgment method (SLIM) was used for the last type of human errors probability assessment, also related activities are described including preparation works (performance shaping factors (PSFs) selection, development of PSF classification tables, preparation of aid tools for interview with plant experts), qualitative analysis (sources of information and basic steps) and quantitative analysis itself (human errors classification for final quantification including criteria used for the classification, description of structure of the spreadsheet used for quantification and treatment with dependencies). The last part of the paper describes form of documentation of the final results and provides some findings. (author)

Analysis of methods of processing of expert information by optimization of administrative decisions

Science.gov (United States)

Churakov, D. Y.; Tsarkova, E. G.; Marchenko, N. D.; Grechishnikov, E. V.

2018-03-01

In the real operation the measure definition methodology in case of expert estimation of quality and reliability of application-oriented software products is offered. In operation methods of aggregation of expert estimates on the example of a collective choice of an instrumental control projects in case of software development of a special purpose for needs of institutions are described. Results of operation of dialogue decision making support system are given an algorithm of the decision of the task of a choice on the basis of a method of the analysis of hierarchies and also. The developed algorithm can be applied by development of expert systems to the solution of a wide class of the tasks anyway connected to a multicriteria choice.

Problematic Aspects of the Use of Expert Systems in Law

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marius Kalinauskas

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Summary. The usage of expert systems in law brings many problematic questions. Complexity and intricacy of law, combined with limited possibilities of information technologies makes it difficult to create flawlessly working expert systems. In this article the author analyses problematic aspects related to expert system usage in law. Comparisons of various research are made according to analysis of scientific articles. The author analyses practical difficulties of legal norm representation, creation of expert knowledge ontology, expert systems liability issues. Legal responsibility of expert system developers, users, and owners are also covered in this paper. Creation of legal ontologies is a complicated process because of the nature of the subject itself and the complexity and quantity of knowledge which must be represented in order to have fully functional legal expert system. Legal information basically consists of legal norms, doctrine, precedents and expert knowledge. All of these areas have specific representation issues, but the most difficult part is to make ontology and representation of expert knowledge. Different experts may have distinct points of view in some similar cases. Human decisions are made not only by applying certain rules to the problem decision pattern. Providence, analytical skills and critical thinking is required in legal professional work. Human reasoning and decision-making is not only based on symbolic values, it also consists of intermediate symbolic assumptions. So the question is: is it possible to give a clear structure to something which has no permanent state? The other problem which is analyzed in this article is artificial reasoning methods, which are basically different forms of pattern recognition with some specific methods applied to them. The second part of the paper analyses the liability of expert systems. Nowadays expert systems can’t be legally responsible for their decisions. They lack

Problematic Aspects of the Use of Expert Systems in Law

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marius Kalinauskas

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The usage of expert systems in law brings many problematic questions. Complexity and intricacy of law, combined with limited possibilities of information technologies makes it difficult to create flawlessly working expert systems. In this article the author analyses problematic aspects related to expert system usage in law. Comparisons of various research are made according to analysis of scientific articles. The author analyses practical difficulties of legal norm representation, creation of expert knowledge ontology, expert systems liability issues. Legal responsibility of expert system developers, users, and owners are also covered in this paper. Creation of legal ontologies is a complicated process because of the nature of the subject itself and the complexity and quantity of knowledge which must be represented in order to have fully functional legal expert system. Legal information basically consists of legal norms, doctrine, precedents and expert knowledge. All of these areas have specific representation issues, but the most difficult part is to make ontology and representation of expert knowledge. Different experts may have distinct points of view in some similar cases. Human decisions are made not only by applying certain rules to the problem decision pattern. Providence, analytical skills and critical thinking is required in legal professional work. Human reasoning and decision-making is not only based on symbolic values, it also consists of intermediate symbolic assumptions. So the question is: is it possible to give a clear structure to something which has no permanent state? The other problem which is analyzed in this article is artificial reasoning methods, which are basically different forms of pattern recognition with some specific methods applied to them. The second part of the paper analyses the liability of expert systems. Nowadays expert systems can’t be legally responsible for their decisions. They lack intellectual

Use of expert judgement in NUREG-1150

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ortiz, N.R.; Wheeler, T.A.; Breeding, R.J.; Hora, S.; Meyer, M.A.; Kenney, R.L.

1991-01-01

The explicit expert judgment process used in NUREG-1150, 'Severe Accident Risks: An Assessment for Five US Nuclear Plants', is discussed in this paper. The main steps of the process are described, including selection of issues and experts, elicitation training, presentation of issues to the experts, preparation of issue analyses by the experts, discussion of issue analyses and elicitation, and recomposition and aggregation of results. To demonstrate the application of the expert judgment process to NUREG-1150, two issues are summarized: one from the accident frequency analysis, and one from the accident progression analysis. Recommendations and insights are provided to improve the use of explicit expert judgment in complex technical issues. (orig.)

Developing a PC-based expert system for fault analysis of reactor instruments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diwakar, M.P.; Rathod, N.C.; Bairi, B.R.; Darbhe, M.D.; Joglekar, S.S.

1989-01-01

This paper describes the development of an expert system for fault analysis of electronic instruments in the CIRUS nuclear reactor. The system was developed in Prolog on an IBM PC-XT compatible computer. A 'model-based' approach (Button et al, 1986) was adopted combining 'frames' and 'rules' to provide flexible control over the inferencing mechanisms. Frames represent the domain-objects as well as the inter-object relationships. They include 'demons' or 'active values' for triggering actions. Rules, along with frames, are used for fault analysis. The rules can be activated either in a data-driven or a goal-driven manner. The use of frames makes rule management easier. It is felt that developing in-house shell proved advantageous, compared to using commercially available shells. Choosing the model-based approach was efficient compared to a production system architecture. Therefore, the use of hybrid representations for diagnostic applications is advocated. Based on the experience, some general recommendations for developing such systems are presented. The expert system helps novice operators to understand the process of diagnosis and achieve a significant required level of competence. The system may not achieve the required level of proficiency by itself, but it can be used to train operators to become experts. (author). 12 refs

Trendwatch combining expert opinion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hendrix, E.M.T.; Kornelis, M.; Pegge, S.M.; Galen, van M.A.

2006-01-01

In this study, focus is on a systematic way to detect future changes in trends that may effect the dynamics in the agro-food sector, and on the combination of opinions of experts. For the combination of expert opinions, the usefulness of multilevel models is investigated. Bayesian data analysis is

Conceptualizing physical activity parenting practices using expert informed concept mapping analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Louise C. Mâsse

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Parents are widely recognized as playing a central role in the development of child behaviors such as physical activity. As there is little agreement as to the dimensions of physical activity-related parenting practices that should be measured or how they should be operationalized, this study engaged experts to develop an integrated conceptual framework for assessing parenting practices that influence multiple aspects of 5 to 12 year old children’s participation in physical activity. The ultimate goal of this study is to inform the development of an item bank (repository of calibrated items aimed at measuring physical activity parenting practices. Methods Twenty four experts from 6 countries (Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, & United States (US sorted 77 physical activity parenting practice concepts identified from our previously published synthesis of the literature (74 measures and survey of Canadian and US parents. Concept Mapping software was used to conduct the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS analysis and a cluster analysis of the MDS solution of the Expert’s sorting which was qualitatively reviewed and commented on by the Experts. Results The conceptual framework includes 12 constructs which are presented using three main domains of parenting practices (neglect/control, autonomy support, and structure. The neglect/control domain includes two constructs: permissive and pressuring parenting practices. The autonomy supportive domain includes four constructs: encouragement, guided choice, involvement in child physical activities, and praises/rewards for their child’s physical activity. Finally, the structure domain includes six constructs: co-participation, expectations, facilitation, modeling, monitoring, and restricting physical activity for safety or academic concerns. Conclusion The concept mapping analysis provided a useful process to engage experts in re-conceptualizing physical activity

The interpretation of forensic biochemical expert test made in human body fluids: scientific - legal analysis in the research on sexual offenses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chaves Carballo, Diana

2014-01-01

The contributions of science and technology have covered the whole of human life, and relationships of coexistence are even found in the various disciplines of knowledge through legal forensics. Therefore, it is increasingly imperative that the law enforcement agents are interdisciplinary professionals, with knowledge beyond the legal knowledge to enable them make the most of the scientific knowledge in judicial proceedings. Among the natural sciences applied to right, forensic biochemistry has contributed an extremely relevant test for the investigation of various sexual offenses, much has been so, that the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial of Costa Rica has in its Departamento de Laboratorios de Ciencias Forenses with specialized sections in this discipline. A diversity of skills are performed of presumptive and confirmatory character for the presence of biological fluids, sexually transmitted diseases and identification of DNA by genetic markers. Updated information is given with respect to the correct interpretation of forensic biochemical expertises achievable for identification of semen, blood and human saliva in the investigation of sexual offenses. A scientific and legal language is used allowing the most of this information in the criminal process. The main objective has been to interpret, legal and scientifically, forensic biochemical expert evidence performed in human body fluids during the investigation of sexual offenses. A legal, doctrinal and scientific review is presented with compilation of related jurisprudence and criminology reports analysis of Seccion de Bioquimica of the Departamento de Laboratorios Forenses of the Organismo de Investigacion Juridica issued during the investigation of sexual offenses. Two types of attainable skills have existed for the identification of biological fluids, each with a different binding. In addition, it has been clear, due to the lexicon employed when making a forensic biochemist opinion, that to make a proper

The PWI [plutonium waste incinerator] expert system: Real time, PC-based process analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brown, K.G.; Smith, F.G.

1987-01-01

A real time, microcomputer-based expert system is being developed for a prototype plutonium waste incinerator (PWI) process at Du Pont's Savannah River Laboratory. The expert system will diagnose instrumentation problems, assist operator training, serve as a repository for engineering knowledge about the process, and provide continuous operation and performance information. A set of necessary operational criteria was developed from process and engineering constraints; it was used to define hardware and software needs. The most important criterion is operating speed because the analysis operates in real time. TURBO PROLOG by Borland International was selected. The analysis system is divided into three sections: the user-system interface, the inference engine and rule base, and the files representing the blackboard information center

PSG-EXPERT. An expert system for the diagnosis of sleep disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Fred, A; Filipe, J; Partinen, M; Paiva, T

2000-01-01

This paper describes PSG-EXPERT, an expert system in the domain of sleep disorders exploring polysomnographic data. The developed software tool is addressed from two points of view: (1)--as an integrated environment for the development of diagnosis-oriented expert systems; (2)--as an auxiliary diagnosis tool in the particular domain of sleep disorders. Developed over a Windows platform, this software tool extends one of the most popular shells--CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) with the following features: backward chaining engine; graph-based explanation facilities; knowledge editor including a fuzzy fact editor and a rules editor, with facts-rules integrity checking; belief revision mechanism; built-in case generator and validation module. It therefore provides graphical support for knowledge acquisition, edition, explanation and validation. From an application domain point of view, PSG-Expert is an auxiliary diagnosis system for sleep disorders based on polysomnographic data, that aims at assisting the medical expert in his diagnosis task by providing automatic analysis of polysomnographic data, summarising the results of this analysis in terms of a report of major findings and possible diagnosis consistent with the polysomnographic data. Sleep disorders classification follows the International Classification of Sleep Disorders. Major features of the system include: browsing on patients data records; structured navigation on Sleep Disorders descriptions according to ASDA definitions; internet links to related pages; diagnosis consistent with polysomnographic data; graphical user-interface including graph-based explanatory facilities; uncertainty modelling and belief revision; production of reports; connection to remote databases.

Report [of the] Expert Meeting on Intercultural Education, Section of Education for Peace and Human Rights (UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, March 20-22, 2006)

Science.gov (United States)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2006

2006-01-01

The Section of Education for Peace and Human Rights of the Division for the Promotion of Quality Education held an expert meeting on Intercultural Education from March 20-22, 2006 at UNESCO Headquarters, bringing together international experts from Australia, Bolivia, Egypt, Finland, Hungary, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and the…

Use of an expert system data analysis manager for space shuttle main engine test evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Abernethy, Ken

1988-01-01

The ability to articulate, collect, and automate the application of the expertise needed for the analysis of space shuttle main engine (SSME) test data would be of great benefit to NASA liquid rocket engine experts. This paper describes a project whose goal is to build a rule-based expert system which incorporates such expertise. Experiential expertise, collected directly from the experts currently involved in SSME data analysis, is used to build a rule base to identify engine anomalies similar to those analyzed previously. Additionally, an alternate method of expertise capture is being explored. This method would generate rules inductively based on calculations made using a theoretical model of the SSME's operation. The latter rules would be capable of diagnosing anomalies which may not have appeared before, but whose effects can be predicted by the theoretical model.

Expert Systems: What Is an Expert System?

Science.gov (United States)

Duval, Beverly K.; Main, Linda

1994-01-01

Describes expert systems and discusses their use in libraries. Highlights include parts of an expert system; expert system shells; an example of how to build an expert system; a bibliography of 34 sources of information on expert systems in libraries; and a list of 10 expert system shells used in libraries. (Contains five references.) (LRW)

Prioritizing risks via several expert perspectives with application to runway safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rogerson, Ellen C.; Lambert, James H.

2012-01-01

Factor hierarchies have been widely used in the literature to represent the view of an expert of what factors most contribute to reliability or safety. The methods for rating and aggregating the influences across a set of expert-elicited factors to risk or reliability are well known as multiple criteria decision analysis. This paper describes a method for distinguishing levels of risk across a set of locations via the use of multiple factor hierarchies. The method avoids averaging across experts and is thus useful for situations where experts disagree and where an absence of expert consensus on the causative or contributing factors is important information for risk management. A case study demonstrates using seven expert perspectives on the airport-specific factors that can contribute to runway incursions. The results are described for eighty towered airports in the US. The expert perspectives include differing relative emphases across the following set of factors: airport geometry, operations, weather, geography, and days since last safety review. Future work is suggested to include human factors issues as pilot-and-controller communications styles at airports. - Highlights: ► We examine influential factors in seven expert perspectives on the problem domain. ► We assess eighty US airports with qualitative measurement scales for each risk factor. ► Results show robustness and sensitivity of the risk index to expert perspective. ► We examine factors of several types including runway geometry, operations, weather, and geography.

WINE ADVISOR EXPERT SYSTEM USING DECISION RULES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dinuca Elena Claudia

2013-07-01

Full Text Available In this article I focus on developing an expert system for advising the choice of wine that best matches a specific occasion. An expert system is a computer application that performs a task that would be performed by a human expert. The implementation is done using Delphi programming language. I used to represent the knowledge bases a set of rules. The rules are of type IF THEN ELSE rules, decision rules based on different important wine features.

An approach for evaluating expert performance in emergency situations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ujita, Hiroshi; Kawano, Ryutaro; Yoshimura, Sandanori

1995-01-01

To understand expert behavior and define what constitutes good performance in emergency situations in huge and complex plants, human performance evaluation should be made from viewpoints of not only error, but also various cognitive, psychological, and behavioral characteristics. Quantitative and qualitative measures of human performance are proposed for both individual operators and crews, based on the operator performance analysis experiment, among which cognitive and behavioral aspects are the most important. Operator performance should be further analyzed experimentally from the cognitive and behavioral viewpoints, using an evaluation based on various gross indexes considering operator's tasks which should be done in response to plant situations

Executive summary and conclusions from the European Hydration Institute Expert Conference on human hydration, health, and performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Benton, D; Braun, H; Cobo, J C; Edmonds, C; Elmadfa, I; El-Sharkawy, A; Feehally, J; Gellert, R; Holdsworth, J; Kapsokefalou, M; Kenney, W L; Leiper, J B; Macdonald, I A; Maffeis, C; Maughan, R J; Shirreffs, S M; Toth-Heyn, P; Watson, P

2015-09-01

On April 7-8, 2014, the European Hydration Institute hosted a small group of experts at Castle Combe Manor House, United Kingdom, to discuss a range of issues related to human hydration, health, and performance. The meeting included 18 recognized experts who brought a wealth of experience and knowledge to the topics under review. Eight selected topics were addressed, with the key issues being briefly presented before an in-depth discussion. Presented here is the executive summary and conclusions from this meeting. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A brief history and technical review of the expert system research

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Haocheng

2017-09-01

The expert system is a computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert, which aims to solve complex problems by reasoning knowledge. It is an important branch of artificial intelligence. In this paper, firstly, we briefly introduce the development and basic structure of the expert system. Then, from the perspective of the enabling technology, we classify the current expert systems and elaborate four expert systems: The Rule-Based Expert System, the Framework-Based Expert System, the Fuzzy Logic-Based Expert System and the Expert System Based on Neural Network.

Expert music performance: cognitive, neural, and developmental bases.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Rachel M; Zatorre, Robert J; Penhune, Virginia B

2015-01-01

In this chapter, we explore what happens in the brain of an expert musician during performance. Understanding expert music performance is interesting to cognitive neuroscientists not only because it tests the limits of human memory and movement, but also because studying expert musicianship can help us understand skilled human behavior in general. In this chapter, we outline important facets of our current understanding of the cognitive and neural basis for music performance, and developmental factors that may underlie musical ability. We address three main questions. (1) What is expert performance? (2) How do musicians achieve expert-level performance? (3) How does expert performance come about? We address the first question by describing musicians' ability to remember, plan, execute, and monitor their performances in order to perform music accurately and expressively. We address the second question by reviewing evidence for possible cognitive and neural mechanisms that may underlie or contribute to expert music performance, including the integration of sound and movement, feedforward and feedback motor control processes, expectancy, and imagery. We further discuss how neural circuits in auditory, motor, parietal, subcortical, and frontal cortex all contribute to different facets of musical expertise. Finally, we address the third question by reviewing evidence for the heritability of musical expertise and for how expertise develops through training and practice. We end by discussing outlooks for future work. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Expert systems for the analysis of transients on nuclear reactors: crisis analysis, sextant, a general purpose physical analyser

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barbet, N.; Dumas, M.; Mihelich, G.; Souchet, Y.; Thomas, J.B.

1987-04-01

Two developments of expert systems intended to work on line to the analysis of nuclear reactor transients are reported. During an hypothetical crisis occurring in a nuclear facility, a staff of the Institute for Protection and Nuclear Safety (IPSN) has to assess the risk to local population. The expert system is intended to work as an assistant to the staff. At the present time, it deals with the availability of the safety systems of the plant (e.g. ECCS), depending on the functional state of the support systems. A next step is to take into account the physical transient of the reactor (mass and energy balance, pressure, flows). In order to reach this goal as in the development of other similar expert systems, a physical analyser is required. This is the aim of SEXTANT, which combines several knowledge bases concerning measurements, models and qualitative behaviour of the plant with a mechanism of conjecture-refutation and a set of simplified models matching the current physical state. A prototype is under assessment by dealing with integral test facility transients. Both expert systems require powerful shells for their development. SPIRAL is such a toolkit for the development of expert systems devoted to the computer aided management of complex processes

Reflection group on 'Expert Culture'

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eggermont, G

2000-07-01

As part of SCK-CEN's social sciences and humanities programme, a reflection group on 'Expert Culture' was established. The objectives of the reflection group are: (1) to clarify the role of SCK-CEN experts; (2) to clarify the new role of expertise in the evolving context of risk society; (3) to confront external views and internal SCK-CEN experiences on expert culture; (4) to improve trust building of experts and credibility of SCK-CEN as a nuclear actor in society; (5) to develop a draft for a deontological code; (6) to integrate the approach in training on assertivity and communication; (7) to create an output for a topical day on the subject of expert culture. The programme, achievements and perspectives of the refection group are summarised.

Method for evaluation of human induced pluripotent stem cell quality using image analysis based on the biological morphology of cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Wakui, Takashi; Matsumoto, Tsuyoshi; Matsubara, Kenta; Kawasaki, Tomoyuki; Yamaguchi, Hiroshi; Akutsu, Hidenori

2017-10-01

We propose an image analysis method for quality evaluation of human pluripotent stem cells based on biologically interpretable features. It is important to maintain the undifferentiated state of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) while culturing the cells during propagation. Cell culture experts visually select good quality cells exhibiting the morphological features characteristic of undifferentiated cells. Experts have empirically determined that these features comprise prominent and abundant nucleoli, less intercellular spacing, and fewer differentiating cellular nuclei. We quantified these features based on experts' visual inspection of phase contrast images of iPSCs and found that these features are effective for evaluating iPSC quality. We then developed an iPSC quality evaluation method using an image analysis technique. The method allowed accurate classification, equivalent to visual inspection by experts, of three iPSC cell lines.

Expert Involvement and Adherence to Medical Evidence in Medical Mobile Phone Apps

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Subhi, Yousif; Bube, Sarah Hjartbro; Rolskov Bojsen, Signe

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND: Both clinicians and patients use medical mobile phone apps. Anyone can publish medical apps, which leads to contents with variable quality that may have a serious impact on human lives. We herein provide an overview of the prevalence of expert involvement in app development and whether...... or not app contents adhere to current medical evidence. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review studies evaluating expert involvement or adherence of app content to medical evidence in medical mobile phone apps. METHODS: We systematically searched 3 databases (PubMed, The Cochrane Library, and EMBASE......), and included studies evaluating expert involvement or adherence of app content to medical evidence in medical mobile phone apps. Two authors performed data extraction independently. Qualitative analysis of the included studies was performed. RESULTS: Based on inclusion criteria, 52 studies were included...

Analysis of the drilling sound component from expert performance in a maxillo-facial surgery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hoffmann, Pablo F.; Gosselin, Florian; Taha, Farid

2009-01-01

Auditory displays can have a great potential in surgical simulators that aim at training skills associated to the correct interpretation of auditory information. Here, we present preliminary results in the analysis of the sound produced by the drilling procedure in a maxillo-facial surgery when...... performed by expert surgeons. The motivation of this work is to find relevant acoustic parameters that allow for an efficient synthesis method of auditory displays so that they can effectively convey information on expert surgical drilling....

Specialized Accounting Expert Evidence on Economic and Financial Crimes: Analysis of the DMG Case

OpenAIRE

Ramírez, Maricela; Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia.; Robayo-Nieto, Natalia; Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia; Parra-Castiblanco, Lina María; Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia.

2016-01-01

Generally, in the cases related to economic and financial fraud crimes defined in the Code of Criminal Procedure the performance of accounting experts is necessary, as to assist the justice system. Thus, the appointed professional creates an expert report of its evidence analysis and research work, and comes before the court in a public oral trial as to be questioned and cross-examined. In this context, this study –derived from formal research activities– will determine the requirements of th...

Techniques and applications of the human reliability analysis in nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pinto, Fausto C.

1995-01-01

The analysis and prediction of the man-machine interaction are the objectives of human reliability analysis. In this work is presented in a manner that could be used by experts in the field of Probabilistic Safety Assessment, considering primarily the aspects of human errors. The Technique of Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP) is used in large scale to obtain data on human error. Applications of this technique are presented, as well as aspects of the state-of-art and of research and development of this particular field of work, where the construction of a reliable data bank is considered essential. In this work is also developed an application of the THERP for the TRIGA Mark 1 IPR R-1 Reactor of the Centro de Desenvolvimento de Tecnologia Nuclear, Brazilian research institute of nuclear technology. The results indicate that some changes must be made in the emergency procedures of the reactor, in order to achieve a higher level of safety

An Analysis of the Working Memories of Expert Sport Instructors

Science.gov (United States)

McCullick, Bryan; Schempp, Paul; Hsu, Shan-Hui; Jung, Jin Hong; Vickers, Brad; Schuknecht, Greg

2006-01-01

A distinguishing characteristic of expert teachers appears to be an excellent memory (Berliner, 1986; Tan, 1997). Possessing an excellent memory aids experts in building a substantial knowledge base relative to teaching and learning. Despite its importance, the memory skills of expert teachers have yet to be investigated. Therefore, the purpose of…

Comparative analysis of nanotechnology awareness in consumers and experts in South Korea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kim YR

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Yu-Ri Kim,1 Eun Jeong Lee,1 Sung Ha Park,2 Hyo Jin Kwon,3 Seong Soo A An,4 Sang Wook Son,5 Young Rok Seo,6 Jae-Eun Pie,7 Myoung Yoon,8 Ja Hei Kim,8 Meyoung-Kon Kim1 1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Korea University Medical School and College, Seoul, South Korea; 2Department of Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, UK; 3Department of Medical Education, Korea University Medical School and College, Seoul, South Korea; 4Department of Bionanotechnology, Gachon University, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, South Korea; 5Department of Dermatology, Korea University Medical School and College, Seoul, South Korea; 6Department of Life Science, Institute of Environmental Medicine for Green Chemistry, Dongguk University, Seoul, South Korea; 7Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Science and Engineering, Anyang University, Anyang, Gyeonggi, South Korea; 8Consumers Korea, Seoul, South Korea Purpose: This study examined the need for public communication about nanotechnologies and nanoparticles by providing a comparative analysis of the differences in risk awareness of nanotechnologies and nanoparticles between consumers and experts. Methods: A total of 1,007 consumers and 150 experts participated in this study. A questionnaire was prepared examining their awareness of nanotechnologies and nanomaterials and their view of the necessity for information and education about the latest nanotechnologies and nanomaterials. Results: Our results indicated that the expert group recognized that they knew more than consumers about nanotechnology and that there was a need for relevant education in nanotechnology and nanomaterials among consumers. We found that the consumer group had a more positive attitude toward nanotechnology, even though they did not know much about it. Moreover, the consumer group was inconclusive about the type of information on nanotechnology deemed necessary for the public, as well as the suitable party to be responsible for education

Expert Systems: An Introduction -46 ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Research Scientist in the. Knowledge Based. Computer Systems Group at NeST. He is one of the ... Expert systems encode human expertise in limited domains ... answers questions the user has and provides an explanation of its reasoning.

Task analysis and computer aid development for human reliability analysis in nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yoon, W. C.; Kim, H.; Park, H. S.; Choi, H. H.; Moon, J. M.; Heo, J. Y.; Ham, D. H.; Lee, K. K.; Han, B. T. [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Taejeon (Korea)

2001-04-01

Importance of human reliability analysis (HRA) that predicts the error's occurrence possibility in a quantitative and qualitative manners is gradually increased by human errors' effects on the system's safety. HRA needs a task analysis as a virtue step, but extant task analysis techniques have the problem that a collection of information about the situation, which the human error occurs, depends entirely on HRA analyzers. The problem makes results of the task analysis inconsistent and unreliable. To complement such problem, KAERI developed the structural information analysis (SIA) that helps to analyze task's structure and situations systematically. In this study, the SIA method was evaluated by HRA experts, and a prototype computerized supporting system named CASIA (Computer Aid for SIA) was developed for the purpose of supporting to perform HRA using the SIA method. Additionally, through applying the SIA method to emergency operating procedures, we derived generic task types used in emergency and accumulated the analysis results in the database of the CASIA. The CASIA is expected to help HRA analyzers perform the analysis more easily and consistently. If more analyses will be performed and more data will be accumulated to the CASIA's database, HRA analyzers can share freely and spread smoothly his or her analysis experiences, and there by the quality of the HRA analysis will be improved. 35 refs., 38 figs., 25 tabs. (Author)

Human engineering in the design of expert systems for microcomputer system troubleshooting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Easter, J.R.; Elm, W.C.

1988-01-01

The man-machine interfaces of the first generation of expert systems have usually received little or no explicit design effort. As a result, many of these systems when placed in their productive environment have only served to collect dust. One of the more aggravating attributes of such systems has been the demand that the user of such systems religiously follow the pre-determined and fixed problem solving path the domain expert designed in the expert system. Westinghouse has embarked on a program aimed at improving the productivity of the I and C maintenance staff responsible for caring for these new systems, the focus of which is the development of a computer based expert system to be used as a trouble-shooting aid. To date, Westinghouse has created a knowledge structure for such an expert system that describes the purposes or design objectives of the faulted microcomputer system

An expert system for ranking companies and investments: wood industry case

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hliadis Lazaros

2003-01-01

Full Text Available Wood industry is a very important part of both the Greek Rural and industrial sector. The discovery of the differentiation in the level of growth and in the quality of financial management between the Greek wood companies can provide very important aid in the design of an effective rural development policy. The evaluation and ranking of Greek wood companies based on actual financial data is a very complicated task and it requires expertise knowledge and skills. On the other hand a computer expert system can perform validation and evaluation in an efficient way and can substitute human experts. An expert system was designed and developed towards this direction. It uses multicriteria analysis for each one of the wood companies based on actual financial data and it applies fundamental principles of fuzzy logic in order to calculate the expected intervals of flows for the following years. .

Comparison of human expert and computer-automated systems using magnitude-squared coherence (MSC) and bootstrap distribution statistics for the interpretation of pattern electroretinograms (PERGs) in infants with optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH).

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Anthony C; McCulloch, Daphne L; Borchert, Mark S; Garcia-Filion, Pamela; Fink, Cassandra; Eleuteri, Antonio; Simpson, David M

2015-08-01

Pattern electroretinograms (PERGs) have inherently low signal-to-noise ratios and can be difficult to detect when degraded by pathology or noise. We compare an objective system for automated PERG analysis with expert human interpretation in children with optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH) with PERGs ranging from clear to undetectable. PERGs were recorded uniocularly with chloral hydrate sedation in children with ONH (aged 3.5-35 months). Stimuli were reversing checks of four sizes focused using an optical system incorporating the cycloplegic refraction. Forty PERG records were analysed; 20 selected at random and 20 from eyes with good vision (fellow eyes or eyes with mild ONH) from over 300 records. Two experts identified P50 and N95 of the PERGs after manually deleting trials with movement artefact, slow-wave EEG (4-8 Hz) or other noise from raw data for 150 check reversals. The automated system first identified present/not-present responses using a magnitude-squared coherence criterion and then, for responses confirmed as present, estimated the P50 and N95 cardinal positions as the turning points in local third-order polynomials fitted in the -3 dB bandwidth [0.25 … 45] Hz. Confidence limits were estimated from bootstrap re-sampling with replacement. The automated system uses an interactive Internet-available webpage tool (see http://clinengnhs.liv.ac.uk/esp_perg_1.htm). The automated system detected 28 PERG signals above the noise level (p ≤ 0.05 for H0). Good subjective quality ratings were indicative of significant PERGs; however, poor subjective quality did not necessarily predict non-significant signals. P50 and N95 implicit times showed good agreement between the two experts and between experts and the automated system. For the N95 amplitude measured to P50, the experts differed by an average of 13% consistent with differing interpretations of peaks within noise, while the automated amplitude measure was highly correlated with the expert measures but was

Expert system in PNC, 5

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tobita, Yoshimasa; Yamaguchi, Takashi; Matsumoto, Mitsuo; Ono, Kiyoshi.

1990-01-01

The computer code system which can evaluate the mass balance and cycle cost in nuclear fuel cycle has been developing a PNC using an artificial intelligence technique. This system is composed of the expert system, data base and analysis codes. The expert system is the most important one in the system and the content of the expert system is explained in this paper. The expert system has the three functions. The first is the function of understanding the meaning of user's questions by natural language, the second is the function of selecting the best way to solve the problem given by the user using the knowledge which is already installed in the system, and the last is the function of answering the questions. The knowledge of the experts installed in the expert system is represented by the frame-type rules. Therefore, the knowledge will be simply added to the system, and consequently the system will be easily extended. (author)

Knowledge representation and use. I. Expert systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lauriere, J L

1982-01-01

Expert systems are designed as aids in human reasoning in various specific areas. Symbolic knowledge manipulation, uncertain and incomplete deduction capabilities, natural communication with humans in non-procedural ways are their essential features. The paper describes their design and several implementations. 105 references.

Computers start to think with expert systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1983-03-21

A growing number of professionals-notably in oil and mineral exploration, plasma research, medicine, VLSI circuit design, drug design and robotics-are beginning to use computerised expert systems. A computer program uses knowledge and inference procedures to solve problems which are sufficiently difficult to require significant human expertise for their solution. The facts constitute a body of information that is widely shared, publicly available and generally agreed upon by experts in the field. The heuristics are mostly private, and little discussed, rules of good judgement (rules of plausible reasoning, rules of good guessing, etc.) that characterise expert-level decision making in the field.

Larger right posterior parietal volume in action video game experts: a behavioral and voxel-based morphometry (VBM study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Satoshi Tanaka

Full Text Available Recent studies suggest that action video game players exhibit superior performance in visuospatial cognitive tasks compared with non-game players. However, the neural basis underlying this visuospatial cognitive performance advantage remains largely unknown. The present human behavioral and imaging study compared gray matter volume in action video game experts and non-experts using structural magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry analysis. The results revealed significantly larger gray matter volume in the right posterior parietal cortex in experts compared with non-experts. Furthermore, the larger gray matter volume in the right posterior parietal cortex significantly correlated with individual performance in a visual working memory task in experts. These results suggest that differences in brain structure may be linked to extensive video game play, leading to superior visuospatial cognitive performance in action video game experts.

[Implementation of the National Expert Standard Prophylaxis of Pressure Ulcers in nurse practise - a cost-benefit analysis].

Science.gov (United States)

Wolke, R; Hennings, D; Scheu, P

2007-06-01

By developing evidence-based, national Expert Standards, agreed-upon by an association of nursing professionals, the German Care Science participates in the international discussion. Up to now, five National Expert Standards on relevant care-related topics have been developed and have been widely implemented in Care Practice. However, sufficient evaluations of these Expert Standards are still required, especially from an economic perspective. The following paper addresses this topic by performing a cost-benefit analysis for the National Expert Standard Prophylaxis of Pressure Ulcers. The authors demonstrate which costs are caused by the implementation of this National Expert Standard for a residential care agency providing services. The benefit of the implementation of the Expert Standard is then being compared to its cost for a period of three years. The evaluation concludes that, in consideration of opportunity costs, the introduction of the National Expert Standard Prophylaxis of Pressure Ulcers appears economically viable for the residential care agency only if the rate of pressure ulcers in the reference agency can be lowered at least by 26.48%. In this case, when exclusively considering direct benefits and direct costs, a positive impact of the implementation will be achieved.

Matrix Failure Modes and Effects Analysis as a Knowledge Base for a Real Time Automated Diagnosis Expert System

Science.gov (United States)

Herrin, Stephanie; Iverson, David; Spukovska, Lilly; Souza, Kenneth A. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis contain a wealth of information that can be used to create the knowledge base required for building automated diagnostic Expert systems. A real time monitoring and diagnosis expert system based on an actual NASA project's matrix failure modes and effects analysis was developed. This Expert system Was developed at NASA Ames Research Center. This system was first used as a case study to monitor the Research Animal Holding Facility (RAHF), a Space Shuttle payload that is used to house and monitor animals in orbit so the effects of space flight and microgravity can be studied. The techniques developed for the RAHF monitoring and diagnosis Expert system are general enough to be used for monitoring and diagnosis of a variety of other systems that undergo a Matrix FMEA. This automated diagnosis system was successfully used on-line and validated on the Space Shuttle flight STS-58, mission SLS-2 in October 1993.

