Web-Based Expert Systems: Information Clients versus Knowledge Servers

The current focus on networked and Internet-based applications demands new architectures for "intelligent" systems as well as creating new possibilities for research and development in this field. This chapter first describes a taxonomy for classifying Interact-assisted intelligent systems according to the client-server and information-knowledge dimensions. Secondly it explores the application of hardware fault diagnosis for modern scanning electron microscopes indicating the motivation for knowledge-based approaches to the problem. Thirdly it examines the specific design and implementation issues involved with developing solutions from both the "information client" and "knowledge server" paradigms. The chapter concludes by comparing and contrasting the advantages and disadvantages of the two architectures, and suggests directions for future investigation.