An inference engine is .
a. a strategy for searching the rule base in case-based reasoning.
b. the programming environment of an expert system.
c. a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
d. a strategy used to search through the rule base in an expert system by forward chaining or backward chaining.

The management of a private investment club has a fund of $250,000 earmarked for investment in stocks. to arrive at an acceptable overall level of risk, the stocks that management is considering have been classified into three categories: high risk (x), medium risk (y), and low risk (z). management estimates that high risk stocks will have a rate of return of 15%/year; medium risk stocks, 10%/year; and low risk stocks, 6%/year. the amount of money invested in low risk stocks is to be twice the sum of the amount invested in stocks of the other two categories. if the investment goal is to have a rate of return of 9% on the total investment, determine how much the club should invest in each type of stock. (assume that all the money available for investment is invested.)

Seattle bank’s start-up division establishes new branch banks. each branch opens with three tellers. total teller cost per branch is $96,000 per year. the three tellers combined can process up to 90,000 customer transactions per year. if a branch does not attain a volume of at least 60,000 transactions during its first year of operations, it is closed. if the demand for services exceeds 90,000 transactions, an additional teller is hired and the branch is transferred from the start-up division to regular operations. required what is the relevant range of activity for new branch banks

In december of 2004, the company you own entered into a 20-year contract with a grain supplier for daily deliveries of grain to its hot dog bun manufacturing facility. the contract called for "10,000 pounds of grain" to be delivered to the facility at the price of $100,000 per day. until february 2017, the supplier provided processed grain which could easily be used in your manufacturing process. however, no longer wanting to absorb the cost of having the grain processed, the supplier began delivering whole grain. the supplier is arguing that the contract does not specify the type of grain that would be supplied and that it has not breached the contract. your company is arguing that the supplier has an onsite processing plant and processed grain was implicit to the terms of the contract. over the remaining term of the contract, reshipping and having the grain processed would cost your company approximately $10,000,000, opposed to a cost of around $1,000,000 to the supplier. after speaking with in-house counsel, it was estimated that litigation would cost the company several million dollars and last for years. weighing the costs of litigation, along with possible ambiguity in the contract, what are three options you could take to resolve the dispute? which would be the best option for your business and why?