Uncertainty Analysis and Expert Judgment in Seismic Hazard Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Klügel, Jens-Uwe

2011-01-01

The large uncertainty associated with the prediction of future earthquakes is usually regarded as the main reason for increased hazard estimates which have resulted from some recent large scale probabilistic seismic hazard analysis studies (e.g. the PEGASOS study in Switzerland and the Yucca Mountain study in the USA). It is frequently overlooked that such increased hazard estimates are characteristic for a single specific method of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA): the traditional (Cornell-McGuire) PSHA method which has found its highest level of sophistication in the SSHAC probability method. Based on a review of the SSHAC probability model and its application in the PEGASOS project, it is shown that the surprising results of recent PSHA studies can be explained to a large extent by the uncertainty model used in traditional PSHA, which deviates from the state of the art in mathematics and risk analysis. This uncertainty model, the Ang-Tang uncertainty model, mixes concepts of decision theory with probabilistic hazard assessment methods leading to an overestimation of uncertainty in comparison to empirical evidence. Although expert knowledge can be a valuable source of scientific information, its incorporation into the SSHAC probability method does not resolve the issue of inflating uncertainties in PSHA results. Other, more data driven, PSHA approaches in use in some European countries are less vulnerable to this effect. The most valuable alternative to traditional PSHA is the direct probabilistic scenario-based approach, which is closely linked with emerging neo-deterministic methods based on waveform modelling.

Expert estimation of human error probabilities in nuclear power plant operations: a review of probability assessment and scaling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stillwell, W.G.; Seaver, D.A.; Schwartz, J.P.

1982-05-01

This report reviews probability assessment and psychological scaling techniques that could be used to estimate human error probabilities (HEPs) in nuclear power plant operations. The techniques rely on expert opinion and can be used to estimate HEPs where data do not exist or are inadequate. These techniques have been used in various other contexts and have been shown to produce reasonably accurate probabilities. Some problems do exist, and limitations are discussed. Additional topics covered include methods for combining estimates from multiple experts, the effects of training on probability estimates, and some ideas on structuring the relationship between performance shaping factors and HEPs. Preliminary recommendations are provided along with cautions regarding the costs of implementing the recommendations. Additional research is required before definitive recommendations can be made

Artificial Experts: The Computer as Diagnostician Has Definite Limits.

Science.gov (United States)

Pournelle, Jerry

1984-01-01

Argues that, although expert systems--which are supposed to give users all the advantages of consulting with human experts--can be useful for medical diagnosis, where tests tend to be reliable, they can be hazardous in such areas as psychological testing, where test reliability is difficult to measure. (MBR)

Tropospheric ozone. Formation, properties, effects. Expert opinion; Ozon in der Troposphaere. Bildung, Eigenschaften, Wirkungen. Gutachten

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Elstner, E.F. [Technische Univ. Muenchen (Germany). Lehrstuhl fuer Phytopathologie

1996-06-01

The formation and dispersion of tropospheric ozone are discussed only marginally in this expert opinion; the key interest is in the effects of ground level ozone on plants, animals, and humans. The expert opinion is based on an analysis of the available scientific publications. (orig./MG) [Deutsch] Das Gutachten nimmt nur am Rande die Problematik der Bildung und Ausbreitung von troposphaerischen Ozon auf; Im Mittelpunkt steht die Auseinandersetzung mit den Wirkungen des bodennahen Ozons auf Pflanze, Tier und Mensch. Das Gutachten basiert auf einer Analyse der zugaenglichen wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten. (orig./MG)

Estimating Production Potentials: Expert Bias in Applied Decision Making

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matthews, L.J.; Burggraf, L.K.; Reece, W.J.

1998-01-01

A study was conducted to evaluate how workers predict manufacturing production potentials given positively and negatively framed information. Findings indicate the existence of a bias toward positive information and suggest that this bias may be reduced with experience but is never the less maintained. Experts err in the same way non experts do in differentially processing negative and positive information. Additionally, both experts and non experts tend to overestimate production potentials in a positive direction. The authors propose that these biases should be addressed with further research including cross domain analyses and consideration in training, workplace design, and human performance modeling

The impact of human-technology cooperation and distributed cognition in forensic science: biasing effects of AFIS contextual information on human experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Dror, Itiel E; Wertheim, Kasey; Fraser-Mackenzie, Peter; Walajtys, Jeff

2012-03-01

Experts play a critical role in forensic decision making, even when cognition is offloaded and distributed between human and machine. In this paper, we investigated the impact of using Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) on human decision makers. We provided 3680 AFIS lists (a total of 55,200 comparisons) to 23 latent fingerprint examiners as part of their normal casework. We manipulated the position of the matching print in the AFIS list. The data showed that latent fingerprint examiners were affected by the position of the matching print in terms of false exclusions and false inconclusives. Furthermore, the data showed that false identification errors were more likely at the top of the list and that such errors occurred even when the correct match was present further down the list. These effects need to be studied and considered carefully, so as to optimize human decision making when using technologies such as AFIS. © 2011 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Price competition between an expert and a non-expert

OpenAIRE

Bouckaert, J.M.C.; Degryse, H.A.

1998-01-01

This paper characterizes price competition between an expert and a non-expert. In contrast with the expert, the non-expert’s repair technology is not always successful. Consumers visit the expert after experiencing an unsuccessful match at the non-expert. This re-entry affects the behaviour of both sellers. For low enough probability of successful repair at the non-expert, all consumers first visit the non-expert, and a ‘timid-pricing’ equilibrium results. If the non-expert’s repair technolog...

Exploring the brains of Baduk (Go experts: gray matter morphometry, resting-state functional connectivity, and graph theoretical analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wi Hoon eJung

2013-10-01

Full Text Available One major characteristic of experts is intuitive judgment, which is an automatic process whereby patterns stored in memory through long-term training are recognized. Indeed, long-term training may influence brain structure and function. A recent study revealed that chess experts at rest showed differences in structure and functional connectivity (FC in the head of caudate, which is associated with rapid best next-move generation. However, less is known about the structure and function of the brains of Baduk experts compared with those of experts in other strategy games. Therefore, we performed voxel-based morphometry and FC analyses in Baduk experts to investigate structural brain differences and to clarify the influence of these differences on functional interactions. We also conducted graph theoretical analysis to explore the topological organization of whole-brain functional networks. Compared to novices, Baduk experts exhibited decreased and increased gray matter volume in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, respectively. We also found increased FC between the amygdala and medial orbitofrontal cortex and decreased FC between the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex. Further graph theoretical analysis revealed differences in measures of the integration of the network and in the regional nodal characteristics of various brain regions activated during Baduk. This study provides evidence for structural and functional differences as well as altered topological organization of the whole-brain functional networks in Baduk experts. Our findings also offer novel suggestions about the cognitive mechanisms behind Baduk expertise, which involves intuitive decision-making mediated by somatic marker circuitry and visuospatial processing.

Expert system for web based collaborative CAE

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Liang; Lin, Zusheng

2006-11-01

An expert system for web based collaborative CAE was developed based on knowledge engineering, relational database and commercial FEA (Finite element analysis) software. The architecture of the system was illustrated. In this system, the experts' experiences, theories and typical examples and other related knowledge, which will be used in the stage of pre-process in FEA, were categorized into analysis process and object knowledge. Then, the integrated knowledge model based on object-oriented method and rule based method was described. The integrated reasoning process based on CBR (case based reasoning) and rule based reasoning was presented. Finally, the analysis process of this expert system in web based CAE application was illustrated, and an analysis example of a machine tool's column was illustrated to prove the validity of the system.

The contribution of research on expertise to understanding of expert thinking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krnjaić Zora

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Expertise is determined based on the high level of mastery of knowledge and skills in different areas of human activities (science, art, sports and other less formal domains. This paper explores the contribution of empirical research on expertise to understanding of the nature of expert thinking. For that purpose we have compiled an overview and performed an analysis of the findings of relevant research on expertise based on different approaches and paradigms. We have included the studies that researched experts singled out based on their exceptional performances in different domains (absolute expertise and the studies based on comparing experts with novices (relative expertise. We have analyzed the studies using different paradigms: psychometric and cognitive paradigms, as well as the new offshoot, the paradigm based on viewing giftedness as developing expertise. Research results provide empirically grounded findings on the characteristics of expert thinking and consistently point to the fact that knowledge is the core of expertise. The characteristics of expert knowledge are operationalized via the quantity and organization of knowledge and the mastery of deep contents and knowledge systems, which enables the recognition of rules, models and information sets, as well as the use of knowledge in further studying, detecting and solving different problems. It can be concluded that research findings on expertise are one of the foundations in the conceptualization of expert thinking. They significantly contribute to obtaining an insight into the way in which knowledge shapes thought and into understanding the mechanisms of demonstrating knowledge in the mental processes of experts.

EPRI expert system activities for nuclear utility industry application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Naser, J.A.

1990-01-01

This paper reports on expert systems which have reached a level of maturity where they offer considerable benefits for the nuclear utility industry. The ability of expert systems to enhance expertise makes them an important tool for the nuclear utility industry in the areas of engineering, operations and maintenance. Benefits of expert system applications include comprehensive and consistent reasoning, reduction of time required for activities, retention of human expertise and ability to utilize multiple experts knowledge for an activity. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has been performing four basic activities to help the nuclear industry take advantage of this expert system technology. The first is the development of expert system building tools which are tailored to nuclear utility industry applications. The second is the development of expert system applications. The third is work in developing a methodology for verification and validation of expert systems. The last is technology transfer activities to help the nuclear utility industry benefit from expert systems. The purpose of this paper is to describe the EPRI activities

Expert system verification and validation for nuclear power industry applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Naser, J.A.

1990-01-01

The potential for the use of expert systems in the nuclear power industry is widely recognized. The benefits of such systems include consistency of reasoning during off-normal situations when humans are under great stress, the reduction of times required to perform certain functions, the prevention of equipment failures through predictive diagnostics, and the retention of human expertise in performing specialized functions. The increased use of expert systems brings with it concerns about their reliability. Difficulties arising from software problems can affect plant safety, reliability, and availability. A joint project between EPRI and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is being initiated to develop a methodology for verification and validation of expert systems for nuclear power applications. This methodology will be tested on existing and developing expert systems. This effort will explore the applicability of conventional verification and validation methodologies to expert systems. The major area of concern will be certification of the knowledge base. This is expected to require new types of verification and validation techniques. A methodology for developing validation scenarios will also be studied

Expert systems: an alternative paradigm

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coombs, M.; Alty, J.

1984-01-01

There has recently been a significant effort by the AI community to interest industry in the potential of expert systems. However, this has resulted in far fewer substantial applications projects than might be expected. This article argues that this is because human experts are rarely required to perform the role that computer-based experts are programmed to adopt. Instead of being called in to answer well-defined problems, they are more often asked to assist other experts to extend and refine their understanding of a problem area at the junction of their two domains of knowledge. This more properly involves educational rather than problem-solving skills. An alternative approach to expert system design is proposed based upon guided discovery learning. The user is provided with a supportive environment for a particular class of problem, the system predominantly acting as an adviser rather than directing the interaction. The environment includes a database of domain knowledge, a set of procedures for its application to a concrete problem, and an intelligent machine-based adviser to judge the user's effectiveness and advise on strategy. The procedures focus upon the use of user generated explanations both to promote the application of domain knowledge and to expose understanding difficulties. Simple database PROLOG is being used as the subject material for the prototype system which is known as MINDPAD. 30 references.

Science-Based Simulation Model of Human Performance for Human Reliability Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kelly, Dana L.; Boring, Ronald L.; Mosleh, Ali; Smidts, Carol

2011-01-01

Human reliability analysis (HRA), a component of an integrated probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), is the means by which the human contribution to risk is assessed, both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, among the literally dozens of HRA methods that have been developed, most cannot fully model and quantify the types of errors that occurred at Three Mile Island. Furthermore, all of the methods lack a solid empirical basis, relying heavily on expert judgment or empirical results derived in non-reactor domains. Finally, all of the methods are essentially static, and are thus unable to capture the dynamics of an accident in progress. The objective of this work is to begin exploring a dynamic simulation approach to HRA, one whose models have a basis in psychological theories of human performance, and whose quantitative estimates have an empirical basis. This paper highlights a plan to formalize collaboration among the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the University of Maryland, and The Ohio State University (OSU) to continue development of a simulation model initially formulated at the University of Maryland. Initial work will focus on enhancing the underlying human performance models with the most recent psychological research, and on planning follow-on studies to establish an empirical basis for the model, based on simulator experiments to be carried out at the INL and at the OSU.

Human Factors Considerations in New Nuclear Power Plants: Detailed Analysis.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

OHara,J.; Higgins, J.; Brown, W.; Fink, R.

2008-02-14

This Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sponsored study has identified human-performance issues in new and advanced nuclear power plants. To identify the issues, current industry developments and trends were evaluated in the areas of reactor technology, instrumentation and control technology, human-system integration technology, and human factors engineering (HFE) methods and tools. The issues were organized into seven high-level HFE topic areas: Role of Personnel and Automation, Staffing and Training, Normal Operations Management, Disturbance and Emergency Management, Maintenance and Change Management, Plant Design and Construction, and HFE Methods and Tools. The issues where then prioritized into four categories using a 'Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table' methodology based on evaluations provided by 14 independent subject matter experts. The subject matter experts were knowledgeable in a variety of disciplines. Vendors, utilities, research organizations and regulators all participated. Twenty issues were categorized into the top priority category. This Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) technical report provides the detailed methodology, issue analysis, and results. A summary of the results of this study can be found in NUREG/CR-6947. The research performed for this project has identified a large number of human-performance issues for new control stations and new nuclear power plant designs. The information gathered in this project can serve as input to the development of a long-term strategy and plan for addressing human performance in these areas through regulatory research. Addressing human-performance issues will provide the technical basis from which regulatory review guidance can be developed to meet these challenges. The availability of this review guidance will help set clear expectations for how the NRC staff will evaluate new designs, reduce regulatory uncertainty, and provide a well-defined path to new nuclear power plant

Nephrus: expert system model in intelligent multilayers for evaluation of urinary system based on scintigraphic image analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silva, Jorge Wagner Esteves da; Schirru, Roberto; Boasquevisque, Edson Mendes

1999-01-01

Renal function can be measured noninvasively with radionuclides in a extremely safe way compared to other diagnosis techniques. Nevertheless, due to the fact that radioactive materials are used in this procedure, it is necessary to maximize its benefits, therefore all efforts are justifiable in the development of data analysis support tools for this diagnosis modality. The objective of this work is to develop a prototype for a system model based on Artificial Intelligence devices able to perform functions related to cintilographic image analysis of the urinary system. Rules used by medical experts in the analysis of images obtained with 99m Tc+DTPA and /or 99m Tc+DMSA were modeled and a Neural Network diagnosis technique was implemented. Special attention was given for designing programs user-interface. Human Factor Engineering techniques were taking in account allowing friendliness and robustness. The image segmentation adopts a model based on Ideal ROIs, which represent the normal anatomic concept for urinary system organs. Results obtained using Artificial Neural Networks for qualitative image analysis and knowledge model constructed show the feasibility of Artificial Neural Networks for qualitative image analysis and knowledge model constructed show feasibility of Artificial Intelligence implementation that uses inherent abilities of each technique in the medical diagnosis image analysis. (author)

Expert Evidence and International Criminal Justice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Appazov, Artur

The book is a comprehensive narration of the use of expertise in international criminal trials offering reflection on standards concerning the quality and presentation of expert evidence. It analyzes and critiques the rules governing expert evidence in international criminal trials...... and the strategies employed by counsel and courts relying upon expert evidence and challenges that courts face determining its reliability. In particular, the author considers how the procedural and evidentiary architecture of international criminal courts and tribunals influences the courts' ability to meaningfully...... incorporate expert evidence into the rational fact-finding process. The book provides analysis of the unique properties of expert evidence as compared with other forms of evidence and the challenges that these properties present for fact-finding in international criminal trials. It draws conclusions about...

Development of an expert system for analysis of plutonium processing operations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boeringter, S.T.; Fasel, J.H.; Kornreich, D.E.

2001-01-01

At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) an expert system has been developed for the analysis and assessment of plutonium processing operations. This system is based upon an object-oriented simulation environment specifically developed for the needs of nuclear material processing. The simulation environment, called the ''Process Modeling System'' (ProMoS), contains a library of over 250 plutonium-based unit process operations ranging from analytical chemistry, oxide operations, recycle and recovery, waste management, and component fabrication. (author)

Expert system for estimating LWR plutonium production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sandquist, G.M.

1988-01-01

An Artificial Intelligence-Expert System called APES (Analysis of Proliferation by Expert System) has been developed and tested to permit a non proliferation expert to evaluate the capability and capacity of a specified LWR reactor and PUREX reprocessing system for producing and separating plutonium even when system information may be limited and uncertain. APES employs an expert system coded in LISP and based upon an HP-RL (Hewlett Packard-Representational Language) Expert System Shell. The user I/O interface communicates with a blackboard and the knowledge base which contains the quantitative models required to describe the reactor, selected fission product production and radioactive decay processes, Purex reprocessing and ancillary knowledge

Analysis of underlying causes of inter-expert disagreement in retinopathy of prematurity diagnosis. Application of machine learning principles.

Science.gov (United States)

Ataer-Cansizoglu, E; Kalpathy-Cramer, J; You, S; Keck, K; Erdogmus, D; Chiang, M F

2015-01-01

Inter-expert variability in image-based clinical diagnosis has been demonstrated in many diseases including retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), which is a disease affecting low birth weight infants and is a major cause of childhood blindness. In order to better understand the underlying causes of variability among experts, we propose a method to quantify the variability of expert decisions and analyze the relationship between expert diagnoses and features computed from the images. Identification of these features is relevant for development of computer-based decision support systems and educational systems in ROP, and these methods may be applicable to other diseases where inter-expert variability is observed. The experiments were carried out on a dataset of 34 retinal images, each with diagnoses provided independently by 22 experts. Analysis was performed using concepts of Mutual Information (MI) and Kernel Density Estimation. A large set of structural features (a total of 66) were extracted from retinal images. Feature selection was utilized to identify the most important features that correlated to actual clinical decisions by the 22 study experts. The best three features for each observer were selected by an exhaustive search on all possible feature subsets and considering joint MI as a relevance criterion. We also compared our results with the results of Cohen's Kappa [36] as an inter-rater reliability measure. The results demonstrate that a group of observers (17 among 22) decide consistently with each other. Mean and second central moment of arteriolar tortuosity is among the reasons of disagreement between this group and the rest of the observers, meaning that the group of experts consider amount of tortuosity as well as the variation of tortuosity in the image. Given a set of image-based features, the proposed analysis method can identify critical image-based features that lead to expert agreement and disagreement in diagnosis of ROP. Although tree

A preliminary study to understand tacit knowledge and visual routines of medical experts through gaze tracking.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Blake; Shyu, Chi-Ren

2010-11-13

Many decisions made by medical experts are based on scans from advanced imaging technologies. Interpreting a medical image is a trained, systematic procedure and an excellent target for identifying potential visual routines through image informatics. These visual routines derived from experts contain many clues about visual knowledge and its representation. This study uses an inexpensive webcam-based gaze tracking method to collect data from multiple technologists' survey of medical and non-medical images. Through computational analysis of the results, we expect to provide insight into the behaviors and properties related to medical visual routines. Discovering the visual processes associated with medical images will help us recognize and understand the tacit knowledge gained from extensive experience with medical imagery. These expert routines could potentially be used to reduce medical error, train new experts, and provide an understanding of the human visual system in medicine.

Expert witness and Jungian archetypes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lallave, Juan Antonio; Gutheil, Thomas Gordon

2012-01-01

Jung's theories of archetype, shadow, and the personal and collective unconscious provide a postmodern framework in which to consider the role of the expert witness in judicial proceedings. Archetypal themes, motifs, and influences help to illuminate the shadow of the judicial system and projections and behaviors among the cast of the court in pursuing justice. This article speaks to archetypal influences and dialectical tensions encountered by the expert witness in this judicial drama. The archetype of Justice is born from the human need for order and relational fairness in a world of chaos. The persona of justice is the promise of truth in the drama. The shadow of justice is untruth, the need to win by any means. The dynamics of the trickster archetype serve and promote injustice. These influences are examined by means of a case example. This approach will deepen understanding of court proceedings and the role of the expert witness in the heroic quest for justice. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Progress on developing expert systems in waste management and disposal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rivera, A.L.; Ferrada, J.J.

1990-01-01

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) represents a challenging opportunity in expanding the potential benefits from computer technology in waste management and disposal. The potential of this concept lies in facilitating the development of intelligent computer systems to help analysts, decision makers, and operators in waste and technology problem solving similar to the way that machines support the laborer. Because the knowledge of multiple human experts is an essential input in the many aspects of waste management and disposal, there are numerous opportunities for the development of expert systems using software products from AI. This paper presents systems analysis as an attractive framework for the development of intelligent computer systems of significance to waste management and disposal, and it provides an overview of limited prototype systems and the commercially available software used during prototype development activities

USING OF SOFTWARE FOR ESTIMATION OF EXPERT COMPETENCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oleg N. Velichko

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The features of estimation of expert’s competence in the field of higher education are considered, got with a help, both universal statistical software and special software. The comparative analysis of quantitative estimation of expert’s competence is conducted, that showed possibility of forming of the most competent group of experts for realization of necessary group expert estimation in the field of higher education. An analysis showed the high degree of coincidence of results that allow declining less competent experts. 

Attribution of Foodborne Pathogens Using Structured Expert Elicitation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Havelaar, A.H.; Vargas Galindo, A.; Kurowicka, D.; Cooke, R.M.

2008-01-01

Objectives: To estimate the fraction of human cases of enterically transmitted illness by five major pathways (food, environment, direct animal contact, human–human transmission, and travel) and by 11 groups within the food pathway. Methods: Food safety experts were asked to provide their estimates

Experts' perceptions on the entrepreneurial framework conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Correia, Aldina; e Silva, Eliana Costa; Lopes, I. Cristina; Braga, Alexandra; Braga, Vitor

2017-11-01

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is a large scale database for internationally comparative entrepreneurship. This database includes information of more than 100 countries concerning several aspects of entrepreneurship activities, perceptions, conditions, national and regional policy, among others, in two main sources of primary data: the Adult Population Survey and the National Expert Survey. In the present work the National Expert Survey datasets for 2011, 2012 and 2013 are analyzed with the purpose of studying the effects of different type of entrepreneurship expert specialization on the perceptions about the Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs). The results of the multivariate analysis of variance for the 2013 data show significant differences of the entrepreneurship experts when compared the 2011 and 2012 surveys. For the 2013 data entrepreneur experts are less favorable then most of the other experts to the EFCs.

The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Turnover

OpenAIRE

Ozoliņa-Ozola, I

2014-01-01

The aim of this research was to identify the human resource management practices that are effective for employee turnover reducing. For this purpose the methods of document analysis and expert survey were used. On the basis of analysis of the scientific literature retrieved from academic databases the human resource management practices, which were mentioned in connection with employee turnover, were detected and described its effect on employee turnover. By conducting two separate expert sur...

Making a human right to tobacco control: expert and advocacy networks, framing and the right to health.

Science.gov (United States)

Reubi, David

2012-01-01

This article addresses the proliferation of human rights in international public health over the last 20 years by examining recent attempts at framing the global smoking epidemic as a human rights problem. Rather than advocating in favour or against human rights-based approaches, the article purports to understand how and why such approaches are being articulated and disseminated. First, it argues that the representation of the global smoking epidemic as a human rights issue has been the product of a small, international network of public health experts and lawyers: the human rights and tobacco control collective or community (HTC). The article describes in particular the HTC's membership, its style of thinking and its efforts to articulate and disseminate human rights-based approaches to tobacco control. Second, the article argues that the aim of the HTC when framing tobacco control as a human rights issue was not to generate public attention for and the political will to tackle the global smoking epidemic, as the literature on framing and human rights presupposes. Instead, as the article shows, the HTC framed tobacco control as a human rights problem to tap into the powerful, judicial monitoring and enforceability mechanisms that make up international human rights.

Expert Cold Structure Development

Science.gov (United States)

Atkins, T.; Demuysere, P.

2011-05-01

The EXPERT Program is funded by ESA. The objective of the EXPERT mission is to perform a sub-orbital flight during which measurements of critical aero- thermodynamic phenomena will be obtained by using state-of-the-art instrumentation. As part of the EXPERT Flight Segment, the responsibility of the Cold Structure Development Design, Manufacturing and Validation was committed to the Belgian industrial team SONACA/SABCA. The EXPERT Cold Structure includes the Launcher Adapter, the Bottom Panel, the Upper Panel, two Cross Panels and the Parachute Bay. An additional Launcher Adapter was manufactured for the separation tests. The selected assembly definition and manufacturing technologies ( machined parts and sandwich panels) were dictated classically by the mass and stiffness, but also by the CoG location and the sensitive separation interface. Used as support for the various on-board equipment, the Cold Structure is fixed to but thermally uncoupled from the PM 1000 thermal shield. It is protect on its bottom panel by a thermal blanket. As it is a protoflight, analysis was the main tool for the verification. Low level stiffness and modal analysis tests have also been performed on the Cold Structure equipped with its ballast. It allowed to complete its qualification and to prepare SONACA/SABCA support for the system dynamic tests foreseen in 2011. The structure was finally coated with a thermal control black painting and delivered on time to Thales Alenia Space-Italy end of March 201.

Industrial disasters - the expert systems solution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sachs, P.

1986-01-01

Six mistakes by the operators led to the accident at the Cherobyl nuclear reactor. These have been studied. It is suggested that an expert systems approach could prevent similar accidents. The expert system is a new approach to software programming where programs are required to perform intelligent analyses of complex situations. It separates the knowledge of a problem from the procedural code that performs the decision. An expert system will evaluate data and indicate a priority on alarms in real time. Now software systems can detect the cause of a problem in a process plant and present their findings to the operators in the control room. This should enable operators to make the correct decisions as they will know which underlying process faults are causing the alarms to operate. The Chernobyl post-mortem meeting made 13 proposals for improving safety. Two in particular are noted as relevant to expert advice systems; international collaboration on man-reactor relationships and a conference to explore the balance of automation and human action to minimise operating errors. (U.K.)

Developing a HACCP-like system for improving animal health and welfare in organic egg production - based on an expert panel analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hegelund, L; Sørensen, J T

2007-08-01

In the process of developing a generic Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)-like system for securing animal health and welfare in organic egg production, an expert panel analysis was used to perform the initial hazard analysis. Eighteen advisers and researchers in organic egg production were included in the expert panel. In a series of four questionnaires, the expert panel first scored 34 health and welfare problems seen in Danish organic egg production. Based on scorings of severity and occurrence, 10 problems were selected for further analysis. The experts subsequently suggested and scored risk factors for those problems and finally suggested control points, alarm values indicating the need for corrective actions in order to control the risk factors and monitoring frequencies of these. The 10 selected problems were hunger, thirst, piling, crop impaction, blackhead, pasteurellosis, bone fractures, cannibalism, predators and red mites. A total of 154 different risk factors were suggested for these problems. The 41 risk factors which rated highest in a combined scoring of importance and occurrence were selected for further analysis. There was a high degree of consensus between experts when scoring both problems and risk factors. The level of consensus, as defined by an interquartile range 1, was 79% to 100% when scoring the health and welfare problems (scale 1-5) and 77% to 95% when scoring the risk factors (scale 1-4). On average, 5.8 control points were suggested for every risk factor. Alarm values were often not detailed enough to be of practical significance and further analysis is needed in order to define these. The experts were highly diverse in their suggested monitoring frequencies and establishment of monitoring schemes should be part of developing the farm specific systems. An expert panel analysis based on questionnaires was a useful tool during the first steps of developing a HACCP plan, conducting a hazard analysis and suggesting control

Evidential analytic hierarchy process dependence assessment methodology in human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Lu Yuan; Zhou, Xinyi; Xiao, Fuyuan; Deng, Yong; Mahadevan, Sankaran

2017-01-01

In human reliability analysis, dependence assessment is an important issue in risky large complex systems, such as operation of a nuclear power plant. Many existing methods depend on an expert's judgment, which contributes to the subjectivity and restrictions of results. Recently, a computational method, based on the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and analytic hierarchy process, has been proposed to handle the dependence in human reliability analysis. The model can deal with uncertainty in an analyst's judgment and reduce the subjectivity in the evaluation process. However, the computation is heavy and complicated to some degree. The most important issue is that the existing method is in a positive aspect, which may cause an underestimation of the risk. In this study, a new evidential analytic hierarchy process dependence assessment methodology, based on the improvement of existing methods, has been proposed, which is expected to be easier and more effective

Evidential Analytic Hierarchy Process Dependence Assessment Methodology in Human Reliability Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luyuan Chen

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In human reliability analysis, dependence assessment is an important issue in risky large complex systems, such as operation of a nuclear power plant. Many existing methods depend on an expert's judgment, which contributes to the subjectivity and restrictions of results. Recently, a computational method, based on the Dempster–Shafer evidence theory and analytic hierarchy process, has been proposed to handle the dependence in human reliability analysis. The model can deal with uncertainty in an analyst's judgment and reduce the subjectivity in the evaluation process. However, the computation is heavy and complicated to some degree. The most important issue is that the existing method is in a positive aspect, which may cause an underestimation of the risk. In this study, a new evidential analytic hierarchy process dependence assessment methodology, based on the improvement of existing methods, has been proposed, which is expected to be easier and more effective.

Evidential analytic hierarchy process dependence assessment methodology in human reliability analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Lu Yuan; Zhou, Xinyi; Xiao, Fuyuan; Deng, Yong [School of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Chongqing (China); Mahadevan, Sankaran [School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville (United States)

2017-02-15

In human reliability analysis, dependence assessment is an important issue in risky large complex systems, such as operation of a nuclear power plant. Many existing methods depend on an expert's judgment, which contributes to the subjectivity and restrictions of results. Recently, a computational method, based on the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and analytic hierarchy process, has been proposed to handle the dependence in human reliability analysis. The model can deal with uncertainty in an analyst's judgment and reduce the subjectivity in the evaluation process. However, the computation is heavy and complicated to some degree. The most important issue is that the existing method is in a positive aspect, which may cause an underestimation of the risk. In this study, a new evidential analytic hierarchy process dependence assessment methodology, based on the improvement of existing methods, has been proposed, which is expected to be easier and more effective.

Choose and Book: a sociological analysis of 'resistance' to an expert system.

Science.gov (United States)

Greenhalgh, Trisha; Stones, Rob; Swinglehurst, Deborah

2014-03-01

In 2004, the English Department of Health introduced a technology (Choose and Book) designed to help general practitioners and patients book hospital outpatient appointments. It was anticipated that remote booking would become standard practice once technical challenges were overcome. But despite political pressure and financial incentives, Choose and Book remained unpopular and was generally used reluctantly if at all. Policymakers framed this as a problem of 'clinician resistance'. We considered Choose and Book from a sociological perspective. Our dataset, drawn from a qualitative study of computer use in general practice, comprised background documents, field notes, interviews, clinical consultations (directly observed and videotaped) and naturally occurring talk relating to referral to hospital in four general practices. We used strong structuration theory, Giddens' conceptualisation of expert systems, and sensitivity to other sociological perspectives on technology, institutions and professional values to examine the relationship between the external environment, the evolving technology and actions of human agents (GPs, administrators, managers and patients). Choose and Book had the characteristics of an expert system. It served to 'empty out' the content of the consultation as the abstract knowledge it contained was assumed to have universal validity and to over-ride the clinician's application of local knowledge and practical wisdom. Sick patients were incorrectly assumed to behave as rational choosers, able and willing to decide between potential options using abstracted codified information. Our analysis revealed four foci of resistance: to the policy of choice that Choose and Book symbolised and purported to deliver; to accommodating the technology's socio-material constraints; to interference with doctors' contextual judgements; and to adjusting to the altered social relations consequent on its use. We conclude that 'resistance' is a complex phenomenon

Human reliability assessment in a 99Mo/99mTc generator production facility using the standardized plant analysis risk-human (SPAR-H) technique.

Science.gov (United States)

Eyvazlou, Meysam; Dadashpour Ahangar, Ali; Rahimi, Azin; Davarpanah, Mohammad Reza; Sayyahi, Seyed Soheil; Mohebali, Mehdi

2018-02-13

Reducing human error is an important factor for enhancing safety protocols in various industries. Hence, analysis of the likelihood of human error in nuclear industries such as radiopharmaceutical production facilities has become more essential. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted to quantify the probability of human errors in a 99 Mo/ 99m Tc generator production facility in Iran. First, through expert interviews, the production process of the 99 Mo/ 99m Tc generator was analyzed using hierarchical task analysis (HTA). The standardized plant analysis risk-human (SPAR-H) method was then applied in order to calculate the probability of human error. Twenty tasks were determined using HTA. All of the eight performance shaping factors (PSF S ) were evaluated for the tasks. The mean probability of human error was 0.320. The highest and the lowest probability of human error in the 99 Mo/ 99m Tc generator production process, related to the 'loading the generator with the molybdenum solution' task and the 'generator elution' task, were 0.858 and 0.059, respectively. Required measures for reducing the human error probability (HEP) were suggested. These measures were derived from the level of PSF S that were evaluated in this study.

Robust Trust in Expert Testimony

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian Dahlman

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The standard of proof in criminal trials should require that the evidence presented by the prosecution is robust. This requirement of robustness says that it must be unlikely that additional information would change the probability that the defendant is guilty. Robustness is difficult for a judge to estimate, as it requires the judge to assess the possible effect of information that the he or she does not have. This article is concerned with expert witnesses and proposes a method for reviewing the robustness of expert testimony. According to the proposed method, the robustness of expert testimony is estimated with regard to competence, motivation, external strength, internal strength and relevance. The danger of trusting non-robust expert testimony is illustrated with an analysis of the Thomas Quick Case, a Swedish legal scandal where a patient at a mental institution was wrongfully convicted for eight murders.

An expert system for diesel generator diagnostics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bley, D.C.; Read, J.W.; Kaplan, S.; Liming, J.K.; Brosee, N.M.; Hanley, D.W.

