Assessment of applications for the house renovations grants system : an IT support framework

Loforte T.Ribeiro, FJ

Abstract

This thesis describes the development of a knowledge-based framework for supporting
human experts from the Department of Environmental and Consumer Services of the
Salford City Council in assessing applications for the current house renovation grant system
(HRGS).
The resulting system implements an architecture which integrates case-based reasoning
processes with other problem solving methods. In addition, the system's architecture
integrates different types of knowledge which are required by the problem solving methods.
Some of the main features of the system's architecture are its modularity and its
independence from the implementation shell. The system was implemented using Kappa-
PC which is a shell designed for implementing knowledge-based systems.
The implementation followed the Client Centred Approach method. A number of lessons
were learned from the implementation process. The implementation was carried out
together with the verification and validation of the system. The verification and validation
methods employed allowed the author to focus the evaluation on different features and
components of the system. A number of test cases were employed during the validation.
Client's experts and other independent experts were involved in the validation of the
system. Each validation step was followed by refinement of the main system's components.
This research has demonstrated that various problem solving methods are required for
performing the different tasks of the assessment of applications for the HRGS. The
implemented system has been reasonably successful in demonstrating that a single
framework which integrates various methods can be used for supporting human experts in
assessing applications for the FIRGS. Therefore, the system has proved to perform as
accurately as human experts do for all of the tasks. The system has been described as very
promising by the Client's experts.

Citation

Loforte T.Ribeiro, F. Assessment of applications for the house renovations grants system : an IT support framework. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 7, 2021
• Publisher URL: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.308201
• Related Public URLs: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.308201
• Award Date: Jul 1, 1995