From the very earliest moments in the modern history of the computer, scientists have dreamed of creating an 'electronic

brain'. Of all the modern technological quests, this search to create artificially intelligent (AI) computer systems has been one of the most ambitious and, not surprisingly, controversial. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage on behaviors that humans consider intelligent. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines. Researchers are creating systems which can mimic human thought, understand speech, beat the best human chess-player, and countless other feats never before possible. AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply divided into subfields that often fail in the task of communicating with each other. Subfields have grown up around particular institutions, the work of individual researchers, and the solution of specific problems, resulting in longstanding differences of opinion about how AI should be done and the application of widely differing tools. The central problems of AI include such traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. AI Techniques expert systems: computer application that makes decisions in real-life situations that would otherwise be performed by a human expert. neural networks: systems that simulate intelligence by reproducing the types of physical connections found in animal or even human brains. Because of the current technology limitations, the number of these connections is small (in terms of billions of connections found in human brain), but still capable of reproducing some very interesting behaviour in a number of disciplines such as voice or optical-character recognition and natural-language processing. fuzzy logic: type of logic that recognizes more than simple true and false values. It represents a departure from classical two-valued sets and logic, that uses "soft" linguistic (e.g. large, small, hot, cold, warm) system variables and a continuous range of truth values in the interval [0,1], rather than strict binary (True or False) decisions and assignments.

natural language understanding: programming computers to understand and interact with users in natural languages like English. Related to the voice (speech) recognition which converts spoken dialogue to the computer-readable text, but without understanding the real meaning of that text. agents: a computational entity which acts on behalf of other (most often human) entities in an autonomous fashion, performs its actions with some level of proactivity and/or reactiveness and exhibits some level of the key attributes of learning, co-operation and mobility. Imagine having your own "smart" agent that could watch new articles on the Usenet, and deliver only the most interesting ones (according to your preferences), instead of having to browse throuh thousands of new messages each day. robotics: programming computers to see, hear and react to sensory stimuli. Probably the most attractive field of AI for newcomers. Includes several very different approaches: see BEAM robotics Web sites and MIT's Cog project for more info on this. AI problems (speech recognition, NLP, vision, automatic programming, knowledge representation, etc.) can be paired with techniques (NN, search, Bayesian nets, production systems, etc.) to make distinctions such as search-based NLP vs. NN NLP vs. Statistical/Probabilistic NLP. Then you can combine techniques, such as using neural networks to guide search. And you can combine problems, such as posing that knowledge representation and language are equivalent. (Or you can combine AI with problems from other domains.) AI Applications can be categorized intoa.Simple b.Complex c.Very Complex

A Simple application is an integrated standard application. AI technology can also be used to provide solutions, applications and platforms for commercial needs such as e- and m-commerce, network integration and resource management. Examples- Customer Relationship Management

(CRM); E-commerce; Content Management Systems (CMS); Network and software security systems; Agent technology. "Complex" applications involve taking over the management and analysing functions based on current technology and usage of existing systems at the client. On top of optimising current workflow, AI applications seek to analyse the entire domain environment, makes projections of future events based on historical data and includes future development of the system in its recommendations. Network Management, including vital functions, like storage management, security, clustering, etc. will be changed from trying until it works to implement what is needed based on comprehensive computer analysis. Examples- Financial Services; Oil Field search and appraisal; Intelligent Traffic Management in Telecommunication and Energy Networks; Enterprise management; Risk management; Industrial automation of complex production processes (such as Steel, Chemicals, Refining); "Very Complex" applications require the collection of enormous amounts of complex data, which then need to be filed, analysed and managed to assure a maximum of usability in the shortest amount of time possible. This can only be accomplished when the system is at the point of self-analysing the data. The system needs to be able to learn how to handle data and where to collect them to propose a decision based within very complex structures. Therefore the system needs to put data in relation and manage interdisciplinary content as well as cross-boarder processes. These applications enable organizations like universities, governments and industrial companies to truly take the world into consideration with a computer when making plans for the near and midterm future. Examples- Global climate analysis; Distributed Knowledge Networks; Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; Coordination and Control of Multi-Agent Systems; Automata Induction, Grammar Inference, and Language Acquisition; Computational modelling of Proteins; Environment for Integrating and Analyzing Plant Genomic Databases; Military simulations (eg. Star Wars); Human population analysis including resource distribution and consummation; Astronomy/astrophysics. AI Programming Languages