1987-01-01

The idea of developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems to capture the knowledge of human experts is receiving much attention these days. The idea is even more attractive when important expertise resides within a single individual, especially one who is nearing retirement and who has not otherwise recorded or passed along his important knowledge and thought processes. The diesel generators at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station have performed exceptionally well, primarily due to the care and attention of one man. Therefore, the authors are constructing an expert system for the diagnosis of diesel generator problems at Pilgrim. This paper includes a description of the expert system design and operation, examples from the knowledge base, and sample diagnoses, so the reader can observe the process in action

Apprenticeship Learning: Learning to Schedule from Human Experts

Science.gov (United States)

2016-06-09

identified by the heuristic . A spectrum of problems (i.e. traveling salesman, job-shop scheduling, multi-vehicle routing) was represented , as task locations...caus- ing the codification of this knowledge to become labori- ous. We propose a new approach for capturing domain- expert heuristics through a...demonstrate that this approach accu- rately learns multi-faceted heuristics on both a synthetic data set incorporating job-shop scheduling and vehicle

Expert decisionmaking in risk analysis: The case of the Yucca Mountain facility

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shrader-Frechette, K [University of Notre Dame, IN (United States)

1999-12-01

Thirty-five or forty centuries ago, there were probably Egyptian experts who argued that they could safeguard the tombs of the pharaohs for 10,000 or a million years. Six centuries ago, there were probably Italian experts who believed that they could secure their Renaissance art treasures. Neither the Egyptians nor the Italians succeeded completely in their efforts. Today's experts, working on permanent nuclear waste disposal, face no easier a task. To understand some of the most difficult problems of expert judgment regarding nuclear repositories, these remarks address, 10 problematic judgments of scientists about the proposed Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear repository for spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste; argue that legal constraints imposed by the US government exacerbate these problems of expert scientific judgment; and conclude that, for any permanent repository program to succeed, nations ought to avoid problems (in expert scientific judgment and in the law) that have dogged US repository efforts.

Expert decisionmaking in risk analysis: The case of the Yucca Mountain facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shrader-Frechette, K.

1999-01-01

Thirty-five or forty centuries ago, there were probably Egyptian experts who argued that they could safeguard the tombs of the pharaohs for 10,000 or a million years. Six centuries ago, there were probably Italian experts who believed that they could secure their Renaissance art treasures. Neither the Egyptians nor the Italians succeeded completely in their efforts. Today's experts, working on permanent nuclear waste disposal, face no easier a task. To understand some of the most difficult problems of expert judgment regarding nuclear repositories, these remarks address, 10 problematic judgments of scientists about the proposed Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear repository for spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste; argue that legal constraints imposed by the US government exacerbate these problems of expert scientific judgment; and conclude that, for any permanent repository program to succeed, nations ought to avoid problems (in expert scientific judgment and in the law) that have dogged US repository efforts

Expert decisionmaking in risk analysis: The case of the Yucca Mountain facility

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shrader-Frechette, K. [University of Notre Dame, IN (United States)

1999-12-01

Thirty-five or forty centuries ago, there were probably Egyptian experts who argued that they could safeguard the tombs of the pharaohs for 10,000 or a million years. Six centuries ago, there were probably Italian experts who believed that they could secure their Renaissance art treasures. Neither the Egyptians nor the Italians succeeded completely in their efforts. Today's experts, working on permanent nuclear waste disposal, face no easier a task. To understand some of the most difficult problems of expert judgment regarding nuclear repositories, these remarks address, 10 problematic judgments of scientists about the proposed Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear repository for spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste; argue that legal constraints imposed by the US government exacerbate these problems of expert scientific judgment; and conclude that, for any permanent repository program to succeed, nations ought to avoid problems (in expert scientific judgment and in the law) that have dogged US repository efforts.

Analysis and Lessons Learned from an Online, Consultative Dialogue between Community Leaders and Climate Experts

Science.gov (United States)

Sylak-Glassman, E.; Clavin, C.

2016-12-01

Common approaches to climate resilience planning in the United States rely upon participatory planning approaches and dialogues between decision-makers, science translators, and subject matter experts. In an effort to explore alternative approaches support community climate resilience planning, a pilot of a public-private collaboration called the Resilience Dialogues was held in February and March of 2016. The Resilience Dialogues pilot was an online, asynchronous conversation between community leaders and climate experts, designed to help communities begin the process of climate resilience planning. In order to identify lessons learned from the pilot, we analyzed the discourse of the facilitated dialogues, administered surveys and conducted interviews with participants. Our analysis of the pilot suggests that participating community leaders found value in the consultative dialogue with climate experts, despite limited community-originated requests for climate information. Community leaders most often asked for advice regarding adaptation planning, including specific engineering guidance and advice on how to engage community members around the topic of resilience. Community leaders that had access to downscaled climate data asked experts about how to incorporate the data into their existing planning processes. The guidance sought by community leaders during the pilot shows a large range of hurdles that communities face in using climate information to inform their decision-making processes. Having a forum that connects community leaders with relevant experts and other community leaders who have familiarity with both climate impacts and municipal planning processes would likely help communities accelerate their resilience efforts.

Expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haldy, P.A.

1988-01-01

The definitions of the terms 'artificial intelligence' and 'expert systems', the methodology, areas of employment and limits of expert systems are discussed. The operation of an expert system is described, especially the presentation and organization of knowledge as well as interference and control. Methods and tools for expert system development are presented and their application in nuclear energy are briefly addressed. 7 figs., 2 tabs., 6 refs

The Potential of Computer-Based Expert Systems for Special Educators in Rural Settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Parry, James D.; Ferrara, Joseph M.

Knowledge-based expert computer systems are addressing issues relevant to all special educators, but are particularly relevant in rural settings where human experts are less available because of distance and cost. An expert system is an application of artificial intelligence (AI) that typically engages the user in a dialogue resembling the…

AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR SUPPORTING THE PRODUCTION OF PLEASURE BOATS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomasz GONCIARZ

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Expert systems can be defined as computer programs, whose main task is to simulate a human expert, usually in a narrow field of expertise. Possible applications of modern information technology are very extensive, ranging from medicine, geology and technology to applications in the field of economic and financial decision support. The purpose of this paper is to present the practical application of an expert system that supports the process of managing the production of yachts and has a high suitability for use in this application. Using the expert system described in the paper reduces the time during the design and production preparation process.

Liquid low level waste management expert system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ferrada, J.J.; Abraham, T.J.; Jackson, J.R.

1991-01-01

An expert system has been developed as part of a new initiative for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) systems analysis program. This expert system will aid in prioritizing radioactive waste streams for treatment and disposal by evaluating the severity and treatability of the problem, as well as the final waste form. The objectives of the expert system development included: (1) collecting information on process treatment technologies for liquid low-level waste (LLLW) that can be incorporated in the knowledge base of the expert system, and (2) producing a prototype that suggests processes and disposal technologies for the ORNL LLLW system. 4 refs., 9 figs

Recommendations for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis: Guidance on uncertainty and use of experts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Budnitz, R.J.; Apostolakis, G.; Boore, D.M.

1997-04-01

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) is a methodology that estimates the likelihood that various levels of earthquake-caused ground motion will be exceeded at a given location in a given future time period. Due to large uncertainties in all the geosciences data and in their modeling, multiple model interpretations are often possible. This leads to disagreement among experts, which in the past has led to disagreement on the selection of ground motion for design at a given site. In order to review the present state-of-the-art and improve on the overall stability of the PSHA process, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) co-sponsored a project to provide methodological guidance on how to perform a PSHA. The project has been carried out by a seven-member Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee (SSHAC) supported by a large number other experts. The SSHAC reviewed past studies, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the EPRI landmark PSHA studies of the 1980's and examined ways to improve on the present state-of-the-art. The Committee's most important conclusion is that differences in PSHA results are due to procedural rather than technical differences. Thus, in addition to providing a detailed documentation on state-of-the-art elements of a PSHA, this report provides a series of procedural recommendations. The role of experts is analyzed in detail. Two entities are formally defined-the Technical Integrator (TI) and the Technical Facilitator Integrator (TFI)--to account for the various levels of complexity in the technical issues and different levels of efforts needed in a given study

Recommendations for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis: Guidance on uncertainty and use of experts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-04-01

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) is a methodology that estimates the likelihood that various levels of earthquake-caused ground motion will be exceeded at a given location in a given future time period. Due to large uncertainties in all the geosciences data and in their modeling, multiple model interpretations are often possible. This leads to disagreement among experts, which in the past has led to disagreement on the selection of ground motion for design at a given site. In order to review the present state-of-the-art and improve on the overall stability of the PSHA process, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) co-sponsored a project to provide methodological guidance on how to perform a PSHA. The project has been carried out by a seven-member Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee (SSHAC) supported by a large number other experts. The SSHAC reviewed past studies, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the EPRI landmark PSHA studies of the 1980`s and examined ways to improve on the present state-of-the-art. The Committee`s most important conclusion is that differences in PSHA results are due to procedural rather than technical differences. Thus, in addition to providing a detailed documentation on state-of-the-art elements of a PSHA, this report provides a series of procedural recommendations. The role of experts is analyzed in detail. Two entities are formally defined-the Technical Integrator (TI) and the Technical Facilitator Integrator (TFI)--to account for the various levels of complexity in the technical issues and different levels of efforts needed in a given study.

An expert system approach for safety diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erdmann, R.C.; Sun, B.K.H.

1988-01-01

An expert system was developed with the intent to provide real-time information about an accident to an operator who is in the process of diagnosing and bringing that accident under control. Explicit use was made of probabilistic risk analysis techniques and plant accident response information in constructing this system. The expert system developed contains 70 logic rules and provides contextual messages during simulated accident sequences and logic sequence information on the entire sequence in graphical form for accident diagnosis. The present analysis focuses on integrated control system-related transients with Babcock and Wilcox-type reactors. While the system developed here is limited in extent and was built for a composite reactor, it demonstrates that an expert system may enhance the operator's capability in the control room

What defines an Expert? - Uncertainty in the interpretation of seismic data

Science.gov (United States)

Bond, C. E.

2008-12-01

Studies focusing on the elicitation of information from experts are concentrated primarily in economics and world markets, medical practice and expert witness testimonies. Expert elicitation theory has been applied in the natural sciences, most notably in the prediction of fluid flow in hydrological studies. In the geological sciences expert elicitation has been limited to theoretical analysis with studies focusing on the elicitation element, gaining expert opinion rather than necessarily understanding the basis behind the expert view. In these cases experts are defined in a traditional sense, based for example on: standing in the field, no. of years of experience, no. of peer reviewed publications, the experts position in a company hierarchy or academia. Here traditional indicators of expertise have been compared for significance on affective seismic interpretation. Polytomous regression analysis has been used to assess the relative significance of length and type of experience on the outcome of a seismic interpretation exercise. Following the initial analysis the techniques used by participants to interpret the seismic image were added as additional variables to the analysis. Specific technical skills and techniques were found to be more important for the affective geological interpretation of seismic data than the traditional indicators of expertise. The results of a seismic interpretation exercise, the techniques used to interpret the seismic and the participant's prior experience have been combined and analysed to answer the question - who is and what defines an expert?

Peer-review study of the draft handbook for human-reliability analysis with emphasis on nuclear-power-plant applications, NUREG/CR-1278

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brune, R. L.; Weinstein, M.; Fitzwater, M. E.

1983-01-01

This report describes a peer review of the draft Handbook for Human Reliability Analysis with Emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications, NUREG/CR-1278. The purpose of the study was to determine to what extent peers agree with the human behavior models and estimates of human error probabilities (HEPs) contained in the Handbook. Twenty-nine human factors experts participated in the study. Twenty of the participants were Americans; nine were from other countries. The peers performed human reliability analyses of a variety of human performance scenarios describing operator activities in nuclear power plant settings. They also answered questionnaires pertaining to the contents and application of the Handbook. An analysis of peer solutions to the human reliability analysis problems and peer responses to the questionnaire was performed. Recommendations regarding the format and contents of the Handbook were developed from the study findings.

A prototype expert system for fault analysis, alarm handling and operator advising in a PWR nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gondran, M.; Ancelin, J.; Hery, J.F.; Laleuf, J.C.; Legaud, P.

1986-01-01

This paper successively describes the methodological advantages of the expert-systems approach and then two major applications of it that are under development in Electricite de France: assistance in alarms and operational management, and computer-assisted reliability. Topics considered include man-machine systems, human factors engineering, reactor operation, artificial intelligence, and decision making

Criteria for the CAREM reactor's expert system design conduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furman, A.; Delgado, R.

1990-01-01

The present work describes the analysis made to start with the development of an Expert System for the CAREM (SE) reactor's conduction. The following tasks are presented: a) purpose of the Expert System; b) Decision Making structure; c) Architecture of the Expert System; d) Description of Subsystems and e) Licensing. (Author) [es

One Size Does Not Fit All: Human Failure Event Decomposition and Task Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ronald Laurids Boring, PhD

2014-09-01

In the probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) used in the nuclear industry, human failure events (HFEs) are determined as a subset of hardware failures, namely those hardware failures that could be triggered or exacerbated by human action or inaction. This approach is top-down, starting with hardware faults and deducing human contributions to those faults. Elsewhere, more traditionally human factors driven approaches would tend to look at opportunities for human errors first in a task analysis and then identify which of those errors is risk significant. The intersection of top-down and bottom-up approaches to defining HFEs has not been carefully studied. Ideally, both approaches should arrive at the same set of HFEs. This question remains central as human reliability analysis (HRA) methods are generalized to new domains like oil and gas. The HFEs used in nuclear PSAs tend to be top-down—defined as a subset of the PSA—whereas the HFEs used in petroleum quantitative risk assessments (QRAs) are more likely to be bottom-up—derived from a task analysis conducted by human factors experts. The marriage of these approaches is necessary in order to ensure that HRA methods developed for top-down HFEs are also sufficient for bottom-up applications. In this paper, I first review top-down and bottom-up approaches for defining HFEs and then present a seven-step guideline to ensure a task analysis completed as part of human error identification decomposes to a level suitable for use as HFEs. This guideline illustrates an effective way to bridge the bottom-up approach with top-down requirements.

Dynamic Chaos, Conflicts in the Greater Middle East and Global Governance Mechanisms in the XXI Century (Proceedings of PFUR's Expert Seminars and Situational Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Denis Andreevich Degterev

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The article summarizes the experience of methodological expert seminars and case studies of international conflict of the Department of Theory and History of International Relations of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. The background and the main stages of elaboration of PFUR’s integrated multidisciplinary methodology of situation analysis of international conflicts are described. The evolution of methodological approaches to conflict analysis used in the expert community, from classical methods, including the method of analytic hierarchy by T. Saati to the nonlinear dynamics of the processes of regional development and the perception of the international system as a non-equilibrium system are shown, as well as possibilities of use of approaches of the natural sciences (theory of complex systems in the modeling of international relations. Particular attention is paid to the results of PFUR's situational analysis 2015 “Greater Middle East: twenty years later (1994-2014”. The authors show us the methodology of situation analysis in details, including the matrix approach to the distribution of research topics and the method of ranking research tasks by difficulty level between different categories of participants (students, masters, postgraduate students, teachers. A special focus is made on proceedings of leading orientalists from Russia (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Science and foreign countries (Austria, UK. The directions of further improvement of PFUR's methods of situational analysis are provided.

Expert views on societal responses to different applications of nanotechnology: a comparative analysis of experts in countries with different economic and regulatory environments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gupta, Nidhi, E-mail: guptanidhi12@gmail.com; Fischer, Arnout R. H., E-mail: arnout.fischer@wur.nl [Wageningen University, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group (Netherlands); George, Saji, E-mail: saji_george@nyp.gov.sg [Nanyang Polytechnic, Centre for Sustainable Nanotechnology, School of Chemical and Life Sciences (Singapore); Frewer, Lynn J., E-mail: lynn.frewer@newcastle.ac.uk [Newcastle University, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (United Kingdom)

2013-08-15

The introduction of different applications of nanotechnology will be informed by expert views regarding which (types of) application will be most societally acceptable. Previous research in Northern Europe has indicated that experts believe that various factors will be influential, predominant among these being public perceptions of benefit, need and consumer concern about contact with nanomaterials. These factors are thought by experts to differentiate societal acceptance and rejection of nanotechnology applications. This research utilises a larger sample of experts (N = 67) drawn from Northern America, Europe, Australasia, India and Singapore to examine differences in expert opinion regarding societal acceptance of different applications of nanotechnology within different technological environments, consumer cultures and regulatory regimes. Perceived risk and consumer concerns regarding contact with nano-particles are thought by all experts to drive rejection, and perceived benefits to influence acceptance, independent of country. Encapsulation and delivery of nutrients in food was thought to be the most likely to raise societal concerns, while targeted drug delivery was thought most likely to be accepted. Lack of differentiation between countries suggests that expert views regarding social acceptance may be homogenous, independent of local contextual factors.

Expert views on societal responses to different applications of nanotechnology: a comparative analysis of experts in countries with different economic and regulatory environments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; George, Saji; Frewer, Lynn J.

2013-01-01

The introduction of different applications of nanotechnology will be informed by expert views regarding which (types of) application will be most societally acceptable. Previous research in Northern Europe has indicated that experts believe that various factors will be influential, predominant among these being public perceptions of benefit, need and consumer concern about contact with nanomaterials. These factors are thought by experts to differentiate societal acceptance and rejection of nanotechnology applications. This research utilises a larger sample of experts (N = 67) drawn from Northern America, Europe, Australasia, India and Singapore to examine differences in expert opinion regarding societal acceptance of different applications of nanotechnology within different technological environments, consumer cultures and regulatory regimes. Perceived risk and consumer concerns regarding contact with nano-particles are thought by all experts to drive rejection, and perceived benefits to influence acceptance, independent of country. Encapsulation and delivery of nutrients in food was thought to be the most likely to raise societal concerns, while targeted drug delivery was thought most likely to be accepted. Lack of differentiation between countries suggests that expert views regarding social acceptance may be homogenous, independent of local contextual factors

Brain Mechanisms of Persuasion: How "Expert Power" Modulates Memory and Attitudes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

V. Klucharev (Vasily); A. Smidts (Ale); G. Fernández (Guillén)

2008-01-01

textabstractHuman behavior is affected by various forms of persuasion. The general persuasive effect of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as "expert power", is well documented. We found that a single exposure to a combination of an expert and an object leads to a long-lasting

Brain mechanisms of persuasion: How 'expert power' modulates memory and attitudes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

V. Klucharev (Vasily); A. Smidts (Ale); G. Fernandez (Guillén)

2008-01-01

textabstractHuman behaviour is affected by various forms of persuasion. The general persuasive effect of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as 'expert power', is well documented. We found that a single exposure to a combination of an expert and an object leads to a long-lasting

Expert Review of Pedagogical Activities at Therapeutic Recreation Camps

Science.gov (United States)

Kiselev, N. N.; Kiseleva, E. V.

2015-01-01

An analysis of pedagogical expert reviews at children's therapeutic recreation camps in Novosibirsk Region shows that it is necessary to implement an expert review system that plays a supporting and developmental role. Such a system should allow teams of teachers to submit their work to expert review and to move forward by reflecting on their…

NEW PARADIGM OF ANALYSIS OF STATISTICAL AND EXPERT DATA IN PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT

OpenAIRE

Orlov A. I.

2014-01-01

The article is devoted to the methods of analysis of statistical and expert data in problems of economics and management that are discussed in the framework of scientific specialization "Mathematical methods of economy", including organizational-economic and economic-mathematical modeling, econometrics and statistics, as well as economic aspects of decision theory, systems analysis, cybernetics, operations research. The main provisions of the new paradigm of this scientific and practical fiel...

Towards a Fuzzy Expert System on Toxicological Data Quality Assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Longzhi; Neagu, Daniel; Cronin, Mark T D; Hewitt, Mark; Enoch, Steven J; Madden, Judith C; Przybylak, Katarzyna

2013-01-01

Quality assessment (QA) requires high levels of domain-specific experience and knowledge. QA tasks for toxicological data are usually performed by human experts manually, although a number of quality evaluation schemes have been proposed in the literature. For instance, the most widely utilised Klimisch scheme1 defines four data quality categories in order to tag data instances with respect to their qualities; ToxRTool2 is an extension of the Klimisch approach aiming to increase the transparency and harmonisation of the approach. Note that the processes of QA in many other areas have been automatised by employing expert systems. Briefly, an expert system is a computer program that uses a knowledge base built upon human expertise, and an inference engine that mimics the reasoning processes of human experts to infer new statements from incoming data. In particular, expert systems have been extended to deal with the uncertainty of information by representing uncertain information (such as linguistic terms) as fuzzy sets under the framework of fuzzy set theory and performing inferences upon fuzzy sets according to fuzzy arithmetic. This paper presents an experimental fuzzy expert system for toxicological data QA which is developed on the basis of the Klimisch approach and the ToxRTool in an effort to illustrate the power of expert systems to toxicologists, and to examine if fuzzy expert systems are a viable solution for QA of toxicological data. Such direction still faces great difficulties due to the well-known common challenge of toxicological data QA that "five toxicologists may have six opinions". In the meantime, this challenge may offer an opportunity for expert systems because the construction and refinement of the knowledge base could be a converging process of different opinions which is of significant importance for regulatory policy making under the regulation of REACH, though a consensus may never be reached. Also, in order to facilitate the implementation

Expert - Non-expert differences in visual behaviour during alpine slalom skiing.

Science.gov (United States)

Decroix, Marjolein; Wazir, Mohd Rozilee Wazir Norjali; Zeuwts, Linus; Deconinck, Frederik F J A; Lenoir, Matthieu; Vansteenkiste, Pieter

2017-10-01

The aim of this study was to investigate visual behaviour of expert and non-expert ski athletes during an alpine slalom. Fourteen non-experts and five expert slalom skiers completed an alpine slalom course in an indoor ski slope while wearing a head-mounted eye tracking device. Experts completed the slalom clearly faster than non-experts, but no significant difference was found in timing and position of the turn initiation. Although both groups already looked at future obstacles approximately 0,5s before passing the upcoming pole, the higher speed of experts implied that they shifted gaze spatially earlier in the bend than non-experts. Furthermore, experts focussed more on the second next pole while non-expert slalom skiers looked more to the snow surface immediately in front of their body. No difference was found in the fixation frequency, average fixation duration, and quiet eye duration between both groups. These results suggest that experts focus on the timing of their actions while non-experts still need to pay attention to the execution of these actions. These results also might suggest that ski trainers should instruct non-experts and experts to focus on the next pole and, shift their gaze to the second next pole shortly before reaching it. Based on the current study it seems unadvisable to instruct slalom skiers to look several poles ahead during the actual slalom. However, future research should test if these results still hold on a real outdoor slope, including multiple vertical gates. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An expert system based software sizing tool, phase 2

Science.gov (United States)

Friedlander, David

1990-01-01

A software tool was developed for predicting the size of a future computer program at an early stage in its development. The system is intended to enable a user who is not expert in Software Engineering to estimate software size in lines of source code with an accuracy similar to that of an expert, based on the program's functional specifications. The project was planned as a knowledge based system with a field prototype as the goal of Phase 2 and a commercial system planned for Phase 3. The researchers used techniques from Artificial Intelligence and knowledge from human experts and existing software from NASA's COSMIC database. They devised a classification scheme for the software specifications, and a small set of generic software components that represent complexity and apply to large classes of programs. The specifications are converted to generic components by a set of rules and the generic components are input to a nonlinear sizing function which makes the final prediction. The system developed for this project predicted code sizes from the database with a bias factor of 1.06 and a fluctuation factor of 1.77, an accuracy similar to that of human experts but without their significant optimistic bias.

Sensory analysis of characterising flavours: evaluating tobacco product odours using an expert panel.

Science.gov (United States)

Krüsemann, Erna J Z; Lasschuijt, Marlou P; de Graaf, C; de Wijk, René A; Punter, Pieter H; van Tiel, Loes; Cremers, Johannes W J M; van de Nobelen, Suzanne; Boesveldt, Sanne; Talhout, Reinskje

2018-05-23

Tobacco flavours are an important regulatory concept in several jurisdictions, for example in the USA, Canada and Europe. The European Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU prohibits cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco having a characterising flavour. This directive defines characterising flavour as 'a clearly noticeable smell or taste other than one of tobacco […]'. To distinguish between products with and without a characterising flavour, we trained an expert panel to identify characterising flavours by smelling. An expert panel (n=18) evaluated the smell of 20 tobacco products using self-defined odour attributes, following Quantitative Descriptive Analysis. The panel was trained during 14 attribute training, consensus training and performance monitoring sessions. Products were assessed during six test sessions. Principal component analysis, hierarchical clustering (four and six clusters) and Hotelling's T-tests (95% and 99% CIs) were used to determine differences and similarities between tobacco products based on odour attributes. The final attribute list contained 13 odour descriptors. Panel performance was sufficient after 14 training sessions. Products marketed as unflavoured that formed a cluster were considered reference products. A four-cluster method distinguished cherry-flavoured, vanilla-flavoured and menthol-flavoured products from reference products. Six clusters subdivided reference products into tobacco leaves, roll-your-own and commercial products. An expert panel was successfully trained to assess characterising odours in cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco. This method could be applied to other product types such as e-cigarettes. Regulatory decisions on the choice of reference products and significance level are needed which directly influences the products being assessed as having a characterising odour. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use

Classification of health webpages as expert and non expert with a reduced set of cross-language features.

Science.gov (United States)

Grabar, Natalia; Krivine, Sonia; Jaulent, Marie-Christine

2007-10-11

Making the distinction between expert and non expert health documents can help users to select the information which is more suitable for them, according to whether they are familiar or not with medical terminology. This issue is particularly important for the information retrieval area. In our work we address this purpose through stylistic corpus analysis and the application of machine learning algorithms. Our hypothesis is that this distinction can be performed on the basis of a small number of features and that such features can be language and domain independent. The used features were acquired in source corpus (Russian language, diabetes topic) and then tested on target (French language, pneumology topic) and source corpora. These cross-language features show 90% precision and 93% recall with non expert documents in source language; and 85% precision and 74% recall with expert documents in target language.

Expert system for quality control in the INIS database

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Todeschini, C.; Tolstenkov, A.

1990-05-01

An expert system developed to identify input items to INIS database with a high probability of containing errors is described. The system employs a Knowledge Base constructed by the interpretation of a large number of intellectual choices or expert decisions made by human indexers and incorporated in the INIS database. On the basis of the descriptor indexing, the system checks the correctness of the categorization. A notable feature of the system is its capability of self improvement by the continuous updating of the Knowledge Base. The expert system has also been found to be extremely useful in identifying documents with poor indexing. 3 refs, 9 figs

Expert system for quality control in the INIS database

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Todeschini, C; Tolstenkov, A [International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

1990-05-01

An expert system developed to identify input items to INIS database with a high probability of containing errors is described. The system employs a Knowledge Base constructed by the interpretation of a large number of intellectual choices or expert decisions made by human indexers and incorporated in the INIS database. On the basis of the descriptor indexing, the system checks the correctness of the categorization. A notable feature of the system is its capability of self improvement by the continuous updating of the Knowledge Base. The expert system has also been found to be extremely useful in identifying documents with poor indexing. 3 refs, 9 figs.

Learning Over Time: Using Rapid Prototyping Generative Analysis Experts and Reduction of Scope to Operationalize Design

Science.gov (United States)

2010-05-04

during the Vietnam Conflict. 67 David A. Kolb , Experiential Learning : Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. (Upper Saddle River, NJ...Essentials for Military Applications. Newport Paper #10. Newport: Newport War College Press. 1996. Kolb , David A. Experiential Learning : Experience... learning over analysis. A broad review of design theory suggests that four techniques - rapid prototyping, generative analysis, use of experts, and

Patient safety incident reporting: a qualitative study of thoughts and perceptions of experts 15 years after 'To Err is Human'.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Imogen; Schuster, Anne; Smith, Katherine; Pronovost, Peter; Wu, Albert

2016-02-01

One of the key recommendations of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report, To Err is Human, 15 years ago was for greater attention to incident reporting in healthcare, analogous to the role it has played in aviation and other high-risk industries. With the passage of time and maturation of the patient safety field, we conducted semistructured interviews with 11 international patient safety experts with knowledge of the US healthcare and meeting at least one of the following criteria: (1) involved in the development of the IOM's recommendations, (2) responsible for the design and/or implementation of national or regional incident reporting systems, (3) conducted research on patient safety/incident reporting at a national level. Five key challenges emerged to explain why incident reporting has not reached its potential: poor processing of incident reports (triaging, analysis, recommendations), inadequate engagement of doctors, insufficient subsequent visible action, inadequate funding and institutional support of incident reporting systems and inadequate usage of evolving health information technology. Leading patient safety experts acknowledge the current challenges of incident reports. The future of incident reporting lies in targeted incident reporting, effective triaging and robust analysis of the incident reports and meaningful engagement of doctors. Incident reporting must be coupled with visible, sustainable action and linkage of incident reports to the electronic health record. If the healthcare industry wants to learn from its mistakes, miss or near miss events, it will need to take incident reporting as seriously as the health budget. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

A literature review of expert problem solving using analogy

OpenAIRE

Mair, C; Martincova, M; Shepperd, MJ

2009-01-01

We consider software project cost estimation from a problem solving perspective. Taking a cognitive psychological approach, we argue that the algorithmic basis for CBR tools is not representative of human problem solving and this mismatch could account for inconsistent results. We describe the fundamentals of problem solving, focusing on experts solving ill-defined problems. This is supplemented by a systematic literature review of empirical studies of expert problem solving of non-trivial pr...

Multipurpose expert-robot system model for control, diagnosis, maintenance, and repairs at the steam generators of the NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Popa, I.

1994-01-01

The paper presents the model concept for a multipurpose expert-robot system for control, diagnosis, forecast, maintenance, and repairs at the steam generators of CANDU type nuclear power plants. The system has two separate parts: the expert system and the robot (manipulator) system. These parts compose a hierarchic structure with the expert system on the upper level. The expert system has a blackboard architecture, to which tree interfaces with the robot system, with the control system of the NPP and with the methods and techniques of control, maintenance and repairs system of the steam generator are added. Due to complex nature of its activities the expert-robot system model combines the deterministic type reasons with probabilistic, fuzzy, and neural-networks type ones. The information that enter the expert system comes from the robot system, from process, from user, and human expert. The information that enter robot system comes from the expert system, from the human operator (when connected) and from process. Control maintenance and repair operations take place by means of the robot system that can be monitored either directly by the expert system or by the human operator who follows its activity. All these activities are performed in parallel with the adequate information of the expert system directly, by the human operator, about the status parameters and, possibly, operating parameters of the steam generator components. The expert-robot system can work independently, but it can be connected and integrated in the control system of NPP, to take over and develop some of its functions. The activities concerning diagnosis and characterization of the state of steam generator components subsequent to control, as well as the forecast of their future behavior, are performed by means of the expert system. Due to these characteristics the expert-robot system can be used successfully in personnel training activities. (Author)

Human reliability guidance - How to increase the synergies between human reliability, human factors, and system design and engineering. Phase 1: The Nordic Point of View - A user needs analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oxstrand, J.; Boring, R.L.

2010-12-01

The main goal of this Nordic Nuclear Safety Research (NKS) council project is to produce guidance for how to use human reliability analysis (HRA) to strengthen overall safety. This project is intended to work across (and hopefully diminish) the borders that exist between human reliability analysis (HRA) and human-system interaction, human performance, human factors, and probabilistic risk assessment at Nordic nuclear power plants. This project consists of two major phases, where the initial phase (phase 1) is a study of current practices in the Nordic region, which is presented in this report. Even though the project covers the synergies between HRA and all other relevant fields, the main focus for the phase is to bridge HRA and design. Interviews with 26 Swedish and Finnish plant experts are summarized the present report, and 10 principles to improve the utilization of HRA at plants are presented. A second study, which is not documented in this preliminary report, will chronicle insights into how the US nuclear industry works with HRA. To gain this knowledge the author will conduct interviews with the US regulator, research laboratories, and utilities. (Author)

The role of human-at-work systems in business sustainability: perspectives based on expert and qualified production workers in a manufacturing enterprise.

Science.gov (United States)

Genaidy, Ash M; Rinder, Maria M; Sequeira, Reynold; A-Rehim, Amal

2010-04-01

and enterprise levels, in terms of organisational/social/technological environment. This is particularly noted for the organisational environment. The compatibility values obtained for the experienced domains mirror those obtained for acting domains. The overall workload was assessed as requiring major redesign during the day shift and needing added responsibilities for the night shift according to both expert and qualified workers. The assessment of qualified workers is comparable with that of expert workers for the job content and immediate surroundings. Differences are more observed for process- and enterprise-based factors; thereby, providing company management different perspectives in order to devise organisational strategies conducive for optimum human and corporate health and pointing to the probable interactions of the different systems impacting individual and enterprise performance. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: This research examines similarities and differences between qualified and expert workers in their assessment of the worker-work environment interface. The contribution to improved understanding of the complex interactions of human-at-work and enterprise systems should be beneficial to organisations in their quest to remain competitive in a global economy.

NutriSonic web expert system for meal management and nutrition counseling with nutrient time-series analysis, e-food exchange and easy data transition.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Soon-Myung; Cho, Jee-Ye; Lee, Jin-Hee; Kim, Gon; Kim, Min-Chan

2008-01-01

This study was conducted to develop the NutriSonic Web Expert System for Meal Management and Nutrition Counseling with Analysis of User's Nutritive Changes of selected days and food exchange information with easy data transition. This program manipulates a food, menu and meal and search database that has been developed. Also, the system provides a function to check the user's nutritive change of selected days. Users can select a recommended general and therapeutic menu using this system. NutriSonic can analyze nutrients and e-food exchange ("e" means the food exchange data base calculated by a computer program) in menus and meals. The expert can insert and store a meal database and generate the synthetic information of age, sex and therapeutic purpose of disease. With investigation and analysis of the user's needs, the meal planning program on the internet has been continuously developed. Users are able to follow up their nutritive changes with nutrient information and ratio of 3 major energy nutrients. Also, users can download another data format like Excel files (.xls) for analysis and verify their nutrient time-series analysis. The results of analysis are presented quickly and accurately. Therefore it can be used by not only usual people, but also by dietitians and nutritionists who take charge of making a menu and experts in the field of food and nutrition. It is expected that the NutriSonic Web Expert System can be useful for nutrition education, nutrition counseling and expert meal management.

The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics: a reflection on the ethics of respect and human dignity with nurse as expert.

Science.gov (United States)

Milton, Constance L

2003-10-01

The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses calls for the nurse to practice with compassion and respect for every individual. What are the ethics and challenges of practicing professional nursing with expertise and educating a new generation of nurses while incorporating the interpretive statements into practice? This column differentiates the traditional biomedical views on human dignity and respect while exploring the embedded ethics of respect and self-determination and what it truly means to be an expert of nursing from the theoretical perspective of the human becoming school of thought.

