Summary
Objectives:
The technology of grid services is developing fast. This paper presents an approach
to the implementation of an intelligent grid service that configures a hospital taking
advantage of the knowledge logistics idea.
Methods:
The presented approach is based on synergistic integration of knowledge acquired
from distributed sources in order to obtain new or complement insufficient knowledge.
Presented approach uses ontologies and the formalism of object-oriented constraint
networks for knowledge representation and applies ILOG to constraint-based problem
solving.
Results:
The application of the approach is illustrated via a decision support system for
a fictitious case study of a hospital configuration in the Binni region. The system
showed the ability to produce interrelated solutions for subtasks of the hospital
configuration task based on the built ontology and input parameters. Besides, such
preferences as cost or time minimization are also considered by the implemented fuzzy
logic module that finds a feasible solution.
Conclusions:
KL would benefit from the grid, and particularly from the concept of a semantic grid.
The scalable architecture of the approach enables its extension with regard to knowledge/information
sources number and, thereby, with regard to factors taken into account during complex
problem solving. Utilizing ontologies allows integration of the approach into existing
processes and facilitates knowledge sharing with similar systems. Application of constraint
networks allows rapid problem manipulation and usage of such existing efficient technologies
as ILOG.
Keywords
Knowledge integration - heterogeneous knowledge sources - decision support systems
- grid computing
