Lecture # 12 "Learning From Data"

The terminologies discussed in the chapter are: 
Learning: Learning is acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing, existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. 
The Context of Learning:
The relevant technologies are:

·         Artificial Intelligence

·         Experts Systems

·         Case-Based Reasoning

·         Data Warehousing

·         Intelligent agents

·         Neural Networks

The Process Of Learning: It is a procedure which sort out and transforms data onto valid and practical knowledge.
The Goals Of Learning: The major goal of learning is to perk up the qualities of communiqué and decision making.
Learning From Data: There are two approaches to learn from data:
Top-down approach

·         Generate ideas

·         Develop models

·         Validate models

Bottom-up approach

·         Discover new (unknown) patterns

·         Find key relationships in data

Data Visualization: Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information. According to Friedman (2008) "main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means.
Artificial Neural Networks as Learning Model: The Artificial Neural Networks are modeled after human brain’s network. They simulate biological information processing via networks of interconnected neurons.
Learning In Neural Networks: There are two types of learning in NN:
Supervised: A teacher with set of examples of input and output.
Unsupervised: Does not need a teacher.
Business Applications: Following are the business applications of Neural Networks:

·         Risk Management

·         Predicting Foreign Exchange Fluctuations

·         Advance Evaluations

Association Rules: There are 4 types of association rules that help understanding the relationship that exist in data:

·         Boolean Rule: A rule that examines the presence or absence of items.

·         Quantitative Rule: A rule that considers the quantitative values of items.

·         Multi-dimensional Rule: A rule that refers to a multitude of dimensions.

Lecture # 11 "Knowledge Transfer In the E-World"

Intranets: These are the Internet technology which is used to cater the internal needs of an organization. Intranets are used to link the knowledge workers and users 24/7. Usually used when no. of employees are moderate to large.

Extranets: An extranet is a private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of business’s Information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners or customers. An Extranet can also be viewed as part of a company’s intranet that is extended to users outside the company.

Groupware: Software designed to facilitate collective working by a number of different users. Such groupware applications are commonly email, newsgroups and chat. Groupware are often divided into two categories related to time and two other categories related to place. When employees are using an application at the same time, it is synchronous groupware. Workers using the same application at different times are using asynchronous groupware. The place-related categories are collocated, groupware that is used by people in the same place; and distance. 

Groupware Applications: Following are the common Groupware applications widely used these days:

·                     Emails

·                     Newsgroups and work-flow systems

·                     Chat rooms

·                     Video communication

·                     Knowledge sharing groupware

·                     Group calendaring and scheduling

E-Business: E-business (electronic business), derived from such terms as "e-mail" and "e-commerce," is the conduct of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners. One of the first to use the term was IBM in October, 1997. Companies are using the Web to buy parts and supplies from other companies, to collaborate on sales promotions, and to do joint research. Exploiting the convenience, availability, and world-wide reach of the Internet, many companies, such as Amazon.com, the book sellers, have already discovered how to use the Internet successfully. Some of the problems and drawbacks of E-business are:

·                     System and knowledge reliability.

·                     Viruses cause unnecessary delays, file backups, storage problems, etc.

·                     Danger of hackers accessing files and corrupting accounts

·                     Corporate weakness to access by the competiton

Supply Chain Management: Supply Chain Management is to have the right product in the right place, at the right time, at the right price and in the right condition. It requires teamwork, knowledge sharing of logistics, and agreement among knowledge workers and suppliers. The major goals of Supply Chain Management are to improve the efficiency and profitability of the organization.

Customer Relationship Management: It entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service-related. CRM is often thought of as a business strategy that enables businesses to:

·                     Understand the customer

·                     Retain customers through better customer experience

·                     Attract new customer

·                     Win new clients and contracts

·                     Increase profitably

·                     Decrease customer management costs

Lecture # 10 "Knowledge Transfer & Sharing"

Knowledge Transfer:  Knowledge transfer is the transfer of knowledge from one part of the organization to another. Like knowledge management, knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users.

Fundamentals Of KT:

·         Must be an integral part of a learning organization.

·         Conveying the knowledge of one source to another source and the suitable use of the broadcasted knowledge.

·         The Goal of KT is to promote knowledge sharing, increase collaboration and networking.

·         Sources: knowledge bases, experts, etc.

·         Media: LAN, secure/insecure lines, encrypted/plain text, etc.

·         Consumers: another application, a manager, a customer, etc.

Guidelines of successful KT & Sharing:

·         Building an feeling of Trust inside the Organization.

·         Collaboration & Cooperation.

·         Creating the Culture to house change.

·         Reasoning before Processing.

·         Knowing how the Organization handles Mistakes

·         Doing is better than Talking

·         How Management view and reward Knowledge Transfer

·         Determine Employee Job Satisfaction

Employees Vocational Needs:

·         Ability Utilization

·         Advancement

·         Level of Achievement

·         Level of Creativity

·         Compensation

·         Independence

·         Authority (supervision)

·         Level of responsibility

·         Recognition

·         Status

·         Job Security

·         Variety

·         Work conditions

Strategies of Knowledge Transfer:

·         Collective Sequential Transfer

·         Explicit Inter-team Transfer

·         Tacit knowledge Transfer

Role Of Internet in Knowledge Transfer & Sharing:

·         Accommodates knowledge swap and communication

·         Permit sending messages to multiple persons concurrently

·         Offers a variety of services

·         Incorporate systems and networks

Lecture # 09 "Knowledge transfer And Sharing "

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND SHARING is System Testing & Deployment  after Knowledge Codification:

·         Quality Assurance:

It is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and      avoiding problems when delivering services to customers.

