INTEGRATING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS WITH RULE-BASED EXPERT-SYSTEMS

The Rule-Based (RB) and the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approaches to expert systems development have each demonstrated some specific advantages and disadvantages. These two approaches can be integrated to exploit the advantages and minimize the disadvantages of each method used alone. An RB/ANN integrated approach is proposed to facilitate the development of an expert system which provides a ''high-performance'' knowledge-based network, an explanation facility, and an input/output facility. In this case study an expert system designed to assist managers in forecasting the performance of stock prices is developed to demonstrate the advantages of this integrated approach and how it can enhance support for managerial decision making.