The neural organization of perception in chess experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Krawczyk, Daniel C; Boggan, Amy L; McClelland, M Michelle; Bartlett, James C

2011-07-20

The human visual system responds to expertise, and it has been suggested that regions that process faces also process other objects of expertise including chess boards by experts. We tested whether chess and face processing overlap in brain activity using fMRI. Chess experts and novices exhibited face selective areas, but these regions showed no selectivity to chess configurations relative to other stimuli. We next compared neural responses to chess and to scrambled chess displays to isolate areas relevant to expertise. Areas within the posterior cingulate, orbitofrontal cortex, and right temporal cortex were active in this comparison in experts over novices. We also compared chess and face responses within the posterior cingulate and found this area responsive to chess only in experts. These findings indicate that the configurations in chess are not strongly processed by face-selective regions that are selective for faces in individuals who have expertise in both domains. Further, the area most consistently involved in chess did not show overlap with faces. Overall, these results suggest that expert visual processing may be similar at the level of recognition, but need not show the same neural correlates. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Classification of Listeria monocytogenes persistence in retail delicatessen environments using expert elicitation and machine learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Vangay, P; Steingrimsson, J; Wiedmann, M; Stasiewicz, M J

2014-10-01

Increasing evidence suggests that persistence of Listeria monocytogenes in food processing plants has been the underlying cause of a number of human listeriosis outbreaks. This study extracts criteria used by food safety experts in determining bacterial persistence in the environment, using retail delicatessen operations as a model. Using the Delphi method, we conducted an expert elicitation with 10 food safety experts from academia, industry, and government to classify L. monocytogenes persistence based on environmental sampling results collected over six months for 30 retail delicatessen stores. The results were modeled using variations of random forest, support vector machine, logistic regression, and linear regression; variable importance values of random forest and support vector machine models were consolidated to rank important variables in the experts' classifications. The duration of subtype isolation ranked most important across all expert categories. Sampling site category also ranked high in importance and validation errors doubled when this covariate was removed. Support vector machine and random forest models successfully classified the data with average validation errors of 3.1% and 2.2% (n = 144), respectively. Our findings indicate that (i) the frequency of isolations over time and sampling site information are critical factors for experts determining subtype persistence, (ii) food safety experts from different sectors may not use the same criteria in determining persistence, and (iii) machine learning models have potential for future use in environmental surveillance and risk management programs. Future work is necessary to validate the accuracy of expert and machine classification against biological measurement of L. monocytogenes persistence. © 2014 Society for Risk Analysis.

The (Mis)understanding of Scientific Uncertainty? How Experts View Policy-Makers, the Media and Publics

OpenAIRE

Landstrom, Catharina; Hauxwell-Baldwin, Richard; Lorenzoni, Irene; Rogers-Hayden, Tee

2015-01-01

Frequent claims that publics ‘misunderstand’ science ignore the contested definition of scientific uncertainty itself. Scientific uncertainty means different things in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, while public controversies show that these interpretations of scientific uncertainty have different implications for policy and decision-making. This prompts analysis of the ways that experts view scientific uncertainty and how they characterise the (mis)understandings o...

An Expert System for Supporting the Design and Selection of Mechanical Equipment for Recreational Crafts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Gonciarz

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Expert Systems can be defined as computer programs, whose main task is to simulate a human expert, usually in a narrow field of expertise. Expert Systems have experienced tremendous growth and popularity since their commercial introduction in the early 1970’s. Today, Expert Systems are used in business, science, engineering, manufacturing and other engineering applications such as planning, scheduling, diagnosing equipment failures and are used in almost every stage of the manufacturing process and also in medicine and many other fields. Expert Systems belong to the field of artificial intelligence. An intelligent computer program that uses knowledge and inference procedures to solve problems that are difficult enough to require significant human expertise for the solution. The purpose of this paper is to present an Expert System which assists with the design of yachts and supports the selection of mechanical equipment for yachts and includes knowledge in the field of yachting engineering. Using the presented Expert System reduces the time during the design and production preparation process.

Human reliability data, human error and accident models--illustration through the Three Mile Island accident analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Le Bot, Pierre

2004-01-01

Our first objective is to provide a panorama of Human Reliability data used in EDF's Safety Probabilistic Studies, and then, since these concepts are at the heart of Human Reliability and its methods, to go over the notion of human error and the understanding of accidents. We are not sure today that it is actually possible to provide in this field a foolproof and productive theoretical framework. Consequently, the aim of this article is to suggest potential paths of action and to provide information on EDF's progress along those paths which enables us to produce the most potentially useful Human Reliability analyses while taking into account current knowledge in Human Sciences. The second part of this article illustrates our point of view as EDF researchers through the analysis of the most famous civil nuclear accident, the Three Mile Island unit accident in 1979. Analysis of this accident allowed us to validate our positions regarding the need to move, in the case of an accident, from the concept of human error to that of systemic failure in the operation of systems such as a nuclear power plant. These concepts rely heavily on the notion of distributed cognition and we will explain how we applied it. These concepts were implemented in the MERMOS Human Reliability Probabilistic Assessment methods used in the latest EDF Probabilistic Human Reliability Assessment. Besides the fact that it is not very productive to focus exclusively on individual psychological error, the design of the MERMOS method and its implementation have confirmed two things: the significance of qualitative data collection for Human Reliability, and the central role held by Human Reliability experts in building knowledge about emergency operation, which in effect consists of Human Reliability data collection. The latest conclusion derived from the implementation of MERMOS is that, considering the difficulty in building 'generic' Human Reliability data in the field we are involved in, the best

Risk and reliability analyses (LURI) and expert judgement techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pyy, P.; Pulkkinen, U.

1998-01-01

Probabilistic safety analysis (PSA) is currently used as a regulatory licensing tool in risk informed and plant performance based regulation. More often also utility safety improvements are based on PSA calculations as one criterion. PSA attempts to comprehensively identify all important risk contributors, compare them with each other, assess the safety level and suggest improvements based on its findings. The strength of PSA is that it is capable to provide decision makers with numerical estimates of risks. This makes decision making easier than the comparison of purely qualitative results. PSA is the only comprehensive tool that compactly attempts to include all the important risk contributors in its scope. Despite the demonstrated strengths of PSA, there are some features that have reduced its uses. For example, the PSA scope has been limited to the power operation and process internal events (transients and LOCAs). Only lately, areas such as shutdown, external events and severe accidents have been included in PSA models in many countries. Problems related to modelling are, e.g., that rather static fault and event tree models are commonly used in PSA to model dynamic event sequences. Even if a valid model may be generated, there may not be any other data sources to be used than expert judgement. Furthermore, there are a variety of different techniques for human reliability assessment (HRA) giving varying results. In the project Reliability and Risk Analyses (LURI) these limitations and shortcomings have been studied. In the decision making area, case studies on the application of decision analysis and a doctoral thesis have been published. Further, practical aid has been given to utilities and regulatory decision making. Model uncertainty effect on PSA results has been demonstrated by two case studies. Human reliability has been studied both in the integrated safety analysis study and in the study of maintenance originated NPP component faults based on the

Experimental applications of an expert system to operator problem solving in process control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nelson, W.R.; Jenkins, J.P.

1985-01-01

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) has sponsored a program to assess the effectiveness of expert systems for nuclear reactor operators. The project has included two human factors experimental evaluations of the Response Tree expert system, a prototype expert system for helping nuclear reactor operators respond to emergency conditions. This paper discusses the Response Tree expert system, the experiments which have been performed to test its effectiveness, and the results of the experiments. Reference is made to the accident at TMI. 12 refs

Expert ease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1984-04-01

Expert-ease allows the most inexperienced of computer users to build an expert system in a matter of hours. It is nothing more or less than a computer based problem-solving system. It allows the expert to preserve his or her knowledge in the form of rules, which can be applied to problems put to the system by the non-expert. The crucial piece of software at the heart of Expert-Ease extracts rules from data, and is called the analogue concept learning system. It was developed by Intelligent Terminals Ltd. and supplied to Export Software International to be incorporated into a commercially attractive package for business users. The resulting product runs on the Act Sirius and the IBM PC and compatibles. It is a well conceived and polished product with a popular appeal that should ensure widespread acceptance even at a cost of >1500 plus vat.

A method for using expert judgement in PSA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pulkkinen, U.; Holmberg, J.

1997-03-01

The report discusses an expert judgement methodology development for applications at all levels of probabilistic safety assessment (PSA). The main applications are expected to be at PSA-levels 1 and 2. The method consists of several phases, including the selection and training of the experts, elicitation of experts' judgements, probabilistic modeling and combination of experts' judgements and documentation of the judgement process. The expert training and elicitation process is rather similar to that applied in the NUREG-1150 study. The combination of experts judgements is based on a Bayesian framework utilizing hierarchic models. The posterior distributions of the variables under analysis can be interpreted as a Bayesian counterpart of the combined or aggregated (consensus) distributions, and they are determined by applying Markov chain Monte-Carlo methods. The properties of the method are illustrated by some simple examples. The method is tested in a case study belonging to the benchmark exercise on the use of expert judgement in level 2 PSA, organized as a concerted action of European Commission Fourth Framework Programme on Nuclear Fission Safety. (14 refs.)

Development of a diagnostic expert system for eddy current data analysis using applied artificial intelligence methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Upadhyaya, B.R.; Yan, W.; Henry, G.

1999-01-01

A diagnostic expert system that integrates database management methods, artificial neural networks, and decision-making using fuzzy logic has been developed for the automation of steam generator eddy current test (ECT) data analysis. The new system, known as EDDYAI, considers the following key issues: (1) digital eddy current test data calibration, compression, and representation; (2) development of robust neural networks with low probability of misclassification for flaw depth estimation; (3) flaw detection using fuzzy logic; (4) development of an expert system for database management, compilation of a trained neural network library, and a decision module; and (5) evaluation of the integrated approach using eddy current data. The implementation to field test data includes the selection of proper feature vectors for ECT data analysis, development of a methodology for large eddy current database management, artificial neural networks for flaw depth estimation, and a fuzzy logic decision algorithm for flaw detection. A large eddy current inspection database from the Electric Power Research Institute NDE Center is being utilized in this research towards the development of an expert system for steam generator tube diagnosis. The integration of ECT data pre-processing as part of the data management, fuzzy logic flaw detection technique, and tube defect parameter estimation using artificial neural networks are the fundamental contributions of this research. (orig.)

Development of a diagnostic expert system for eddy current data analysis using applied artificial intelligence methods

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Upadhyaya, B.R.; Yan, W. [Tennessee Univ., Knoxville, TN (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering; Behravesh, M.M. [Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (United States); Henry, G. [EPRI NDE Center, Charlotte, NC (United States)

1999-09-01

A diagnostic expert system that integrates database management methods, artificial neural networks, and decision-making using fuzzy logic has been developed for the automation of steam generator eddy current test (ECT) data analysis. The new system, known as EDDYAI, considers the following key issues: (1) digital eddy current test data calibration, compression, and representation; (2) development of robust neural networks with low probability of misclassification for flaw depth estimation; (3) flaw detection using fuzzy logic; (4) development of an expert system for database management, compilation of a trained neural network library, and a decision module; and (5) evaluation of the integrated approach using eddy current data. The implementation to field test data includes the selection of proper feature vectors for ECT data analysis, development of a methodology for large eddy current database management, artificial neural networks for flaw depth estimation, and a fuzzy logic decision algorithm for flaw detection. A large eddy current inspection database from the Electric Power Research Institute NDE Center is being utilized in this research towards the development of an expert system for steam generator tube diagnosis. The integration of ECT data pre-processing as part of the data management, fuzzy logic flaw detection technique, and tube defect parameter estimation using artificial neural networks are the fundamental contributions of this research. (orig.)

Expert System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hildebrandt, Thomas Troels; Cattani, Gian Luca

2016-01-01

An expert system is a computer system for inferring knowledge from a knowledge base, typically by using a set of inference rules. When the concept of expert systems was introduced at Stanford University in the early 1970s, the knowledge base was an unstructured set of facts. Today the knowledge b...... for the application of expert systems, but also raises issues regarding privacy and legal liability....

Expert cognition in the production sequence of Acheulian cleavers at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel: A lithic and cognitive analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Herzlinger, Gadi; Wynn, Thomas; Goren-Inbar, Naama

2017-01-01

Stone cleavers are one of the most distinctive components of the Acheulian toolkit. These tools were produced as part of a long and complex reduction sequence and they provide indications for planning and remarkable knapping skill. These aspects hold implications regarding the cognitive complexity and abilities of their makers and users. In this study we have analyzed a cleaver assemblage originating from the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel, to provide a reconstruction of the chaîne opératoire which structured their production. This reduction sequence was taken as the basis for a cognitive analysis which allowed us to draw conclusion regarding numerous behavioral and cognitive aspects of the GBY hominins. The results indicate that the cleavers production incorporated a highly specific sequence of decisions and actions which resulted in three distinct modes of cleavers modification. Furthermore, the decision to produce a cleaver must have been taken very early in the sequence, thus differentiating its production from that of handaxes. The substantial predetermination and the specific reduction sequence provide evidence that the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov hominins had a number of cognitive categories such as a general 'tool concept' and a more specific 'cleaver concept', setting them apart from earlier tool-producing hominins and extant tool-using non-human primates. Furthermore, it appears that the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov lithic technology was governed by expert cognition, which is the kind of thinking typical of modern human experts in their various domains. Thus, the results provide direct indications that important components of modern cognition have been well established in the minds of the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov hominins.

Using Expert Systems To Build Cognitive Simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Jonassen, David H.; Wang, Sherwood

2003-01-01

Cognitive simulations are runnable computer programs for modeling human cognitive activities. A case study is reported where expert systems were used as a formalism for modeling metacognitive processes in a seminar. Building cognitive simulations engages intensive introspection, ownership and meaning making in learners who build them. (Author/AEF)

Expert and novice categorization of introductory physics problems

Science.gov (United States)

Wolf, Steven Frederick

Since it was first published 30 years ago, Chi et al.'s seminal paper on expert and novice categorization of introductory problems led to a plethora of follow-up studies within and outside of the area of physics [Chi et al. Cognitive Science 5, 121 -- 152 (1981)]. These studies frequently encompass "card-sorting" exercises whereby the participants group problems. The study firmly established the paradigm that novices categorize physics problems by "surface features" (e.g. "incline," "pendulum," "projectile motion,"... ), while experts use "deep structure" (e.g. "energy conservation," "Newton 2,"... ). While this technique certainly allows insights into problem solving approaches, simple descriptive statistics more often than not fail to find significant differences between experts and novices. In most experiments, the clean-cut outcome of the original study cannot be reproduced. Given the widespread implications of the original study, the frequent failure to reproduce its findings warrants a closer look. We developed a less subjective statistical analysis method for the card sorting outcome and studied how the "successful" outcome of the experiment depends on the choice of the original card set. Thus, in a first step, we are moving beyond descriptive statistics, and develop a novel microscopic approach that takes into account the individual identity of the cards and uses graph theory and models to visualize, analyze, and interpret problem categorization experiments. These graphs are compared macroscopically, using standard graph theoretic statistics, and microscopically, using a distance metric that we have developed. This macroscopic sorting behavior is described using our Cognitive Categorization Model. The microscopic comparison allows us to visualize our sorters using Principal Components Analysis and compare the expert sorters to the novice sorters as a group. In the second step, we ask the question: Which properties of problems are most important in problem

Unintended Side Effects of the Digital Transition: European Scientists’ Messages from a Proposition-Based Expert Round Table

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roland W. Scholz

2018-06-01

Full Text Available We present the main messages of a European Expert Round Table (ERT on the unintended side effects (unseens of the digital transition. Seventeen experts provided 42 propositions from ten different perspectives as input for the ERT. A full-day ERT deliberated communalities and relationships among these unseens and provided suggestions on (i what the major unseens are; (ii how rebound effects of digital transitioning may become the subject of overarching research; and (iii what unseens should become subjects of transdisciplinary theory and practice processes for developing socially robust orientations. With respect to the latter, the experts suggested that the “ownership, economic value, use and access of data” and, related to this, algorithmic decision-making call for transdisciplinary processes that may provide guidelines for key stakeholder groups on how the responsible use of digital data can be developed. A cluster-based content analysis of the propositions, the discussion and inputs of the ERT, and a theoretical analysis of major changes to levels of human systems and the human–environment relationship resulted in the following greater picture: The digital transition calls for redefining economy, labor, democracy, and humanity. Artificial Intelligence (AI-based machines may take over major domains of human labor, reorganize supply chains, induce platform economics, and reshape the participation of economic actors in the value chain. (Digital Knowledge and data supplement capital, labor, and natural resources as major economic variables. Digital data and technologies lead to a post-fuel industry (post- capitalism. Traditional democratic processes can be (intentionally or unintentionally altered by digital technologies. The unseens in this field call for special attention, research and management. Related to the conditions of ontogenetic and phylogenetic development (humanity, the ubiquitous, global, increasingly AI-shaped interlinkage of

Knowledge based expert system to minimise environmental pollution in Malaysian construction sites

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Al-Hadu, Ibrahiem Abdul Razak; Sidek, Lariyah Mohd; Desa, Mohamad Nor Mohamad [Civil Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor (Malaysia); Basri, Noor Ezlin Ahmad [Civil Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Selangor (Malaysia)

2011-07-01

Construction activities generate enormous amount of erosion and sediments sediments that is the result of soil disturbance during construction activities, thus, will pollute the adjacent water bodies and make it unfeasible for different uses. This paper aimed to develop and create the main features of an expert system prototype (ESCES) for minimising erosion and sedimentation due to stormwater generated from the construction activities by recommending a feasible BMPs. Multi criteria Analysis (MCA) technique has been integrated so as to select the best control measure among many stormwater control alternatives. A questionnaire has been distributed to the relevant experts so as to rank the stormwater control measures to be used in the MCA technique. Using Visual Basic 6, Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) were developed. The knowledge and experience were acquired from various textural sources (i.e. guidelines, manuals, literature, and human expert). Results from this study showed that the Best Management Practices (BMPs) reommended have good suited the site characteristics. As a conclusion from this study, the ESCES can be considered as part of the 'Green Technology Tool' since it helps in protecting the environment and preserve good quality of water adjacent to the construction sites in Malaysia.

Regulating biobanking with children's tissue: a legal analysis and the experts' view.

Science.gov (United States)

Kranendonk, Elcke J; Ploem, M Corrette; Hennekam, Raoul C M

2016-01-01

Many current paediatric studies concern relationships between genes and environment and discuss aetiology, treatment and prevention of Mendelian and multifactorial diseases. Many of these studies depend on collection and long-term storage of data and biological material from affected children in biobanks. Stored material is a source of personal information of the donor and his family and could be used in an undesirable context, potentially leading to discrimination and interfering with a child's right to an open future. Here, we address the normative framework regarding biobanking with residual tissue of children, protecting the privacy interests of young biobank donors (0-12 years). We analyse relevant legal documents concerning storage and use of children's material for research purposes. We explore the views of 17 Dutch experts involved in paediatric biobank research and focus on informed consent for donation of leftover tissue as well as disclosure of individual research findings resulting from biobank research. The results of this analysis show that experts have no clear consensus about the appropriate rules for storage of and research with children's material in biobanks. Development of a framework that provides a fair balance between fundamental paediatric research and privacy protection is necessary.

Processing Expert Judgements in Accident Consequence Modelling (invited paper)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kraan, B.C.P.; Cooke, R.M.

2000-01-01

In performing uncertainty analysis a distribution on the code input parameters is required. The construction of the distribution on the code input parameters for the joint CEC/USNRC Accident Consequence Code Uncertainty Analysis using Expert Judgement is discussed. An example from the food chain module is used to illustrate the construction. Different mathematical techniques have been developed to transform the expert judgements into the required format. Finally, the effect of taking account of correlations in performing uncertainty analysis is investigated. (author)

Proposal of a system of indicators to assess the training of experts in a high-tech organization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elías Hardy, Lidia Lauren; González Olaguive, Elizabeth Vicenta; Martínez Martínez, Elisa

2015-01-01

Objective: present a proposal of a system of indicators to assess actions aimed at the training and development of experts in a high-tech organization. Methods: an analysis was conducted of the various theories dealing with the training and development of experts, examining their features and components. Design of the system of indicators was based on surveys and direct observation. The system of indicators thus designed was validated with the Delphi method, the application of the Likert scale and the statistical treatment of answers provided by experts, using median and interquartile range values to establish the consensus of experts. Results: a working definition is proposed of the concept expert based on two dimensions: qualification and performance, and individual and collective variables, indicators and measurement criteria. Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0,8655) showed the internal consistency of the tool used. The median and interquartile range values obtained made it possible to establish the consensus of participants in the validation of the system of indicators. Conclusions: the system of indicators developed and its two dimensions make it possible to assess the training and development of experts at the Cuban Neuroscience Center, as well as the system of actions performed. The indicator showing the lowest results is that of productivity of experts in the training of human resources of high academic level. (author)

Consumers and Experts : An Econometric Analysis of the Demand for Water Heaters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bartels, R.; Fiebig, D.G.; van Soest, A.H.O.

2003-01-01

Consumers can accumulate product information on the basis of a combination of searching, product advertising and expert advice.Examples of experts who provide product information include doctors advising patients on treatments, motor mechanics diagnosing car problems and recommending repairs,

An Efficient Expert System Generator for Qualitative Feed-Back Loop Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manoj Kumar Jain

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Quite often the variables used in system analysis are qualitative in nature. They cannot be defined precisely, whereas software development for system analysis needs a mathematical framework with precise computations. It is not trivial to capture the uncertainty in the system.
Fuzzy sets provide us the facility to capture the uncertainty in the system. In normal crisp set where the membership of an element is always certain in a sense that it would be member or not of the given set. In contrast to this a membership functions or possibility (ranging from 0 to 1, including both values is assigned with each member. System analysis is done through system dynamics which is not very efficient. We present an efficient technique to generate expert system using fuzzy set. In our proposed approach five linguistic qualifiers are used for each variable, namely, Very Low (VL, Low (L, Medium (M, High (H, and Very High
(VH. We capture the influence or feedback in the system with the help of if then else rules and matrices are generated for them which are used for analysis. Complete methodology and its applicability are presented here.

Human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dougherty, E.M.; Fragola, J.R.

1988-01-01

The authors present a treatment of human reliability analysis incorporating an introduction to probabilistic risk assessment for nuclear power generating stations. They treat the subject according to the framework established for general systems theory. Draws upon reliability analysis, psychology, human factors engineering, and statistics, integrating elements of these fields within a systems framework. Provides a history of human reliability analysis, and includes examples of the application of the systems approach

Procedures for the elicitation of expert judgements in the probabilistic risk analysis of radioactive waste repositories: an overview

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watson, S.R.

1992-01-01

In modelling the consequences of a radioactive waste repository using Probabilistic Risk Analysis, it is necessary to use the judgement of experts both in assessing probabilities subjectively, and in choosing suitable analytic frameworks. This report presents the literature on these topics, first discussing the meaning of probability in PRA, and then giving an extensive review of what is known about how to elicit probabilities from experts. The report then provides an overview of the less well developed field of how best to use expertise in the construction of models for PRA. (author)

Expert system for liquid low-level waste management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ferrada, J.J.

1992-01-01

An expert system prototype has been developed to support system analysis activities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for waste management tasks. This expert system will aid in prioritizing radioactive waste streams for treatment and disposal by evaluating the severity and treatability of the problem as well as the final waste form. The objectives of the expert system development included: (1) collecting information on process treatment technologies for liquid low-level waste (LLLW) that can be incorporated in the knowledge base of the expert system, and (2) producing a prototype that suggests processes and disposal technologies for the ORNL LLLW system. The concept under which the expert system has been designed is integration of knowledge. There are many sources of knowledge (data bases, text files, simulation programs, etc.) that an expert would regularly consult in order to solve a problem of liquid waste management. The expert would normally know how to extract the information from these different sources of knowledge. The general scope of this project would be to include as much pertinent information as possible within the boundaries of the expert system. As a result, the user, who may not be an expert in every aspect of liquid waste management, may be able to apply the content of the information to a specific waste problem. This paper gives the methodological steps to develop the expert system under this general framework

Rule - based Fault Diagnosis Expert System for Wind Turbine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deng Xiao-Wen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Under the trend of increasing installed capacity of wind power, the intelligent fault diagnosis of wind turbine is of great significance to the safe and efficient operation of wind farms. Based on the knowledge of fault diagnosis of wind turbines, this paper builds expert system diagnostic knowledge base by using confidence production rules and expert system self-learning method. In Visual Studio 2013 platform, C # language is selected and ADO.NET technology is used to access the database. Development of Fault Diagnosis Expert System for Wind Turbine. The purpose of this paper is to realize on-line diagnosis of wind turbine fault through human-computer interaction, and to improve the diagnostic capability of the system through the continuous improvement of the knowledge base.

Expert and competent non-expert visual cues during simulated diagnosis in intensive care.

Science.gov (United States)

McCormack, Clare; Wiggins, Mark W; Loveday, Thomas; Festa, Marino

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine the information acquisition strategies of expert and competent non-expert intensive care physicians during two simulated diagnostic scenarios involving respiratory distress in an infant. Specifically, the information acquisition performance of six experts and 12 competent non-experts was examined using an eye-tracker during the initial 90 s of the assessment of the patient. The results indicated that, in comparison to competent non-experts, experts recorded longer mean fixations, irrespective of the scenario. When the dwell times were examined against specific areas of interest, the results revealed that competent non-experts recorded greater overall dwell times on the nurse, where experts recorded relatively greater dwell times on the head and face of the manikin. In the context of the scenarios, experts recorded differential dwell times, spending relatively more time on the head and face during the seizure scenario than during the coughing scenario. The differences evident between experts and competent non-experts were interpreted as evidence of the relative availability of task-specific cues or heuristics in memory that might direct the process of information acquisition amongst expert physicians. The implications are discussed for the training and assessment of diagnostic skills.

Expert Involvement and Adherence to Medical Evidence in Medical Mobile Phone Apps: A Systematic Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Subhi, Yousif; Bube, Sarah Hjartbro; Rolskov Bojsen, Signe; Skou Thomsen, Ann Sofia; Konge, Lars

2015-07-27

Both clinicians and patients use medical mobile phone apps. Anyone can publish medical apps, which leads to contents with variable quality that may have a serious impact on human lives. We herein provide an overview of the prevalence of expert involvement in app development and whether or not app contents adhere to current medical evidence. To systematically review studies evaluating expert involvement or adherence of app content to medical evidence in medical mobile phone apps. We systematically searched 3 databases (PubMed, The Cochrane Library, and EMBASE), and included studies evaluating expert involvement or adherence of app content to medical evidence in medical mobile phone apps. Two authors performed data extraction independently. Qualitative analysis of the included studies was performed. Based on inclusion criteria, 52 studies were included in this review. These studies assessed a total of 6520 apps. Studies dealt with a variety of medical specialties and topics. As much as 28 studies assessed expert involvement, which was found in 9-67% of the assessed apps. Thirty studies (including 6 studies that also assessed expert involvement) assessed adherence of app content to current medical evidence. Thirteen studies found that 10-87% of the assessed apps adhered fully to the compared evidence (published studies, recommendations, and guidelines). Seventeen studies found that none of the assessed apps (n=2237) adhered fully to the compared evidence. Most medical mobile phone apps lack expert involvement and do not adhere to relevant medical evidence.

Application of fuzzy expert system on LILW performance assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lemos, F.L. de; Sullivan, T.

2002-01-01

A complete LILW repository performance assessment requires the involvement between several experts in many fields of science. Many sources of uncertainties arise due to complexity of interaction of environmental parameters, lack of data and ignorance, this makes predictive analysis and interpretation difficult. This difficulty in understanding the impact of the ambiguities is even higher when it comes to public and decision makers involvement. Traditional methods of data analysis, while having strong mathematical basis, many times are not adequate to deal with ambiguous data. These ambiguities can be an obstacle to make the results easier to understand and defensible. A methodology of decision making, based on fuzzy logic, can help the interaction between experts, decision makers and the public. This method is the basis of an expert system which can help the analysis of very complex and ambiguous processes. (author)

Development of expert system for fuel monitoring and analysis in WWER-1000 units

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Likhanskii, V.; Evdokimov, I.; Sorokin, A.; Kanukova, V.; Zborovskii, V.; Aliev, T.; Sokolov, N.; Shishkin, A.

2011-01-01

At present, an expert system (software package) for fuel monitoring in WWER units is under development in Russia. It comprises several modules which cover analysis of coolant activity, detection of failures and estimation of failure parameters, predictions of activity level and some aspects of PCI analysis. This paper outlines the current version of the fuel monitoring system, its basic features and user interface. Advances in development of computer modules for PCI analysis are reported. At present two levels of PCI analysis are used. The first is estimation of probability for pellets to get in contact with cladding in fuel rods. Estimations are made with taking into account specifications and tolerances for fuel fabrication as well as fuel operation conditions. The second level of PCI analysis implies a simplified approach for on-line calculations of stresses in cladding depending on power ramping rates. The model for PCI calculations and its application within the computer system is demonstrated. (authors)

Evaluation of the reliability concerning the identification of human factors as contributing factors by a computer supported event analysis (CEA)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wilpert, B.; Maimer, H.; Loroff, C.

2000-01-01

The project's objectives are the evaluation of the reliability concerning the identification of Human Factors as contributing factors by a computer supported event analysis (CEA). CEA is a computer version of SOL (Safety through Organizational Learning). Parts of the first step were interviews with experts from the nuclear power industry and the evaluation of existing computer supported event analysis methods. This information was combined to a requirement profile for the CEA software. The next step contained the implementation of the software in an iterative process of evaluation. The completion of this project was the testing of the CEA software. As a result the testing demonstrated that it is possible to identify contributing factors with CEA validly. In addition, CEA received a very positive feedback from the experts. (orig.) [de

[Telemedicine correlation in retinopathy of prematurity between experts and non-expert observers].

Science.gov (United States)

Ossandón, D; Zanolli, M; López, J P; Stevenson, R; Agurto, R; Cartes, C

2015-01-01

To study the correlation between expert and non-expert observers in the reporting images for the diagnosis of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in a telemedicine setting. A cross-sectional, multicenter study, consisting of 25 sets of images of patients screened for ROP. They were evaluated by two experts in ROP and 1 non-expert and classified according to telemedicine classification, zone, stage, plus disease and Ells referral criteria. The telemedicine classification was: no ROP, mild ROP, type 2 ROP, or ROP that requires treatment. Ells referral criteria is defined as the presence at least one of the following: ROP in zone I, Stage 3 in zone I or II, or plus+ For statistical analysis, SPSS 16.0 was used. For correlation, Kappa value was performed. There was a high correlation between observers for the assessment of ROP stage (0.75; 0.54-0.88) plus disease (0.85; 0.71-0.92), and Ells criteria (0.89; 0.83-1.0). However, inter-observer values were low for zone (0.41; 0.27-0.54) and telemedicine classification (0.43; 0.33-0.6). When evaluating telemedicine images by examiners with different levels of expertise in ROP, the Ells criteria gave the best correlation. In addition, stage of disease and plus disease have good correlation among observers. In contrast, the correlation between observers was low for zone and telemedicine classification. Copyright © 2014 Sociedad Española de Oftalmología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Developing a HACCP-like system for improving animal health and welfare in organic egg production - based on an expert panel analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hegelund, Lene; Sørensen, Jan Tind

2007-01-01

In the process of developing a generic Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)-like system for securing animal health and welfare in organic egg production, an expert panel analysis was used to perform the initial hazard analysis. Eighteen advisers and researchers in organic egg...... specific systems. An expert panel analysis based on questionnaires was a useful tool during the first steps of developing a HACCP plan, conducting a hazard analysis and suggesting control points. However, care should be taken regarding the panel's size and fields of expertise in order to assure...... that the panel fully covers the field of interest throughout the study. A further development of the hazard analysis into a farm-specific HACCP system would include assembling an on-farm HACCP team consisting of farmers and advisors for the practical application of control points, alarm values and monitoring...

Information systems development of analysis company financial state based on the expert-statistical approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. N. Ivliev

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The work is devoted to methods of analysis the company financial condition, including aggregated ratings. It is proposed to use the generalized solvency and liquidity indicator and the capital structure composite index. Mathematically, the generalized index is a sum of variables-characteristics and weighting factors characterizing the relative importance of individual characteristics composition. It is offered to select the significant features from a set of standard financial ratios, calculated according to enterprises balance sheets. To obtain the weighting factors values it is proposed to use one of the expert statistical approaches, the analytic hierarchy process. The method is as follows: we choose the most important characteristic and after the experts determine the degree of preference for the main feature based on the linguistic scale. Further, matrix of pairwise comparisons based on the assigned ranks is compiled, which characterizes the relative importance of attributes. The required coefficients are determined as elements of a vector of priorities, which is the first vector of the matrix of paired comparisons. The paper proposes a mechanism for finding the fields for rating numbers analysis. In addition, the paper proposes a method for the statistical evaluation of the balance sheets of various companies by calculating the mutual correlation matrices. Based on the considered mathematical methods to determine quantitative characteristics of technical objects financial and economic activities, was developed algorithms, information and software allowing to realize of different systems economic analysis.

Role of data and judgment in modeling human errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carnino, A.

1986-01-01

Human beings are not a simple component. This is why prediction of human behaviour in a quantitative way is so difficult. For human reliability analysis, the data sources that can be used are the following: operating experience and incident reports, data banks, data from literature, data collected from simulators, data established by expert judgement. The factors important for conducting a good human reliability analysis are then discussed, including the uncertainties to be associated with. (orig.)

Expert and Competent Non-Expert Visual Cues during Simulated Diagnosis in Intensive Care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clare eMcCormack

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to examine the information acquisition strategies of expert and competent non-expert intensive care physicians during two simulated diagnostic scenarios involving respiratory distress in an infant. Specifically, the information acquisition performance of six experts and 12 competent non-experts was examined using an eye tracker during the initial 90 seconds of the assessment of the patient. The results indicated that, in comparison to competent non-experts, experts recorded longer mean fixations, irrespective of the scenario. When the dwell times were examined against specific areas of interest, the results revealed that competent non-experts recorded greater overall dwell times on the nurse, where experts recorded relatively greater dwell times on the head and face of the manikin. In the context of the scenarios, experts recorded differential dwell times, spending relatively more time on the head and face during the seizure scenario than during the coughing scenario. The differences evident between experts and competent non-experts were interpreted as evidence of the relative availability of task-specific cues or heuristics in memory that might direct the process of information acquisition amongst expert physicians. The implications are discussed for the training and assessment of diagnostic skills.