·         Outputs:

Two principles included in QA are: "Fit for purpose", the product should be suitable for the intended purpose; and "Right first time", mistakes should be eliminated. QA includes management of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components, services related to production, and management, production and inspection processes.

·         Logical Testing:

·         To make sure that the system produces correct results.

·         User Acceptance Testing: It follows logical testing and check the system's behavior in a realistic environment.

Verify the knowledge base formation: The structure of the knowledge as it relates to circular or redundant errors is verified. Consistency, correctness and completeness of knowledge base rules are also verified. Verify the knowledge base functionality: Deals with confidence and reliability of the knowledge base.

• Attributes:
• Circular Errors
• Completeness
• Confidence
• Correctness
• Consistency
• Inconsistency
• Redundancy Errors
• Reliability
• Subsumption error 

Fundamentals of KT:

·         Transmission of knowledge from one place to another.

·         Appropriate use and medium of that language.

·         Create knowledge bases for knowledge transfer.

·         Commonly available in every fields , any telephonic conversion Expert system apply there

·                     Knowing-Doing Gap:

How much we have and how we are implementing.

Organization makes correction.

·                     Employee’s Vocational Needs:

·         Occupation, jobs , skills .

·         Train to some specific skill.

·         Employees will be satisfied when degree of match between job requirement and vocational needs.

·   Strategies of Knowledge Transfer:

Knowledge can be transferred via:

·                     documents

·                     internet/intranet

·                     groupware

·                     databases

·                     knowledge bases

·                     face to face communication

The best way to absorb tacit knowledge is to be present in the domain where tacit knowledge is practiced. This can be done through job rotation , job training , and on-site learning. This involves on-site decisions making , absorbing the mechanics , and the neuristics as they occur , and finally coming up with a new knowledge base that emulates the domain in a unique way . However , the main limitation of such strategy is time.

Role of Internet in Knowledge Transfer & Sharing:

With the use of INTERNET  it is possible to transmit/receive information containing

images, graphics, sound and videos. 

·                     Linking consumers and businesses via INTERNET.

·                     Monitoring/maintaining customer's Web sites.

·                     Network management/systems integration.

·                     Backbone access services for other ISP's.

·                     Managing on line purchase and payment systems.

Lecture # 08 "Knowledge Codification"

KNOWLEDGE CODIFICATION refers to written form or audio/ video present to other people, which involves:

• Converting tacit into explicit.
• Converting undocumented into documented form.
• Representing and organizing knowledge.
• Highest return for the business.
• Explicit knowledge is organized and categorized.

Benefits of Knowledge Codification:

·         Get the knowledge from expert and share to other.

• Instruction/Training: Promoting training.
• Prediction: Inferring the likely outcome of a given situation.
• Diagnosis: Check casual factors.
• Planning/Schedule: Mapping the course.

Modes of Knowledge Conversion:

Some Codification Tools

·         Knowledge Map: The knowledge is represented visually and it is not a repository. It is used to fill knowledge gaps. This can be used to capture knowledge. Knowledge mapping is quite helpful in order to visualize and survey the complex system. Key are taken out from database or literature and put in tabular form as lists of facts. Then the tabled relationships are joined to form networks to get the knowledge maps.

·         Decision Table: It is like a spreadsheet. The decision table has a list of conditions, rules and actions. Each condition is match up with the conclusion.

·         Decision Tree: It is a hierarchically arranged semantic network. The node represents the goals and the links in the decision tree represents the outcomes/decisions. Apart from the root node all nodes are illustrated as the primary goal. The decision tree is a step before the knowledge codification.

·         Frames: The frame represents the knowledge about a particular idea in a data structure. In order to understand the problem domain easily the frames handles the combination of declarative and operational knowledge.

·         Production Rules: The tacit knowledge codification is in the form of premise-action pair. The premise is a Boolean expression that is true for the rule that is applied. Rules are conditional statement that tells an action to be taken if any condition is true. The action part of the rule is separated from the premise by the keyword THEN and if there are series of statements separated by AND's or comma's and is executed if the premise is true. The form is IF… THEN, or IF…THEN…ELSE.

·         Case-based Reasoning: CBR is reasons from related past cases in a way the humans’ use their past experiences to reach conclusions. The goal of the CBR is to get the alike historical cases that matches the current case.

Knowledge-Based Agents: It is a program code which is that performs independent action in an appropriate way. They are programmed to interact with other agents or humans by using agent communication language. In terms of knowledge-based systems, an agent can be programmed to learn from the user behavior and deduce future behavior for assisting the user. 

Knowledge Developer's Skill Set:

•  Knowledge Requirements: Database or Operationg  system, hidden facts , domain specific and cognitive psychology (People should know how to learn).
•  Skills Requirements

·         Interpersonal Communication.

·         Ability to articulate the project's rationale.

·         Rapid Prototyping skills.

·         Attributes related to personality.

·         Job roles.