AI and Power BI

Que. and Ans.

Last Minute Glance as Finger Tips for AI & BI
This Document is used to reference for the students of Bengaluru City University and other
allied University where AI and Microsoft Power BI is Offering as Skill Enhancement Course. The
author does not hold the right of any questions. These questions are only intention of
knowledge sharing. If possible take print of this content and read.

3/31/2023
1) What do you understand by Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is computer science technology that emphasizes creating intelligent
machine that can mimic human behavior. Here Intelligent machines can be defined as the
machine that can behave like a human, think like a human, and also capable of decision
making. It is made up of two words, "Artificial" and "Intelligence," which means the "man-
made thinking ability."

With artificial intelligence, we do not need to pre-program the machine to perform a task;
instead, we can create a machine with the programmed algorithms, and it can work on its
own.

2) Why do we need Artificial Intelligence?

The goal of Artificial intelligence is to create intelligent machines that can mimic human
behavior. We need AI for today's world to solve complex problems, make our lives more
smoothly by automating the routine work, saving the manpower, and to perform many
more other tasks.

3) Give some real-world applications of AI.

There are various real-world applications of AI, and some of them are given below:

o Google Search Engine: When we start writing something on the google search
engine, we immediately get the relevant recommendations from google, and this
is because of different AI technologies.
o Ridesharing Applications: Different ride-sharing applications such as Uber uses AI
and machine learning to determine the type of ride, minimize the time once the car
is hailed by the user, price of the ride, etc.
o Spam Filters in Email: The AI is also used for email spam filtering so that you can
get the important and relevant emails only in your inbox. As per the studies, Gmail
successfully filters 99.9% of spam mails.

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 o Social Networking: Different social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram,
Pinterest, etc., use the AI technology for different purposes such as face recognition
and friend suggestions, when you upload a photograph on Facebook, understanding
the contextual meaning of an emoji in Instagram, and so on.
o Product recommendations: When we search for a product on Amazon, we get the
recommendation for similar products, and this is because of different ML
algorithms. Similarly, on Netflix, we get personalized recommendations for movies
and web series.

4) How Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning

differ from each other?
The difference between AI, ML, and Deep Learning is given in the below table:

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Deep Learning

The term Artificial intelligence was The term ML was first coined The term DL was first coined in the
first coined in the year 1956 by in the year 1959 by Arthur year 2000 Igor Aizenberg.
John McCarthy. Samuel.

It is a technology that is used to It is a subset of AI that learns It is the subset of machine learning
create intelligent machines that can from past data and and AI that is inspired by the human
mimic human behavior. experiences. brain cells, called neurons, and
imitates the working of the human
brain.

AI completely deals with structured, ML deals with structured Deep learning deals with structured
semi-structured data. and semi-structured data. and unstructured data.

It requires a huge amount of data to It can work with less amount It requires a huge amount of the data
work. of data compared to deep compared to the ML.
learning and AI.

The goal of AI is to enable the The goal of ML is to enable The goal of deep learning is to solve
machine to think without any human the machine to learn from the complex problems as the human
intervention. past experiences. brain does, using various algorithms.

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5) What are the types of AI?
Artificial intelligence can be divided into different types on the basis of capabilities and
functionalities.

Based on Capabilities:

o Weak AI or Narrow AI: Weak AI is capable of performing some dedicated tasks

with intelligence. Siri is an example of Weak AI.
o General AI: The intelligent machines that can perform any intellectual task with
efficiency as a human.
o Strong AI: It is the hypothetical concept that involves the machine that will be
better than humans and will surpass human intelligence.

Based on Functionalities:

o Reactive Machines: Purely reactive machines are the basic types of AI. These focus
on the present actions and cannot store the previous actions. Example: Deep Blue.
o Limited Memory: As its name suggests, it can store the past data or experience for
the limited duration. The self-driving car is an example of such AI types.
o Theory of Mind: It is the advanced AI that is capable of understanding human
emotions, people, etc., in the real world.
o Self-Awareness: Self Awareness AI is the future of Artificial Intelligence that will
have their own consciousness, emotions, similar to humans. Read More.

6) What are the different domains/Subsets of AI?

AI covers lots of domains or subsets, and some main domains are given below:

o Machine Learning
o Deep Learning
o Neural Network
o Expert System
o Fuzzy Logic

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 o Natural Language Processing
o Robotics
o Speech Recognition.

7) What are the types of Machine Learning?

Machine Learning can be mainly divided into three types:

a. Supervised Learning: Supervised learning is a type of Machine learning in which

the machine needs external supervision to learn from data. The supervised learning models
are trained using the labeled dataset. Regression and Classification are the two main
problems that can be solved with Supervised Machine Learning.
b. Unsupervised Learning: It is a type of machine learning in which the machine does
not need any external supervision to learn from the data, hence called unsupervised
learning. The unsupervised models can be trained using the unlabelled dataset.
These are used to solve the Association and Clustering problems.
c. Reinforcement Learning: In Reinforcement learning, an agent interacts with its
environment by producing actions, and learns with the help of feedback. The
feedback is given to the agent in the form of rewards, such as for each good action,
he gets a positive reward, and for each bad action, he gets a negative reward. There
is no supervision provided to the agent. Q-Learning algorithm is used in
reinforcement learning.

8) Explain the term "Q-Learning."

Q-learning is a popular algorithm used in reinforcement learning. It is based on the Bellman
equation. In this algorithm, the agent tries to learn the policies that can provide the best
actions to perform for maximizing the rewards under particular circumstances. The agent
learns these optimal policies from past experiences.

