From: cjp@aber.ac.uk (C J Price)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.shells
Subject: Re: What shell to use
Date: 23 Jul 92 09:24:51 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept., UCW Aberystwyth

>Greg Bishop-Hurley writes:
>Recently i have started working with expert systems here in New Zealand.
>My requirements are as follows;
>  - can be developed and run on a PC
>  - runs under either Windows or DOS
>  - allows distibution of runtime applications
>Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

I am loosely attached to a company which has an agreement to
distribute/support a commercial shell to academic sites at very
realistic prices. This may be of interest to you.

The product is SD-Adviser (was originally called Envisage) from
SD-Scicon, and has been used for large commercial applications.

It runs on Suns and on PCs, and we have just started supplying UK
academic sites with site licences for one kind of machine at 500
pounds + VAT. I guess you would have to add the cost of carriage to
that price for New Zealand.

The agreement allows academics to deliver applications off-site (the
agreement for commercial customers also allows distribution of
runtimes).

On PCs, it runs under DOS, but a Windows interface is currently under
development.

I will append further details.

Email me if you want a copy of the tutorial booklet and example pack
that is being sent to UK academics.

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Chris Price, Department of Computer Science, University College of Wales,
             Aberystwyth, Dyfed, SY23 3BZ, United Kingdom.
email: cjp@uk.ac.aber (within UK) cjp@aber.ac.uk (rest of world?)
Telephone: 0970-622444
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Academic advantages of WWS-Adviser
==================================

    - Fully-featured, industrially-used expert system tool

    - Runs on popular academic hardware

    - Realistically-priced multi-machine licence

    - Helpful documents for student teaching provided

    - Favourable licence conditions

Capability overview of WWS-Adviser
----------------------------------

Adviser has been developed over the past six years, and sold by SD-Scicon as
SD-Adviser and by ICL as ICL-Adviser at a price above most academics'
budgets.  Their technology has been made available by SD-Scicon for
distribution by WWS to academic establishments at a reasonable price.

It has been used for major expert systems applications in industry and
commerce:

    Health adviser.  A major insurance company noted that by making their
    clients healthier, they would be doing themselves, as well as their
    clients, a favour. The result was a biomedical Expert System in Adviser
    which makes use of `biomarkersU, health signals contained in genes,
    enzymes and antibodies, together with more conventional health
    indicators to give a comprehensive health risk portrait.

    VAX tuning expert.  SD-Scicon sold a commercial product built in Adviser
    to help companies tune their VAX VMS computers.

    Hardware configuration expert. ICL have an Adviser application for
    configuring ICL mainframe systems to meet customer requirements.  The
    live system has been installed on a central mainframe, and can be
    accessed by around 1000 ICL sales staff worldwide.

    Cutting tool selection. Selecting the right cutting tool is a known
    problem in industry. Expertise is not widely available, and a wrong
    choice can damage the tool or the workpiece, costing time and money. A
    few months investment in capturing the expertise has produced a system
    which prevents costly mistakes.


Over the years, Adviser has proven itself many times over as an Expert
System Shell engineered to tackle complex problems and deliver real working
Expert Systems in Banking and Finance, Government, Defence, Manufacturing,
Aerospace, Computing and Engineering.

Technical overview of WWS-Adviser
---------------------------------

    - Backward and forward chaining English-like rules.

    - Top-level imperative command structure.

    - Multiple data types (assertions, integers, reals, strings, arrays,
      records)

    - Uncertain reasoning

    - HCI facilities (several sorts of help, explanation, reanswering
      questions).

    - External interface (to interface to procedural code, databases, etc.)

    - Modular development of knowledge bases


Ask for example copies of the Tutorial and the Example Booklet in order to
get some small taste of the variety of the Adviser language.

Advantageous academic licence cost and conditions
-------------------------------------------------

Many of the people working at WWS have experience of academic life, and so
have attempted to make the licence agreement as helpful as possible, within
the restrictions placed upon us by SD-Scicon.

We have made sure that a site licence is available at a reasonable cost,
knowing that teaching budgets are not large, and that a one-machine licence
is fairly useless when you have a class of 50.

Our agreement for educational sites gives you permission to deliver
applications outside of the academic establishments (many agreements
restrict you from delivering systems where the user is not within the
establishment, thus not allowing your students to work closely with
industry).

We also allow duplication of SD-Adviser teaching materials (Tutorial and
Example booklet) for distribution to students. The tutorial booklet allows
students to learn Adviser fairly rapidly, and the example booklet gives them
simple `templatesU which illustrate different types of expert system.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Price, Department of Computer Science, University College of Wales,
             Aberystwyth, Dyfed, SY23 3BZ, United Kingdom.
email: cjp@uk.ac.aber (within UK) cjp@aber.ac.uk (rest of world?)
Telephone: 0970-622444

NOTE: 
Change of address, ".cs" dropped so our mail doesn't go to Czechoslovakia.
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Newsgroups: comp.ai