From csvpi@vpics1 Tue Jul 9 04:14:57 1985 Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 04:14:52 edt From: csvpi@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a008521; 8 Jul 85 23:43 EDT Date: Mon 8 Jul 1985 19:55-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #90 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Tue, 9 Jul 85 03:59 EST AIList Digest Tuesday, 9 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 90 Today's Topics: Query - Workstations for AI and Image Processing & PSL Flavors Implementation & Representation of Knowledge, New List - PARSYM for Parallel Symbolic Computing, Psychology - Distributed Associative Memory Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 JUL 85 15:10-N From: APPEL%CGEUGE51.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA Subject: QUERY ON WORKSTATIONS FOR AI AND IMAGE PROCESSING AI on workstations We are looking for a workstation for developping AI systems, mixed with an image processing system. The workstation has to work under Unix (if possible 4.2). We intend to buy a Sun-2, with floating-point accelerator and color graphic system. We heard that the SUN is slow for floating point operations. Does somebody have informations on Franz LISP's performance on SUN, or other AI tools on SUN, versus other similar workstations (in costs)? We are interrested in positive and negative arguments to buy or NOT buy a SUN. Ron Appel ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 10:40:59 EST From: munnari!elecadel.oz!alex@seismo Subject: PSL Flavors Implementation. The implementation of Flavors we received with our PSL package from Utah does not permit the mixing of Flavors (whats the point of calling it Flavors then you might ask...). Can anyone tell me of a complete version of Flavors that runs on PSL? I'm also looking for a ZetaLisp compatability package that implements the &.... function parameter conventions. Thanks, Alex Dickinson, The University of Adelaide, South Australia. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 00:00:19 cdt From: Mark Turner Subject: representation of knowledge I am gathering for my students a bibligraphy of works on representation of knowledge. I am particularly concerned with cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, linguistics, and natural language processing. I would appreciate receiving copies of bibliographies others may already have on-line. Mark Turner Department of English U Chicago 60637 >ihnp4!gargoyle!puck!mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1985 21:31 PDT From: DAVIES@Sumex Subject: PARSYM -- new mailing list for Parallel Symbolic Computing PARSYM: A Netwide Mailing List for Parallel Symbolic Computing The PARSYM mailing list has been started to encourage communication between individuals and groups involved in PARALLEL SYMBOLIC COMPUTING (non-numeric computing using multiple processors). The moderator encourages submissions relating either to parallelism in symbolic computing or to the use of symbolic computing techniques (AI, objects, logic programming, expert systems) in parallel computing. All manner of communication is welcomed: project overviews, research results, questions, answers, commentary, criticism, humor, opinions, speculation, historical notes, or any combination thereof, as long as it relates to the hardware, software, or application of parallel symbolic computing. To contribute, send mail to PARSYM@SUMEX (or PARSYM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, if your mailer requires). To be added to the PARSYM distribution list, or to make other editorial or administrative requests, send mail to PARSYM-Request@SUMEX. When you are added to the PARSYM distribution list, I will send you a welcoming message with additional information about PARSYM and some necessary cautions about copyright and technology export. To get the list off the ground, I offer the following set of discussion topics: 1. Will there be a general-purpose parallel symbolic processor, or should parallel architectures always be specialized to particular tasks? 2. The primary languages for sequential symbolic computing are Lisp, Prolog, and SmallTalk. Which is a better basis for developing a programming language for parallel computing? Do we need something fundamentally different? 3. Sequential computing took about 30 years to reach its current state. Thirty years ago, programming tools were nonexistent: programmers spent their time cramming programs into a few hundred memory cells, without programming languages or compilers or symbolic debuggers. Now, sequential programming is in a highly developed state: most programmers worry less about the limitations of their hardware than about managing the complexity of their applications and of their evolving computer systems. Today, parallel programming is where sequential programming was thirty years ago: to optimize computation and communication, programmers spend their time manually assigning processes to a few processors, without benefit of programming languages or compilers or symbolic debuggers that deal adequately with parallelism. Will it take 30 years to bring parallel computing up to the current level of serial computing? Submissions, queries, and suggestions are equally welcome. Fire away! PARSYM's Moderator, Byron Davies (Davies@SUMEX) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 85 21:47:37 EST From: munnari!psych.uq.oz!ross@seismo Subject: instantiation in distributed associative memory systems I was reading some papers by James A. Anderson the other day on the psychological properties of distributed associative memory systems ("Cognitive and psychological computation with neural models",IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol 13, pp 799-815, 1983; "Fun with parallel systems", unpublished paper, 1984). His simulation model associates different features with state vectors (patterns of activation of the neurons) instead of with individual neurons. Orthogonality in this system is achieved in two ways. Alternative values of the same variable (e.g. black-white, mortal-immortal) use