In Q-learning, the Q is used to represent the quality of the actions at each state, and the goal
of the agent is to maximize the value of Q.

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9) What is Deep Learning, and how is it used in real-world?
Deep learning is a subset of Machine learning that mimics the working of the human brain.
It is inspired by the human brain cells, called neurons, and works on the concept of neural
networks to solve complex real-world problems. It is also known as the deep neural
network or deep neural learning.

Some real-world applications of deep learning are:

o Adding different colors to the black white images

o Computer vision
o Text generation
o Deep-Learning Robots, etc.

10) Which programming language is used for AI?

Below are the top five programming languages that are widely used for the development of
Artificial Intelligence:

o Python
o Java
o Lisp
o R
o Prolog

Among the above five languages, Python is the most used language for AI development due
to its simplicity and availability of lots of libraries, such as Numpy, Pandas, etc.

11) What is the intelligent agent in AI, and where are they used?
The intelligent agent can be any autonomous entity that perceives its environment through
the sensors and act on it using the actuators for achieving its goal.

These Intelligent agents in AI are used in the following applications:

o Information Access and Navigations such as Search Engine

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 o Repetitive Activities
o Domain Experts
o Chatbots, etc.

12) How is machine learning related to AI?

Machine learning is a subset or subfield of Artificial intelligence. It is a way of achieving AI.
As both are the two different concepts and the relation between both can be understood as
"AI uses different Machine learning algorithms and concepts to solve the complex
problems."

13) What is Markov's Decision process?

The solution for a reinforcement learning problem can be achieved using the Markov
decision process or MDP. Hence, MDP is used to formalize the RL problem. It can be said as
the mathematical approach to solve a reinforcement learning problem. The main aim of
this process is to gain maximum positive rewards by choosing the optimum policy.

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MDP has four elements, which are:

o A set of finite states S

o A set of finite actions A
o Rewards
o Policy Pa

In this process, the agent performs an action A to take a transition from state S1 to S2 or
from the start state to the end state, and while doing these actions, the agent gets some
rewards. The series of actions taken by the agent can be defined as the policy.

14) What do you understand by the reward maximization?

Reward maximization term is used in reinforcement learning, and which is a goal of the
reinforcement learning agent. In RL, a reward is a positive feedback by taking action for a
transition from one state to another. If the agent performs a good action by applying
optimal policies, he gets a reward, and if he performs a bad action, one reward is
subtracted. The goal of the agent is to maximize these rewards by applying optimal policies,
which is termed as reward maximization.

15) What are parametric and non-parametric model?

In machine learning, there are mainly two types of models, Parametric and Non-
parametric. Here parameters are the predictor variables that are used to build the machine
learning model. The explanation of these models is given below:

Parametric Model: The parametric models use a fixed number of the parameters to create
the ML model. It considers strong assumptions about the data. The examples of the
parametric models are Linear regression, Logistic Regression, Naïve Bayes, Perceptron, etc.

Non-Parametric Model: The non-parametric model uses flexible numbers of parameters.

It considers a few assumptions about the data. These models are good for higher data and
no prior knowledge. The examples of the non-parametric models are Decision Tree, K-
Nearest Neighbour, SVM with Gaussian kernels, etc.

16) What do you understand by the hyper parameter?

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In machine learning, hyper parameter is the parameters that determine and control the
complete training process. The examples of these parameters are learning rate, Hidden
Layers, Hidden units, Activation functions, etc. These parameters are external from the
model. The selection of good hyper parameters makes a better algorithm.

17) Explain the Hidden Markov model.

Hidden Markov model is a statistical model used for representing the probability
distributions over a chain of observations. In the hidden markov model, hidden defines a
property that it assumes that the state of a process generated at a particular time is hidden
from the observer, and Markov defines that it assumes that the process satisfies the
Markov property. The HMM models are mostly used for temporal data.

The HMM is used in various applications such as reinforcement learning, temporal pattern
recognition, etc.

18) What is Strong AI, and how is it different from the Weak AI?
Strong AI: Strong AI is about creating real intelligence artificially, which means a human-
made intelligence that has sentiments, self-awareness, and emotions similar to humans. It
is still an assumption that has a concept of building AI agents with thinking, reasoning, and
decision-making capabilities similar to humans.

Weak AI: Weak AI is the current development stage of artificial intelligence that deals with
the creation of intelligent agents and machines that can help humans and solve real-world
complex problems. Siri and Alexa are examples of Weak AI programs.

19) Give a brief introduction to the Turing test in AI?

Turing test is one of the popular intelligence tests in Artificial intelligence. The Turing test
was introduced by Alan Turing in the year 1950. It is a test to determine that if a machine
can think like a human or not. According to this test, a computer can only be said to be
intelligent if it can mimic human responses under some particular conditions.

In this test, three players are involved, the first player is a computer, the second player is a
human responder, and the third player is the human interrogator, and the interrogator
needs to find which response is from the machine on the basis of questions and answers.

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20) Which assessment is used to test the intelligence of the
machine?
Turing Test.

21) What is over fitting? How can it be overcome in Machine

Learning?
When the machine learning algorithm tries to capture all the data points, and hence, as a
result, captures noise also, then overfitting occurs in the model. Due to this overfitting
issue, the algorithm shows the low bias, but the high variance in the output. Overfitting is
one of the main issues in machine learning.

