Ellipse: An Object-Oriented and Database-Coupled Expert System Development Environment

In this study, we describe a relatively new approach to address the shortcomings of traditional expert-system environments—the information-based approach—namely, using a combination of OOP, DBMS, and expert systems. This study illustrates the design of an object-oriented expert system shell (Ellipse) that uses a combination of knowledgebases and databases. Ellipse offers a generalized, flexible system that supports embeddability, rapid prototyping, backward-chaining, explanation facility, linkage to databases, and implementation independence. Further, to illustrate the capability of the shell, we present the design and development of MFA-Mutual Fund Advisor.

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