the same neurons but have orthogonal codings, whereas dissimilar things (e.g. shoes-sealing wax, cabbages-kings)use entirely different sets of neurons. He taught his system various associations such as Plato -> Man, Man -> Mortal, Zeus -> God, God -> Immortal and the system was able to output triples such as from input of single components. This system can be viewed as approximately equivalent to a production system with rules such as "Man(X) -> Mortal(X)". In Anderson's simulation a better pattern match leads to faster activation so conflict resolution uses a "best match fires first" strategy. I think that his model also allows multiple rules to fire simultaneously provided that they conclude about different attributes. For example it would be possible to conclude simultaneously that Plato is Greek and Mortal. However the superposition of the neural activation patterns for Mortal and Immortal does not necessarily represent anything at all. OK, so much for the rough sketch of Anderson's system. The questions which interest me about it deal with instantiation. In a production system we can arrange things so that values get bound to the variables in the rules. What is the equivalent process in the neural network? My guess is that the activation process is the closest equivalent. The total activity pattern of the network represents the current entity being thought about and it possesses some number of more or less independent attributes. Thus the binding process is particularly simple because there is no choice of entities to bind. There is only one value, the current state, and the choice of attributes of the current state to bind is wired into the synapses of each rule. So a rule looks more like "Big_animal(Current_state) & Teeth(Current_ state) -> Dangerous(Current_state)". You could say that all the rules are permanently bound. If this is a reasonable description of instantiation in neural nets, then the next obvious question is "How the hell do you represent multiple entities?" If multiple entities are represented by the current state of activity on the network there is no way that the rules can decide which attributes go with what entity. As far as they are concerned there is only one entity. So what are the possibilities for keeping entities separate in the neural representation? 1. Attribute separation. If two entities have no attributes in common then they can be represented simultaneously. As noted above, the rules can't break them apart but for some purposes this may not matter. If the entities have an attribute in common then provided they have the same value on that attribute no harm is done. If they have conflicting values on a shared attribute then the representation of at least one of the entities will be distorted. 2. Temporal separation. If a pattern of neural activity causes a short term increase in the ease with which that pattern can be re-triggered then several entities could be juggled by time division multiplexing. Only one entity would be actively represented at a single time, but the other recently represented entities could be easily recalled. This scheme prevents entities interfering and also seems to stop them usefully interacting. It is not clear how the rule mechanism could be modified to allow references to multiple entities in the pattern. 3. Spatial separation. Assume that instead of one neural population there are several of them, all with identical knowledge bases, and communicating with each other. These neural populations are not necessarily physically separate. Each population would be capable of representing and manipulating an entity without interference from the representations of the other entities. Furthermore, because the populations are connected it would be possible for rules to know about multiple entities. The difference between this scheme and the attribute separation scheme is that for a given attribute there will be a distinct group of neurons in each population rather than a single global group of neurons. Any rule which is looking for a pattern involving multiple entities will be able to see them as distinct because the information will come in over distinct synaptic pathways. This spatial separation scheme would be ideal for visual processing because the populations could be arranged in a topographic mapping and allowed to communicate only with their neighbours. This could deal with rules like, "If the neighbour on my left sees an object moving right then I will see it soon and it will still have the attributes my neighbour labelled it with." This scheme could also be used for more cognitive calculations but obviously there would need to be mechanisms for coordination to replace the simple static coordination structure provided by topographic mapping and communication with neighbours. Work done in cognitive psychology shows that children's increasing ability to perform difficult tasks can be attributed to the increasing number of concepts which can be simultaneously activated and manipulated (Graeme S. Halford, "Can young children integrate premises in transitivity and serial order tasks?", Cognitive Psychology, 1984, Vol 16, pp 65-93). Perhaps the children are slowly learning the coordination rules needed to stop the populations acting as one large population and allow them to run as a coordinated group of entity processors. That's my quota of armchair theorising for the week. Anyone got a comment? Ross Gayler | ACSnet: ross@psych.uq.oz Division of Research & Planning | ARPA: ross%psych.uq.oz@seismo.arpa Queensland Department of Health | CSNET: ross@psych.uq.oz GPO Box 48 | UUCP: seismo!munnari!psych.uq.oz!ross Brisbane 4001 | AUSTRALIA | Phone: +61 7 224 7060 ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Wed Jul 10 04:02:50 1985 Date: Wed, 10 Jul 85 04:02:45 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a016748; 10 Jul 85 2:44 EDT Date: Tue 9 Jul 1985 22:43-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #91 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Wed, 10 Jul 85 03:55 EST AIList Digest Wednesday, 