Methods to avoid Overfitting in ML:

o Cross-Validation
o Training With more data
o Regularization
o Ensembling
o Removing Unnecessary Features
o Early Stopping the training.

22) Tell one technique to avoid over fitting in neural networks?

Dropout Technique: The dropout technique is one of the popular techniques to avoid over
fitting in the neural network models. It is the regularization technique, in which the
randomly selected neurons are dropped during training.

23) What is NLP? What are the various components of NLP?

NLP stands for Natural Language Processing, which is a branch of artificial intelligence. It
enables machines to understand, interpret, and manipulate the human language.

Components of NLP:

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There are mainly two components of Natural Language processing, which are given below:

a. Natural Language Understanding (NLU):

It involves the below tasks:
a. To map the input to useful representations.
b. To analyze the different aspects of the language.
b. Natural Language Generation (NLG)
. Text Planning
a. Sentence Planning
b. Text Realization

24) What are the different components of the Expert System?

An expert system mainly contains three components:

a. User Interface: It enables a user to interact or communicate with the expert system
to find the solution for a problem.
b. Inference Engine: It is called the main processing unit or brain of the expert
system. It applies different inference rules to the knowledge base to draw a
conclusion from it. The system extracts the information from the KB with the help of
an inference engine.
c. Knowledge Base: The knowledge base is a type of storage area that stores the
domain-specific and high-quality knowledge.

25) What is the use of computer vision in AI?

Computer vision is a field of Artificial Intelligence that is used to train the computers so
that they can interpret and obtain information from the visual world such as
images. Hence, computer vision uses AI technology to solve complex problems such
as image processing, object detections, etc.

26) Explain the minimax algorithm along with the different terms.
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Minimax algorithm is a backtracking algorithm used for decision making in game theory.
This algorithm provides the optimal moves for a player by assuming that another player is
also playing optimally.

This algorithm is based on two players, one is called MAX, and the other is called the MIN.

Following terminologies that are used in the Minimax Algorithm:

o Game tree: A tree structure with all possible moves.

o Initial State: The initial state of the board.
o Terminal State: Position of the board where the game finishes.
o Utility Function: The function that assigns a numeric value for the outcome of the
game.

27) What is game theory? How is it important in AI?

Game theory is the logical and scientific study that forms a model of the possible
interactions between two or more rational players. Here rational means that each player
thinks that others are just as rational and have the same level of knowledge and
understanding. In the game theory, players deal with the given set of options in a multi-
agent situation, it means the choice of one player affects the choice of the other or
opponent players.

Game theory and AI are much related and useful to each other. In AI, the game theory is
widely used to enable some of the key capabilities required in the multi-agent
environment, in which multiple agents try to interact with each other to achieve a goal.

Different popular games such as Poker, Chess, etc., are the logical games with the specified
rules. To play these games online or digitally, such as on Mobile, laptop, etc., one has to
create algorithms for such games. And these algorithms are applied with the help of
artificial intelligence.

28) What are some misconceptions about AI?

There are lots of misconceptions about artificial intelligence since starting its evolution.
Some of these misconceptions are given below:

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 o AI does not require humans: The first misconception about AI is that it does not
require human. But in reality, each AI-based system is somewhere dependent on
humans and will remain. Such as it requires human gathered data to learn about the
data.
o AI is dangerous for humans: AI is not inherently dangerous for humans, and still, it
has not reached the super AI or strong AI, which is more intelligent than humans.
Any powerful technology cannot be harmful if it is not misused.
o AI has reached its peak stage: Still, we are so far away from the peak stage of the
AI. It will take a very long journey to reach its peak.
o AI will take your job: It is one of the biggest confusions that AI will take most of the
jobs, but in reality, it is giving us more opportunities for new jobs.
o AI is new technology: Although some people think that it is a new technology, this
technology actually first thought in the year 1840 through an English newspaper.

29) What are the eigenvalues and eigenvectors?

Eigenvectors and eigenvalues are the two main concepts of Linear algebra.

Eigenvectors are unit vectors that have a magnitude equal to 1.0.

Eigenvalues are the coefficients that are applied to the eigenvectors, or these are the
magnitude by which the eigenvector is scaled.

30) What is an Artificial neural network? Name some commonly

used Artificial Neural networks.
Artificial neural networks are the statistical model inspired by the functioning of human
brain cells called neurons. These neural networks include various AI technologies such as
deep learning and machine learning.

An Artificial neural network or ANN consists of multiple layers, including the Input layer,
Output Layer, and hidden layers.

ANN, with the help of various deep learning techniques, is the AI tools to solve various
complex problems like pattern recognition, facial recognition, and so on.

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Some commonly used Artificial neural networks:

o Feedforward Neural Network

o Convolutional Neural Network
o Recurrent Neural Network
o Autoencoders

31) Give a brief introduction of partial, alternate, artificial, and

compound keys?
Partial Keys: A set of attributes that uniquely identifies weak entities, which are related to
the same owner entity.

Alternate Keys: All candidate keys except the primary key are known as alternate keys.

Compound Key: It has multiple fields that enable the user to uniquely recognize a specific
record.

Artificial Key: It is the extra attribute added to the table when there are no stands alone or
compounds key is available. It is created by assigning a number to each record in the table.

32) What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is Artificial intelligence software or agent that can simulate a conversation with
humans or users using Natural language processing. The conversation can be achieved
through an application, website, or messaging apps. These chatbots are also called as the
digital assistants and can interact with humans in the form of text or through voice.

