Building Intelligent .NET Applications: Agents, Data Mining, Rule-Based Systems, and Speech Processing

Building Intelligent .NET Applications: Agents, Data Mining, Rule-Based Systems, and Speech Processing

Chapter 1. Introduction
 The AI Effect
 Enhanced Computing
 Seamless Computing
 Why Should You Consider Enhanced Computing?
 Why Use Visual Studio .NET?
 How This Book is Organized
 What You Need
Chapter 2. Creating Applications That Talk
 The Microsoft Speech Application SDK (SASDK)
 Business Benefits of Speech
 How the Speech Engine Works
 Installing the SASDK
 Creating a Speech Application
 Debugging and Tuning a Speech Application
 Setting Up a Telephony Server
 Summary
Chapter 3. Telephony Applications
 Creating a Speech Application to Solve a Business Problem
 Loading the Sales Scheduling Database
 Building a Telephony Application
 Tuning User Prompts
 Summary
Chapter 4. Multimodal Speech Applications
 Why Create Multimodal Applications?
 Sunrise Community College
 Building a Multimodal Application
 The Manifest File
 Running the Application on PocketPC
 Application Tuning
 Summary
Chapter 5. Data-Mining Predictions
 Introducing Data Mining with SQL Server
 Savings Mart
 Working with Mining Models
 Summary
Chapter 6. Applying Data-Mining Predictions
 Working with the Sample Application
 Generating New Shipment Schedules
 Measuring the Success of the New Shipment Method
 Closed Loop Processing
 Summary
Chapter 7. An Evolving Database
 Understanding Rule-based Systems
 Zoom Lending
 Building a Rule-based Application
 Summary
Chapter 8. Building an Agent
 Understanding Agents
 Building a Multiple Agent Solution
 Summary
Chapter 9. The Future of Enhanced Computing
 The Next Development Platform
 Microsoft Research (MSR)
 What About AI?
 Other Areas of AI
 Opportunities for Developers

Glossary

This book is not an introduction to programming with Visual Studio .NET. Many of the applications featured in the book are Web-based. It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with designing Web-based applications using ASP.NET. Readers should be familiar with such concepts as setting up a virtual directory and executing a Web application on their localhost machine. They should also understand the difference between server-side script and client-side script.

The sample applications are not intentionally complex, but they access code embedded in SQL Stored Procedures. These stored procedures contain some of the application logic in the form of T-SQL statements. The reader should have a basic understanding of T-SQL and know how to view stored procedure code using Microsoft's Enterprise Manager or Query Analyzer.

To simplify common operations such as data access and exception handling, the sample applications utilize Microsoft Application Blocks. These blocks contain code that demonstrates best practices for accessing common functionality. No additional installation steps are necessary for the reader to execute the sample code. However, readers interested in learning more about the functionality available in these blocks should visit the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/resources/practices/code.mspx.