Exposing the Expert Discourse in Psychiatry: A Critical Analysis of an Anti-Stigma/Mental Illness Awareness Campaign

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean Daniel Jacob

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Drawing on a situational analysis of a recent anti-stigma campaign in psychiatry (Defeat Denial: Help Defeat Mental Illness this paper seeks to engage with the reader on the use of an expert discourse that focuses on the brain and its disruption as a way to address stigma associated with mental illness. To begin, we briefly highlight key statistics regarding the impact of mental illness in Canada and introduce the concept of stigma. We then introduce the Defeat Denial media campaign and describe the analytical process employed for this paper - Situational Analysis with a specific focus on discourse. We then expand on the use of the expert discourse in the awareness campaign by making connections with Rose’s concept of biological citizen and, in the final sections, present recent studies on stigma that highlight the paradox and contested construction of the (biopsychiatric self

ECG Rhythm Analysis with Expert and Learner-Generated Schemas in Novice Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Blissett, Sarah; Cavalcanti, Rodrigo; Sibbald, Matthew

2015-01-01

Although instruction using expert-generated schemas is associated with higher diagnostic performance, implementation is resource intensive. Learner-generated schemas are an alternative, but may be limited by increases in cognitive load. We compared expert- and learner-generated schemas for learning ECG rhythm interpretation on diagnostic accuracy,…

BBMRI-ERIC as a resource for pharmaceutical and life science industries: the development of biobank-based Expert Centres.

Science.gov (United States)

van Ommen, Gert-Jan B; Törnwall, Outi; Bréchot, Christian; Dagher, Georges; Galli, Joakim; Hveem, Kristian; Landegren, Ulf; Luchinat, Claudio; Metspalu, Andres; Nilsson, Cecilia; Solesvik, Ove V; Perola, Markus; Litton, Jan-Eric; Zatloukal, Kurt

2015-07-01

Biological resources (cells, tissues, bodily fluids or biomolecules) are considered essential raw material for the advancement of health-related biotechnology, for research and development in life sciences, and for ultimately improving human health. Stored in local biobanks, access to the human biological samples and related medical data for transnational research is often limited, in particular for the international life science industry. The recently established pan-European Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) aims to improve accessibility and interoperability between academic and industrial parties to benefit personalized medicine, disease prevention to promote development of new diagnostics, devices and medicines. BBMRI-ERIC is developing the concept of Expert Centre as public-private partnerships in the precompetitive, not-for-profit field to provide a new structure to perform research projects that would face difficulties under currently established models of academic-industry collaboration. By definition, Expert Centres are key intermediaries between public and private sectors performing the analysis of biological samples under internationally standardized conditions. This paper presents the rationale behind the Expert Centres and illustrates the novel concept with model examples.

A study on expert system applications for nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huh, Young Hwan; Kim, Yeong Jin; Park, Nam Seog; Dong, In Sook; Choi, In Seon

1987-12-01

The application of artificial intelligence techniques to nuclear power plants such as expert systems is rapidly emerging. expert systems can contribute significantly to the availability and the improved operation and safety of nuclear power plants. The objective of the project is to develop an expert system in a selected application area in the nuclear power plants. This project will last for 3 years. The first year's tasks are: - Information collection and literature survey on expert systems. - Analysis of several applicable areas for applying AI technologies to the nuclear power plants. - Conceptual design of a few selected domains. - Selection of hardware and software tools for the development of the expert system

Collaborative real-time motion video analysis by human observer and image exploitation algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Hild, Jutta; Krüger, Wolfgang; Brüstle, Stefan; Trantelle, Patrick; Unmüßig, Gabriel; Heinze, Norbert; Peinsipp-Byma, Elisabeth; Beyerer, Jürgen

2015-05-01

Motion video analysis is a challenging task, especially in real-time applications. In most safety and security critical applications, a human observer is an obligatory part of the overall analysis system. Over the last years, substantial progress has been made in the development of automated image exploitation algorithms. Hence, we investigate how the benefits of automated video analysis can be integrated suitably into the current video exploitation systems. In this paper, a system design is introduced which strives to combine both the qualities of the human observer's perception and the automated algorithms, thus aiming to improve the overall performance of a real-time video analysis system. The system design builds on prior work where we showed the benefits for the human observer by means of a user interface which utilizes the human visual focus of attention revealed by the eye gaze direction for interaction with the image exploitation system; eye tracker-based interaction allows much faster, more convenient, and equally precise moving target acquisition in video images than traditional computer mouse selection. The system design also builds on prior work we did on automated target detection, segmentation, and tracking algorithms. Beside the system design, a first pilot study is presented, where we investigated how the participants (all non-experts in video analysis) performed in initializing an object tracking subsystem by selecting a target for tracking. Preliminary results show that the gaze + key press technique is an effective, efficient, and easy to use interaction technique when performing selection operations on moving targets in videos in order to initialize an object tracking function.

Expert judgment and uncertainty regarding the protection of imperiled species.

Science.gov (United States)

Heeren, Alexander; Karns, Gabriel; Bruskotter, Jeremy; Toman, Eric; Wilson, Robyn; Szarek, Harmony

2017-06-01

Decisions concerning the appropriate listing status of species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) can be controversial even among conservationists. These decisions may determine whether a species persists in the near term and have long-lasting social and political ramifications. Given the ESA's mandate that such decisions be based on the best available science, it is important to examine what factors contribute to experts' judgments concerning the listing of species. We examined how a variety of factors (such as risk perception, value orientations, and norms) influenced experts' judgments concerning the appropriate listing status of the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Experts were invited to complete an online survey examining their perceptions of the threats grizzly bears face and their listing recommendation. Although experts' assessments of the threats to this species were strongly correlated with their recommendations for listing status, this relationship did not exist when other cognitive factors were included in the model. Specifically, values related to human use of wildlife and norms (i.e., a respondent's expectation of peers' assessments) were most influential in listing status recommendations. These results suggest that experts' decisions about listing, like all human decisions, are subject to the use of heuristics (i.e., decision shortcuts). An understanding of how heuristics and related biases affect decisions under uncertainty can help inform decision making about threatened and endangered species and may be useful in designing effective processes for protection of imperiled species. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Expert System Control of Plant Growth in an Enclosed Space

Science.gov (United States)

May, George; Lanoue, Mark; Bathel, Matthew; Ryan, Robert E.

2008-01-01

The Expert System is an enclosed, controlled environment for growing plants, which incorporates a computerized, knowledge-based software program that is designed to capture the knowledge, experience, and problem-solving skills of one or more human experts in a particular discipline. The Expert System is trained to analyze crop/plant status, to monitor the condition of the plants and the environment, and to adjust operational parameters to optimize the plant-growth process. This system is intended to provide a way to remotely control plant growth with little or no human intervention. More specifically, the term control implies an autonomous method for detecting plant states such as health (biomass) or stress and then for recommending and implementing cultivation and/or remediation to optimize plant growth and to minimize consumption of energy and nutrients. Because of difficulties associated with delivering energy and nutrients remotely, a key feature of this Expert System is its ability to minimize this effort and to achieve optimum growth while taking into account the diverse range of environmental considerations that exist in an enclosed environment. The plant-growth environment for the Expert System could be made from a variety of structures, including a greenhouse, an underground cavern, or another enclosed chamber. Imaging equipment positioned within or around the chamber provides spatially distributed crop/plant-growth information. Sensors mounted in the chamber provide data and information pertaining to environmental conditions that could affect plant development. Lamps in the growth environment structure supply illumination, and other additional equipment in the chamber supplies essential nutrients and chemicals.

A study of diagnostics expert system for accelerator applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tyagi, Y.; Banerji, Anil; Kotaiah, S.

2003-01-01

Knowledge based techniques are proving to be useful in a number of problem domains which typically requires human expertise. Expert systems employing knowledge based techniques are a recent product of artificial intelligence. Methods developed in the artificial intelligence area can be applied with success for certain classes of problems in accelerator. Accelerators are complex devices with thousands of components. The number of possible faults or problems that can appear is enormous. A diagnostics expert system can provide great help in finding and diagnosing problems in Indus-II accelerator sub-systems. (author)

Expert views on societal responses to different applications of nanotechnology: a comparative analysis of experts in countries with different economic and regulatory environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gupta, N.; Fischer, A.R.H.; George, S.; Frewer, L.J.

2013-01-01

The introduction of different applications of nanotechnology will be informed by expert views regarding which (types of) application will be most societally acceptable. Previous research in Northern Europe has indicated that experts believe that various factors will be influential, predominant among

Expert-Opinion Elicitation for the Risk Analysis of Design-Improvement Alternatives to the Lindy Claiborne Boggs Lock and Dam

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Ayyub, Bilal M

2002-01-01

This report documents the expert-opinion elicitation performed to meet risk analysis needs of the lower lock approach sediment management improvement alternatives to the Lindy Claiborne Boggs Lock and Dam...

Review of human factors guidelines and methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rhodes, W.; Szlapetis, I.; Hay, T.; Weihrer, S.

1995-04-01

The review examines the use of human factors guidelines and methods in high technology applications, with emphasis on application to the nuclear industry. An extensive literature review was carried out identifying over 250 applicable documents, with 30 more documents identified during interviews with experts in human factors. Surveys were sent to 15 experts, of which 11 responded. The survey results indicated guidelines used and why these were favoured. Thirty-three of the most applicable guideline documents were described in detailed annotated bibliographies. A bibliographic list containing over 280 references was prepared. Thirty guideline documents were rated for their completeness, validity, applicability and practicality. The experts survey indicated the use of specific techniques. Ten human factors methods of analysis were described in general summaries, including procedures, applications, and specific techniques. Detailed descriptions of the techniques were prepared and each technique rated for applicability and practicality. Recommendations for further study of areas of importance to human factors in the nuclear field in Canada are given. (author). 8 tabs., 2 figs

Review of human factors guidelines and methods

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rhodes, W; Szlapetis, I; Hay, T; Weihrer, S [Rhodes and Associates Inc., Toronto, ON (Canada)

1995-04-01

The review examines the use of human factors guidelines and methods in high technology applications, with emphasis on application to the nuclear industry. An extensive literature review was carried out identifying over 250 applicable documents, with 30 more documents identified during interviews with experts in human factors. Surveys were sent to 15 experts, of which 11 responded. The survey results indicated guidelines used and why these were favoured. Thirty-three of the most applicable guideline documents were described in detailed annotated bibliographies. A bibliographic list containing over 280 references was prepared. Thirty guideline documents were rated for their completeness, validity, applicability and practicality. The experts survey indicated the use of specific techniques. Ten human factors methods of analysis were described in general summaries, including procedures, applications, and specific techniques. Detailed descriptions of the techniques were prepared and each technique rated for applicability and practicality. Recommendations for further study of areas of importance to human factors in the nuclear field in Canada are given. (author). 8 tabs., 2 figs.

An exploration study to find important factors influencing on expert systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naser Azad

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Knowledge management plays an important role in modern management systems since many existing systems move towards learning organizations. Expert systems, on the other hand, are considered as the most popular techniques for adapting recent developments on knowledge management. This paper presents an empirical investigation to find important factors influencing adaptation of expert systems. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 25 questions, distributes it among 258 people who have recently graduated from computer science and they are familiar with implementation of expert systems. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.730 and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.748 and 1377.397, respectively. The study has implemented principal component analysis and the results have indicated that there were four factors influencing expert systems including systems management, intelligence systems, system analysis and specialized analysis.

Plutonium - the ultrapoison? An expert's opinion about an expert opinion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stoll, W.; Becker, K.

1989-01-01

In an expert opinion written by Professor H. Kuni, Marburg, for the North Rhine-Westphalian state government, plutonium is called by far the most dangerous element in the Periodic Table. The Marburg medical expert holds that even improved legal instruments are unable to warrant effective protection of the workers handling this material, in the light of the present standards of industrial safety, because of radiological conditions and measuring problems with plutonium isotopes. In this article by an internationally renowned expert in the field, the ideas expressed in the expert opinion about the toxicity of plutonium, the cause-and-effect relationship in radiation damage by plutonium, and recent findings about the toxicity are subjected to a critical review. On the basis of results of radiation protection and of case studies, the statements in the expert opinion are contrasted with facts which make them appear in a very different light. (orig./RB) [de

General purpose - expert system for the analysis and design of base plates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Al-Shawaf, T.D.; Hahn, W.F.; Ho, A.D.

1987-01-01

As an expert system, the IMPLATE program uses plant specific information to make decisions in modeling and analysis of baseplates. The user supplies a minimum of information which is checked for validity and reasonableness. Once this data is supplied, the program automatically generates a compatible mesh and finite element model from its data base accounting for the attachments, stiffeners, anchor bolts and plate/concrete interface. Based on the loading direction, the program deletes certain degrees of freedom and performs a linear or a nonlinear solution, whichever is appropriate. Load step sizes and equilibrium iteration are automatically selected by the program to ensure a convergent solution. Once the analysis is completed, a code check is then performed and a summary of results is produced. Plots of the plate deformation pattern and stress contours are also generated. (orig.)

Expert status and performance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark A Burgman

Full Text Available Expert judgements are essential when time and resources are stretched or we face novel dilemmas requiring fast solutions. Good advice can save lives and large sums of money. Typically, experts are defined by their qualifications, track record and experience. The social expectation hypothesis argues that more highly regarded and more experienced experts will give better advice. We asked experts to predict how they will perform, and how their peers will perform, on sets of questions. The results indicate that the way experts regard each other is consistent, but unfortunately, ranks are a poor guide to actual performance. Expert advice will be more accurate if technical decisions routinely use broadly-defined expert groups, structured question protocols and feedback.

Methods for the elicitation and use of expert opinion in risk assessment: Phase 1, A critical evaluation and directions for future research

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mosleh, A.; Bier, V.M.; Apostolakis, G.

1987-08-01

The purpose of this work is to critically review and evaluate the elicitation and use of expert opinion in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) in light of the available empirical and theoretical results on expert opinion use. PRA practice is represented by five case studies selected to represent a variety of aspects of the problem: assessments of component failure rates and maintenance data; recent assessments of seismic hazard rates; assessments of containment phenomenology; assessments of human error rates; and accident precursor studies. The review has yielded mixed results. On the negative side, there appears to be little reliance on normative expertise in structuring the process of expert opinion elicitation and use; most applications instead rely primarily on the common sense of the experts involved in the analysis, which is not always an adequate guide. On the positive side, however, there is evidence that expert opinions can in fact be used well in practical settings. Suggestions are given for Phase II work to enhance the applicability and use of appropriate expert opinion methods

An expert system-based aid for analysis of Emergency Operating Procedures in NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jakubowski, Z.; Beraha, D.

1996-01-01

Emergency Operating Procedures (EOPs) generally and an accident management (AM) particularly play a significant part in the safety philosophy on NPPs since many years. A better methodology for development and validation of EOPs is desired. A prototype of an Emergency Operating Procedures Analysis System (EOPAS), which has been developed at GRS, is presented in the paper. The hardware configuration and software organisation of the system is briefly reviewed. The main components of the system such as the knowledge base of an expert system and the engineering simulator are described. (author)

Fuzzy Expert System for Heart Attack Diagnosis

Science.gov (United States)

Hassan, Norlida; Arbaiy, Nureize; Shah, Noor Aziyan Ahmad; Afizah Afif@Afip, Zehan

2017-08-01

Heart attack is one of the serious illnesses and reported as the main killer disease. Early prevention is significant to reduce the risk of having the disease. The prevention efforts can be strengthen through awareness and education about risk factor and healthy lifestyle. Therefore the knowledge dissemination is needed to play role in order to distribute and educate public in health care management and disease prevention. Since the knowledge dissemination in medical is important, there is a need to develop a knowledge based system that can emulate human intelligence to assist decision making process. Thereby, this study utilized hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to develop a Fuzzy Expert System for Diagnosing Heart Attack Disease (HAD). This system integrates fuzzy logic with expert system, which helps the medical practitioner and people to predict the risk and as well as diagnosing heart attack based on given symptom. The development of HAD is expected not only providing expert knowledge but potentially become one of learning resources to help citizens to develop awareness about heart-healthy lifestyle.

Computer-assisted expert case definition in electronic health records.

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, Alexander M; Zhou, Xiaofeng; Ananthakrishnan, Ashwin N; Weiss, Lisa S; Shen, Rongjun; Sobel, Rachel E; Bate, Andrew; Reynolds, Robert F

2016-02-01

To describe how computer-assisted presentation of case data can lead experts to infer machine-implementable rules for case definition in electronic health records. As an illustration the technique has been applied to obtain a definition of acute liver dysfunction (ALD) in persons with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The technique consists of repeatedly sampling new batches of case candidates from an enriched pool of persons meeting presumed minimal inclusion criteria, classifying the candidates by a machine-implementable candidate rule and by a human expert, and then updating the rule so that it captures new distinctions introduced by the expert. Iteration continues until an update results in an acceptably small number of changes to form a final case definition. The technique was applied to structured data and terms derived by natural language processing from text records in 29,336 adults with IBD. Over three rounds the technique led to rules with increasing predictive value, as the experts identified exceptions, and increasing sensitivity, as the experts identified missing inclusion criteria. In the final rule inclusion and exclusion terms were often keyed to an ALD onset date. When compared against clinical review in an independent test round, the derived final case definition had a sensitivity of 92% and a positive predictive value of 79%. An iterative technique of machine-supported expert review can yield a case definition that accommodates available data, incorporates pre-existing medical knowledge, is transparent and is open to continuous improvement. The expert updates to rules may be informative in themselves. In this limited setting, the final case definition for ALD performed better than previous, published attempts using expert definitions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inter-expert and intra-expert reliability in sleep spindle scoring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wendt, Sabrina Lyngbye; Welinder, Peter; Sørensen, Helge Bjarup Dissing

2015-01-01

Objectives To measure the inter-expert and intra-expert agreement in sleep spindle scoring, and to quantify how many experts are needed to build a reliable dataset of sleep spindle scorings. Methods The EEG dataset was comprised of 400 randomly selected 115 s segments of stage 2 sleep from 110...... with higher reliability than the estimation of spindle duration. Reliability of sleep spindle scoring can be improved by using qualitative confidence scores, rather than a dichotomous yes/no scoring system. Conclusions We estimate that 2–3 experts are needed to build a spindle scoring dataset...... with ‘substantial’ reliability (κ: 0.61–0.8), and 4 or more experts are needed to build a dataset with ‘almost perfect’ reliability (κ: 0.81–1). Significance Spindle scoring is a critical part of sleep staging, and spindles are believed to play an important role in development, aging, and diseases of the nervous...

Expert system based radionuclide identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aarnio, P.A.; Ala-Heikkil, J.J.; Hakulinen, T.T.; Nikkinen, M.T.

1998-01-01

An expert system coupled with the gamma spectrum analysis system SAMPO has been developed for automating the qualitative identification of radionuclides as well as for determining the quantitative parameters of the spectrum components. The program is written in C-language and runs in various environments ranging from PCs to UNIX workstations. The expert system utilizes a complete gamma library with over 2600 nuclides and 80,000 lines, and a rule base of about fifty criteria including energies, relative peak intensities, genesis modes, half lives, parent-daughter relationships, etc. The rule base is furthermore extensible by the user. This is not an original contribution but a somewhat updated version of papers and reports previously published elsewhere. (author)

Gendered use of experts in the media: Analysis of the gender gap in Finnish news journalism.

Science.gov (United States)

Niemi, Mari K; Pitkänen, Ville

2017-04-01

Several studies conducted in Western democracies have indicated that men continue to be overrepresented and women underrepresented as experts in the media. This article explores the situation in Finland, a progressive and 'female-friendly' Nordic country with highly educated women who are widely present in the job market. The analysis is based on three sets of research data featuring a wide set of media data, a survey and interviews. This study reveals that public expertise continues to be male dominated in Finland: less than 30% of the experts interviewed in the news media are women. While the distribution of work and power in the labour market may explain some of the observed gender gap, journalistic practices and a masculine tradition of public expertise are likely to play a role as well.

The National Expert Standard Pressure Ulcer Prevention in Nursing and pressure ulcer prevalence in German health care facilities: a multilevel analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilborn, Doris; Grittner, Ulrike; Dassen, Theo; Kottner, Jan

2010-12-01

The objective of this study was to describe the relationship between the German National Expert Standard Pressure Ulcer Prevention and the pressure ulcer prevalence in German nursing homes and hospitals. The patient outcome pressure ulcer does not only depend on individual characteristics of patients, but also on institutional factors. In Germany, National Expert Standards are evidence-based instruments that build the basis of continuing improvement in health care quality. It is expected that after having implemented the National Expert Standard Pressure Ulcer Prevention, the number of pressure ulcers should decrease in health care institutions. The analysed data were obtained from two cross-sectional studies from 2004-2005. A multilevel analysis was performed to show the impact of the National Expert Standard Pressure Ulcer Prevention on pressure ulcer prevalence. A total of 41.5% of hospitals and 38.8% of the nursing homes claimed to use the National Expert Standard in the process of developing their local protocols. The overall pressure ulcer prevalence grade 2-4 was 4.7%. Adjusted for hospital departments, survey year and individual characteristics, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of pressure ulcers between institutions that refer to the National Expert Standard or those referring to other sources in developing their local protocols (OR=1.14, 95% CI=0.90-1.44). There was no empirical evidence demonstrating that local protocols of pressure ulcer prevention based on the National Expert Standard were superior to local protocols which refer other sources of knowledge with regard to the pressure ulcer prevalence. The use of the National Expert Standard Pressure Ulcer Prevention can neither be recommended nor be refused. The recent definition of implementation of Expert Standards should be mandatory for all health care institutions which introduce Expert Standards. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Ethical acceptability of research on human-animal chimeric embryos: summary of opinions by the Japanese Expert Panel on Bioethics.

Science.gov (United States)

Mizuno, Hiroshi; Akutsu, Hidenori; Kato, Kazuto

2015-01-01

Human-animal chimeric embryos are embryos obtained by introducing human cells into a non-human animal embryo. It is envisaged that the application of human-animal chimeric embryos may make possible many useful research projects including producing three-dimensional human organs in animals and verification of the pluripotency of human ES cells or iPS cells in vivo. The use of human-animal chimeric embryos, however, raises several ethical and moral concerns. The most fundamental one is that human-animal chimeric embryos possess the potential to develop into organisms containing human-derived tissue, which may lead to infringing upon the identity of the human species, and thus impairing human dignity. The Japanese Expert Panel on Bioethics in the Cabinet Office carefully considered the scientific significance and ethical acceptability of the issue and released its "Opinions regarding the handling of research using human-animal chimeric embryos". The Panel proposed a framework of case-by-case review, and suggested that the following points must be carefully reviewed from the perspective of ethical acceptability: (a) Types of animal embryos and types of animals receiving embryo transfers, particularly in dealing with non-human primates; (b) Types of human cells and organs intended for production, particularly in dealing with human nerve or germ cells; and (c) Extent of the period required for post-transfer studies. The scientific knowledge that can be gained from transfer into an animal uterus and from the production of an individual must be clarified to avoid unnecessary generation of chimeric animals. The time is ripe for the scientific community and governments to start discussing the ethical issues for establishing a global consensus.

Real time expert systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Asami, Tohru; Hashimoto, Kazuo; Yamamoto, Seiichi

1992-01-01

Recently, aiming at the application to the plant control for nuclear reactors and traffic and communication control, the research and the practical use of the expert system suitable to real time processing have become conspicuous. In this report, the condition for the required function to control the object that dynamically changes within a limited time is presented, and the technical difference between the real time expert system developed so as to satisfy it and the expert system of conventional type is explained with the actual examples and from theoretical aspect. The expert system of conventional type has the technical base in the problem-solving equipment originating in STRIPS. The real time expert system is applied to the fields accompanied by surveillance and control, to which conventional expert system is hard to be applied. The requirement for the real time expert system, the example of the real time expert system, and as the techniques of realizing real time processing, the realization of interruption processing, dispersion processing, and the mechanism of maintaining the consistency of knowledge are explained. (K.I.)

Environmental factors and puberty timing: Expert panel research needs

Science.gov (United States)

An expert panel reviewed the literature on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), body size and puberty. The panel concluded that available experimental animal and human data support a possible role of EDCs and body size in relation to alterations in pubertal onset and progressio...

Leveraging Health Care Simulation Technology for Human Factors Research: Closing the Gap Between Lab and Bedside.

Science.gov (United States)

Deutsch, Ellen S; Dong, Yue; Halamek, Louis P; Rosen, Michael A; Taekman, Jeffrey M; Rice, John

2016-11-01

We describe health care simulation, designed primarily for training, and provide examples of how human factors experts can collaborate with health care professionals and simulationists-experts in the design and implementation of simulation-to use contemporary simulation to improve health care delivery. The need-and the opportunity-to apply human factors expertise in efforts to achieve improved health outcomes has never been greater. Health care is a complex adaptive system, and simulation is an effective and flexible tool that can be used by human factors experts to better understand and improve individual, team, and system performance within health care. Expert opinion is presented, based on a panel delivered during the 2014 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Health Care Symposium. Diverse simulators, physically or virtually representing humans or human organs, and simulation applications in education, research, and systems analysis that may be of use to human factors experts are presented. Examples of simulation designed to improve individual, team, and system performance are provided, as are applications in computational modeling, research, and lifelong learning. The adoption or adaptation of current and future training and assessment simulation technologies and facilities provides opportunities for human factors research and engineering, with benefits for health care safety, quality, resilience, and efficiency. Human factors experts, health care providers, and simulationists can use contemporary simulation equipment and techniques to study and improve health care delivery. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Developing an expert system to control a beam line at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clearwater, S.H.; Papcun, G.; Clark, D.A.

1985-01-01

High energy particle experiments require an accelerator as a source of high energy particles. To increase the productivity of an accelerator facility, we wish to develop an expert system to control beam lines. Expert Systems are a branch of Artificial Intelligence where a computer program performs tasks requiring human expertise. Unlike most expert systems we have a physical model underlying our beam line and this model can be used with the expert system to improve performance. The development of the expert system will lead to an increased understanding of the beam line as well as the possibility of state-of-the-art expert system building

An expert system to estimate SNM production at LWR systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sandquist, G.M.; Allison, J.L.; Rogers, V.C.

1988-01-01

An artificial intelligence expert system, analysis of proliferation by expert system (APES), has been developed and tested to permit a nonexpert to quickly evaluate the capabilities and capacities of a reactor and reprocessing system for producing and separating plutonium [special nuclear material (SNM)] even when system information may be limited and uncertain. The present analysis domain of APES is directed at light water reactors and Purex reprocessing, but extension of the domain is planned

The effect of divided attention on novices and experts in laparoscopic task performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghazanfar, Mudassar Ali; Cook, Malcolm; Tang, Benjie; Tait, Iain; Alijani, Afshin

2015-03-01

Attention is important for the skilful execution of surgery. The surgeon's attention during surgery is divided between surgery and outside distractions. The effect of this divided attention has not been well studied previously. We aimed to compare the effect of dividing attention of novices and experts on a laparoscopic task performance. Following ethical approval, 25 novices and 9 expert surgeons performed a standardised peg transfer task in a laboratory setup under three randomly assigned conditions: silent as control condition and two standardised auditory distracting tasks requiring response (easy and difficult) as study conditions. Human reliability assessment was used for surgical task analysis. Primary outcome measures were correct auditory responses, task time, number of surgical errors and instrument movements. Secondary outcome measures included error rate, error probability and hand specific differences. Non-parametric statistics were used for data analysis. 21109 movements and 9036 total errors were analysed. Novices had increased mean task completion time (seconds) (171 ± 44SD vs. 149 ± 34, p 0.05). Divided attention conditions in theatre environment require careful consideration during surgical training as the junior surgeons are less able to focus their attention during these conditions.

Brain mechanisms of persuasion: how 'expert power' modulates memory and attitudes.

Science.gov (United States)

Klucharev, Vasily; Smidts, Ale; Fernández, Guillén

2008-12-01

Human behaviour is affected by various forms of persuasion. The general persuasive effect of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as 'expert power', is well documented. We found that a single exposure to a combination of an expert and an object leads to a long-lasting positive effect on memory for and attitude towards the object. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we probed the neural processes predicting these behavioural effects. Expert context was associated with distributed left-lateralized brain activity in prefrontal and temporal cortices related to active semantic elaboration. Furthermore, experts enhanced subsequent memory effects in the medial temporal lobe (i.e. in hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus) involved in memory formation. Experts also affected subsequent attitude effects in the caudate nucleus involved in trustful behaviour, reward processing and learning. These results may suggest that the persuasive effect of experts is mediated by modulation of caudate activity resulting in a re-evaluation of the object in terms of its perceived value. Results extend our view of the functional role of the dorsal striatum in social interaction and enable us to make the first steps toward a neuroscientific model of persuasion.

An Embedded Rule-Based Diagnostic Expert System in Ada

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Robert E.; Liberman, Eugene M.

1992-01-01

Ada is becoming an increasingly popular programming language for large Government-funded software projects. Ada with it portability, transportability, and maintainability lends itself well to today's complex programming environment. In addition, expert systems have also assumed a growing role in providing human-like reasoning capability expertise for computer systems. The integration is discussed of expert system technology with Ada programming language, especially a rule-based expert system using an ART-Ada (Automated Reasoning Tool for Ada) system shell. NASA Lewis was chosen as a beta test site for ART-Ada. The test was conducted by implementing the existing Autonomous Power EXpert System (APEX), a Lisp-based power expert system, in ART-Ada. Three components, the rule-based expert systems, a graphics user interface, and communications software make up SMART-Ada (Systems fault Management with ART-Ada). The rules were written in the ART-Ada development environment and converted to Ada source code. The graphics interface was developed with the Transportable Application Environment (TAE) Plus, which generates Ada source code to control graphics images. SMART-Ada communicates with a remote host to obtain either simulated or real data. The Ada source code generated with ART-Ada, TAE Plus, and communications code was incorporated into an Ada expert system that reads the data from a power distribution test bed, applies the rule to determine a fault, if one exists, and graphically displays it on the screen. The main objective, to conduct a beta test on the ART-Ada rule-based expert system shell, was achieved. The system is operational. New Ada tools will assist in future successful projects. ART-Ada is one such tool and is a viable alternative to the straight Ada code when an application requires a rule-based or knowledge-based approach.

Mummified remains from the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, Croatia - Reviewing peculiarities and limitations of human and non-human radiological identification and analysis in mummified remains.

Science.gov (United States)

Petaros, Anja; Janković, Ivor; Cavalli, Fabio; Ivanac, Gordana; Brkljačić, Boris; Čavka, Mislav

2015-10-01

Forensic protocols and medico-legal techniques are increasingly being employed in investigations of museological material. The final findings of such investigations may reveal interesting facts on historical figures, customs and habits, as well as provide meaningful data for forensic use. Herein we present a case review where forensic experts were requested to identify taxonomic affinities, stage of preservation and provide skeletal analysis of mummified non-human archaeological remains, and verify whether two mummified hands are human or not. The manuscript offers a short review on the process and particularities of radiological species identification, the impact of post-mortem changes in the analysis and imaging of mummified remains as well as the macroscopical interpretation of trauma, pathology and authenticity in mummified remains, which can all turn useful when dealing with forensic cases. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.

Telecontrol - Expert systems. Real-time monitoring and remote diagnostic

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lam, A.

1996-09-01

The role of expert systems in programming simple and complex tasks in utilities companies was discussed with examples from B.C. Hydro, where expert systems have been used in such diverse applications as an in-house programmable logic controller (PLC) training course, and a machine audit on a 150 MW steam turbine generating unit at their Burrard Thermal Generating Plant. The PLC tutoring program uses expert system technology for the air blast circuit breakers` air drier system, for individualized on-site training. The steam turbine audits (an eight-month long project) were performed remotely by dialing an on-site computer configured with customized expert software. Details of these, and other potential applications, such as transformer monitoring and diagnostics, circuit breaker performance analysis, and information management, were described.

[Development of expert diagnostic system for common respiratory diseases].

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Wei-hua; Chen, You-ling; Yan, Zheng

2014-03-01

To develop an internet-based expert diagnostic system for common respiratory diseases. SaaS system was used to build architecture; pattern of forward reasoning was applied for inference engine design; ASP.NET with C# from the tool pack of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 was used for website-interview medical expert system.The database of the system was constructed with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The developed expert system contained large data memory and high efficient function of data interview and data analysis for diagnosis of various diseases.The users were able to perform this system to obtain diagnosis for common respiratory diseases via internet. The developed expert system may be used for internet-based diagnosis of various respiratory diseases,particularly in telemedicine setting.

Techniques and implementation of the embedded rule-based expert system using Ada

Science.gov (United States)

Liberman, Eugene M.; Jones, Robert E.

1991-01-01

Ada is becoming an increasingly popular programming language for large Government-funded software projects. Ada with its portability, transportability, and maintainability lends itself well to today's complex programming environment. In addition, expert systems have also assured a growing role in providing human-like reasoning capability and expertise for computer systems. The integration of expert system technology with Ada programming language, specifically a rule-based expert system using an ART-Ada (Automated Reasoning Tool for Ada) system shell is discussed. The NASA Lewis Research Center was chosen as a beta test site for ART-Ada. The test was conducted by implementing the existing Autonomous Power EXpert System (APEX), a Lisp-base power expert system, in ART-Ada. Three components, the rule-based expert system, a graphics user interface, and communications software make up SMART-Ada (Systems fault Management with ART-Ada). The main objective, to conduct a beta test on the ART-Ada rule-based expert system shell, was achieved. The system is operational. New Ada tools will assist in future successful projects. ART-Ada is one such tool and is a viable alternative to the straight Ada code when an application requires a rule-based or knowledge-based approach.

Expert assessment of advanced power sources. Contract report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gardner, C.L.

2007-07-01

Although DRDC published an exhaustive technical report (in August 2001) on technology trends in advanced power sources projected out to the year 2020, the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 (and the consequent, augmented and more broadly-based defence and national security posture adopted by the CF/DND), together with rapid developments in power source technologies over the past five years, internationally, prompted DRDC to update the 2001 report, on a selected number of power source technologies or applications and to provide further guidance to DRDC's Advanced Power Source R and D program. Eight wide-ranging, power source technologies or applications were investigated, using the technique of 'expert elicitation' (that is, using independent experts in the various and diverse technological fields), based on a standardized questionnaire, augmented by the contractor's own expertise (and his overall analysis of the experts' responses) in these diverse areas. In addition, each expert was asked about his/her view on the likely role of nanotechnology in each technological area or application. Following collection and analysis of all the data, the contractor made recommendations on the ability of each power source to meet the future requirements of the CF/DND, taking into account the Technology Readiness Level, for each technology or application

Embedded expert system for space shuttle main engine maintenance

Science.gov (United States)

Pooley, J.; Thompson, W.; Homsley, T.; Teoh, W.; Jones, J.; Lewallen, P.

1987-01-01

The SPARTA Embedded Expert System (SEES) is an intelligent health monitoring system that directs analysis by placing confidence factors on possible engine status and then recommends a course of action to an engineer or engine controller. The technique can prevent catastropic failures or costly rocket engine down time because of false alarms. Further, the SEES has potential as an on-board flight monitor for reusable rocket engine systems. The SEES methodology synergistically integrates vibration analysis, pattern recognition and communications theory techniques with an artificial intelligence technique - the Embedded Expert System (EES).