The AI chatbots are broadly used in most businesses to provide 24*7 virtual customer
support to their customers, such as HDFC Eva chatbot, Vainubot, etc.

33) What is knowledge representation in AI?

Knowledge representation is the part of AI, which is concerned with the thinking of AI
agents. It is used to represent the knowledge about the real world to the AI agents so that
they can understand and utilize this information for solving the complex problems in AI.

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Following elements of Knowledge that are represented to the agent in the AI system:

o Objects
o Events
o Performance
o Meta-Knowledge
o Facts
o Knowledge-base

34) What are the various techniques of knowledge representation in

AI?
Knowledge representation techniques are given below:

o Logical Representation
o Semantic Network Representation
o Frame Representation
o Production Rules

35) Which programming language is not generally used in AI, and

why?
Perl Programming language is not commonly used language for AI, as it is the scripting
language.

36) What is reinforcement learning?

Reinforcement learning is a type of machine learning. In this, an agent interacts with its
environment by producing actions, and learn with the help of feedback. The feedback is
given to the agent in the form of rewards, such as for each good action, he gets a positive
reward, and for each bad action, he gets a negative reward. There is no any labeled data or
supervision is provided to the agent. In RL, the agent continuously does three

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things(performing actions, changing state, and getting the feedback) to explore the
environment.

The popular reinforcement learning algorithms are:

o Q-Learning
o SARSA(State Action Reward State Action)
o Deep Q Neural Network

37) How does RL work?

The working of reinforcement learning can be understood by the below diagram:

The RL-based system mainly consists of the following components:

o Environment: The environment is the surrounding of the agent, where he needs to

explore and act upon.
o Agent: The agent is the AI program that has sensors and actuators and the ability to
perceive the environment.
o State: It is the situation that is returned by the environment to the agent.
o Reward: The feedback received to the agent after doing each action.
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In RL, the agent interacts with the environment in order to explore it by doing some
actions. On each action, the state of agent gets changed or sometimes remains the same,
and based on the type of action, and he gets a reward. The reward is feedback, which may
be negative or positive based on the action.

The goal of the agent is to maximize the positive reward and to achieve the goal of the
problem.

38) What are the different areas where AI has a great impact?
Following are some areas where AI has a great impact:

o Autonomous Transportation
o Education-system powered by AI.
o Healthcare
o Predictive Policing
o Space Exploration
o Entertainment, etc.

39) What are the different software platforms for AI development?

 Google Cloud AI platform

 Microsoft Azure AI platform
 IBM Watson
 TensorFlow
 Infosys Nia
 Rainbird
 Dialogflow


40) Kindly explain different ways to evaluate the performance of the

ML model.
Some popular ways to evaluate the performance of the ML model are:

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 o Confusion Matrix: It is N*N table with different sets of value that is used to
determine the performance of the classification model in machine learning.
o F1 score: It is the harmonic mean of precision and recall, which is used as one of the
best metrics to evaluate the ML model.
o Gain and lift charts: Gain & Lift charts are used to determine the rank ordering of
the probabilities.
o AUC-ROC curve: The AUC-ROC is another performance metric. The ROC is the plot
between the sensitivity.
o Gini Coefficient: It is used in the classification problems, also known as the Gini
Index. It determines the inequality between the values of variables. The high value
of the Gini represents a good model.
o Root mean squared error: It is one of the most popular metrics used for the
evaluation of the regression model. It works by assuming that errors are unbiased
and have a normal distribution.
o Cross-Validation: It is another popular technique for evaluating the performance of
the machine learning model. In this, the models are trained on subsets of the input
data and evaluated on the complementary subset of the data.

41) Explain rational agents and rationality?

A rational agent is an agent that has clear preferences, model uncertainty, and that
performs the right actions always. A rational agent is able to take the best possible action in
any situation.

Rationality is a status of being reasonable and sensible with a good sense of judgment.

42) What is tensor flow, and how it is used in AI?

Tensor flow is the open-source library platform developed by the Google Brain team. It is a
math library used for several machine learning applications. With the help of tensor flow,
we can easily train and deploy the machine learning models in the cloud.

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43) Which algorithm is used by Facebook for face recognition?
Explain its working.
Facebook uses the DeepFace tool that uses the deep learning algorithms for the face
verification that allows the photo tag suggestions to you when you upload a photo on
Facebook. The deep face identifies the faces in the digital images using neural network
models. The working of DeepFace is given in below steps:

o It first scans the uploaded images. It makes the 3-D model of the image, and then
rotate that image into different angles.
o After that, it starts matching. To match that image, it uses a neural network model to
determine the high-level similarities between other photos of a person. It checks for
the different features such as the distance between the eyes, the shape of the nose,
eyes color, etc.
o Then it does the recursive checking for 68 landmark testing, as each human face
consists of 68 specific facial points.
o After mapping, it encodes the image and searches for the information of that person.

44) What is a market-basket analysis?

The market-basket analysis is a popular technique to find the associations between the
items. It is frequently used by big retailers in order to get maximum profit. In this approach,
we need to find combinations of items that are frequently bought together.

For example, if a person buys bread, there are most of the chances that he will buy butter
also. Hence, understanding such correlations can help retailers to grow their business by
providing relevant offers to their customers.

45) How can AI be used in fraud detection?

The artificial intelligence can be broadly helpful in fraud detection using different machine
learning algorithms, such as supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms. The rule-
based algorithms of Machine learning helps to analyze the patterns for any transaction and
block the fraudulent transactions.