AI programs have been written in just about every language ever created. The most common seem to be Lisp, Prolog, C/C++, and recently Java. LISP- For many years, AI was done as research in universities and laboratories, thus fast prototyping was favored over fast execution. This is one reason why AI has favored high-level langauges such as Lisp. This tradition means that current AI Lisp programmers can draw on many resources from the community. Features of the language that are good for AI programming include: garbage collection, dynamic typing, functions as data, uniform syntax, interactive environment, and extensibility. PROLOG- It wasn't until the 70s that people began to realize that a set of logical statements plus a general theorem prover could make up a program. Prolog combines the high-level and traditional advantages of Lisp with a built-in unifier, which is particularly useful in AI. Prolog seems to be good for problems in which logic is intimately involved, or whose solutions have a succinct logical characterization. Its major drawback (IMHO) is that it's hard to learn. C/C++- C/C++ is mostly used when the program is simple, and excecution speed is the most important. Statistical AI techniques such as neural networks are common examples of this. Backpropagation is only a couple of pages of C/C++ code, and needs every ounce of speed that the programmer can muster. Java- The newcomer, Java uses several ideas from Lisp, most notably garbage collection. Its portability makes it desirable for just about any application, and it has a decent set of built in types. Java is still not as high-level as Lisp or Prolog, and not as fast as C, making it best when portability is paramount. medicine Artificial intelligence in medicine is a new research area that combines sophisticated representational and computing techniques with the insights of expert physicians to produce tools for improving health care.

Medicine is a field in which technology is much needed. Our increasing expectations of the highest quality health care and the rapid growth of ever more detailed medical knowledge leave the physician without adequate time to devote to each case and struggling to keep up with the newest developments in his field. Due to lack of time, most medical decisions must be based on rapid judgments of the case relying on the physician's unaided memory. Only in rare situations can a literature search or other extended investigation be undertaken to assure the doctor (and the patient) that the latest knowledge is brought to bear on any particular case. PROS

Machine learning systems can be used to develop the knowledge bases used by expert systems. Given a set of clinical cases that act as examples, a machine learning system can produce a systematic description of those clinical features that uniquely characterise the clinical conditions. This knowledge can be expressed in the form of simple rules, or often as a decision tree.

The decisions and recommendations of a program can be explained to its users and evaluators in terms which are familiar to the experts.

We can measure the extent to which our goal is achieved by a direct comparison of the program's behavior to that of the experts.

The ability to develop expert computer programs for clinical use, making possible the inexpensive dissemination of the best medical expertise to geographical regions where that expertise is lacking, and making consultation help available to non-specialists who are not within easy reach of expert human consultants.

To ability to formalize medical expertise, to enable physicians to understand better what they know and td give them a systematic structure for teaching their expertise to medical students.

The ability to test Artificial Intelligence theories in a "real world" situations.

The resulting developments in the AI sub-field of machine learning have resulted in a set of

techniques which have the potential to alter the way in which knowledge is created.

AI looks at raw data and then attempt to hypothesize relationships within the data, and newer learning systems are able to produce quite complex characterizations of those relationships. In other words they attempt to discover humanly understandable concepts.

AI allows the ability to discover new drugs. The learning system is given examples of one or more drugs that weakly exhibit a particular activity, and based upon a description of the chemical structure of those compounds, the learning system suggests which of the chemical attributes are necessary for that pharmacological activity. Based upon the new characterization of chemical structure produced by the learning system, drug designers can try to design a new compound that has those characteristics.

CONS

Some systems require the existence of an electronic medical record system to supply their data, and most institutions and practices do not yet have all their working data available electronically.

Others suffer from poor human interface design and so do not get used even if they are of benefit.

Much of the reluctance to use systems simply arose because expert systems did not fit naturally into the process of care, and as a result using them required additional effort from already busy individuals.

Computer illiteracy of healthcare workers is also a problem with artificial intelligent systems. If a system is perceived as beneficial to those using it, then it will be used. If not, it will probably be rejected.

APPLICATIONS

There are many different types of clinical task to which expert systems can be applied.

Generating alerts and reminders. In so-called real-time situations, an expert system attached to a monitor can warn of changes in a patient's condition. In less acute circumstances, it might scan laboratory test results or drug orders and send reminders or warnings through an e-mail system.

Diagnostic assistance. When a patient's case is complex, rare or the person making the diagnosis is simply inexperienced, an expert system can help come up with likely diagnoses based on patient data.

Therapy critiquing and planning. Systems can either look for inconsistencies, errors and omissions in an existing treatment plan, or can be used to formulate a treatment based upon a patient's specific condition and accepted treatment guidelines.

Agents for information retrieval. Software 'agents' can be sent to search for and retrieve information, for example on the Internet, that is considered relevant to a particular problem. The agent contains knowledge about its user's preferences and needs, and may also need to have medical knowledge to be able to assess the importance and utility of what it finds.

Image recognition and interpretation. Many medical images can now be automatically interpreted, from plane X-rays through to more complex images like angiograms, CT and MRI scans. This is of value in mass-screenings, for example, when the system can flag potentially abnormal images for detailed human attention.