|
Features
|
| XML and Distributed Business-to-Business Intelligence: Fusing XML and
Java-based Expert Applications Earl Cox explores the new relationship
between applications and intelligence and how combining business policy
rules and XML capabilities provides a powerful, robust and extensible way
of building distributed applications. |
| Data Cleansing: An Automated Approach Will Dwinnell investigates
intelligent techniques such as anomaly detection for reducing data irregularities
which ultimately affect downstream business decisions. |
| Why Smalltalk? Could Smalltalk be the Next Big Business Language? James
A. Robertson promotes Smalltalk's possible advantages in productivity and
quality over other Object Oriented Languages.. |
| AI@Work Practical Applications of Prolog to eBusiness - A Racing
Case Study; Russian Tax Service is now High Tech - Fast Automatic Character
Recognition. . |
| Lisp Power and Functionality A Well-Kept Secret: Results of the ITTA's
Lisp Users Survey Douglas F. Ramsey discusses the respondents comments
about the key strengths and industry misconceptions about the LISP programming
language. |
| Cloning Business Logic via Web-Based Rules: Reusable Logic Across Independent
Applications Thomas Ronk and Jeff Weyer examine a non-technical interface
for capturing the business logic that automates workflow across enterprise
applications. |
| What's Behind the Dyland Language? A Brief Overview Hans Wegener
takes a detailed look at the Dylan programming language and some of its
semantic constructs. |
| Geospatial Data Mining for Market Intelligence: Finding Market Insight
in a Sea of Data Paul Duke describes how two business intelligence technologies
coupled with data mining produced actionable business decisions. |
| Regulars |
|
| Editorial |
|
| AI and the Net - Virtual Reality on the
Web - What is available today and where it may lead in the future |
|
| The Book Zone - Evolutionary Design
by Computers and What Else are You Reading? |
|
| Product Updates --------------------------------> |
24 late breaking product announcements from
around the world in the fields of: |
| |
Business Forecasting |
Business Rules |
| |
Custom Intelligent Services |
Decision Support |
| |
Expert System Development Tools |
Genetic Algorithms |
| |
Automation |
Intelligent Tools |
| |
Intelligent Portals |
Knowledge Based Systems |
| |
Languages |
Modeling and Simulation |
| |
Natural Language Processing |
Neural Networks |
| |
Voice and Speech Recognition |
Newsletters |
| |
Training |
|
| Product Service Guide - Provides access to information
on an entire category of products |
|
|
| PC AI Blackboard - AI advertisers bulletin board |
|
|
|
|
Today, businesses utilize the most efficient and affordable
medium for disseminating information, whether externally or internally,
in the history of mankind - the Internet. Corporate hosted web sites enable
customers, partners, and suppliers to instantly understand products, services,
and even corporate strategies while the host recieves instantaneous feedback.
Intranet sites distribute a variety of corporate information to employees,
including benefits and directory information, administrative announcements,
marketing strategies, technical specifications and more. In addition to
simplifying and accelerating information dissemination, the Internet revolutionized
the very essence of information - assimilating hypertext documents, images,
sound, video, and spatial data, along with numerous other information types.
|
| |
Business rules, statements that control or define the various
aspects of a business, either define the structure of a business or govern
its business processes. Business rules are the binding agent that enables
organizations to balance stakeholder expectations, a principle base for
making decisive strategic decisions, and the requirements of day-to-day
operations. |
| |
Intelligent applications that easily integrate enterprise
business rules with existing legacy data and new information and knowledge
formats are crucial to a business' survival. It is this ability to manage
complex, time critical information adn produce key decisions quickly, that
enables a company to remain competitive. |
| |
This issue takes a look at a number of technologies with a
focus on Intelligent Web Applications and Object Oriented Development (OOD).
Earl Cox starts us off by examining how the combinations of business intelligence
(in the form of business policy rules) and the new XML standard enables
information and knowledge sharing between enterprise applications. Tom Ronk
and Jeff Weyer explore workflow automation across disparate enterprise applications
taking advantage of reusable business logic and automated business logic.
They demonstrate how a web interface to an enterprise's business rules empowers
the rules owners and enhances a company's ability to react quickly. |
| |
We also take a look at Object Oriented Technology, spotlighting
the more traditional AI and OOD languages. Although some of these languages
have been around for a long time (Lisp - 1958, Prolog - 1972, Smalltalk
- 1972, and Dylan - 1992), they compare very favorably with their more modern
counterparts. THe issues these langauges struggled with when first introduced,
such as poor performance or high memory requirements, have long since been
eliminated by compiler/interpreter improvements and the explosion in the
platform capabilities. These languages actually have many benefits over
today's "language of the month," and deserve another "look-see." |
| |
Other AI technologies explored include Geospatial data mining
(adding a geographical component to the results) and intelligent data cleansing
as part of any numerical analysis or modeling activity. And as we approach
tax season, we see how taxes are handled on the other side of the world
as an AI based scanner is used to handle Russian Tax Returns. |
| |
Taking a look at our regulars, Mary Kroening covers the application
of virtual reality on the web while Will Dwinnell review the book "Evolutionary
Design by Computers" and provides suggestions for alternative sources
of AI information. |
| |
|
| |
Terry Hengl |
