Choice Review

A well-focused book in the areas of expert systems and applications of expert systems approaches to information retrieval. Forsyth and Rada describe the machine learning approach to expert systems, which emphasizes methods of developing systems that are adaptable and self-modifying. The authors take advantage of the very clear focus of this book and present a thorough survey of machine learning from basic concepts through many detailed applications. The first part of the book, composed of five chapters, describes the role of machine learning in expert systems. These chapters include an excellent survey of the various machine learning strategies. Part 2 contains two components. Following an introductory survey chapter on applications of artificial intelligence in information retrieval, the first component, which consists of four chapters, provides detailed descriptions of the various categories of information retrieval problems. The second component in Part 2, composed of five chapters, contains case studies of applications of machine learning concepts to information retrieval problems. The authors take great care to produce a balanced presentation of methods and applications demonstrating both the advantages and the ongoing problems.-J. Beidler, University of Scranton