ANN-Based Mark-Up Estimation System with Self-Explanatory Capacities
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 125, Issue 3
Abstract
Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been applied to support construction mark-up estimation. The major drawback of this application, however, is that an ANN system is unable to explain why and how a particular recommendation is made. This significantly affects the user-acceptance of the system and its results. The research presented in this paper investigates the use of the KT-1 method for automatically extracting rules from a trained neural network. The KT-1 method is implemented and tested on collected bidding data, and the results from the investigation indicate the usefulness of the KT-1 method. Discussions on the difficulties of generating automated explanations are also presented.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 125 • Issue 3 • June 1999
Pages: 185 - 189
History
Received: May 7, 1998
Published online: Jun 1, 1999
Published in print: Jun 1999
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