Below are the steps used in fraud detection using machine learning:

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 o Data extraction: The first step is data extraction. Data is gathered through a survey
or with the help of web scraping tools. The data collection depends on the type of
model, and we want to create. It generally includes the transaction details, personal
details, shopping, etc.
o Data Cleaning: The irrelevant or redundant data is removed in this step. The
inconsistency present in the data may lead to wrong predictions.
o Data exploration & analysis: This is one of the most crucial steps in which we need
to find out the relation between different predictor variables.
o Building Models: Now, the final step is to build the model using different machine
learning algorithms depending on the business requirement. Such as Regression or
classification.

46) Give the steps for A* algorithm?

A* algorithm is the popular form of the Best first search. It tries to find the shortest path
using the heuristic function with the cost function to reach the end node. The steps for A*
algorithms are given below:

Step 1: Put the first node in the OPEN list.

Step 2: Check if the OPEN list is empty or not; if the list is empty, then return failure and
stops.

Step 3: Select the node from the OPEN list which has the smallest value of evaluation
function (g+h), if node n is goal node then return success and stop, otherwise

Step 4: Expand node n and generate all of its successors, and put n into the closed list. For
each successor n', check whether n' is already in the OPEN or CLOSED list; if not, then
compute evaluation function for n' and place into Open list.

Step 5: Else if node n' is already in OPEN and CLOSED list, then it should be attached to the
back pointer, which reflects the lowest g(n') value.

Step 6: Return to Step 2.

47) What is the inference engine, and why it is used in AI?

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In artificial intelligence, the inference engine is the part of an intelligent system that derives
new information from the knowledge base by applying some logical rules.

It mainly works in two modes:

o Backward Chaining: It begins with the goal and proceeds backward to deduce the
facts that support the goal.
o Forward Chaining: It starts with known facts, and asserts new facts.

48) What do you understand by the fuzzy logic?

Fuzzy logic is a method of reasoning applied to the AI, which resembles human reasoning.
Here the word "fuzzy" defines things that are not clear, it means the situations where it is
difficult to decide if the state is True or False. It involves all the possibilities that occur
between Yes and NO.

The below diagram shows the difference between fuzzy logic and Boolean logic

Since it resembles human reasoning, hence it can be used in neural networks.

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49) What is a Bayesian network, and why is it important in AI?
Bayesian networks are the graphical models that are used to show the probabilistic
relationship between a set of variables. It is a directed cycle graph that contains multiple
edges, and each edge represents a conditional dependency.

Bayesian networks are probabilistic, because these networks are built from a probability
distribution, and also use probability theory for prediction and anomaly detection. It is
important in AI as it is based on Bayes theorem and can be used to answer the probabilistic
questions.

50) What is a heuristic function, and where is it used?

The heuristic function is used in Informed Search, and it finds the most promising path. It
takes the current state of the agent as its input and produces the estimation of how close
the agent is from the goal. The heuristic method, however, might not always give the best
solution, but it guaranteed to find a good solution in a reasonable time. Heuristic function
estimates how close a state is to the goal. It is represented by h(n), and it calculates the cost
of an optimal path between the pair of states. The value of the heuristic function is always
positive.

Admissibility of the heuristic function is given as:

h(n) <= h*(n)

Here h(n) is heuristic cost, and h*(n) is the estimated cost. Hence heuristic cost should be
less than or equal to the estimated cost.

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1. What is Power BI?

Power BI is a business analytics tool developed by Microsoft that helps you turn multiple
unrelated data sources into valuable and interactive insights. These data may be in the
form of an Excel spreadsheet or cloud-based/on-premises hybrid data warehouses. You
can easily connect to all your data sources and share the insights with anyone.

2. Why should we use Power BI?

Because Power BI provides an easy way for anyone, including non-technical people, to
connect, change, and visualize their raw business data from many different sources and
turn it into valuable data that makes it easy to make smart business decisions.

3. Difference between Power BI and Tableau

Both Tableau and Power BI are the current IT industry's data analytics and visualization
giants. Yet, there are a few significant differences between them. You will now explore the
important differences between Tableau and Power BI.

Tableau Power BI

Power BI uses DAX for calculating

Tableau uses MDX for measures and dimensions
measures

Power BI is qualified only to handle a

Tableau is capable of handling large volumes of data
limited amount of data

Power BI is suitable for both experts

Tableau is best suitable for experts
and beginners

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 Power BI User Interface is
Tableau User Interface is complicated
comparatively simpler

Power BI finds it difficult, as its

Tableau is capable of supporting the cloud with ease. capacity to handle large volumes of
data is limited.

4. Difference between Power Query and Power Pivot

The differences between Power Query and Power Pivot are explained as follows:

Power Query Power Pivot

Power Pivot is all about getting and

Power Query is all about analyzing data.
Transforming data.

Power Pivot is an in-memory data

Power Query is an ETL service tool.
modeling component

5. What is Power BI Desktop

Power BI Desktop is an open-source application designed and developed by Microsoft.

Power BI Desktop will allow users to connect to, transform, and visualize your data with
ease. Power BI Desktop lets users build visuals and collections of visuals that can be shared
as reports with your colleagues or your clients in your organization.

6. What is Power Pivot?

Power Pivot is an add-on provided by Microsoft for Excel since 2010. Power Pivot was
designed to extend the analytical capabilities and services of Microsoft Excel.

