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Today′s doctors require decision support aids to help them cope with the management of increasing amounts of medical information (records, research advances, new drugs), make appropriate choices and even to substitute in an expert′s absence. Such aids exist in the form of medical expert systems, which are complex computer programs that emulate clinical reasoning. Expert systems consist of a knowledge base in which doctors expertise is encoded and an “inference engine” which manipulates that knowledge. A number of successful diagnostic, management and combined systems are in use but these are a small fraction of the total available. Preventing wider usage are difficulties in evaluation as well as in response time. Significant improvements in resource management can be obtained by the deployment of medical expert systems, so they are predicted to influence profoundly the future of health care in general practice and hospitals alike.

From the very earliest moments in the modern history of the computer, scientists have dreamed of creating advanced systems which would simulate human meditation and reasoning. Of all the modern technological quests, this research to create artificially intelligent computer systems has been one of the most ambitious and fascinating. Although attempts had been made more than 30 years ago to develop and apply such systems to the medical sciences, the field languished for decades. In this framework, this paper aims to share thoughts and estimations on the important role of expert systems in medicine and address their future as well as the trends that are foreseen in this area.

Expert systems are computer-based systems that mimic the logical processes of human experts or organizations to give advice in a specific domain of knowledge. Fuzzy expert systems use fuzzy logic to handle uncertainties generated by imprecise, incomplete and/or vague information. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems.

The authors have carefully reviewed 281 journal publications and 149 conference proceedings published over the past 37 years since 1982. The authors grouped the journal publications and conference proceedings separately accordingly to the methods, application domains, tools and inference systems.

The authors have synthesized the findings and proposed useful suggestions for future research directions. The authors show that the most common use of fuzzy expert systems is in the medical field.

Fuzzy logic can be used to manage uncertainty in expert systems and solve problems that cannot be solved effectively with conventional methods. In this study, the authors present a comprehensive review of the methods and applications in fuzzy expert systems which could be useful for practicing managers developing expert systems under uncertainty.

Future medical expert systems deal with medical expert systems with the following characteristics: (1) simulate the performance of several human experts; (2) deal with patients having chronic diseases; (3) deal with patients having several diseases simultaneously. In this communication, the interactions of medical expert systems are discussed. Interactions regarding diet program, exercise program, and medication are presented with illustrative examples. Medication interactions, side‐effects, and new medications are also presented with examples.

Considers the interactions between expert systems designed for use in the fields of medicine. Outlines the consultation processes that should occur between systems. Discusses future interactive designs.

Many researchers in cybernetics remain sceptical about the practical applications of expert systems to industrial problems. Apart from the much publicised medical expert systems, little information is available about the use of these systems in such fields as safety and reliability. It was therefore encouraging to see the report in ESRA (European Safety and Reliability Association) Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 1, 1988, pp. 14, of experience with expert systems to perform safety studies. Work carried out in 1985 by Électricité de France (EDF) showed that an important step forward towards automating reliability systems could be taken by using expert systems.

This paper examines the relevance of the expert systems approach to information retrieval. First, the purpose and nature of expert systems are outlined, and it is argued that only in domains with relatively limited and clear‐cut rule‐sets will such systems be viable in the near future. The expert systems approach is then related to the provision of interfaces for OPACs and IR systems. Intermediary systems, designed to clarify through dialogue the terms of a client's information need, are described, and the prospects for such systems are discussed. It is argued that relatively straightforward ride‐sets should suffice, and that useful systems may therefore be available fairly soon. Since they could facilitate access to general as well as to specialised information, the potential demand for such systems would seem to be enormous.

This paper aims to investigate how consumption linked with life transitions can differ in its potential to bring about ongoing liminality. By examining how consumers can draw on overlapping systems of resources, different ways in which consumers negotiate ongoing liminality following the transition to motherhood are identified.

The authors conducted an interpretive, exploratory study using in-depth phenomenological interviews with 23 South Asian mothers living in the UK. The sample consisted of mothers at different stages of motherhood.

Following life transitions, consumers may encounter liminal hotspots at the intersection of overlapping systems of resources. The findings examine two liminal hotspots with differing potential to produce ongoing liminality. The study shows how consumers navigate these liminal hotspots in different ways, by accepting, rejecting and amalgamating the resources at hand.

The research sample could have been more diverse; future research could examine liminal hotspots relating to different minority groups and life transitions.

Marketers need to examine the different ways in which consumers draw on different systems of resources following life transitions. The paper includes implications for how marketers segment, target and market to ethnic minority consumers.

Due to increasingly fluid social conditions, there are likely to be growing numbers of consumers who experience ongoing liminality following life transitions. A preliminary framework is presented outlining different ways that consumers negotiate ongoing liminality by drawing on overlapping systems of resources, broadening the understanding of the role that marketplace resources play beyond life transitions.

Malaria is one of the most sinister life-threatening disease and generally transmitted by the bite of an Anopheles mosquito which was infected. These mosquitoes carry the Plasmodium parasite. Worldwide risk of malaria thread is very hard to deal, because of extreme temperature and climate changes which lead to uncontrolled changes in the mosquito population, as many deaths from malaria occur outside the healthcare system and other infections might be misdiagnosed as malaria unless a diagnostic test is done. The purpose of this study is creating a system which is early diagnosing malaria for settlements adequate healthcare units and non-immune travellers.

In this study’s system, the authors developed a new medical expert system (MES) process using the decreased rule base to detect malaria. The authors’ purpose was to successfully identify the illness by taking all symptoms of malaria into consideration in the MES (six basic signs, 64 different conditions). In the proposed MES process, in place of inspecting all the malaria-related signs, the authors used the decreased rule bases.

So as to take the lessen decreased bases, Boolean functions are used in a two-level simplification method. Using this method, decreased cases were evaluated by taking six symptoms of malaria into account instead of assessing 64 individual conditions.

The system can be used in diagnosis of asthma and chronic obstructive respiratory disease.

The system can be used in absence of adequate healthcare units. Thus, malaria can be diagnosed early.

The authors hope that the system they have developed will be useful for settlements in the absence of adequate healthcare units and non-immune travellers.

Knowledge‐based and expert systems are quickly becoming an important component of knowledge organizations, enterprise knowledge management, and core competences. They are being used in various applications ranging from usage in the US White House to chemical plants worldwide. Presents an overview of expert systems technology and then specifically addresses their use in a critical domain ‐ life support systems.