Books

Books : reviews

Adrian D. Walker, Michael McCord, John F. Sowa, Walter G. Wilson.
Knowledge Systems and Prolog: a logical approach to expert systems and natural language processing.
Addison-Wesley. 1987

(read but not reviewed)

This book introduces Prolog and two important areas of Prolog use — expert systems and natural language processing programs (together known as knowledge systems.) Prolog, providing much of the power of logic in an easy-to-learn programming language, has made it possible to take a logical and efficient approach to knowledge systems. The book covers basic and more advanced Prolog programming, describes practical expert systems and natural language processing in depth, and provides an introduction to the formal basis in mathematical logic for the meaning of Prolog programs.

Highlights

• Presents significant examples of knowledge systems, with useful parts of actual programs included.

• Describes important research results in expert systems, natural language processing, and logic programming.

• Integrates many trends in knowledge systems by bringing diverse representations of knowledge together in one practical framework.

• Though useful with any Prolog implementation, provides an introductory tutorial followed by advanced programming techniques for IBM Prolog.

• Includes exercises and study questions.

Knowledge Systems and Prolog: A Logical Approach to Expert Systems and Natural Language Processing will be useful in several ways. Readers can use it as a textbook to learn Prolog for the first time, or to add advanced programming techniques to their prior knowledge of Prolog. Flexible chapter sequences are suggested for readers whose main interest is in uses of expert systems, in natural language processing, in the formal foundations of logic programming, or in Prolog programming itself.