Advances in metal forming expert system for metal forming

CERN Document Server

Hingole, Rahulkumar Shivajirao

2015-01-01

This comprehensive book offers a clear account of the theory and applications of advanced metal forming. It provides a detailed discussion of specific forming processes, such as deep drawing, rolling, bending extrusion and stamping. The author highlights recent developments of metal forming technologies and explains sound, new and powerful expert system techniques for solving advanced engineering problems in metal forming. In addition, the basics of expert systems, their importance and applications to metal forming processes, computer-aided analysis of metalworking processes, formability analysis, mathematical modeling and case studies of individual processes are presented.

Safety analysis of an expert reactor protection system in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

El-Kafas, A.A.

1997-01-01

The purpose of the dissertation is to develop real time expert reactor protection system (ERPS) for operational safety of pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant. The system is developed to diagnose plant failures and for identification plant transients (with and without scram). For this erps, probabilistic safety analysis techniques are used to check the availability and priority of the recommended safety system in case of plant accidents. The real - time information during transients and accidents can be obtained to assess the operator in his decision - making. Also, the ERPS is able to give advice for the reactor operator to take the appropriate corrective action during abnormal situations. 5-15 figs., 42 refs

Being an expert

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brechet, Y.; Musseau, O.; Bruna, G.; Sperandio, M.; Roulleaux-Dugage, M.; Andrieux, S.; Metteau, L.

2014-01-01

This series of short articles are dedicated to the role of the expert in the enterprise. There is an important difference between a scientific counsellor and an expert, the expert, recognized by his peers, can speak publicly in his field of expertise but has a duty of transparency while the job of a scientific counsellor requires confidentiality. The making and the use of an expert in an enterprise requires a dedicated organization. The organization of the expertise in 5 enterprises in nuclear industry are considered: CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), IRSN (Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety), AREVA, ANDRA (National Radioactive Waste Management Agency) and EDF (Electricity of France)

Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Trauth, K.M. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States); Hora, S.C. [Hawaii Univ., Hilo, HI (United States); Guzowski, R.V. [Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, CA (United States)

1993-11-01

The expert panel identified basic principles to guide current and future marker development efforts: (1) the site must be marked, (2) message(s) must be truthful and informative, (3) multiple components within a marker system, (4) multiple means of communication (e.g., language, pictographs, scientific diagrams), (5) multiple levels of complexity within individual messages on individual marker system elements, (6) use of materials with little recycle value, and (7) international effort to maintain knowledge of the locations and contents of nuclear waste repositories. The efficacy of the markers in deterring inadvertent human intrusion was estimated to decrease with time, with the probability function varying with the mode of intrusion (who is intruding and for what purpose) and the level of technological development of the society. The development of a permanent, passive marker system capable of surviving and remaining interpretable for 10,000 years will require further study prior to implementation.

Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trauth, K.M.; Hora, S.C.; Guzowski, R.V.

1993-11-01

The expert panel identified basic principles to guide current and future marker development efforts: (1) the site must be marked, (2) message(s) must be truthful and informative, (3) multiple components within a marker system, (4) multiple means of communication (e.g., language, pictographs, scientific diagrams), (5) multiple levels of complexity within individual messages on individual marker system elements, (6) use of materials with little recycle value, and (7) international effort to maintain knowledge of the locations and contents of nuclear waste repositories. The efficacy of the markers in deterring inadvertent human intrusion was estimated to decrease with time, with the probability function varying with the mode of intrusion (who is intruding and for what purpose) and the level of technological development of the society. The development of a permanent, passive marker system capable of surviving and remaining interpretable for 10,000 years will require further study prior to implementation

Objectification of injuries and consequences in expert medical opinions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miran Vrabl

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Background: Only unequivocal evidence confirming the total extent of injury. Biomechanical analysis, objectifications of permanent consequences after injury and objectification, whether such injuries influence life activities of an injured person, should be the basics for preparation of expert medical opinion. To make a necessary distinction from the previous injuries or illnesses that might have influence on current health state of a patient and its treatment, analysis of all medical records of a certain injured person is needed. Therefore this are inevitable steps in preparation of an expert medical opinion. In cases when medical opinion should explain disability of a patient as a consequence of a certain contractual relationship, the contract should be taken into consideration when such opinions is prepared.Methods: 500 opinions have been retrospectively analysed, selected at random out of 3452 opinions, submitted in claims for damages at Zavarovalnica Maribor, d. d., in the period from January 2001 until January 2006. Thirteen typical data have been analysed and evaluated on the basis of objective evidences.Results: On the basis of analyses it has been established that there is a great difference between principles of objectification and the data in analysed opinions. It has been noticed the most obvious deviation in biomechanical analysis (95 %, in records of decreased life activities (90 %, in all medical records of an injured person (65 % and in objectification of permanent consequences after injuries (55 %.Conclusions: As results of analysis demonstrate, there are significant differences in preparations of expert and medical opinions in Slovenia, particularly when basic principles are analysed that need to be considered when writing such opinions. Irrational avoidance of basic principle of objectification, nomination of experts without licence in certain fields of medicine, avoidance of objectification of subjective statements of injured

Reliability of an Automated High-Resolution Manometry Analysis Program across Expert Users, Novice Users, and Speech-Language Pathologists

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Corinne A.; Hoffman, Matthew R.; Geng, Zhixian; Abdelhalim, Suzan M.; Jiang, Jack J.; McCulloch, Timothy M.

2014-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate inter- and intrarater reliability among expert users, novice users, and speech-language pathologists with a semiautomated high-resolution manometry analysis program. We hypothesized that all users would have high intrarater reliability and high interrater reliability. Method: Three expert…

An approach to build a knowledge base for reactor accident diagnostic expert system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoshida, K.; Fujii, M.; Fujiki, K.; Yokobayashi, M.; Kohsaka, A.; Aoyagi, T.; Hirota, Y.

1987-01-01

In the development of a rule based expert system, one of the key issues is how to acquire knowledge and to build knowledge base (KB). On building the KB of DISKET, which is an expert system for nuclear reactor accident diagnosis developed in JAERI, several problems have been experienced as follows. To write rules is a time consuming task, and it is difficult to keep the objectivity and consistency of rules as the number of rules increase. Further, certainty factors (CFs) must be often determined according to engineering judgment, i.e., empirically or intuitively. A systematic approach was attempted to handle these difficulties and to build an objective KB efficiently. The approach described in this paper is based on the concept that a prototype KB, colloquially speaking an initial guess, should first be generated in a systematic way and then is to be modified and/or improved by human experts for practical use. Statistical methods, principally Factor Analysis, were used as the systematic way to build a prototype KB for the DISKET using a PWR plant simulator data. The source information is a number of data obtained from the simulation of transients, such as the status of components and annunciator etc., and major process parameters like pressures, temperatures and so on

Distributed expert systems for nuclear reactor control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Otaduy, P.J.

1992-01-01

A network of distributed expert systems is the heart of a prototype supervisory control architecture developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for an advanced multimodular reactor. Eight expert systems encode knowledge on signal acquisition, diagnostics, safeguards, and control strategies in a hybrid rule-based, multiprocessing and object-oriented distributed computing environment. An interactive simulation of a power block consisting of three reactors and one turbine provides a realistic, testbed for performance analysis of the integrated control system in real-time. Implementation details and representative reactor transients are discussed

Expert-systems and computer-based industrial systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terrien, J.F.

1987-01-01

Framatome makes wide use of expert systems, computer-assisted engineering, production management and personnel training. It has set up separate business units and subsidiaries and also participates in other companies which have the relevant expertise. Five examples of the products and services available in these are discussed. These are in the field of applied artificial intelligence and expert-systems, in integrated computer-aid design and engineering, structural analysis, computer-related products and services and document management systems. The structure of the companies involved and the work they are doing is discussed. (UK)

Expert System Software Assistant for Payload Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Mark N.

1997-01-01

The broad objective of this expert system software based application was to demonstrate the enhancements and cost savings that can be achieved through expert system software utilization in a spacecraft ground control center. Spacelab provided a valuable proving ground for this advanced software technology; a technology that will be exploited and expanded for future ISS operations. Our specific focus was on demonstrating payload cadre command and control efficiency improvements through the use of "smart" software which monitors flight telemetry, provides enhanced schematic-based data visualization, and performs advanced engineering data analysis.

Decision Analysis Methods Used to Make Appropriate Investments in Human Exploration Capabilities and Technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Williams-Byrd, Julie; Arney, Dale C.; Hay, Jason; Reeves, John D.; Craig, Douglas

2016-01-01

NASA is transforming human spaceflight. The Agency is shifting from an exploration-based program with human activities in low Earth orbit (LEO) and targeted robotic missions in deep space to a more sustainable and integrated pioneering approach. Through pioneering, NASA seeks to address national goals to develop the capacity for people to work, learn, operate, live, and thrive safely beyond Earth for extended periods of time. However, pioneering space involves daunting technical challenges of transportation, maintaining health, and enabling crew productivity for long durations in remote, hostile, and alien environments. Prudent investments in capability and technology developments, based on mission need, are critical for enabling a campaign of human exploration missions. There are a wide variety of capabilities and technologies that could enable these missions, so it is a major challenge for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) to make knowledgeable portfolio decisions. It is critical for this pioneering initiative that these investment decisions are informed with a prioritization process that is robust and defensible. It is NASA's role to invest in targeted technologies and capabilities that would enable exploration missions even though specific requirements have not been identified. To inform these investments decisions, NASA's HEOMD has supported a variety of analysis activities that prioritize capabilities and technologies. These activities are often based on input from subject matter experts within the NASA community who understand the technical challenges of enabling human exploration missions. This paper will review a variety of processes and methods that NASA has used to prioritize and rank capabilities and technologies applicable to human space exploration. The paper will show the similarities in the various processes and showcase instances were customer specified priorities force modifications to the process. Specifically

Consumers and experts. An econometric analysis of the demand for water heaters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Soest, A.; Bartels, R.; Fiebig, D.G.

2003-01-01

Consumers can accumulate product information on the basis of a combination of searching, product advertising and expert advice. Examples of experts who provide product information include doctors advising patients on treatments, motor mechanics diagnosing car problems and recommending repairs, accountants recommending investment strategies, and plumbers making recommendations on alternative water heaters. In each of these examples, the transactions involve the sale of goods and services where the seller is at the same time an expert providing advice on the amount and type of product or service to be purchased. In the case of water heaters, the plumber advising a consumer on their choice of water heater will most likely also install the appliance. Because of the information asymmetry there is potentially a strategic element in the transmission of information from expert to consumer. This paper reports on an econometric investigation of the factors that determine the choices made by consumers and the recommendations made by plumbers and the extent to which plumbers act in the best interests of their customers. The empirical work is made possible by the availability of stated preference data generated by designed experiments involving separate samples of Australian consumers and plumbers. We find some evidence that plumbers have higher preferences than consumers for heater characteristics that increase their profit margin

Expert and Naive Raters Using the PAG: Does it Matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Cornelius, Edwin T.; And Others

1984-01-01

Questions the observed correlation between job experts and naive raters using the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ); and conducts a replication of the Smith and Hakel study (1979) with college students (N=39). Concluded that PAQ ratings from job experts and college students are not equivalent and therefore are not interchangeable. (LLL)

Interpretation of the margin of exposure for genotoxic carcinogens - elicitation of expert knowledge about the form of the dose response curve at human relevant exposures.

Science.gov (United States)

Boobis, Alan; Flari, Villie; Gosling, John Paul; Hart, Andy; Craig, Peter; Rushton, Lesley; Idahosa-Taylor, Ehi

2013-07-01

The general approach to risk assessment of genotoxic carcinogens has been to advise reduction of exposure to "as low as reasonably achievable/practicable" (ALARA/P). However, whilst this remains the preferred risk management option, it does not provide guidance on the urgency or extent of risk management actions necessary. To address this, the "Margin of Exposure" (MOE) approach has been proposed. The MOE is the ratio between the point of departure for carcinogenesis and estimated human exposure. However, interpretation of the MOE requires implicit or explicit consideration of the shape of the dose-response curve at human relevant exposures. In a structured elicitation exercise, we captured expert opinion on available scientific evidence for low dose-response relationships for genotoxic carcinogens. This allowed assessment of: available evidence for the nature of dose-response relationships at human relevant exposures; the generality of judgments about such dose-response relationships; uncertainties affecting judgments on the nature of such dose-response relationships; and whether this last should differ for different classes of genotoxic carcinogens. Elicitation results reflected the variability in experts' views on the form of the dose-response curve for low dose exposure and major sources of uncertainty affecting the assumption of a linear relationship. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Expert System for Diagnosing Eye Diseases using Forward Chaining Method

Science.gov (United States)

Munaiseche, C. P. C.; Kaparang, D. R.; Rompas, P. T. D.

2018-02-01

Expert System is a system that seeks to adopt human knowledge to the computer, so that the computer can solve problems which are usually done by experts. The purpose of medical expert system is to support the diagnosis process of physicians. It considers facts and symptoms to provide diagnosis. This implies that a medical expert system uses knowledge about diseases and facts about the patients to suggest diagnosis. The aim of this research is to design an expert system application for diagnosing eye diseases using forward chaining method and to figure out user acceptance to this application through usability testing. Eye is selected because it is one of the five senses which is very sensitive and important. The scope of the work is extended to 16 types of eye diseases with 41 symptoms of the disease, arranged in 16 rules. The computer programming language employed was the PHP programming language and MySQL as the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). The results obtained showed that the expert system was able to successfully diagnose eye diseases corresponding to the selected symptoms entered as query and the system evaluation through usability testing showed the expert system for diagnosis eye diseases had very good rate of usability, which includes learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction so that the system can be received in the operational environment.

EXPERT SYSTEMS - DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE TOOL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

NAN Anca-Petruţa

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Because of the fact that specialty agricultural assistance is not always available when the farmers need it, we identified expert systems as a strong instrument with an extended potential in agriculture. This started to grow in scale recently, including all socially-economic activity fields, having the role of collecting data regarding different aspects from human experts with the purpose of assisting the user in the necessary steps for solving problems, at the performance level of the expert, making his acquired knowledge and experience available. We opted for a general presentation of the expert systems as well as their necessity, because, the solution to develop the agricultural system can come from artificial intelligence by implementing the expert systems in the field of agricultural insurance, promoting existing insurance products, farmers finding options in depending on their necessities and possibilities. The objective of this article consists of collecting data about different aspects about specific areas of interest of agricultural insurance, preparing the database, a conceptual presentation of a pilot version which will become constantly richer depending on the answers received from agricultural producers, with the clearest exposure of knowledgebase possible. We can justify picking this theme with the fact that even while agricultural insurance plays a very important role in agricultural development, the registered result got from them are modest, reason why solutions need to be found in the scope of developing the agricultural sector. The importance of this consists in the proposal of an immediate viable solution to correspond with the current necessities of agricultural producers and in the proposal of an innovative solution, namely the implementation of expert system in agricultural insurance as a way of promoting insurance products. Our research, even though it treats the subject at an conceptual level, it wants to undertake an

Developing knowledge management systems with an active expert methodology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sandahl, K.

1992-01-01

Knowledge management, understood as the ability to store, distribute and utilize human knowledge in an organization, is the subject of this dissertation. In particular we have studied the design of methods and supporting software for this process. Detailed and systematic description of the design and development processes of three case-study implementations of knowledge management software are provided. The outcome of the projects is explained in terms of an active expert development methodology, which is centered around support for a domain expert to take substantial responsibility for the design and maintenance of a knowledge management system in a given area of application. Based on the experiences from the case studies and the resulting methodology, an environment for automatically supporting knowledge management was designed in the KNOWLEDGE-LINKER research project. The vital part of this architecture is a knowledge acquisition tool, used directly by the experts in creating and maintaining a knowledge base. An elaborated version of the active expert development methodology was then formulated as the result of applying the KNOWLEDGE-LINKER approach in a fourth case study. This version of the methodology is also accounted for and evaluated together within the supporting KNOWLEDGE-LINKER architecture. (au)

The research history of the human behaviour from the probabilistic safety analysis viewpoint

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pyy, P.

1993-01-01

The so called human errors have always been apart of the everyday life of the mankind. In that sense, the discussion on man has a contributor to the operational safety of nuclear power plants is nothing new. It is interesting, that there do not exist widely accepted definitions of the human error nor the human reliability. Some of them are discussed at the beginning of this article. The second Chapter discusses the past and today of the research of man as a contributor to safety. Similarly, the development of Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is described. The article, then, discusses the methods used in the contemporary HRA. The division between the identification of important human activities and their probability estimation is made. Especially, the pros and cons of the approaches and data sources used in the HRA are reviewed on a coarce level. At the end, a view on the use of expert judgment is given. The human behaviour has been an endless topic of research in the history - and will be it in future as well. In the conclusion of the article an opinion is given on the development during the past 30 years. Then, a rapid view on the possible future of the area is given. (orig.)

Development of an expert system for transportation of hazardous and radioactive materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ferrada, J.J.; Michelhaugh, R.D.; Rawl, R.R.

1994-01-01

Under the sponsorship of the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Transportation Management Division (EM-261), the Transportation Technologies Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has designed and developed an expert system prototype application of the hazardous materials transportation regulations. The objective of this task was to provide a proof-of-concept for developing a computerized expert system that will ensure straightforward, consistent, and error-free application of the hazardous materials transportation regulations. The expert system prototype entailed the analysis of what an expert in hazardous materials shipping information could/should do. From the analysis of the different features required for the expert system prototype, it was concluded that the developmental efforts should be directed to a Windows trademark 3.1 hypermedia environment. Hypermedia technology usually works as an interactive software system that gives personal computer users the ability to organize, manage, and present information in a number of formats--text, graphics, sound, and full-motion video

Expert auditors’ services classification

OpenAIRE

Jolanta Wisniewska

2013-01-01

The profession of an expert auditor is a public trust occupation with a distinctive feature of taking responsibility for actions in the public interest. The main responsibility of expert auditors is performing financial auditing; however, expert auditors are prepared to carry out different tasks which encompass a wide plethora of financial and auditing services for different kinds of institutions and companies. The aim of the article is first of all the description of expert auditors’ service...

Using Evidence Credibility Decay Model for dependence assessment in human reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo, Xingfeng; Zhou, Yanhui; Qian, Jin; Deng, Yong

2017-01-01

Highlights: • A new computational model is proposed for dependence assessment in HRA. • We combined three factors of “CT”, “TR” and “SP” within Dempster–Shafer theory. • The BBA of “SP” is reconstructed by discounting rate based on the ECDM. • Simulation experiments are illustrated to show the efficiency of the proposed method. - Abstract: Dependence assessment among human errors plays an important role in human reliability analysis. When dependence between two sequent tasks exists in human reliability analysis, if the preceding task fails, the failure probability of the following task is higher than success. Typically, three major factors are considered: “Closeness in Time” (CT), “Task Relatedness” (TR) and “Similarity of Performers” (SP). Assume TR is not changed, both SP and CT influence the degree of dependence level and SP is discounted by the time as the result of combine two factors in this paper. In this paper, a new computational model is proposed based on the Dempster–Shafer Evidence Theory (DSET) and Evidence Credibility Decay Model (ECDM) to assess the dependence between tasks in human reliability analysis. First, the influenced factors among human tasks are identified and the basic belief assignments (BBAs) of each factor are constructed based on expert evaluation. Then, the BBA of SP is discounted as the result of combining two factors and reconstructed by using the ECDM, the factors are integrated into a fused BBA. Finally, the dependence level is calculated based on fused BBA. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model not only quantitatively describe the fact that the input factors influence the dependence level, but also exactly show how the dependence level regular changes with different situations of input factors.

The unconvincing product - Consumer versus expert hazard identification: A mental models study of novel foods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hagemann, Kit; Scholderer, Joachim

and experts understanding of benefits and risks associated with three Novel foods (a potato, rice and functional food ingredients) using a relatively new methodology for the study of risk perception called Mental models. Mental models focus on the way people conceptualise hazardous processes and allows...... researchers to pit a normative analysis (expert mental models) against a descriptive analysis (consumer mental models). Expert models were elicited by means of a three-wave Delphi procedure from altogether 24 international experts and consumers models from in-dept interviews with Danish consumers. The results...... revealed that consumers´ and experts' mental models differed in connection to scope. Experts focused on the types of hazards for which risk assessments can be conducted under current legal frameworks whereas consumers were concerned about issues that lay outside the scope of current legislation. Experts...

The Suitability of Expert System Application in Czech Small and Medium‑Sized Enterprises

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ekaterina Khitilova

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Small and medium-sized enterprises play an important role in the economy of Czech Republic. Expert systems are one of the alternatives evaluated the effectiveness of the relationship between supplier and customer. Currently, measurement and increase in efficiency of supplier-customer relations is very topical subject. The requirements for tools the improvement supplier- customer relationship can be specified on the base the literature analysis. The article defines basic requirements for expert system. The presentation of expert system and its suitability in the surroundings of small and medium sized enterprises is the part of this article. The comparison of the expert system possibilities and the compiled requirements leads to suitability analysis of selected solution. Actual questions and the way of future work are derived from current results, presented in the paper. The article defined the directions of development this expert system.

The physician expert witness and the U.S. Supreme court--an epidemiologic approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Norton, Martin L

2002-01-01

It is a fact of life that the physician is occasionally called upon to provide Expert Witness evidence. This is clearly distinct from evidence of a participatory nature where the physician is a party to the act by virtue of the doctor-patient relationship. The purpose of this presentation is to alert the physician to new criteria, imposed by the court, for acceptance of Expert Testimony. Prior to March 23, 1999, expert witness testimony fell into three categories, Scientific, technical, and other specialized knowledge. Scientific knowledge included the conclusions that could be subjected to analysis of a statistical nature, or could be validated by methodology such as epidemiologic criteria. Technical knowledge was based on factors such as mechanical or stress analysis utilized in engineering. Other "specialized knowledge" could be based on experiential data and information not necessarily subject to epidemiologic or other scientific analysis. Therefore, the physician presented his reasoning often based on years of professional practice and publication in journals of clinical practice. On March 23rd 1999, the Supreme Court of the United States changed the criteria for all categories stating that there is "no relevant distinction between 'scientific' knowledge' and 'technical' or 'other specialized knowledge' in Federal Rule of Evidence 702. This momentous decision [Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, (97-1709), 131 F.3d 1433) reversed.] referred back to a previous case [Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 509 US. 579,589], which established four criteria based on methods of analysis for t he courts, and was now extended for all expert evidence. Thus the area of expert witness evidence was changed by this momentous act placing the judge as arbiter of all expert evidence, including that of the physician. This paper will offer a brief review and an analysis of the significance of this for the professional involved in the legal system as an expert witness.

Comparison of a new expert elicitation model with the Classical Model, equal weights and single experts, using a cross-validation technique

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Flandoli, F. [Dip.to di Matematica Applicata, Universita di Pisa, Pisa (Italy); Giorgi, E. [Dip.to di Matematica Applicata, Universita di Pisa, Pisa (Italy); Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Pisa, via della Faggiola 32, 56126 Pisa (Italy); Aspinall, W.P. [Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, and Aspinall and Associates, Tisbury (United Kingdom); Neri, A., E-mail: neri@pi.ingv.it [Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Pisa, via della Faggiola 32, 56126 Pisa (Italy)

2011-10-15

The problem of ranking and weighting experts' performances when quantitative judgments are being elicited for decision support is considered. A new scoring model, the Expected Relative Frequency model, is presented, based on the closeness between central values provided by the expert and known values used for calibration. Using responses from experts in five different elicitation datasets, a cross-validation technique is used to compare this new approach with the Cooke Classical Model, the Equal Weights model, and individual experts. The analysis is performed using alternative reward schemes designed to capture proficiency either in quantifying uncertainty, or in estimating true central values. Results show that although there is only a limited probability that one approach is consistently better than another, the Cooke Classical Model is generally the most suitable for assessing uncertainties, whereas the new ERF model should be preferred if the goal is central value estimation accuracy. - Highlights: > A new expert elicitation model, named Expected Relative Frequency (ERF), is presented. > A cross-validation approach to evaluate the performance of different elicitation models is applied. > The new ERF model shows the best performance with respect to the point-wise estimates.

Planning bioinformatics workflows using an expert system

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xiaoling; Chang, Jeffrey T.

2017-01-01

Abstract Motivation: Bioinformatic analyses are becoming formidably more complex due to the increasing number of steps required to process the data, as well as the proliferation of methods that can be used in each step. To alleviate this difficulty, pipelines are commonly employed. However, pipelines are typically implemented to automate a specific analysis, and thus are difficult to use for exploratory analyses requiring systematic changes to the software or parameters used. Results: To automate the development of pipelines, we have investigated expert systems. We created the Bioinformatics ExperT SYstem (BETSY) that includes a knowledge base where the capabilities of bioinformatics software is explicitly and formally encoded. BETSY is a backwards-chaining rule-based expert system comprised of a data model that can capture the richness of biological data, and an inference engine that reasons on the knowledge base to produce workflows. Currently, the knowledge base is populated with rules to analyze microarray and next generation sequencing data. We evaluated BETSY and found that it could generate workflows that reproduce and go beyond previously published bioinformatics results. Finally, a meta-investigation of the workflows generated from the knowledge base produced a quantitative measure of the technical burden imposed by each step of bioinformatics analyses, revealing the large number of steps devoted to the pre-processing of data. In sum, an expert system approach can facilitate exploratory bioinformatic analysis by automating the development of workflows, a task that requires significant domain expertise. Availability and Implementation: https://github.com/jefftc/changlab Contact: jeffrey.t.chang@uth.tmc.edu PMID:28052928

How to Design Tobacco Prevention and Control Games for Youth and Adolescents: A Qualitative Analysis of Expert Interviews.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Amanda K; Mercado, Rebeccah; Anderson-Lewis, Charkarra; Darville, Gabrielle; Bernhardt, Jay M

2015-12-01

Games for health, including digital videogames and gaming-based approaches, are increasingly being used in health promotion research and practice. Recently published research has shown that videogames have significant potential to promote healthy behaviors among youth and adolescents. Yet, there is a lack of available evidence-based resources to guide practitioners on the integration of games into tobacco prevention and smoking cessation interventions. To address this gap, expert researchers and game developers were interviewed to further define games for health, explore the current research, and provide recommendations for developing, evaluating, and promoting effective anti-tobacco games. Nationally recognized experts on game development, games for health, tobacco, and health behavior were asked to participate. A qualitative analysis of 25 in-depth individual interviews using a constant comparative approach for emerging themes was conducted. Main themes that emerged from the data analysis included the following: (1) the current state of games for health research to facilitate health behavior change, (2) strategies for how to develop and evaluate games for quality and impact, and (3) recommendations for how to effectively design tobacco prevention and smoking cessation educational videogames that engage youth and adolescents. The synthesized findings identified through these expert interviews offer stakeholders strategies for how to incorporate games for health within their current and future work. Specific recommendations are presented for developers and researchers to consider when developing and evaluating videogames for tobacco prevention and smoking cessation targeted at youth and adolescents.

How should an electric vehicle sound? User and expert perception

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petiot, Jean-François; Kristensen, Bjørn G.; Maier, Anja

2013-01-01

for electric vehicles were investigated in an experimental setting with a total of 40 participants, 34 novice users and six sound experts. Word association was used to elicit emotional reactions to the different sounds. Novice users employ more characterrelated terms to describe the sounds, while experts use...... more composition-based words. Analysis of variance and conjoint analysis was used to analyze participants’ assessments of sounds according to two semantic scales (pleasantness and appropriateness). Considerable inter-individual differences in the ratings of pleasantness and appropriateness indicate...

A thematic analysis for how patients, prescribers, experts, and patient advocates view the prescription choice process.

Science.gov (United States)

Schommer, Jon C; Worley, Marcia M; Kjos, Andrea L; Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Schondelmeyer, Stephen W

2009-06-01

Typically, patients are unaware of the cost consequences regarding prescribing decisions during their clinical encounter and rarely talk with their physicians about costs of prescription drugs. Prescription medications that are deemed by patients to be too costly when the costs become known after purchase are discontinued or used at suboptimal doses compared to prescription medications that are deemed to be worth the cost. To learn more about the prescription choice process from several viewpoints, the purpose of this study was to uncover and describe how patients, prescribers, experts, and patient advocates view the prescription choice process. Data were collected via 9 focus group interviews held between April 24 and July 31, 2007 (3 with patients, 3 with prescribers, 2 with experts, and 1 with patient advocates). The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The resulting text was analyzed in a descriptive and interpretive manner. Theme extraction was based on convergence and external divergence; that is, identified themes were internally consistent but distinct from one and another. To ensure quality and credibility of analysis, multiple analysts and multiple methods were used to provide a quality check on selective perception and blind interpretive bias that could occur through a single person doing all of the analysis or through employment of a single method. The findings revealed 5 overall themes related to the prescription choice process: (1) information, (2) relationship, (3) patient variation, (4) practitioner variation, and (5) role expectations. The results showed that patients, prescribers, experts, and patient advocates viewed the themes within differing contexts. It appears that the prescription choice process entails an interplay among information, relationship, patient variation, practitioner variation, and role expectations, with each viewed within different contexts by individuals engaged in such decision making.

Brain mechanisms of persuasion: how ‘expert power’ modulates memory and attitudes

Science.gov (United States)

Smidts, Ale; Fernández, Guillén

2008-01-01

Human behaviour is affected by various forms of persuasion. The general persuasive effect of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as ’expert power’, is well documented. We found that a single exposure to a combination of an expert and an object leads to a long-lasting positive effect on memory for and attitude towards the object. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we probed the neural processes predicting these behavioural effects. Expert context was associated with distributed left-lateralized brain activity in prefrontal and temporal cortices related to active semantic elaboration. Furthermore, experts enhanced subsequent memory effects in the medial temporal lobe (i.e. in hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus) involved in memory formation. Experts also affected subsequent attitude effects in the caudate nucleus involved in trustful behaviour, reward processing and learning. These results may suggest that the persuasive effect of experts is mediated by modulation of caudate activity resulting in a re-evaluation of the object in terms of its perceived value. Results extend our view of the functional role of the dorsal striatum in social interaction and enable us to make the first steps toward a neuroscientific model of persuasion. PMID:19015077

The ALICE-HMPID Detector Control System: Its evolution towards an expert and adaptive system

Science.gov (United States)

De Cataldo, G.; Franco, A.; Pastore, C.; Sgura, I.; Volpe, G.

2011-05-01

The High Momentum Particle IDentification (HMPID) detector is a proximity focusing Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) for charged hadron identification. The HMPID is based on liquid C 6F 14 as the radiator medium and on a 10 m 2 CsI coated, pad segmented photocathode of MWPCs for UV Cherenkov photon detection. To ensure full remote control, the HMPID is equipped with a detector control system (DCS) responding to industrial standards for robustness and reliability. It has been implemented using PVSS as Slow Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) environment, Programmable Logic Controller as control devices and Finite State Machines for modular and automatic command execution. In the perspective of reducing human presence at the experiment site, this paper focuses on DCS evolution towards an expert and adaptive control system, providing, respectively, automatic error recovery and stable detector performance. HAL9000, the first prototype of the HMPID expert system, is then presented. Finally an analysis of the possible application of the adaptive features is provided.

The ALICE-HMPID Detector Control System: Its evolution towards an expert and adaptive system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Cataldo, G.; Franco, A.; Pastore, C.; Sgura, I.; Volpe, G.

2011-01-01

The High Momentum Particle IDentification (HMPID) detector is a proximity focusing Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) for charged hadron identification. The HMPID is based on liquid C 6 F 14 as the radiator medium and on a 10 m 2 CsI coated, pad segmented photocathode of MWPCs for UV Cherenkov photon detection. To ensure full remote control, the HMPID is equipped with a detector control system (DCS) responding to industrial standards for robustness and reliability. It has been implemented using PVSS as Slow Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) environment, Programmable Logic Controller as control devices and Finite State Machines for modular and automatic command execution. In the perspective of reducing human presence at the experiment site, this paper focuses on DCS evolution towards an expert and adaptive control system, providing, respectively, automatic error recovery and stable detector performance. HAL9000, the first prototype of the HMPID expert system, is then presented. Finally an analysis of the possible application of the adaptive features is provided.

A kinematic and metabolic analysis of the first Lu of Tai Chi in experts and beginners.

Science.gov (United States)

Zorzi, Elena; Nardello, Francesca; Fracasso, Enrico; Franchi, Sara; Clauti, Anna; Cesari, Paola; Zamparo, Paola

2015-10-01

The aim of this study was to compare movement kinematics, cocontraction times, and metabolic data in expert and nonexpert Tai Chi practitioners. Significant differences were observed for all kinematic parameters: experts moved smoothly (lower jerk) and with a lower frequency. No differences in metabolic and electromyography data were observed but for the breathing pattern (experts breathed slowly and deeply). Movement frequency and breathing pattern are thus the main features that distinguish expert and nonexpert practitioners.

