RULE (If -- then)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2902 ▶ |
| Object type | Methodology or model |
Any rule that establishes the conditions of a specific behavior, or various alternative ones.
M. BODEN states: “A rule may include several conditions in its IF-side and several actions in its Then-side) (1990, p.215). Commenting on an abstract drawing program (AARON), she states: ”Abstract-AARON's If-Then rules may be fairly complex. Several aspects (not just one) of the current state of the drawing may have to be checked, before the program knows what to do next“ (p.143).
If — then rules are used in what A.I. workers call “production systems”, notably expert systems. BODEN gives the example of an expert system for the detection of soybeans diseases, which includes an array of descriptors of various types: environmental ones; global plant ones; conditions of leafs, of stems, of fruit pods, of seeds and of roots. (p.184).
MARUYAMA'sdeviation-amplification processes in cybernetics are also based on If-then rules.