10 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 91 Today's Topics: Seminars - Shape from Function (GMR) [correction] & A Mathematical Theory of Plan Synthesis (SU) & Object Model of Information (SU) & Expert Systems and Databases (CMU) & Expert System for Grease Selection (CMU), Conference - Canadian AI Conference ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Jun 85 14:14 EST From: "S. Holland" Subject: Seminar - Shape from Function (GMR) [correction] SHAPE FROM FUNCTION VIA MOTION ANALYSIS with Application to the Automatic Design of Orienting Devices for Vibratory Part Feeders Dr. Tomas Lozano-Perez MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Cambridge, MA. 02139 Wednesday, August 14, 1985, 11:00 a.m. General Motors Research Laboratories Computer Science Department Warren, Michigan 48090-9057 [It seems I introduced a typo (GE) when I distributed this seminar notice. Steve Holland informs me that this talk will be held at GMR and that Tomas is reachable at tlp%mit-oz@mit-mc or via u.s. mail to MIT AI Lab. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Tue 9 Jul 85 17:41:40-PDT From: Ed Pednault Subject: PhD Orals - A Mathematical Theory of Plan Synthesis (SU) Toward a Mathematical Theory of Plan Synthesis Edwin P.D. Pednault Electrical Engineering Thursday, July 18, 2:15pm Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 146 Planning problems have the following form: given a set of goals, a set of allowable actions and a description of the current state of the world, find a sequence of actions that will transform the world from its current state to a state in which all of the goals are satisfied. This talk is a presentation of my thesis research which examines the question of how to solve planning problems automatically. The question of plan synthesis will be addressed from a rigorous, mathematical standpoint in contrast to the informal and highly experimental treatments found in most previous works. By introducing mathematical rigor, it has been possible to unify many existing ideas in automatic planning, showing how they arise from first principles and how they may be applied to solve a much broader class of problems than had previously been considered. In addition, some entirely new ideas have been developed and a number of theorems have been proved that further our understanding of the synthesis problem. The talk will concentrate on my techniques for plan synthesis with only a brief summary of the other contributions of my research. A mathematical framework for studying planning problems will be introduced and a number of theorems will be presented that form the basis for the synthesis techniques. These theorems will then be combined with a least-commitment search strategy to obtain a solution method that unifies and generalizes means-ends analysis, opportunistic planning, goal protection, goal regression, constraint posting/propagation, hierarchical planning and nonlinear planning. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 8 Jul 85 15:30:17-PDT From: David Beech Subject: Seminar - An Object Model of Information (SU) The first Database Seminar of the summer quarter will be this Friday, 12th July, at 3:15 in MJH 352. For information, please contact Beech@Score or call 497-9118. TOWARDS AN OBJECT MODEL OF THE REPRESENTATION AND USE OF INFORMATION David Beech Stanford CIS and HP Laboratories Future general-purpose information systems will need to deal with a wide range of information, and offer flexible access to it, if they are to appeal to the potential millions of non-specialist users. For example, they should process pictures and sounds as naturally as numbers and texts; they should answer questions which require some deduction from the often incomplete information previously given to the system; and they should move towards the support of natural language interfaces, including spoken inputs. An object-oriented model of the representation and use of information is proposed, with the necessary generality for the description and design of such systems. Fundamental concepts including those of agent, object, type, action, formula, process, transaction, predicator and generator are introduced. Recursive functions, predicate calculus, and n-ary relations are brought together in a data abstraction framework, with an emphasis on intensional definition of concepts and their instantiation by means of predicators and generators. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 85 10:19:59 EDT From: Mary.Lou.Maher@CMU-RI-CIVE Subject: Seminar - Expert Systems and Databases (CMU) DESIGN RESEARCH CENTER BI-WEEKLY SEMINAR SERIES Interfacing Expert Systems and Databases for Structural Engineering Applications by Craig Howard Wednesday, July 10 at 1:30 pm in the Adamson Wing, Baker Hall ******* Refreshments will be served at 1:15 ******* Artificial intelligence programming techniques, specifically expert systems and knowledge-based systems (KBS), are being applied to a broad range of engineering problems. However, most prototype expert system applications are restricted to limited amounts of data and have no facility for sophisticated data management. As expert systems are integrated into engineering computing systems, the data management capabilities of these systems must be adapted to serve these new components. The presentation describes work underway to develop a flexible interface in which multiple expert systems and multiple design databases communicate as independent, self-descriptive components within an integrated structural engineering computing environment. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 85 13:17:54 EDT From: Jeanne.Bennardo@CMU-RI-ISL1 Subject: Seminar - Expert System for Grease Selection (CMU) Intelligent Systems Lab Seminar Topic: Presentation of Grease Project Speaker: Dr. Peter Spirtes Place: DH3313 Date: Wednesday, July 10 Time: 10:00am - 11:00am The Grease project is an expert system that is intended to aid in the choice or design of a proper cutting fluid for a metal machining operation. It is currently under development at the Intelligent Systems Lab in cooperation with Gulf Oil Company. Cutting fluids can extend tool life and improve finish by providing lubrication and cooling, and by preventing the welding of the metal being machined to the machining tool. The goal is to find a cutting fluid which will make a machining operation as economical as possible by finding the best trade-off between the price of a cutting fluid and the amount that it extends tool life. