Artificial Intelligence

 Artificial Intelligence(AI) is a branch of Science which deals with helping machines to find solutions of complex problems in a more human like fashion. This generally involves borrowing characteristics from human intelligence, and applying them as algorithms in a computer friendly way. John McCarthy, who coined the term Artificial Intelligence in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines", especially intelligent computer programs. Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. AI is the study of how to make computers do things which, at the moment, people do better. AI is the study and design of intelligent agents, where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success.

AI programming languages include LISP, developed in the 1950s, is the early programming language strongly associated with AI. LISP is a functional programming language with procedural extensions. LISP(LISt Processor) was specifically designed for processing heterogeneous lists typically a list of symbols. Features of LISP are run-time type checking, higher order functions(functions that have other functions as parameters), automatic memory management(garbage collection) and an interactive environment. 

 

The second language strongly associated with AI is PROLOG. PROLOG was developed in the 1970s. PROLOG is declarative in nature and has facilities for explicitly limiting the search space.

Object oriented language are a class of languages more recently used for AI programming. Artificial Intelligence is a new electronic machine that stores large amount of information and process it at very high speed to solve problems. It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence. 

Artificial Intelligence has knowledge based primary technique to link, decide and process itself like a human beings. Artificial Intelligence is usually defined as the science of making computer intelligent machine. Artificial Intelligence sometime can some the problem and answer to natural language like English, French and Nepali. The science of making computers that can recognize and react to human language either spoken or written is called Artificial Intelligence. 

Components of AI

• Learning : Learning is distinguished into a number of different forms. The simplest is trial and error. It is the activity of gaining knowledge or skill by studying, practicing, being taught or experiencing something. It is categorized as Auditory learning.
• Reasoning : It is the set of process that enables us to provide basis for judgement, making decisions and prediction.
• Problem Solving : It is the process in which one perceives and tries to arrive at a desired solution from a present situation by taking some path, i.e. process of selecting, the best suitable alternatives out of multiple alternatives to reach the desired goal.
• Perception : It is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting and organizing sensory information. Perception presumes sensing. In human body, perception is aided by sensory organs.
• Linguistic Intelligence : It is one's ability to use, comprehend, speak and write the verbal and written language. It is important in interpersonal communication.

Applications/uses of AI

AI has been dominant in various fields such as :

1. Problem Solving : This is the first application of AI. The objective of this particular area is how to implement the procedures of AI to solve the problem of human beings.
2. Game Planning : AI plays crucial role in game such as chess, tic-tac-toe etc. Those games are played using a well defined set of rules. This makes it easy to generate the search space. These games are represented in computer. Machine can think large number of possible positions based on Heuristics knowledge.
3. Natural language understanding : The main goal of this problem is we can ask the question to the computer in our own language i.e. computer can receive the particular language and the system gave the response within the same language. We must use to communicate with the computer using language such as English.
4. Perception : There are three major challenges in the application areas of perception.
5. Speech recognition : The main goal of this problem is how the computer machine can recognize our speeches. It can be described in two ways : 

                                                         - Discrete speech recognition : Discrete speech recognition means people can interact with the computers in such a way that they can insert time gap in between the two words or sentences. In this recognition computer takes some time for searching. 

                                                         - Continuous speech recognition : Continuous speech recognition means interact with the computer in such a way that we cannot insert time gap between two words or sentences. We can talk continuously with the computer. For this we can increase the speed of computer.

       6. Pattern recognition : The computer can identify the real world object with the help of camera.

       7. Image processing : The goal of image processing is to identify the relation between the parts of image by using camera so that computer can receive visual image. 

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Database Administrator

     In a very general sense, a database administrator is the individual responsible for maintaining the RDBMS system. The DBA has many different responsibilities, but the overall goal of the DBA is to keep the server up at all times and to provide users with access to the required information when they need it. The DBA makes sure that the database is protected and that any chance of data loss is minimized.

 

A DBA can be someone who, from the start, has concentrated in the area of database design and administration. A DBA can be a programmer who, by default or by volunteering, took over the responsibility of maintaining a database server during project development and enjoyed the job so much that he switched. A DBA can be a system administrator who was given the added responsibility of maintaining a database server. DBAs can even come from unrelated fields, such as accounting or the help desk, and switch to Information Systems to become DBAs. A DBA needs the following : 

• Knowledge of the operating system in which database server is running.
• Knowledge of Structured Query Language(SQL)
• Sound database design
• General Understanding of network architectures(for example, Client/Server, Internet/Intranet, Enterprise)
• Knowledge about the database Server.

DBA Responsibilities

• Installing and Upgrading an database Server : The DBA is responsible for installing database Server or Upgrading an existing database Server. In the case of upgrading database Server , the DBA is responsible for ensuring that if the upgrade is not sucessful, the Server can be rolled back to an earlier release until the upgrade issues can be resolved.

• Monitoring the Database Server's Health and Tuning Accordingly : Monitoring the health of the database Server means making sure that the following is done :                                                         The Server is running with optimal performance.

                                                                   The error log or event log is monitored for database errors.

                                                                    Databases have routine maintenance performed on them, and the overall system has periodic maintenance performed by the system administrator.

 

• Using Storage Properly:  Database Servers enables us to automatically grow the size of your databases and transaction logs, or we can choose to select a fixed size for the database and transaction log. Either way, maintaining the proper use of storage means monitoring space requirements and adding new storage space(disk drives) when required.           

 

•   Performing Backup and Recovery Duties : Backup and recovery are the DBA's most critical tasks: They include the following aspects :

                                 - Establishing standards and schedules for database backups

                                 - Developing recovery procedures for each database

                                 - Making sure that the backup schedules meet the recovery requirements

• Managing Database Users and Security : With any database Servers, the DBA works tightly with the network administrator to add network users to the database or the DBA adds user logins. The DBA is also responsible for assigning users to databases and determining the proper security level for each user. Within each database, the DBA is responsible for assigning permissions to the various database objects such as tables, views and stored procedures.
  

•   Working with Developers : It is important for the DBA to work closely with the development teams to assist in overall database design, such as creating normalized databases, helping developers tune queries, assigning proper indexes, and aiding developers in the creation of triggers and stored procedures. 
  

• Establishing and Enforcing Standards : The DBA should establish naming convention and standards for the database server and databases and make sure that everyone sticks to them.
• Transferring Data : The DBA is responsible for importing and exporting data to and from the database server.
• Replicating Data : Database servers have many different replication capabilities such as Merge replication(2-way disconnected replication) and queued replication. Managing and setting up replication topologies is a big undertaking for a DBA because of the complexities involved with properly setting up and maintaining replication.
• Scheduling Events : The database administrator is responsible for setting up and scheduling various events to aid in performing many tasks such as backups and replication.
• Providing 24-hour access : The database server must stay up, and the databases must always be protected and online. Be prepared to perform some maintenance and upgrades after hours. Also be prepared to carry that dreaded beeper. If the database server should go down, be ready to get the Server up and running.
• Learning Constantly : To be a good DBA, you must continue to study and practice your mission critical procedures, such as testing your backups by recovering to a test database. In this business, technology changes very fast, so you must continue learning database server, available client/servers, and database design tools. It is a never ending process.
  

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