7. What is Power Query?

Power Query is a business intelligence tool designed by Microsoft for Excel. Power Query
allows you to import data from various data sources and will enable you to clean,

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transform and reshape your data as per the requirements. Power Query allows you to write
your query once and then run it with a simple refresh.

8. Describe the components of Microsoft’s self-service BI solution.

Self-service business intelligence (SSBI) is divided into the Excel BI Toolkit and Power BI.

9. What is self-service BI, anyway?

SSBI is an abbreviation for Self-Service Business Intelligence and is a breakthrough in

business intelligence. SSBI has enabled many business professionals with no technical
or coding background to use Power BI and generate reports and draw predictions
successfully. Even non-technical users can create these dashboards to help their business
make more informed decisions.

10. What is DAX?

DAX stands for Data Analysis Expressions. It's a collection of functions, operators, and
constants used in formulas to calculate and return values. In other words, it helps you
create new info from data you already have.

11. What are Filters in Power BI?

The term "Filter" is self-explanatory. Filters are mathematical and logical conditions
applied to data to filter out essential information in rows and columns. The following are
the variety of filters available in Power BI:

 Manual filters

 Auto filters

 Include/Exclude filters

 Drill-down filters

 Cross Drill filters

 Drillthrough filters

 Drillthrough filters

 URL filters–transient

 Pass-Through filters

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12. What are Custom Visuals in Power BI?

Custom Visuals are like any other visualizations, generated using Power BI. The only
difference is that it developes the custom visuals using a custom SDK. The languages
like JQuery and JavaScript are used to create custom visuals in Power BI.

13. What is GetData in Power BI?

Get Data is a simple icon on Power BI used to import data from the source.

14. Mention some advantages of Power BI.

Some of the advantages of using Power BI:

 It helps build an interactable data visualization in data centers

 It allows users to transform data into visuals and share them with anyone

 It establishes a connection for Excel queries and dashboards for fast analysis

 It provides quick and accurate solutions

 It enables users to perform queries on reports using simple English words

15. List out some drawbacks/limitations of using Power BI.

Here are some limitations to using Power BI:

 Power BI does not accept file sizes larger than 1 GB and doesn't mix imported data accessed
from real-time connections.

 There are very few data sources that allow real-time connections to Power BI reports and
dashboards.

 It only shares dashboards and reports with users logged in with the same email address.

 Dashboard doesn't accept or pass user, account, or other entity parameters.

16. What are some differences in data modeling between Power BI Desktop and
Power Pivot for Excel?

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Power Pivot for Excel supports only single directional relationships (one to many),
calculated columns, and one import mode. Power BI Desktop supports bi-directional cross-
filtering connections, security, calculated tables, and multiple import options.

17. Name the different connectivity modes available in Power BI?

There are three main connectivity modes used in Power BI.

SQL Server Import

An SQL Server Import is the default and most common connectivity type used in Power BI.
It allows you to use the full capabilities of the Power BI Desktop.

Direct Query

The Direct Query connection type is only available when you connect to specific data
sources. In this connectivity type, Power BI will only store the metadata of the underlying
data and not the actual data.

Live Connection

With this connectivity type, it does not store data in the Power BI model. All interaction
with a report using a Live Connection will directly query the existing Analysis Services
model. There are only 3 data sources that support the live connection method - SQL Server
Analysis Services (Tabular models and Multidimensional Cubes), Azure Analysis Services
(Tabular Models), and Power BI Datasets hosted in the Power BI Service.

18. What are the various types of refresh options provided in Power BI?

Four important types of refresh options provided in Microsoft Power BI are as follows:

 Package refresh - This synchronizes your Power BI Desktop or Excel file between the Power BI
service and OneDrive, or SharePoint Online.

 Model or data refresh - This refreshes the dataset within the Power BI service with data from the
original data source.

 Tile refresh - This updates the cache for tile visuals every 15 minutes on the dashboard once
data changes.

 Visual container refresh - This refreshes the visible container and updates the cached report
visuals within a report once the data changes.

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19. Name the data sources can Power BI can connect to?

Several data sources can be connected to Power BI, which is grouped into three main types:

 Files

It can import data from Excel (.xlsx, .xlxm), Power BI Desktop files (.pbix) and Comma-
Separated Values (.csv).

 Content Packs

These are a collection of related documents or files stored as a group. There are two types
of content packs in Power BI:

 Content packs from services providers like Google Analytics, Marketo, or Salesforce and Content
packs are created and shared by other users in your organization.

 Connectors

Connectors help you connect your databases and datasets with apps, services, and data in
the cloud.

20. What is a dashboard in Power BI?

A dashboard is a single-layer presentation sheet of multiple visualizations reports. The

main features of the Power BI dashboard are:

 It allows you to drill through the page, bookmarks, and selection pane and also lets you create
various tiles and integrate URLs

 A dashboard can also help you set report layout to mobile view.

21. Explain how relationships are defined in Power BI Desktop?

Relationships between tables are defined in two ways:

 Manually - Relationships between tables are manually defined using primary and foreign keys.

 Automatic - When enabled, this automated feature of Power BI detects relationships between
tables and creates them automatically.

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22. Can you have more than one functional relationship between two tables in a
Power Pivot data model?

No. There can be multiple inactive relationships, but only one active relationship between
two tables in a Power Pivot data model. Dotted lines represent inactive relationships, and
continuous lines represent active relationships.

