Human factors considerations in the design of a multiple source expert system for military applications (abstract only)

Author(s):  
Gail F. Halkias ◽  
Kevin D. Reilly
1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 746-750
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Jesse ◽  
Donald J. Montague

This paper will describe the progress and future design of a project to develop an expert system for strategic planning in education. The importance, the applicability, the methodology, objectives and anticipated results will be described in detail along with the educational and scientific importance such a system is capable of achieving.


Author(s):  
Franklin L. Moses ◽  
Eduardo Salas

This Symposium consists of four interrelated presentations and a video about using simulation and simulators to train teams/groups that are geographically disbursed. The presentations are part of the Multi-Service Distributed training Testbed (MDT2) project. The purpose of the project is to develop and test the utility of training using wide area communication networks to link simulators for military use. It brings together training, human factors, and engineering communities across the Services in pointing-the-way to effective use of emerging technology to train. Although the focus is on military applications, the principles of training have broad implications for non-Defense use – fire fighting and emergency management among others.


1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 1087-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig S. Hartley ◽  
John R. Rice

The advent of increasingly powerful microcomputers, coupled with the development of small, feature-packed expert systems now makes it cost effective to provide workers with relatively inexpensive desktop expert systems. In order to evaluate the value of such systems as work aids for human factors engineers, we developed a small demonstration system using a commercially available expert system development tool, NEXPERTTM, released in 1985 by Neuron Data, Inc. of Palo Alto, CA. We selected a candidate problem area based on four criteria: 1) the problem domain had to be small enough to be covered comprehensively by a relatively small knowledge base; 2) the problem domain had to be potentially useful to video display terminal (VDT) screen designers; 3) appropriate information had to be readily available in human factors guidelines, published reports, and journal articles; and 4) the problem should provide the opportunity to exercise as many of the features of NEXPERT as possible. The topic area we selected was “video display screen color”. Our goal was to produce a job performance aid (JPA) that non-human factors VDT screen designers could use to select appropriate colors for screen features. Because the system users typically have little or no formal training in human factors, the JPA has to supply color recommendations in the form of clearly stated requirements, but with the decision rationale and additional references also immediately available for users wanting more information. Using the expert system shell provided by NEXPERT, we constructed a knowledge base containing more than one hundred IF …, THEN … rules representing knowledge gained from a detailed literature review. We initially validated our expert system by posing a wide variety of hypothetical design problems and assessing its conclusions against our expectations. Based on our work so far, we have concluded that small expert systems can be useful in providing human factors expertise to system designers. We believe that increasing use of expert systems may soon lead to changes in the typical current scientific publication format to include knowledge base rules provided by the author(s).


1986 ◽  
Vol 30 (14) ◽  
pp. 1390-1394
Author(s):  
John K. Schmidt

The following paper is an attempt to capture the circumstances, conepts, and events that led to the formulation of Human Factors. Born in the wake of the second world war, it was implimented to help people cope with the complex “war machines” of the day. Human Factors served as a meeting ground for several discliplines, that were all bound together in single endeavor to improve the effectiveness, effieciency and safety of human in systems. Since the war's close, the field has been expanded to include many non-military applications. Despite its new found diversity, it continues to employ the same guiding principle of incorporating psychological and physiological characteristics of people into interface designs. It is this phenomena which distinguishes Human Factors as a unique paradigm with its own antecedental roots and disciplinary matrix. Furthermore, its proliferation in recent years denotes a science that has transcended a revolutionary stage of development to a normal one in a Kuhnian perspective. It is contended that a recognition of these factors would facilitate a novice's understanding of the field, recognition of where the discipline presently is and where it is headed.


1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 350-350
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Mitta

Expert system knowledge represents expertise obtained through formal education, training, and/or experience. Formal education provides deep knowledge of a particular domain; experience and training result in heuristic knowledge. A knowledge base defines the range of information and understanding with which the system is capable of dealing; therefore, its information must be structured and filed for ready access. The objective of this symposium is to address the challenges associated with establishment of valid expert system knowledge, specifically, knowledge to be used by expert system shells. As expert system knowledge is obtained, structured, and stored, it is formulated. In this symposium, knowledge formulation is addressed as a three-phase process: knowledge acquisition, the mechanics associated with structuring knowledge, and knowledge porting. Knowledge acquisition is the process of extracting expertise from a domain expert. Expertise may be collected through a series of interviews between the expert and a knowledge engineer or through sessions the expert holds with an automated knowledge acquisition tool. Thus, the ultimate outcome of knowledge acquisition is a collection of raw knowledge data. The following human factors issues become apparent: documenting mental models (where mental models are the expert's conceptualization of a problem), recording cognitive problem-solving strategies, and specifying an appropriate interface between the domain expert and the acquisition methodology. The knowledge structuring process involves the refinement of raw knowledge data, where knowledge is organized and assigned a semantic structure. One issue that must be considered is how to interpret knowledge data such that formal definitions, logical relationships, and facts can be established. Finally, formulation involves knowledge porting, that is, the movement of an expert system shell's knowledge base to various other shells. The outcome of this process is a portable knowledge base, where the challenges lie in maintaining consistent knowledge, understanding the constraints inherent to a shell (the shell's ability to incorporate all relevant knowledge), and designing an acceptable user-expert system interface. The fundamental component of any expert system is its knowledge base. The issues to be presented in this symposium are important because they address three processes that are critical to the development of a knowledge base. In addition to presenting computer science challenges, knowledge base formulation also presents human factors challenges, for example, understanding cognitive problem-solving processes, representing uncertain information, and defining human-expert system interface problems. This symposium will provide a forum for discussion of both types of challenges.


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