What are the different types of Expert System Shells ?

There are various types of Expert System Shells Available till now , some of examples are :

• C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS)
• Java Expert System Shell (JESS)
• Exsys - The Expert System Experts
• Essential MYCIN (EMYCIN)
• Vidwan
• XpertRule

C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) :

        C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) is an expert system shell for building expert systems. It is the most widely used expert system shell. It is completely written in C Language. Initially, LISP was the single tool available with NASA for all expert system software. 

Mr.Gary Riley did complete the hope of NASA on discovering first CLIPS. It’s a language that supports many types of programming paradigm in the form of procedural, object-oriented and rule based programming languages.

Merits :

Merits :

Exsys - The Expert System Experts :

        Exsys is a rule-based expert system shell that provides the most efficient and effective way to automate the delivery of problem-solving advice. The rules are easy to learn and essentially the same as an expert would use to explain why they made a decision. Some problems are more procedural and Exsys supports these with a forward chaining option.

The Exsys Inference Engine provides both options "heuristic" way i.e, calling and using rules dynamically and they can be mixed for maximum flexibility.

Essential MYCIN (EMYCIN) :

       Essential MYCIN is an expert system shell derived from MYCIN - an expert system developed for diagnosis of infectious diseases. The MYCIN was one of the best known expert system developed by Dr. Edward Shortliffe in 1974 for medical diagnosis. But it is a dependent one.

Dr. Crawford, had derived an independent system from MYCIN who in 1987 that is domain independent. It does not contain domain specific knowledge base.

Vidwan :

        An expert system shell - Vidwan has been developed at the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST), Mumbai (India) in 1993. It's a web-based expert system shell that allows us to create rule-based expert system. As it is a rule-based expert system shell, it enables us to encode domain knowledge in the form of IF-THEN rules. The inference engine of this shell applies backward-chaining inference mechanism to manipulate the piece of information. It also has an interactive text editor that enables knowledge engineer to update/create rules in the knowledgebase. This software can be embedded in programs developed in other languages.

The latest version of Vidwan is also compatible with UNIX operating system.

XpertRule :

        XpertRule is a leading software developer and provider of intelligent automation solutions, which incorporate AI capabilities to streamline and enhance the decision-making process. ... It gives users the ability to digitally capture, optimize and audit the decision-making process.

        The expert system shell is very helpful in building any domain specific expert system. At present few shells are web-based while few are stand alone. Some shells are license based while some are freeware. With the introduction of shell in the world of Artificial Intelligence, the development of expert system has become quite comfortable in the form of overall cost, time and skills for building the system.

References : Artificial Intelligence A Modern Approach Fourth Edition                                                                          Author : Russell, Stuart J. (Stuart Jonathan), author. | Norvig, Peter, author.