23. Can you have a table in the model which does not have any relationship with
other tables?

Yes. There are two main reasons why you can have disconnected tables:

 The table is used to present the user with parameter values to be exposed and selected in slicers

 It uses the table as a placeholder for metrics in the user interface

24. What is the CALCULATE function in DAX?

The CALCULATE function evaluates the sum of the Sales table Sales Amount column in a
modified filter context. It is also the only function that allows users to modify the filter
context of measures or tables.

Moving ahead, you will step up to the following Power BI Interview Questions from the
Intermediate Level.

25. Where is data stored in Power BI?

Most of the time, power BI gets assisted by the cloud to store the data. Power BI can use a
desktop service. Microsoft Azure is used as the primary cloud service to store the data.

1. Azure SQL Database

2. Azure Blob Storage

26. What is row-level security?

Row-level security limits the data a user can view and has access to, and it relies on filters.
Users can define the rules and roles in Power BI Desktop and also publish them to Power BI
Service to configure row-level security.

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27. Why should you apply general formatting to Power BI data?

Users can use general formatting to make it easier for Power BI to categorize and identify
data, making it considerably easier to work with.

28. What are the different views available in Power BI Desktop?

There are three different views in Power BI, each of which serves another purpose:

Report View - In this view, users can add visualizations and additional report pages and
publish the same on the portal.

Data View - In this view, data shaping can be performed using Query Editor tools.

Model View - In this view, users can manage relationships between complex datasets.

29. What are the various versions of Power BI?

 Power BI Desktop

 Power BI service

 Mobile Power BI apps for iOS and Android devices

30. Explain the building blocks of Microsoft Power BI.

The important building blocks of Power BI are as follows:

Visualizations

Visualization is the process of generating charts and graphs for the representation of
insights on business data.

Datasets

A dataset is the collection of data used to create a visualization, such as a column of sales
figures. Dataset can get combined and filtered from a variety of sources via built-in data
plugins.

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Reports

The final stage is the report stage. Here, there is a group of visualizations on one or more
pages. For example, charts and maps are combined to make a final report.

Dashboards

A Power BI dashboard helps you to share a single visualization with colleagues and clients
to view your final dashboard.

Tiles

A tile is an individual visualization on your final dashboard or one of your charts in your
final report.

31. What are the critical components of the Power BI toolkit?

The critical components of Power BI are mentioned below.

 Power Query

 Power Pivot

 Power View

 Power Map

 Power Q&A

32. What do you mean by the content pack?

A content pack is defined as a ready-made collection of visualizations and Power BI reports

using your chosen service. You'd use a content pack when you want to get up and running
quickly instead of creating a report from scratch.

33. Define bi-directional cross filtering.

Bidirectional cross-filtering lets data modelers to decide how they want their Power BI
Desktop filters to flow for data, using the relationships between tables. The filter context is
transmitted to a second related table that exists on the other side of any given table
relationship. This procedure helps data modelers solve the many-to-many issue without
having to complicated DAX formulas. So, to sum it up, bidirectional cross-filtering makes
the job for data modelers easier.

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34. What are the three fundamental concepts of DAX?

Syntax

This is how the formula is written—that is, the elements that comprise it. The Syntax
includes functions such as SUM (used when you want to add figures). If the Syntax isn't
correct, you'll get an error message.

Functions

These are formulas that use specific values (also known as arguments) in a particular order
to perform a calculation, similar to the functions in Excel. The categories of functions are
date/time, time intelligence, information, logical, mathematical, statistical, text,
parent/child, and others.

Context

There are two types: row context and filter context. Row context comes into play whenever
a formula has a function that applies filters to identify a single row in a table. When one or
more filters are applied in a calculation that determines a result or value, the filter context
comes into play.

35. Why and how would you use a custom visual file?

You will use a custom visual file if the prepackaged files don't fit the needs of your business.
Developers create custom visual files, and you can import them and use them in the same
way as you would the prepackaged files.

36. What are some familiar sources for data in the Get Data menu in Power BI?

A few familiar data sources are Excel, Power BI datasets, web, text, SQL server, and analysis
services.

37. What are the categories of data types?

 All

 File

 Database

 Power BI

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 Azure

 Online Services

 Other

38. Name some commonly used tasks in the Query Editor.

 Connect to data

 Shape and combine data

 Group rows

 Pivot columns

 Create custom columns

 Query formulas

39. What do you mean by grouping?

Power BI Desktop helps you to group the data in your visuals into chunks. You can,
however, define your groups and bins. For grouping, use Ctrl + click to select multiple
elements in the visual. Right-click one of those elements and, from the menu that appears,
choose Group. In the Groups window, you can create new groups or modify existing ones.

40. Explain responsive slicers in Power BI.

On a Power BI final report page, a developer can resize a responsive slicer to various sizes
and shapes, and the data collected in the container will be rearranged to find a match. If a
visual report becomes too small to be useful, an icon representing the visual takes its place,
saving space on the report page.

41. What is query folding in Power BI?

Query folding is used when steps defined in the Query Editor are translated into SQL and
executed by the source database instead of your device. It helps with scalability and
efficient processing.

42. What is "M language."

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M is a programming language used in Power Query as a functional, case-sensitive language
similar to other programming languages and easy to use.

43. What are the major differences between visual-level, page-level, and report-
level filters in Power BI?

Visual-level filters are used to filter data within a single visualization. Page-level filters are
used to work on an entire page in a report, and different pages can have various filters.

Report-level filters are used to filter all the visualizations and pages in the report.