The use of expert judgement in decision making

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2005-07-01

Expert judgment (EJ) techniques and protocols have been used in different areas for more than half a century. the Nuclear Energy Division of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), via the Risk Control Domain of the Nuclear Development and Innovation Division and the Innovative Systems Studies Service, and the Institute for Energy of JRC (Petten), via the Nuclear Safety Unit, organized a 'workshop on the use of expert judgment in decision making'. The objectives of this workshop were to create an exchange forum about this topic and to gather a first state of the art, in order to identify the needs for R and D. This workshop brought together approximately 55 participants, from different industry sectors (energy, both nuclear and non-nuclear, food and communication among others) and from universities, research organizations and technical support organizations. The workshop was divided in one opening session, four thematic sessions plus a round table and a final general discussion session. The first session was dedicated to the elicitation of expertise and the combination of opinions given by different experts. The papers in this session had more theoretical contents than most of the papers in other session. The second session was dedicated to expert knowledge management. It consisted of four papers, two of them in the area of the food industry, one of them in the area of e-business and the last one in the area of human reliability assessment (HRA) and its impact on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) calculations. The third session was dedicated to industrial applications and consisted of four papers, all of them in the area of energy production. The last session was about the use of EJ in risk analysis and decision making processes. Four papers were included in this session, EJ has been applied for a very long time in very different fields, which has brought as a consequence a broad diversity of methodologies The workshop did also show the

The use of expert judgement in decision making

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2005-01-01

Expert judgment (EJ) techniques and protocols have been used in different areas for more than half a century. the Nuclear Energy Division of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), via the Risk Control Domain of the Nuclear Development and Innovation Division and the Innovative Systems Studies Service, and the Institute for Energy of JRC (Petten), via the Nuclear Safety Unit, organized a 'workshop on the use of expert judgment in decision making'. The objectives of this workshop were to create an exchange forum about this topic and to gather a first state of the art, in order to identify the needs for R and D. This workshop brought together approximately 55 participants, from different industry sectors (energy, both nuclear and non-nuclear, food and communication among others) and from universities, research organizations and technical support organizations. The workshop was divided in one opening session, four thematic sessions plus a round table and a final general discussion session. The first session was dedicated to the elicitation of expertise and the combination of opinions given by different experts. The papers in this session had more theoretical contents than most of the papers in other session. The second session was dedicated to expert knowledge management. It consisted of four papers, two of them in the area of the food industry, one of them in the area of e-business and the last one in the area of human reliability assessment (HRA) and its impact on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) calculations. The third session was dedicated to industrial applications and consisted of four papers, all of them in the area of energy production. The last session was about the use of EJ in risk analysis and decision making processes. Four papers were included in this session, EJ has been applied for a very long time in very different fields, which has brought as a consequence a broad diversity of methodologies The workshop did also show the variety of techniques

The use of expert judgement in decision making

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2005-07-01

Expert judgment (EJ) techniques and protocols have been used in different areas for more than half a century. the Nuclear Energy Division of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), via the Risk Control Domain of the Nuclear Development and Innovation Division and the Innovative Systems Studies Service, and the Institute for Energy of JRC (Petten), via the Nuclear Safety Unit, organized a 'workshop on the use of expert judgment in decision making'. The objectives of this workshop were to create an exchange forum about this topic and to gather a first state of the art, in order to identify the needs for R and D. This workshop brought together approximately 55 participants, from different industry sectors (energy, both nuclear and non-nuclear, food and communication among others) and from universities, research organizations and technical support organizations. The workshop was divided in one opening session, four thematic sessions plus a round table and a final general discussion session. The first session was dedicated to the elicitation of expertise and the combination of opinions given by different experts. The papers in this session had more theoretical contents than most of the papers in other session. The second session was dedicated to expert knowledge management. It consisted of four papers, two of them in the area of the food industry, one of them in the area of e-business and the last one in the area of human reliability assessment (HRA) and its impact on Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) calculations. The third session was dedicated to industrial applications and consisted of four papers, all of them in the area of energy production. The last session was about the use of EJ in risk analysis and decision making processes. Four papers were included in this session, EJ has been applied for a very long time in very different fields, which has brought as a consequence a broad diversity of methodologies The workshop did also show the variety of techniques

The Principles of Designing an Expert System in Teaching Mathematics

Science.gov (United States)

Salekhova, Lailya; Nurgaliev, Albert; Zaripova, Rinata; Khakimullina, Nailya

2013-01-01

This study reveals general didactic concepts of the Expert Systems (ES) development process in the educational area. The proof of concept is based on the example of teaching the 8th grade Algebra subject. The main contribution in this work is the implementation of innovative approaches in analysis and processing of data by expert system as well as…

The effect of fidelity: how expert behavior changes in a virtual reality environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Ioannou, Ioanna; Avery, Alex; Zhou, Yun; Szudek, Jacek; Kennedy, Gregor; O'Leary, Stephen

2014-09-01

We compare the behavior of expert surgeons operating on the "gold standard" of simulation-the cadaveric temporal bone-against a high-fidelity virtual reality (VR) simulation. We aim to determine whether expert behavior changes within the virtual environment and to understand how the fidelity of simulation affects users' behavior. Five expert otologists performed cortical mastoidectomy and cochleostomy on a human cadaveric temporal bone and a VR temporal bone simulator. Hand movement and video recordings were used to derive a range of measures, to facilitate an analysis of surgical technique, and to compare expert behavior between the cadaveric and simulator environments. Drilling time was similar across the two environments. Some measures such as total time and burr change count differed predictably due to the ease of switching burrs within the simulator. Surgical strokes were generally longer in distance and duration in VR, but these measures changed proportionally to cadaveric measures across the stages of the procedure. Stroke shape metrics differed, which was attributed to the modeling of burr behavior within the simulator. This will be corrected in future versions. Slight differences in drill interaction between a virtual environment and the real world can have measurable effects on surgical technique, particularly in terms of stroke length, duration, and curvature. It is important to understand these effects when designing and implementing surgical training programs based on VR simulation--and when improving the fidelity of VR simulators to facilitate use of a similar technique in both real and simulated situations. © 2014 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.

Adaptive neuro-fuzzy and expert systems for power quality analysis and prediction of abnormal operation

Science.gov (United States)

Ibrahim, Wael Refaat Anis

The present research involves the development of several fuzzy expert systems for power quality analysis and diagnosis. Intelligent systems for the prediction of abnormal system operation were also developed. The performance of all intelligent modules developed was either enhanced or completely produced through adaptive fuzzy learning techniques. Neuro-fuzzy learning is the main adaptive technique utilized. The work presents a novel approach to the interpretation of power quality from the perspective of the continuous operation of a single system. The research includes an extensive literature review pertaining to the applications of intelligent systems to power quality analysis. Basic definitions and signature events related to power quality are introduced. In addition, detailed discussions of various artificial intelligence paradigms as well as wavelet theory are included. A fuzzy-based intelligent system capable of identifying normal from abnormal operation for a given system was developed. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy learning was applied to enhance its performance. A group of fuzzy expert systems that could perform full operational diagnosis were also developed successfully. The developed systems were applied to the operational diagnosis of 3-phase induction motors and rectifier bridges. A novel approach for learning power quality waveforms and trends was developed. The technique, which is adaptive neuro fuzzy-based, learned, compressed, and stored the waveform data. The new technique was successfully tested using a wide variety of power quality signature waveforms, and using real site data. The trend-learning technique was incorporated into a fuzzy expert system that was designed to predict abnormal operation of a monitored system. The intelligent system learns and stores, in compressed format, trends leading to abnormal operation. The system then compares incoming data to the retained trends continuously. If the incoming data matches any of the learned trends, an

Do Foreign Experts Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Malchow-Møller, Nikolaj; Munch, Jakob Roland; Rose Skaksen, Jan

While most countries welcome (and some even subsidise) high-skilled immigrants, there is very limited evidence of their importance for domestic firms. To guide our empirical analysis, we first set up a simple theoretical model to show how foreign experts may impact on the productivity and wages o...... productive (pay higher wages) and increase their exports of goods and services.......While most countries welcome (and some even subsidise) high-skilled immigrants, there is very limited evidence of their importance for domestic firms. To guide our empirical analysis, we first set up a simple theoretical model to show how foreign experts may impact on the productivity and wages...... of domestic firms. Using matched worker-firm data from Denmark and a difference-indifferences matching approach, we then find that firms that hire foreign experts – defined as employees eligible for reduced taxation under the Danish "Tax scheme for foreign researchers and key employees" – both become more...

The Design and Implementation of an Intelligent Apparel Recommend Expert System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. H. Dong

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Now with the rapid development of information science and technology, intelligent apparel recommend has drawn wide attention in apparel retail industry. Intelligent management and effective recommend are two issues of crucial importance for the retail store to enhance its corporate influence and increase its economic benefits. This paper proposes an intelligent recommend system design scheme for apparel retail which is based on expert system. By comprehensive utilization of database management and expert system technology, the proposed system provides a solid solution in improving the customer shopping experience. This paper presents a kind of object-oriented blackboard structure, which is applied in the apparel recommend expert system and establishes expert rule on the basis of apparel characteristic elements. Through the establishment of the rule base, the system generates personal recommend list by positive rule reasoning mechanism engine. The proposed method thus gives dress collocation scheme for the customer through the human-machine interaction from the point of view of the apparel experts. This design scheme avails the customers to experience targeted service with intellectualization, and personalization and it has certain reference significance for promoting apparel retail intelligence development.

Development of A Standard Method for Human Reliability Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Won Dea; Kang, Dae Il; Kim, Jae Whan

2005-12-01

According as the demand of risk-informed regulation and applications increase, the quality and reliability of a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been more important. KAERI started a study to standardize the process and the rules of HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) which was known as a major contributor to the uncertainty of PSA. The study made progress as follows; assessing the level of quality of the HRAs in Korea and identifying the weaknesses of the HRAs, determining the requirements for developing a standard HRA method, developing the process and rules for quantifying human error probability. Since the risk-informed applications use the ASME PSA standard to ensure PSA quality, the standard HRA method was developed to meet the ASME HRA requirements with level of category II. The standard method was based on THERP and ASEP HRA that are widely used for conventional HRA. However, the method focuses on standardizing and specifying the analysis process, quantification rules and criteria to minimize the deviation of the analysis results caused by different analysts. Several HRA experts from different organizations in Korea participated in developing the standard method. Several case studies were interactively undertaken to verify the usability and applicability of the standard method

Development of A Standard Method for Human Reliability Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jung, Won Dea; Kang, Dae Il; Kim, Jae Whan

2005-12-15

According as the demand of risk-informed regulation and applications increase, the quality and reliability of a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been more important. KAERI started a study to standardize the process and the rules of HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) which was known as a major contributor to the uncertainty of PSA. The study made progress as follows; assessing the level of quality of the HRAs in Korea and identifying the weaknesses of the HRAs, determining the requirements for developing a standard HRA method, developing the process and rules for quantifying human error probability. Since the risk-informed applications use the ASME PSA standard to ensure PSA quality, the standard HRA method was developed to meet the ASME HRA requirements with level of category II. The standard method was based on THERP and ASEP HRA that are widely used for conventional HRA. However, the method focuses on standardizing and specifying the analysis process, quantification rules and criteria to minimize the deviation of the analysis results caused by different analysts. Several HRA experts from different organizations in Korea participated in developing the standard method. Several case studies were interactively undertaken to verify the usability and applicability of the standard method.

The analysis of human error as causes in the maintenance of machines: a case study in mining companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kovacevic, Srdja

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the two-step method used to analyse the factors and aspects influencing human error during the maintenance of mining machines. The first step is the cause-effect analysis, supported by brainstorming, where five factors and 21 aspects are identified. During the second step, the group fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is used to rank the identified factors and aspects. A case study is done on mining companies in Serbia. The key aspects are ranked according to an analysis that included experts who assess risks in mining companies (a maintenance engineer, a technologist, an ergonomist, a psychologist, and an organisational scientist. Failure to follow technical maintenance instructions, poor organisation of the training process, inadequate diagnostic equipment, and a lack of understanding of the work process are identified as the most important causes of human error.

Educational Policy Making in the State Legislature: Legislator as Policy Expert.

Science.gov (United States)

Weaver, Sue Wells; Geske, Terry G.

1997-01-01

Examines the legislator's role as education policy expert in the legislative policymaking process. In a study of Louisiana state legislators, analysis of variance was used to determine expert legislators' degree of influence in formulating educational policy, given differences in policy types, information sources, and legislators' work roles.…

Self-Regulation of Beer Advertising: A Comparative Analysis of Perceived Violations by Adolescents and Experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Vendrame, Alan; Silva, Rebeca; Xuan, Ziming; Sparks, Robert; Noel, Jonathan; Pinsky, Ilana

2015-09-01

We assessed the impact of the 2010 revisions to Brazil's self-regulatory alcohol marketing code using expert and adolescent raters. Five popular TV beer ads were selected. Ads were rated based on the 2010 Brazilian self-regulatory marketing code. The expert group (N = 31) represented health-related professions; the adolescent group (N = 110) were public high school students. At least 1 ad violated 11 of 17 guidelines included in the study. Ratings by experts and adolescents were similar. Both found violations in all sections of the self-regulatory code, but significant group differences were seen in applying the section that prohibits the promotion of excessive alcohol consumption, with experts identifying more violations than adolescents. Beer ads in the sample systematically violated the self-regulatory standards for alcohol advertising in Brazil according to both experts and youth. Public policies for more effective restrictions and prohibitions in alcohol ads should be considered. © The Author 2015. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Development of an integrated system for estimating human error probabilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Auflick, J.L.; Hahn, H.A.; Morzinski, J.A.

1998-12-01

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project had as its main objective the development of a Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), knowledge-based expert system that would provide probabilistic estimates for potential human errors within various risk assessments, safety analysis reports, and hazard assessments. HRA identifies where human errors are most likely, estimates the error rate for individual tasks, and highlights the most beneficial areas for system improvements. This project accomplished three major tasks. First, several prominent HRA techniques and associated databases were collected and translated into an electronic format. Next, the project started a knowledge engineering phase where the expertise, i.e., the procedural rules and data, were extracted from those techniques and compiled into various modules. Finally, these modules, rules, and data were combined into a nearly complete HRA expert system.

Neural correlates related to action observation in expert archers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Yang-Tae; Seo, Jee-Hye; Song, Hui-Jin; Yoo, Done-Sik; Lee, Hui Joong; Lee, Jongmin; Lee, Gunyoung; Kwon, Eunjin; Kim, Jin Goo; Chang, Yongmin

2011-10-01

A growing body of evidence suggests that activity of the mirror neuron system is dependent on the observer's motor experience of a given action. It remains unclear, however, whether activity of the mirror neuron system is also associated with the observer's motor experience in sports game. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate differences in activation of the mirror neuron system during action observation between experts and non-archer control subjects. We used video of Western-style archery in which participants were asked to watch the archery movements. Hyperactivation of the premotor and inferior parietal cortex in expert archers relative to non-archer control subjects suggests that the human mirror neuron system could contain and expand representations of the motor repertoire. The fact that dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was more active in expert archers than in non-archer control subjects indicates a spontaneous engagement of theory of mind in experts when watching video of Western-style archery. Compared with the non-archer control subjects, expert archers showed greater activation in the neural system in regions associated with episodic recall from familiar and meaningful information, including the cingulate cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and parahippocampal gyrus. The results demonstrate that expertise effects stimulate brain activity not only in the mirror neuron system but also in the neural networks related to theory of mind and episodic memory. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Incorporating Hofstede’ National Culture in Human Factor Analysis and Classification System (HFACS: Cases of Indonesian Aviation Safety

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pratama Gradiyan Budi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available National culture plays an important role in the application of ergonomics and safety. This research examined role of national culture in accident analysis of Indonesian aviation using framework of Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS. 53 Indonesian aviation accidents during year of 2001-2012 were analyzed using the HFACS framework by authors and were validated to 14 air-transport experts in Indonesia. National culture is viewed with Hofstede’ lens of national culture. Result shows that high collectivistic, low uncertainty avoidance, high power distance, and masculinity dimension which are characteristics of Indonesian culture, play an important role in Indonesian aviation accident and should be incorporated within HFACS. Result is discussed in relation with HFACS and Indonesian aviation accident analysis.

Expert elicitation and the problem of detecting undeclared activities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pilat, Joseph F.; Sylvester, Kori Budlong; Stanbro, William D.

2002-01-01

Measures applicable to the detection of undeclared activities are not well established, and their effectiveness is uncertain. To detect clandestine paths, the IAEA is still developing processes and procedures. As the Agency gains experience with new measures and with integrated safeguards, dealing with such problems may become more experience-based and perhaps more closely parallel the process with current safeguards where detection probabilities for the measures to be utilized on declared paths are well characterized. Whether or not this point will be reached for undeclared and mixed paths, the only tool that appears suitable at present for the purpose of generating a reasonable detection probability that can over time be tested against reality and, if necessary, adjusted is formal expert judgment, or expert elicitation. Formal expert elicitation is a structured process that makes use of people knowledgeable in certain areas to make assessments. To provide a 'proof of principle' of this methodology for presentation to the Agency, experts in nuclear technology, nonproliferation, safeguards and open source information, as well as in formal expert elicitation processes, engaged in three illustrative expert elicitations on assessing information analysis as a means to detect undeclared activities. These elicitations were successful. This paper will discuss the process of and issues raised by the elicitations.

Research strategies for human performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carlsson, Lennart

1998-01-01

This document reflects basic proposals derived from the discussions and results by the expert group on human performance within the frame of an OECD study on nuclear safety research. Different topics have identified which are herein briefly presented: cognitive models and errors of commission, organizational practices, validation of existing techniques for human reliability analysis, control room design and man-machine interactions, use of simulators, improvement of methods for evaluation of operating experience, safety culture, operator aids, shutdown, decommissioning

An Expert System for the Development of Efficient Parallel Code

Science.gov (United States)

Jost, Gabriele; Chun, Robert; Jin, Hao-Qiang; Labarta, Jesus; Gimenez, Judit

2004-01-01

We have built the prototype of an expert system to assist the user in the development of efficient parallel code. The system was integrated into the parallel programming environment that is currently being developed at NASA Ames. The expert system interfaces to tools for automatic parallelization and performance analysis. It uses static program structure information and performance data in order to automatically determine causes of poor performance and to make suggestions for improvements. In this paper we give an overview of our programming environment, describe the prototype implementation of our expert system, and demonstrate its usefulness with several case studies.

Delegating Decisions to Experts

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hao; Suen, Wing

2004-01-01

We present a model of delegation with self-interested and privately informed experts. A team of experts with extreme but opposite biases is acceptable to a wide range of decision makers with diverse preferences, but the value of expertise from such a team is low. A decision maker wants to appoint experts who are less partisan than he is in order…

Comparative Analysis of OECD Member Countries' Competitive Advantage in National Human Resource Development System

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Hunseok; Choi, Yeseul; Choi, Myungweon

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess, evaluate, and compare the competitive advantages of the human resource development systems of advanced countries. The Global Human Resource Development Index was utilized for this study, since it has been validated through an expert panel's content review and analytic hierarchy process. Using a sample of 34…

Knowledge acquisition from natural language for expert systems based on classification problem-solving methods

Science.gov (United States)

Gomez, Fernando

1989-01-01

It is shown how certain kinds of domain independent expert systems based on classification problem-solving methods can be constructed directly from natural language descriptions by a human expert. The expert knowledge is not translated into production rules. Rather, it is mapped into conceptual structures which are integrated into long-term memory (LTM). The resulting system is one in which problem-solving, retrieval and memory organization are integrated processes. In other words, the same algorithm and knowledge representation structures are shared by these processes. As a result of this, the system can answer questions, solve problems or reorganize LTM.

Application of expert systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Basden, A

1983-11-01

This article seeks to bring together a number of issues relevant to the application of expert systems by discussing their advantages and limitations, their roles and benefits, and the influence that real-life applications might have on the design of expert systems software. Part of the expert systems strategy of one major chemical company is outlined. Because it was in constructing one particular expert system that many of these issues became important this system is described briefly at the start of the paper and used to illustrate much of the later discussion. It is of the plausible-inference type and has application in the field of materials engineering. 22 references.

Counselor Expert System | Debretsion | Zede Journal

African Journals Online (AJOL)

An expert system plays an important role on alleviating primarily shortage of experts in a specific area of interest. With the help of an expert system, personnel with little expertise can solve problems that require expert knowledge. In this paper all major aspects of an expert system development have been presented.

Expert Panel Elicitation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jensen, M. [Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, Stockholm (Sweden). Dept. of Waste Management and Environmental Protection; Hora, S.C. [Univ. of Hawaii, Hilo, HI (United States)

2005-09-15

Scientists are now frequently in a situation where data cannot be easily assessed, since they may have conflicting or uncertain sources. While expert judgment reflects private choices, it is possible both reduce the personal aspect as well as in crease confidence in the judgments by using formal protocols for choice and elicitation of experts. A full-scale elicitation made on seismicity following glaciation, now in its late phase and presented here in a preliminary form, illustrates the value of the technique and some essential issues in connection with the decision to launch such a project. The results show an unusual low variation between the experts.

Expert Systems for Libraries at SCIL [Small Computers in Libraries]'88.

Science.gov (United States)

Kochtanek, Thomas R.; And Others

1988-01-01

Six brief papers on expert systems for libraries cover (1) a knowledge-based approach to database design; (2) getting started in expert systems; (3) using public domain software to develop a business reference system; (4) a music cataloging inquiry system; (5) linguistic analysis of reference transactions; and (6) a model of a reference librarian.…

The vulcain N expert fire system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roche, A.

1989-03-01

The Institute for Nuclear Safety and Protection (IPSN) has begun work on an expert system to aid in the diagnosis of fire hazards in nuclear installations. This system is called Vulcain N and is designed as a support tool for the analyses carried out by the IPSN. Vulcain N, is based on the Vulcain expert system already developed by Bertin for its own needs and incorporates the specific rules and know-how of the IPSN experts. The development of Vulcain N began in October 1986 with the drawing up of the technical specifications, and should be completed by the end of 1988. Vulcain N brings together knowledge from a number of different domains: the locations of the combustible materials, the thermal characteristics of the combustible materials and of the walls of the room, the ventilation conditions and, finally, knowledge of fire experts concerning the development of fire. The latter covers four levels of expert knowledge: standards and their associated calculations, the simplified physics of the fire enabling more precise values to be obtained for the figures given by the standards, the rules and knowledge which enables a certain number of deductions to be made concerning the development of the fire, and a numerical simulation code which can be used to monitor the variation of certain characteristic parameters with time. For a given fire out-break scenario, Vulcain N performs diagnosis of different aspects: development of fire, effect of ventilation, emergency action possibilities, propagation hazards, etc. Owing to its flexibility, it can be used in the analysis of fire hazards to simulate a number of possible scenarios and to very rapidly deduce the essential, predominant factors. It will also be used to assist in drafting emergency procedures for application in facilities with nuclear hazards

COMPETENCE APPROACH TO TRAINING OF EXPERTS IN RADIATION HYGIENE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. B. Baltrukova

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Modification of attitude to labor in the society, in professional communities and among people is necessary for further development of society and national economy. This goal may be achieved if the system of professional training is modified: switched to competence approach which should include training of experts, including those in radiation hygiene, with a set of general cultural and professional competences. The system of future experts training should be based on traditions of domestic and international education; it should use modern forms of active and interactive education (computer simulations, business games and role-playing, analysis of concrete situations, portfolio, psychological and other trainings, remote education, etc. It should consider actuality of knowledge and skills and develop independence and responsibility that will enable the young expert to be competitive at the modern labor market and to meet employers’ expectations. Under the new federal educational standard on radiation hygiene accepted in 2014 at present primary specialization in radiation hygiene takes place in internship. At training of experts the new standard provides great use of on-the-job training, independent work, scientific and practical work. Employers should play an important role in training of experts.

Sparse Distributed Memory: understanding the speed and robustness of expert memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcelo Salhab Brogliato

2014-04-01

Full Text Available How can experts, sometimes in exacting detail, almost immediately and very precisely recall memory items from a vast repertoire? The problem in which we will be interested concerns models of theoretical neuroscience that could explain the speed and robustness of an expert's recollection. The approach is based on Sparse Distributed Memory, which has been shown to be plausible, both in a neuroscientific and in a psychological manner, in a number of ways. A crucial characteristic concerns the limits of human recollection, the `tip-of-tongue' memory event--which is found at a non-linearity in the model. We expand the theoretical framework, deriving an optimization formula to solve to this non-linearity. Numerical results demonstrate how the higher frequency of rehearsal, through work or study, immediately increases the robustness and speed associated with expert memory.

A/C Interface: Expert Systems: Part II.

Science.gov (United States)

Dessy, Raymond E., Ed.

1984-01-01

Discusses working implementations of artificial intelligence systems for chemical laboratory applications. They include expert systems for liquid chromatography, spectral analysis, instrument control of a totally computerized triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer, and the determination of the mineral constituents of a rock sample given the powder…

A Semiautomated Framework for Integrating Expert Knowledge into Disease Marker Identification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Jing; Webb-Robertson, Bobbie-Jo M.; Matzke, Melissa M.; Varnum, Susan M.; Brown, Joseph N.; Riensche, Roderick M.; Adkins, Joshua N.; Jacobs, Jon M.; Hoidal, John R.; Scholand, Mary Beth; Pounds, Joel G.; Blackburn, Michael R.; Rodland, Karin D.; McDermott, Jason E.

2013-10-01

Background. The availability of large complex data sets generated by high throughput technologies has enabled the recent proliferation of disease biomarker studies. However, a recurring problem in deriving biological information from large data sets is how to best incorporate expert knowledge into the biomarker selection process. Objective. To develop a generalizable framework that can incorporate expert knowledge into data-driven processes in a semiautomated way while providing a metric for optimization in a biomarker selection scheme. Methods. The framework was implemented as a pipeline consisting of five components for the identification of signatures from integrated clustering (ISIC). Expert knowledge was integrated into the biomarker identification process using the combination of two distinct approaches; a distance-based clustering approach and an expert knowledge-driven functional selection. Results. The utility of the developed framework ISIC was demonstrated on proteomics data from a study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Biomarker candidates were identified in a mouse model using ISIC and validated in a study of a human cohort. Conclusions. Expert knowledge can be introduced into a biomarker discovery process in different ways to enhance the robustness of selected marker candidates. Developing strategies for extracting orthogonal and robust features from large data sets increases the chances of success in biomarker identification.

Expert System Diagnosis of Cataract Eyes Using Fuzzy Mamdani Method

Science.gov (United States)

Santosa, I.; Romla, L.; Herawati, S.

2018-01-01

Cataracts are eye diseases characterized by cloudy or opacity of the lens of the eye by changing the colour of black into grey-white which slowly continues to grow and develop without feeling pain and pain that can cause blindness in human vision. Therefore, researchers make an expert system of cataract eye disease diagnosis by using Fuzzy Mamdani and how to care. The fuzzy method can convert the crisp value to linguistic value by fuzzification and includes in the rule. So this system produces an application program that can help the public in knowing cataract eye disease and how to care based on the symptoms suffered. From the results of the design implementation and testing of expert system applications to diagnose eye disease cataracts, it can be concluded that from a trial of 50 cases of data, obtained test results accuracy between system predictions with expert predictions obtained a value of 78% truth.

Expert judgement combination using moment methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wisse, Bram; Bedford, Tim; Quigley, John

2008-01-01

Moment methods have been employed in decision analysis, partly to avoid the computational burden that decision models involving continuous probability distributions can suffer from. In the Bayes linear (BL) methodology prior judgements about uncertain quantities are specified using expectation (rather than probability) as the fundamental notion. BL provides a strong foundation for moment methods, rooted in work of De Finetti and Goldstein. The main objective of this paper is to discuss in what way expert assessments of moments can be combined, in a non-Bayesian way, to construct a prior assessment. We show that the linear pool can be justified in an analogous but technically different way to linear pools for probability assessments, and that this linear pool has a very convenient property: a linear pool of experts' assessments of moments is coherent if each of the experts has given coherent assessments. To determine the weights of the linear pool we give a method of performance based weighting analogous to Cooke's classical model and explore its properties. Finally, we compare its performance with the classical model on data gathered in applications of the classical model

Surgical experts: born or made?

Science.gov (United States)

Sadideen, Hazim; Alvand, Abtin; Saadeddin, Munir; Kneebone, Roger

2013-01-01

The concept of surgical expertise and the processes involved in its development are topical, and there is a constant drive to identify reliable measures of expert performance in surgery. This review explores the notion of whether surgical experts are "born" or "made", with reference to educational theory and pertinent literature. Peer-reviewed publications, books, and online resources on surgical education, expertise and training were reviewed. Important themes and aspects of expertise acquisition were identified in order to better understand the concept of a surgical expert. The definition of surgical expertise and several important aspects of its development are highlighted. Innate talent plays an important role, but is insufficient on its own to produce a surgical expert. Multiple theories that explore motor skill acquisition and memory are relevant, and Ericsson's theory of the development of competence followed by deliberate self-practice has been especially influential. Psychomotor and non-technical skills are necessary for progression in the current climate in light of our training curricula; surgical experts are adaptive experts who excel in these. The literature suggests that surgical expertise is reached through practice; surgical experts are made, not born. A deeper understanding of the nature of expert performance and its development will ensure that surgical education training programmes are of the highest possible quality. Surgical educators should aim to develop an expertise-based approach, with expert performance as the benchmark. Copyright © 2013 Surgical Associates Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Law for nuclear experts only

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wagner, H [Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe G.m.b.H. (Germany, F.R.)

1980-02-01

The Federal Ministry of the Interior is preparing an ordinance on expert consultants under the Atomic Energy Act which, among other topics, is to include legal norms for the criteria to be met by experts in terms of non-partisanship, training, capabilities, technical equipment and cooperation in expert organizations of members of various scientific and technical disciplines. A summary of general criteria relating to the qualification, selection and status of experts called in by the legislative and executive branches and by courts of law, which could be organized as a series of guidelines without any original qualities of legal norms, could be recommended in view of the increasing quantitative and qualitative importance of experts. However, passing an ordinance merely fixing and putting into concrete terms the image of an 'expert under the Atomic Energy Act' is intolerable, because the status of scientific and technical experts by far extends beyond the field of nuclear law in our industrial society characterized by a far reaching division of labor. Weak points in the organization of expert services are not confined to technology or nuclear power. Separate rules establishing legal norms are not convincing also for reasons of technology policy and legal policy as well as for those of social psychology and practice.

A PC-based expert system for nondestructive testing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shankar, R.; Williams, R.; Smith, C.; Selby, G.

1991-01-01

Rule-based decision logic which can emulate problem-solving expertise of humans is being explored for power plant nondestructive evaluation (NDE) applications. This paper describes an effort underway at the EPRI NDE Center to assist in the interpretation of NDE data acquired by automatic systems during ultrasonic weld examination of boiling-water reactors (BWRs). A personal computer (PC) -based expert system shell was used to encode rules and assemble knowledge to address the discrimination of intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) from benign reflectors in the inspection of pipe-to-component welds. The rules attempt to factor in plant inspection history, ultrasonic examination data nd, if available, radiography testing data; a majority of them deal with specific ultrasonic signal temporal and spatial behavior during automatic scanning. The paper describes the efforts in the development of the expert system

NPPO-TINA: An expert system acting as catalyst for decision-making processes of the reactor operator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gieci, A.; Gyarfas, F.

1991-01-01

The prototype of the NPPO-TINA expert system (Nuclear Power Plant Operation-Transparent Inference Architecture) is described. This system has been developed to support the entire decision-making intellectual activity in the control of complex technological processes. One of the ways leading to human-machine symbiosis in the integrated cognitive system is outlined. The starting model of the situation in which the operator's problem-solving task begins is described. The characteristics of human behavior in decision-making are analyzed, and the moments are explained of the most suitable use of the expert system to support the whole intellectual activity, in knowledge-based decision-making by way of problem solving. The TINA environment for the formation of expert systems is described, including the hierarchic dynamic inference control. The process of building up the NPPO-TINA expert system is outlined, and the results of testing the system prototype on the problem of an accident of the nuclear power plant primary circuit due to a failure of the coolant make-up pumps are given. (Z.S.). 10 figs., 11 refs

In search of an integral conceptual definition of frailty: opinions of experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Gobbens, Robbert J J; Luijkx, Katrien G; Wijnen-Sponselee, Maria Th; Schols, Jos M G A

2010-06-01

There are many different conceptual definitions of frailty in circulation. Most of these definitions focus mainly on physical problems affecting older people. Only a few also draw attention to other domains of human functioning such as the psychological domain. The authors of this article fear that this could lead to fragmentation of care for frail older people. The aim is to develop an integral conceptual definition of frailty that starts from the premise of a holistic view of the person. To achieve this, a literature search was carried out. Thereafter a group of experts (N=20) were consulted, both verbally during 2 expert meetings and via a written questionnaire. These experts were asked which existing conceptual definition of frailty places most stress on the integral functioning of older people. The experts expressed a clear preference for one of the conceptual definitions. The result of the literature search and the consultation with the experts led to a new integral conceptual definition of frailty. The conceptual definition is intended to offer a framework for an operational definition of frailty for identifying frail older people. Copyright 2010 American Medical Directors Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Development of A Standard Method for Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) of Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, Dae Il; Jung, Won Dea; Kim, Jae Whan

2005-12-01

According as the demand of risk-informed regulation and applications increase, the quality and reliability of a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been more important. KAERI started a study to standardize the process and the rules of HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) which was known as a major contributor to the uncertainty of PSA. The study made progress as follows; assessing the level of quality of the HRAs in Korea and identifying the weaknesses of the HRAs, determining the requirements for developing a standard HRA method, developing the process and rules for quantifying human error probability. Since the risk-informed applications use the ASME and ANS PSA standard to ensure PSA quality, the standard HRA method was developed to meet the ASME and ANS HRA requirements with level of category II. The standard method was based on THERP and ASEP HRA that are widely used for conventional HRA. However, the method focuses on standardizing and specifying the analysis process, quantification rules and criteria to minimize the deviation of the analysis results caused by different analysts. Several HRA experts from different organizations in Korea participated in developing the standard method. Several case studies were interactively undertaken to verify the usability and applicability of the standard method

Development of A Standard Method for Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) of Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kang, Dae Il; Jung, Won Dea; Kim, Jae Whan

2005-12-15

According as the demand of risk-informed regulation and applications increase, the quality and reliability of a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) has been more important. KAERI started a study to standardize the process and the rules of HRA (Human Reliability Analysis) which was known as a major contributor to the uncertainty of PSA. The study made progress as follows; assessing the level of quality of the HRAs in Korea and identifying the weaknesses of the HRAs, determining the requirements for developing a standard HRA method, developing the process and rules for quantifying human error probability. Since the risk-informed applications use the ASME and ANS PSA standard to ensure PSA quality, the standard HRA method was developed to meet the ASME and ANS HRA requirements with level of category II. The standard method was based on THERP and ASEP HRA that are widely used for conventional HRA. However, the method focuses on standardizing and specifying the analysis process, quantification rules and criteria to minimize the deviation of the analysis results caused by different analysts. Several HRA experts from different organizations in Korea participated in developing the standard method. Several case studies were interactively undertaken to verify the usability and applicability of the standard method.

Expert system application for prioritizing preventive actions for shift work: shift expert.

Science.gov (United States)

Esen, Hatice; Hatipoğlu, Tuğçen; Cihan, Ahmet; Fiğlali, Nilgün

2017-09-19

Shift patterns, work hours, work arrangements and worker motivations have increasingly become key factors for job performance. The main objective of this article is to design an expert system that identifies the negative effects of shift work and prioritizes mitigation efforts according to their importance in preventing these negative effects. The proposed expert system will be referred to as the shift expert. A thorough literature review is conducted to determine the effects of shift work on workers. Our work indicates that shift work is linked to demographic variables, sleepiness and fatigue, health and well-being, and social and domestic conditions. These parameters constitute the sections of a questionnaire designed to focus on 26 important issues related to shift work. The shift expert is then constructed to provide prevention advice at the individual and organizational levels, and it prioritizes this advice using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process model, which considers comparison matrices provided by users during the prioritization process. An empirical study of 61 workers working on three rotating shifts is performed. After administering the questionnaires, the collected data are analyzed statistically, and then the shift expert produces individual and organizational recommendations for these workers.

Expert system applications to nuclear plant for enhancement of productivity and performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun, B.; Cain, D.; Naser, J.; Colley, R.; Hirota, N.

