The expert system for earthquake prediction (I)—the overall design and main structure

The Expert System For Earthquake Prediction (ESEP) is summarized in this paper. ESEP embraces three subsystems: long-middle term prediction system, annual prediction system and middle-short term prediction system. Each of the subsystems is composed of seven modules: the controlling module, the data base module, the expert knowledge base module, the method base module, the fact preparation module, the reasoning and decision-making module and the plotting and displaying module. The reasoning model ESEP/R and the knowledge expression model ESEP/K are set up in the ESEP, and new evidence combinations, CON (confine), W (weigh), and SYN (synthesize), have been proposed. The distinctive features of the ESEP are: (1) systemized; (2) several experts’ knowledge can be synthesized; (3) a large amount of data and experts’ experience is embraced; (4) four reasoning models and the synthetic decision-making technic are adopted; (5) several software environments are used; (6) modularization; and (7) possessing the friendly user interfaces. The Chinese version of this paper appeared in the Chinese edition ofActa Seismologica Sinica,14, 1–8, 1992.