44. List the most common techniques for data shaping.

 Adding indexes

 Applying a sort order

 Removing columns and rows

45. How is the Schedule Refresh feature designed to work?

Users can set up for an automatic refresh over data based on daily or weekly requirements.
Users can schedule only one refresh maximum daily unless they have Power BI Pro. The
Schedule Refresh section uses the pull-down menu choices to select a frequency, time zone,
and time of day.

46. What information is needed to create a map in Power Map?

Power Map can display geographical visualizations. Therefore, some location data is
needed—for example, city, state, country, or latitude and longitude.

47. Which in-memory analytics engine does Power Pivot use?

Power Pivot uses the xVelocity engine. xVelocity can handle huge amounts of data, storing
data in columnar databases. All data gets loaded into RAM memory when you use in-
memory analytics, which boosts the processing speed.

48. Mention important components of SSAS

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Following are some of the important Components of SSAS:

OLP Engine

An OLAP Engine is used to extensively run the ADHOC queries at a faster pace by the end-
users

Data Drilling

It describes data Drilling in SSAS as the process of exploring details of the data with
multiple levels of granularity.

Slicers

The data Slicing process in SSAS is defined as the process of storing the data in rows and
columns.

Pivot Tables

Pivot Tables helps in switching between the different categories of data stored between
rows and columns

49. What are the three fundamental concepts of DAX?

1. Syntax: This is how the formula is written—the elements that comprise it. The syntax includes
functions such as SUM (used when you want to add figures). If the syntax isn't correct, you'll get
an error message.

2. Functions: These are formulas that use specific values (also known as arguments) in a certain
order to perform a calculation, similar to the functions in Excel. The categories of functions are
date/time, time intelligence, information, logical, mathematical, statistical, text, parent/child,
and others.

3. Context: There are two types: row context and filter context. Row context comes into play
whenever a formula has a function that applies filters to identify a single row in a table. When
one or more filters are applied in a calculation that determines a result or value, the filter
context comes into play.

50. Name the variety of Power BI Formats.

Power BI is available mainly in three formats, as mentioned below.

1. Power BI Desktop: Open-Source version for Desktop users

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2. Power BI Services: For Online Services

3. Power BI Mobile Application: Compatible with mobile devices

51. What are the different stages in the working of Power BI?

There are three different stages in working on Power BI, as explained below.

1. Data Integration

2. Data Processing

3. Data Presentation

Data Integration

The primary step in any business intelligence is to establish a successful connection with
the data source and integrate it to extract data for processing.

Data Processing

The next step in business intelligence is data processing. Most of the time, the raw data also
includes unexpected erroneous data, or sometimes a few data cells might be empty. The BI
tool needs to interpret the missing values and inaccurate data for processing in the data
processing stage.

Data Presentation

The final stage in business intelligence is analyzing the data got from the source and
presenting the insights using visually appealing graphs and interactive dashboards.

52. Which professionals use Power BI the most?

Beginners and experts prefer Power BI in business intelligence. Power BI is used mainly by
the following professionals.

 Business Analysts

 Business Owners

 Business Developers

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Business Analysts

A business analyst is a professional who analyses the business data and represents the
insights found using visually appealing graphs and dashboards

Business Owners

Business owners, decision-makers, or organizations use Power BI to view the insights and
understand the prediction to make a business decision.

Business Developers

Business Developers are just software developers who get hired for business purposes to
develop custom applications and dashboards to help the business process be smooth.

53. What is the advanced editor?

Advanced editor is used to view queries that Power BI is running against the data sources
importing data. The query is rendered in M-code. Users wanting to view the query code
select “Edit Queries” from the Home tab, then click on “Advanced Editor” to perform work
on the query. Any changes get saved to Applied Steps in the Query Settings.

54. What gateways does Power BI have and why should you use them?

Gateways function as bridges between the in-house data sources and Azure Cloud Services.

 Personal Gateway: Used only by one person, data can be imported, and is only valid on Power BI
Service.

 On-Premises Gateway: This is an advanced form of the Personal Gateway, supporting Direct
Query and usable by multiple users to refresh data.

55. Mention some applications of Power BI

There are multiple applications of Power BI; some of them are as follows:

 Business Analysis

 Data Analysis

 Database Administration

 IT Professional

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 Data Science

56. How can you depict a story in Power BI?

Every individual chart or visualization report generated is collected and represented on a

single screen. Such an approach is called a Power BI Dashboard. A Dashboard in Power BI
is used to depict a story.

57. What are KPIs in Power BI?

KPI is abbreviated as Key Performance Indicator. Any professional organization has teams
and employees follow the KPI protocols. The organizations set up KPIs for all the
employees. These KPIs act as their targets. These KPIs are compared to previous
performance and analyze the progress.

58. What is a Slicer?

Slicers are an integral part of a business report generated using Power BI. The functionality
of a slicer can be considered similar to that of a filter, but, unlike a filter, a Slicer can display
a visual representation of all values and users will be provided with the option to select
from the available values in the slicer’s drop-down menu.

59. Explain Power BI Designer.

It is a combined solution offered to upload the reports and dashboards to the PowerBI.com
website for reference. It consists of Power Pivot, Power Query, and Power Table.

60. How do you reshape data in Power BI?

Power BI offers a wide variety of data source connectivity options. Data Editor is one of the
tools used to manipulate rows and columns of the data and helps you reshape it according
to the requirements.

Note: If you find new questions to be added please mail me :gsswamy@gmail.com

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