1988-01-01

Expert systems, a major essence of the artificial intelligence (AI) technology, are referred to as computer software and hardware systems which are designed to capture and emulate the knowledge, reasoning, judgment, and to store the expertise of humans. Two parallel efforts are being performed at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to help the electric utility industry take advantage of the expert system technology. The first effort is the development of expert system building tools which are tailored to electric utility industry applications. The second effort is the development of expert system application prototypes. These two efforts complement each other. The application development tests the tools and identifies additional tool capabilities which are required. The tool development helps define the applications which can be successfully developed. This paper summarizes a number of research projects which are being performed at EPRI in both the areas of expert system building tool development and expert system applications to operations and maintenance. The AI technology as demonstrated by the development is being established as a credible technological tool for the electric utility industry. A challenge to transferring the expert systems technology to the utility industry is to gain utility users' acceptance of this modern information technology. To achieve successful technology transfer, the technology developers need to (1) understand the problems which can be addressed successfully using AI technology, (2) involve with users throughout the development and testing phases, and (3) demonstrate the benefits of the technology by the users

Group of scientific experts third technical test (GSETT-III) experiences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dahlman, O.

1999-01-01

The purpose of the established verification system is to provide confidence through adequate monitoring, deter clandestine activities and counteract 'false arms'. The task og the Group of Scientific Experts was to design and test the seismic verification system including designing og the international system, sharing knowledge from national programs, encouraging establishment of new monitoring facilities, development of data analysis procedures, conducting large scale testing and training of experts

NTP-CERHR EXPERT PANEL REPORT ON THE REPRODUCTIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY OF AMPHETAMINE AND METHAMPHETAMINE.

Science.gov (United States)

A manuscript describes the results of an expert panel meeting of the NTP Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). The purpose CERHR is to provide timely, unbiased, scientifically sound evaluations of human and experimental evidence for adverse effects ...

Expert System for Diagnosis of Hepatitis B Ibrahim Mailafiya, Fatima ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

the rice plant appearing during their life span. [1]. ... use of intelligent systems such as fuzzy logic, artificial neural network and genetic algorithm have been developed [5]. ... The liver being the ..... doctors but to assist them in the quality ... P.Santosh Kumar Patra, An Expert System for Diagnosis of Human diseases, 2010.

Robot learning from human teachers

CERN Document Server

Chernova, Sonia

2014-01-01

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) explores techniques for learning a task policy from examples provided by a human teacher. The field of LfD has grown into an extensive body of literature over the past 30 years, with a wide variety of approaches for encoding human demonstrations and modeling skills and tasks. Additionally, we have recently seen a focus on gathering data from non-expert human teachers (i.e., domain experts but not robotics experts). In this book, we provide an introduction to the field with a focus on the unique technical challenges associated with designing robots that learn f

Model-based expert systems for linac computer controls

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, M.J.

1988-09-01

The use of machine modeling and beam simulation programs for the control of accelerator operation has become standard practice. The success of a model-based control operation depends on how the parameter to be controlled is measured, how the measured data is analyzed, how the result of the analysis is interpreted, and how a solution is implemented. There is considerable interest in applying expert systems technology that can automate all of these processes. The design of an expert system to control the beam trajectory in linear accelerators will be discussed as an illustration of this approach. 4 figs., 1 tab

An expert system for automated robotic grasping

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stansfield, S.A.

1990-01-01

Many US Department of Energy sites and facilities will be environmentally remediated during the next several decades. A number of the restoration activities (e.g., decontamination and decommissioning of inactive nuclear facilities) can only be carried out by remote means and will be manipulation-intensive tasks. Experience has shown that manipulation tasks are especially slow and fatiguing for the human operator of a remote manipulator. In this paper, the authors present a rule-based expert system for automated, dextrous robotic grasping. This system interprets the features of an object to generate hand shaping and wrist orientation for a robot hand and arm. The system can be used in several different ways to lessen the demands on the human operator of a remote manipulation system - either as a fully autonomous grasping system or one that generates grasping options for a human operator and then automatically carries out the selected option

Expert opinion on laparoscopic surgery for colorectal cancer parallels evidence from a cumulative meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guillaume Martel

Full Text Available This study sought to synthesize survival outcomes from trials of laparoscopic and open colorectal cancer surgery, and to determine whether expert acceptance of this technology in the literature has parallel cumulative survival evidence.A systematic review of randomized trials was conducted. The primary outcome was survival, and meta-analysis of time-to-event data was conducted. Expert opinion in the literature (published reviews, guidelines, and textbook chapters on the acceptability of laparoscopic colorectal cancer was graded using a 7-point scale. Pooled survival data were correlated in time with accumulating expert opinion scores.A total of 5,800 citations were screened. Of these, 39 publications pertaining to 23 individual trials were retained. As well, 414 reviews were included (28 guidelines, 30 textbook chapters, 20 systematic reviews, 336 narrative reviews. In total, 5,782 patients were randomized to laparoscopic (n = 3,031 and open (n = 2,751 colorectal surgery. Survival data were presented in 16 publications. Laparoscopic surgery was not inferior to open surgery in terms of overall survival (HR = 0.94, 95% CI 0.80, 1.09. Expert opinion in the literature pertaining to the oncologic acceptability of laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer correlated most closely with the publication of large RCTs in 2002-2004. Although increasingly accepted since 2006, laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer remained controversial.Laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer is non-inferior to open surgery in terms of overall survival, and has been so since 2004. The majority expert opinion in the literature has considered these two techniques to be equivalent since 2002-2004. Laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer has been increasingly accepted since 2006, but remains controversial. Knowledge translation efforts in this field appear to have paralleled the accumulation of clinical trial evidence.

Experts in science and society

CERN Document Server

Gigerenzer, Gerd

2004-01-01

In today's complex world, we have come to rely increasingly on those who have expertise in specific areas and can bring their knowledge to bear on crucial social, political and scientific questions. Taking the viewpoint that experts are consulted when there is something important at stake for an individual, a group, or society at large, Experts in Science and Society explores expertise as a relational concept. How do experts balance their commitment to science with that to society? How does a society actually determine that a person has expertise? What personal traits are valued in an expert? From where does the expert derive authority? What makes new forms of expertise emerge? These and related questions are addressed from a wide range of areas in order to be inclusive, as well as to demonstrate similarities across areas. Likewise, in order to be culturally comparative, this volume includes examples and discussions of experts in different countries and even in different time periods. The topics include the r...

The Formation of Future Socionomic Experts' Conflictological Culture in Germany and Austria

Science.gov (United States)

Branitska, Tetiana

2015-01-01

At the present stage of Ukrainian society development there is a requirement for studying and the analysis of the maintenance of experts' preparation in social, socially pedagogical sphere in foreign countries. Therefore the great value has research of experience in theoretical and practical preparation of the future socionomic experts in the…

Eliciting and communicating expert judgments: methodology and application to nuclear safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Winterfeldt, D. von; Commission of the European Communities, Ispra

1989-01-01

Expert judgment has always been used informally in the analysis of complex engineering problems. Increasingly, however, the use of expert judgment has been formalized by eliciting judgments in an explicit, documented and often quantitative way. In nuclear safety studies the need for formal elicitation of expert judgments arises because of the lack of data and experiences, the need to adapt model results to the specific circumstances of a plant, and the large uncertainties surrounding the events and quantities that characterize an accident sequence. The recognition of the need for a formal elicitation of expert judgments has led to one of the most extensive expert elicitation processes to date in the context of the NUREG 1150 study. About 30 safety issues were quantified using expert judgments about probabilities of various uncertain events and quantities, ranging from the failure of a check valve in the cooling system to the pressure built up due to hydrogen production to release fractions of various radionuclides. In total, some 1000 probability distributions were elicited from some 50 experts. This paper first motivates the use of formal expert elicitation in complex engineering studies and describes the methodology of formal expert elicitation. Subsequently, it describes the overall approach of NUREG 1150 and provides an example of the elicitation of the probability of a bypass failure in a pressurized water reactor. The paper ends by discussing some lessons learned, problems encountered and by providing some recommendations

Experts on public trial

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blok, Anders

2007-01-01

a case study of the May 2003 Danish consensus conference on environmental economics as a policy tool, the article reflects on the politics of expert authority permeating practices of public participation. Adopting concepts from the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), the conference is seen......-than-successful defense in the citizen perspective. Further, consensus conferences are viewed alternatively as "expert dissent conferences," serving to disclose a multiplicity of expert commitments. From this perspective, some challenges for democratizing expertise through future exercises in public participation...

Consensus coding sequence (CCDS) database: a standardized set of human and mouse protein-coding regions supported by expert curation.

Science.gov (United States)

Pujar, Shashikant; O'Leary, Nuala A; Farrell, Catherine M; Loveland, Jane E; Mudge, Jonathan M; Wallin, Craig; Girón, Carlos G; Diekhans, Mark; Barnes, If; Bennett, Ruth; Berry, Andrew E; Cox, Eric; Davidson, Claire; Goldfarb, Tamara; Gonzalez, Jose M; Hunt, Toby; Jackson, John; Joardar, Vinita; Kay, Mike P; Kodali, Vamsi K; Martin, Fergal J; McAndrews, Monica; McGarvey, Kelly M; Murphy, Michael; Rajput, Bhanu; Rangwala, Sanjida H; Riddick, Lillian D; Seal, Ruth L; Suner, Marie-Marthe; Webb, David; Zhu, Sophia; Aken, Bronwen L; Bruford, Elspeth A; Bult, Carol J; Frankish, Adam; Murphy, Terence; Pruitt, Kim D

2018-01-04

The Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) project provides a dataset of protein-coding regions that are identically annotated on the human and mouse reference genome assembly in genome annotations produced independently by NCBI and the Ensembl group at EMBL-EBI. This dataset is the product of an international collaboration that includes NCBI, Ensembl, HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee, Mouse Genome Informatics and University of California, Santa Cruz. Identically annotated coding regions, which are generated using an automated pipeline and pass multiple quality assurance checks, are assigned a stable and tracked identifier (CCDS ID). Additionally, coordinated manual review by expert curators from the CCDS collaboration helps in maintaining the integrity and high quality of the dataset. The CCDS data are available through an interactive web page (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CCDS/CcdsBrowse.cgi) and an FTP site (ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/CCDS/). In this paper, we outline the ongoing work, growth and stability of the CCDS dataset and provide updates on new collaboration members and new features added to the CCDS user interface. We also present expert curation scenarios, with specific examples highlighting the importance of an accurate reference genome assembly and the crucial role played by input from the research community. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research 2017.

Serus, an expert system for the ultrasonic examination of fuel rods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gondard, C.; Papezyk, F.; Wident, P.

1987-01-01

The use of pattern recognition functions and the modelization of the human expert reasoning, allow the automatic identification of defects in welds or structures. The proposed application uses an ultrasonic examination to detect and classify 3 types of defects in end plug welds of PWR fuel rods

Development of a methodology for the application of the analysis of human reliability to individualized temporary storage facility; Desarrollo de una metodologia de aplicacion del Analisis de Fiabilidad Humana a una instalacion de Almacen Temporal Individualizado

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Diaz, P.; Dies, J.; Tapia, C.; Blas, A. de

2014-07-01

The paper aims to present the methodology that has been developed with the purpose of applying an ATI without the need of having experts during the process of modelling and quantification analysis of HRA. The developed methodology is based on ATHEANA and relies on the use of other methods of analysis of human action and in-depth analysis. (Author)

Expert Systems: An Overview for Teacher-Librarians.

Science.gov (United States)

Orwig, Gary; Barron, Ann

1992-01-01

Provides an overview of expert systems for teacher librarians. Highlights include artificial intelligence and expert systems; the development of the MYCIN medical expert system; rule-based expert systems; the use of expert system shells to develop a specific system; and how to select an appropriate application for an expert system. (11 references)…

Dependence assessment in human reliability analysis based on D numbers and AHP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou, Xinyi; Deng, Xinyang; Deng, Yong; Mahadevan, Sankaran

2017-01-01

Highlights: • D numbers and AHP are combined to implement dependence assessment in HRA. • A new tool, called D numbers, is used to deal with the uncertainty in HRA. • The proposed method can well address the fuzziness and subjectivity in linguistic assessment. • The proposed method is well applicable in dependence assessment which inherently has a linguistic assessment process. - Abstract: Since human errors always cause heavy loss especially in nuclear engineering, human reliability analysis (HRA) has attracted more and more attention. Dependence assessment plays a vital role in HRA, measuring the dependence degree of human errors. Many researches have been done while still have improvement space. In this paper, a dependence assessment model based on D numbers and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed. Firstly, identify the factors used to measure the dependence level of two human operations. Besides, in terms of the suggested dependence level, determine and quantify the anchor points for each factor. Secondly, D numbers and AHP are adopted in model. Experts evaluate the dependence level of human operations for each factor. Then, the evaluation results are presented as D numbers and fused by D number’s combination rule that can obtain the dependence probability of human operations for each factor. The weights of factors can be determined by AHP. Thirdly, based on the dependence probability for each factor and its corresponding weight, the dependence probability of two human operations and its confidence can be obtained. The proposed method can well address the fuzziness and subjectivity in linguistic assessment. The proposed method is well applicable to assess the dependence degree of human errors in HRA which inherently has a linguistic assessment process.

Dependence assessment in human reliability analysis based on D numbers and AHP

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhou, Xinyi; Deng, Xinyang [School of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715 (China); Deng, Yong, E-mail: ydeng@swu.edu.cn [School of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715 (China); Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 610054 (China); Mahadevan, Sankaran [School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235 (United States)

2017-03-15

Highlights: • D numbers and AHP are combined to implement dependence assessment in HRA. • A new tool, called D numbers, is used to deal with the uncertainty in HRA. • The proposed method can well address the fuzziness and subjectivity in linguistic assessment. • The proposed method is well applicable in dependence assessment which inherently has a linguistic assessment process. - Abstract: Since human errors always cause heavy loss especially in nuclear engineering, human reliability analysis (HRA) has attracted more and more attention. Dependence assessment plays a vital role in HRA, measuring the dependence degree of human errors. Many researches have been done while still have improvement space. In this paper, a dependence assessment model based on D numbers and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed. Firstly, identify the factors used to measure the dependence level of two human operations. Besides, in terms of the suggested dependence level, determine and quantify the anchor points for each factor. Secondly, D numbers and AHP are adopted in model. Experts evaluate the dependence level of human operations for each factor. Then, the evaluation results are presented as D numbers and fused by D number’s combination rule that can obtain the dependence probability of human operations for each factor. The weights of factors can be determined by AHP. Thirdly, based on the dependence probability for each factor and its corresponding weight, the dependence probability of two human operations and its confidence can be obtained. The proposed method can well address the fuzziness and subjectivity in linguistic assessment. The proposed method is well applicable to assess the dependence degree of human errors in HRA which inherently has a linguistic assessment process.

In the public interest: assessing expert and stakeholder influence in public deliberation about biobanks.

Science.gov (United States)

MacLean, Samantha; Burgess, Michael M

2010-07-01

Providing technical and experiential information without overwhelming participants' perspectives presents a major challenge to public involvement in policy decisions. This article reports the design and analysis of a case study on incorporating expert and stakeholder knowledge without including them as deliberators, while supporting deliberative participants' ability to introduce and critically assess different perspectives. Analysis of audio-recorded deliberations illustrates how expert and stakeholder knowledge was cited, criticized and incorporated into deliberations. In conclusion, separating experts and stakeholders from deliberations may be an important prima facie principle when the goal is to enhance citizen representation on technical issues and related policy.

Unintended Side Effects of Digital Transition: Perspectives of Japanese Experts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masahiro Sugiyama

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The core of the digital transition is the representation of all kinds of real-world entities and processes and an increasing number of cognitive processes by digital information and algorithms on computers. These allow for seemingly unlimited storage, operation, retrieval, and transmission capacities that make digital tools economically available for all domains of society and empower human action, particularly combined with real-world interfaces such as displays, robots, sensors, 3D printers, etc. Digital technologies are general-purpose technologies providing unprecedented potential benefits for sustainability. However, they will bring about a multitude of potential unintended side effects, and this demands a transdisciplinary discussion on unwanted societal changes as well as a shift in science from analog to digital modeling and structure. Although social discourse has begun, the topical scope and regional coverage have been limited. Here, we report on an expert roundtable on digital transition held in February 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, our discussions highlight the importance of cultural contexts and the need to bridge local and global conversations. Although Japanese experts did mention side effects, their focus was on how to ensure that AI and robots could coexist with humans. Such a perspective is not well appreciated everywhere outside Japan. Stakeholder dialogues have already begun in Japan, but greater efforts are needed to engage a broader collection of experts in addition to stakeholders to broaden the social debate.

Accuracy and interobserver agreement between MR-non-expert radiologists and MR-experts in reading MRI for suspected appendicitis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Leeuwenburgh, Marjolein M.N., E-mail: m.m.leeuwenburgh@amc.uva.nl [Department of Surgery, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Wiarda, Bart M. [Department of Radiology, Alkmaar Medical Center, Alkmaar (Netherlands); Jensch, Sebastiaan [Department of Radiology, Sint Lucas Andreas Hospital, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Wouter van Es, H. [Department of Radiology, Sint Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein (Netherlands); Stockmann, Hein B.A.C. [Department of Surgery, Kennemer Gasthuis, Haarlem (Netherlands); Gratama, Jan Willem C. [Department of Radiology, Gelre Hospitals, Apeldoorn (Netherlands); Cobben, Lodewijk P.J. [Department of Radiology, Haaglanden Medical Center, Leidschendam (Netherlands); Bossuyt, Patrick M.M. [Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Boermeester, Marja A. [Department of Surgery, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Stoker, Jaap [Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2014-01-15

Objective: To compare accuracy and interobserver agreement between radiologists with limited experience in the evaluation of abdominal MRI (non-experts), and radiologists with longer MR reading experience (experts), in reading MRI in patients with suspected appendicitis. Methods: MR imaging was performed in 223 adult patients with suspected appendicitis and read independently by two members of a team of eight MR-inexperienced radiologists, who were trained with 100 MR examinations previous to this study (non-expert reading). Expert reading was performed by two radiologists with a larger abdominal MR experience (>500 examinations) in consensus. A final diagnosis was assigned after three months based on all available information, except MRI findings. We estimated MRI sensitivity and specificity for appendicitis and for all urgent diagnoses separately. Interobserver agreement was evaluated using kappa statistics. Results: Urgent diagnoses were assigned to 147 of 223 patients; 117 had appendicitis. Sensitivity for appendicitis was 0.89 by MR-non-expert radiologists and 0.97 in MR-expert reading (p = 0.01). Specificity was 0.83 for MR-non-experts versus 0.93 for MR-expert reading (p = 0.002). MR-experts and MR-non-experts agreed on appendicitis in 89% of cases (kappa 0.78). Accuracy in detecting urgent diagnoses was significantly lower in MR-non-experts compared to MR-expert reading: sensitivity 0.84 versus 0.95 (p < 0.001) and specificity 0.71 versus 0.82 (p = 0.03), respectively. Agreement on urgent diagnoses was 83% (kappa 0.63). Conclusion: MR-non-experts have sufficient sensitivity in reading MRI in patients with suspected appendicitis, with good agreement with MR-expert reading, but accuracy of MR-expert reading was higher.

Accuracy and interobserver agreement between MR-non-expert radiologists and MR-experts in reading MRI for suspected appendicitis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leeuwenburgh, Marjolein M.N.; Wiarda, Bart M.; Jensch, Sebastiaan; Wouter van Es, H.; Stockmann, Hein B.A.C.; Gratama, Jan Willem C.; Cobben, Lodewijk P.J.; Bossuyt, Patrick M.M.; Boermeester, Marja A.; Stoker, Jaap

2014-01-01

Objective: To compare accuracy and interobserver agreement between radiologists with limited experience in the evaluation of abdominal MRI (non-experts), and radiologists with longer MR reading experience (experts), in reading MRI in patients with suspected appendicitis. Methods: MR imaging was performed in 223 adult patients with suspected appendicitis and read independently by two members of a team of eight MR-inexperienced radiologists, who were trained with 100 MR examinations previous to this study (non-expert reading). Expert reading was performed by two radiologists with a larger abdominal MR experience (>500 examinations) in consensus. A final diagnosis was assigned after three months based on all available information, except MRI findings. We estimated MRI sensitivity and specificity for appendicitis and for all urgent diagnoses separately. Interobserver agreement was evaluated using kappa statistics. Results: Urgent diagnoses were assigned to 147 of 223 patients; 117 had appendicitis. Sensitivity for appendicitis was 0.89 by MR-non-expert radiologists and 0.97 in MR-expert reading (p = 0.01). Specificity was 0.83 for MR-non-experts versus 0.93 for MR-expert reading (p = 0.002). MR-experts and MR-non-experts agreed on appendicitis in 89% of cases (kappa 0.78). Accuracy in detecting urgent diagnoses was significantly lower in MR-non-experts compared to MR-expert reading: sensitivity 0.84 versus 0.95 (p < 0.001) and specificity 0.71 versus 0.82 (p = 0.03), respectively. Agreement on urgent diagnoses was 83% (kappa 0.63). Conclusion: MR-non-experts have sufficient sensitivity in reading MRI in patients with suspected appendicitis, with good agreement with MR-expert reading, but accuracy of MR-expert reading was higher

Automatic analysis of macerals and reflectance; Analisis Automatico de Macerales y Reflectancia

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Catalina, J.C.; Alarcon, D.; Gonzalez Prado, J.

1998-12-01

A new system has been developed to perform automatically macerals and reflectance analysis of single-seam bituminous coals, improving the interlaboratory accuracy of these types of analyses. The system follows the same steps as the manual method, requiring a human operator for preparation of coal samples and system startup; then, sample scanning, microscope focusing and field centre analysis are fully automatic. The main and most innovative idea of this approach is to coordinate an expert system with an image processing system, using both reflectance and morphological information. In this way, the system tries to reproduce the analysis procedure followed by a human expert in petrography. (Author)

Environmental factors and puberty timing: expert panel research needs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Louis, G.M. Buck; Jr, L.E. Gray; Marcus, M.

2008-01-01

Serono Symposia International convened an expert panel to review the impact of environmental influences on the regulation of pubertal onset and progression while identifying critical data gaps and future research priorities. An expert panel reviewed the literature on endocrine-disrupting chemicals......, body size, and puberty. The panel concluded that available experimental animal and human data support a possible role of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and body size in relation to alterations in pubertal onset and progression in boys and girls. Critical data gaps prioritized for future research......, and (3) basic research to identify the primary signal(s) for the onset of gonadotropin-releasing hormone-dependent/central puberty and gonadotropin-releasing hormone-independent/peripheral puberty. Prospective studies of couples who are planning pregnancies or pregnant women are needed to capture...

The experience of a local partnership with experts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Draulans, H.

2004-01-01

STOLA is an abbreviation for Structured Study group for Low-level short-lived radioactive waste, with all the actors of our small community of Dessel. You may know: social culture and economic factors of course all play a role in radioactive waste management and we work together with the experts of ONDRAF/NIRAS. But I am sure that was explained to you sufficiently yesterday and I can skip all that. 70 000 m 3 of low-level radioactive waste can be disposed of in our area and that only under certain safety conditions for humans and the environment. Of course one of the conditions is also that it has an added value for our municipality. In the past four years, I have participated in the activities of STOLA in Dessel and also led them. In that period, I met many, many experts, I spoke to them; I also really listened to them and together we worked on this disposal process. I will give you my personal opinion on that contact with those experts. Although I am going to be one in a long list of professors giving lectures today, I may not be the most scientific of speakers: I will be talking mainly from my experience with the people from STOLA. (author)

Intelligent programs-expert systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gledhill, V X

1982-01-01

In recent years, computer scientists have developed what are called expert systems. These programs have three fundamental components: a knowledge base, which changes with experience; an inference engine which enables the program to make decisions; and an interface that allows the program to communicate with the person using the system. Expert systems have been developed successfully in areas such as medical diagnosis, geology, and computer maintenance. This paper describes the evolution and basic principles of expert systems and give some examples of their use.

REXS : A financial risk diagnostic expert system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Richter

2012-01-01

Full Text Available

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Artificial intelligence techniques are rapidly emerging as important contributors to more effective management. One of the greatest growth areas probably lies in the use of Expert System methodology for supporting managerial decision processes.
Existing Decision Support Systems often attempt to apply analytical techniques in combination with traditional data access and retrieval functions. One of the problems usually encountered while developing such decision support systems is the need to transform an unstructured problem environment into a structured analytical model. Using an expert system approach to strategic decision making in such unstructured problem environments may provide significant advantages.
The financial Risk diagnostic EXpert System (REXS concentrates on Financial Risk Analysis. Based on a Forecasting Model the system will, with the support of several expert system knowledge bases, attempt to evaluate the financial risk of a business and provide guidelines for improvement.

AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Tegnieke gebaseer op Kunsmatige Intelligensie toon tans die belofte om belangrike bydraes te maak tot meerBestaande Besluitsteunstelsels poog dikwels om analitiese tegnieke en lradisionele datatoegang- en onttrekkingsfunksies te kombineer. Een van die probleme wat gewoonlik ondervind word gedurende die ontwikkeling van '0 besluitsteunstelsel bestaan uit die behoefte om 'n ongestruktueerde probleemomgewing te transformeer na 'n gestruktueerde analitiese model. 'n Ekspertstelselbenadering lot strategiese besluitneming in 'n ongeSlruktureerde probleemomgewing mag betekenisvolle voordele inhou.
Die "financial Risk diagnostic EXpert System (REXS" konsentreer op fmansiele risiko-analise. Uitgaande vanaf 'n Vooruitskattingsmode~ en deur gebruik te maak van verskeie ekspertstelselkennisbasisse, poog die stelsel om die fmansiele risiko van 'n onderneming te evalueer en riglyne vir moontlike verbetering

[Professionalization of Legal Dental Experts in Germany: Results of Studies on Structured Focus Groups].

Science.gov (United States)

Brauer, H U; Walther, W; Dick, M

2018-04-01

Legal expert opinions are a crucial instrument of professional self-control in medicine. To give impulses for further development, focus groups were initiated to reflect upon the perspective of legal dental experts. 5 focus group discussions on the topic "Professionalization of legal dental experts" were conducted. A total of 32 experienced legal dental experts participated in the discussions. The results were evaluated by qualitative content analysis. A catalogue of 68 ideas was generated for improvement and divided into 15 categories. Among these were periodic quality circles, interprofessional exchange, supervision of novices and periodic feedback for legal dental experts and dentists. Self-reflection can be included as an instrument for quality improvement of legal dental expert opinions. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

How Do Novice and Expert Learners Represent, Understand, and Discuss Geologic Time?

Science.gov (United States)

Layow, Erica Amanda

This dissertation examined the representations novice and expert learners constructed for the geologic timescale. Learners engaged in a three-part activity. The purpose was to compare novice learners' representations to those of expert learners. This provided insight into the similarities and differences between their strategies for event ordering, assigning values and scale to the geologic timescale model, as well as their language and practices to complete the model. With a qualitative approach to data analysis informed by an expert-novice theoretical framework grounded in phenomenography, learner responses comprised the data analyzed. These data highlighted learners' metacognitive thoughts that might not otherwise be shared through lectures or laboratory activities. Learners' responses were analyzed using a discourse framework that positioned learners as knowers. Novice and expert learners both excelled at ordering and discussing events before the Phanerozoic, but were challenged with events during the Phanerozoic. Novice learners had difficulty assigning values to events and establishing a scale for their models. Expert learners expressed difficulty with determining a scale because of the size of the model, yet eventually used anchor points and unitized the model to establish a scale. Despite challenges constructing their models, novice learners spoke confidently using claims and few hedging phrases indicating their confidence in statements made. Experts used more hedges than novices, however the hedging comments were made about more complex conceptions. Using both phenomenographic and discourse analysis approaches for analysis foregrounded learners' discussions of how they perceived geologic time and their ways of knowing and doing. This research is intended to enhance the geoscience community's understanding of the ways novice and expert learners think and discuss conceptions of geologic time, including the events and values of time, and the strategies used

Impacts of the precision agricultural technologies in Iran: An analysis experts' perception & their determinants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somayeh Tohidyan Far

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Nowadays agricultural methods developments that are productively, economically, environmentally and socially sustainable are required immediately. The concept of precision agriculture is becoming an attractive idea for managing natural resources and realizing modern sustainable agricultural development. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing impacts of precision agriculture from the viewpoints of Boushehr Province experts. The research method was a cross sectional survey and multi-stage random sampling was used to collect data from 115 experts in Boushehr province. According to the results, experts found underground and surface waters conservation, rural areas development, increase of productivity and increasing income as the most important impacts of precision agricultural technologies. Experts’ attitudes indicate their positive view toward these kinds of impacts. Also behavioral attitude has the most effect on impacts.

Expert system for compressor maintenance support; Sistema especialista para apoio a manutencao de compressores

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Silva, Jonny Carlos da [Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianopolis, SC (Brazil). Dept. de Engenharia Mecanica; Caletti, Luciano [KEOHPS - Knowledge Engineering on Hydraulic and Pneumatic System, SC (Brazil); Luna, Paulo de T.M. [Universidade Regional de Blumenau - FURB, SC (Brazil)

2004-07-01

The performance of critical machines in industrial processes, such as compressors used in industrial plants, is fundamental for overall company operation. In this context, it becomes strategic the application of methods and tools to support the operation and maintenance of the most relevant process equipment. Among these computational tools are the Expert Systems, which aim to emulate the decision making process of human experts in a specific knowledge domain. In Oil and Gas domain, an example of such tools is the SEGRED project, which combines expert system techniques with dynamic simulation of transport and distribution natural gas networks. The SECOMP project, Expert System for Compressor Maintenance, is considered a spin-off of the SEGRED. Its objective is to develop an expert system to support maintenance activities, aiming to increase reliability, improve performance and reduce maintenance and operational costs. This article presents the first phase of the SECOMP project, which is related to the development of an expert system prototype for corrective maintenance of natural gas reciprocating compressors. The paper discusses the context of this knowledge domain, the prototype development and its potential contribution in an industrial environment. (author)

TU Delft expert judgment data base

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cooke, Roger M.; Goossens, Louis L.H.J.

2008-01-01

We review the applications of structured expert judgment uncertainty quantification using the 'classical model' developed at the Delft University of Technology over the last 17 years [Cooke RM. Experts in uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1991; Expert judgment study on atmospheric dispersion and deposition. Report Faculty of Technical Mathematics and Informatics No.01-81, Delft University of Technology; 1991]. These involve 45 expert panels, performed under contract with problem owners who reviewed and approved the results. With a few exceptions, all these applications involved the use of seed variables; that is, variables from the experts' area of expertise for which the true values are available post hoc. Seed variables are used to (1) measure expert performance, (2) enable performance-based weighted combination of experts' distributions, and (3) evaluate and hopefully validate the resulting combination or 'decision maker'. This article reviews the classical model for structured expert judgment and the performance measures, reviews applications, comparing performance-based decision makers with 'equal weight' decision makers, and collects some lessons learned

Expert system technology for the military

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Franklin, J.E.; Carmody, C.L.; Buteau, B.L.; Keller, K.; Levitt, T.S.

1988-01-01

This paper is concerned with the applications of expert systems to complex military problems. A brief description of needs for expert systems in the military arena is given. A short tutorial on some of the elements of an expert system is found in Appendix I. An important aspect of expert systems concerns using uncertain information and ill-defined procedures. Many of the general techniques of dealing with uncertainty are described in Appendix II. These techniques include Bayesian certainty factors, Dempster-Shafer theory of uncertainty, and Zadeh's fuzzy set theory. The major portion of the paper addresses specific expert system examples such as resource allocation, identification of radar images, maintenance and troubleshooting of electronic equipment, and the interpretation and understanding of radar images. Extensions of expert systems to incorporate learning are examined in the context of military intelligence to determine the disposition, location, and intention of the adversary. The final application involves the use of distributed communicating cooperating expert systems for battle management. Finally, the future of expert systems and their evolving capabilities are discussed

[The application of the expert system in prosthedontics].

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, P; Li, G; Wang, Y

1996-11-01

In this study, we developed an expert system for designing of frame work of Removable Partial Denture by the method of Artificial Intelligence. Both of Quick Basic and Tuber C language are used in this program. This system consider more other relative factors in removable partial denture designing except the amount and position of missing teeth. Base the idea of multy-layer knowledge we divide the process RPD designing into different layers according to their logical relationships. So, this system could imitate better the expert of prosthedontics to do the clinical examination, diagnosis, treatment plan and denture designing. There are 11 modules in this system totally. They are used to accomplish the case register, first visit examination, treatment plan, abutment examination, denture designing, biomechanic analysis of abutment, reference, explanation and etc. We used this system for 20 partial edentulous patients and compared the results with the designing plans of expert of prosthedontics, the rate of conformity is 83.6%.

An expert system framework for nondestructive waste assay

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Becker, G.K.

1996-01-01

Management and disposition of transuranic (RU) waste forms necessitates determining entrained RU and associated radioactive material quantities as per National RU Waste Characterization Program requirements. Technical justification and demonstration of a given NDA method used to determine RU mass and uncertainty in accordance with program quality assurance is difficult for many waste forms. Difficulties are typically founded in waste NDA methods that employ standards compensation and/or employment of simplifying assumptions on waste form configurations. Capability to determine and justify RU mass and mass uncertainty can be enhanced through integration of waste container data/information using expert system and empirical data-driven techniques with conventional data acquisition and analysis. Presented is a preliminary expert system framework that integrates the waste form data base, alogrithmic techniques, statistical analyses, expert domain knowledge bases, and empirical artificial intelligence modules into a cohesive system. The framework design and bases in addition to module development activities are discussed

Decision support systems and expert systems for risk and safety analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baybutt, P.

1986-01-01

During the last 1-2 years, rapid developments have occurred in the development of decision support systems and expert systems to aid in decision making related to risk and safety of industrial plants. These activities are most noteworthy in the nuclear industry where numerous systems are under development with implementation often being made on personal computers. An overview of some of these developments is provided, and an example of one recently developed decision support system is given. This example deals with CADET, a system developed to aid the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in making decisions related to the topical issue of source terms resulting from degraded core accidents in light water reactors. The paper concludes with some comments on the likely directions of future developments in decision support systems and expert systems to aid in the management of risk and safety in industrial plants. (author)

Expert systems: A 5-year perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MacAllister, D.J.; Day, R.; McCormack, M.D.

1996-01-01

This paper gives an overview of a major integrated oil company's experience with artificial intelligence (AI) over the last 5 years, with an emphasis on expert systems. The authors chronicle the development of an AI group, including details on development tool selection, project selection strategies, potential pitfalls, and descriptions of several completed expert systems. Small expert systems produced by teams of petroleum technology experts and experienced expert system developers that are focused in well-defined technical areas have produced substantial benefits and accelerated petroleum technology transfer