Respdlog—An Expert System to Implement the Respiratory Decision Logic

Abstract The choice of respirators involves a number of detailed evaluations by an expert knowledgeable in the field and familiar with the workplace. One step in the process of identifying the specific respirator involves the use of the respiratory decision logic sequence to identify the class of respirators. Expert systems are software tools to emulate interaction of users with human experts. An expert system, RESPDLOG, was developed to implement the respirator decision logic. The program has a knowledge base consisting of the logical sequence of the decision-making process and is set up in the form of rules. On execution, the program prompts the user for answers to a number of questions. The inference-deriving capability of the program is then used to arrive at the solution, which is identifying the “class of respirators.”