[Inference engines of expert systems for designing removable partial dentures].

The expert system for designing removable partial dentures has a great potentiality for clinical and educational use. The system sorts out several solutions for clinical problems with the aid of logic and data bases stored in the memory bank. The most important part of this system is the inference engine. Production system and frame system are often used as the inference engine. The purpose of this report was to compare different types of inference engine in practical situations. Following conclusion were obtained. 1) Since each type of inference engine has its own advantages and disadvantages, one has to select most suitable one for the purpose of the system. 2) One must select the inference engine type which will help potential user's understanding.