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jul 85 17:10:09 pdt From: Bill Havens Subject: Conference - Canadian AI Conference C A L L F O R P A P E R S Canadian Artificial Intelligence Conference C S C S I - 8 6 Montreal, Canada May 21 - 23, 1986 Sponsored by the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence The Sixth National Conference of the CSCSI invites sub- mission of theoretical and applied research papers in all areas of Artificial Intelligence research, particularly those listed below: o Knowledge Representation o Computer Vision o Natural Language Understanding o Expert Systems and Applications o Logic Programming and Formal Reasoning o Robotics o Planning, Problem Solving and Learning o Cognitive Science o Social Aspects of AI o AI Architecture, Languages and Tools All submissions will be fully refereed by the program committee. Authors are requested to prepare full papers of no more than 5000 words in length and specify in which area they wish their papers reviewed. All papers should contain concise clear descriptions of significant contributions to Artificial Intelligence research with proper references to the relevant literature. Figures and illustrations should be professionally drawn. Three copies of each submitted paper must be in the hands of the Program Chairman by December 31, 1985. Elec- tronic submissions are unfortunately not acceptable. All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceed- ings. Correspondence should be addressed to either the Gen- eral Chair or the Program Chair, as appropriate. General Chair: Renato De Mori Department of Computer Science Concordia University Montreal, P.Q. H3G 1M8 CANADA Program Chair: Bill Havens Department of Computer Science University of British Columbia Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5 CANADA Network Address: havens@ubc.CSNET ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From uucp Fri Jul 12 05:08:46 1985 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 85 05:08:41 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a002425; 12 Jul 85 2:44 EDT Date: Thu 11 Jul 1985 22:43-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #92 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 12 Jul 85 04:58 EST AIList Digest Friday, 12 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 92 Today's Topics: News - Center for Machine Intelligence, Journals -- IEEE Software & SPIE AI Issue, Book - A Vision of Knowledge Engineering ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 11 Jul 85 22:39:16-PDT From: Ken Laws Subject: Center for Machine Intelligence I have received an announcement of the formation of a new Center for Machine Intelligence under the co-directorship of Dr. Ashby Woolf and Prof. Lynn Conway (recently of DARPA). The center is being formed by Electronic Data Systems Corporation (subsidiary of GM) and the University of Michigan. Their address is 2001 Commonwealth Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI 48105, phone (313) 995-0900. -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 10 July 1985 08:20:16 EDT From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa Subject: Reminder -- IEEE Software A reminder that the last date for the submission of papers for the IEEE software special AI issue is July 15th. If anyone wants an extension till August 1st, send mail to sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa. Sriram FOR YOUR INFORMATION: The March 1986 issue of IEEE Software will address software aspects of knowledge-based systems developed for engineering applications. (IEEE Software is one of the prestigious magazines devoted to problems in Software engineering). ------------------------------ Date: Thu 11 Jul 85 22:32:33-PDT From: Ken Laws Subject: SPIE AI Issue Mohan Trivedi tells me that SPIE (Society of Photo and Instrumentation Engineers) is planning a special AI issue of their journal early next year. This seems to be a follow-on to their recent conference on AI. Contact Dr. Trivedi at Electrical Engineering Dept. Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803 Phone (504) 388-6826 soon if you are interested in contributing. Submitted papers need not be about optics. -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 85 14:36:30 edt From: Tom Scott Subject: A Vision of Knowledge Engineering I'm writing a manuscript, "A Vision of Knowledge Engineering", for Prentice-Hall. The intended audience of the textbook is undergraduate students in philosophy, management information science, and computer science. The parts of the book correspond to the audience: Part I (chapters 2-4) is concerned with the theoretical foundations of knowledge engineering and will focus on symbolic logic and epistemology, including both the empirical work of John Dewey, Rudolf Carnap, and Isaac Levi as well as the transcendental work of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. Part II (chapter 5) introduces topics from information management such as managerial cybernetics, decision support systems, and man/machine interaction (software engineering and human engineering). Part III (chapter 6) outlines the techniques and concepts of artificial intelligence that young knowledge engineers need to be on friendly terms with in order to design and implement applications programs such as knowledge-based expert systems. Here is an outline of the manuscipt: A VISION OF KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING 1. Introduction 2. Intelligent Resources 2.1 The Age of Knowledge 2.2 The System of Intelligent Resources 2.3 Revision of Intelligent Resources 3. Deductive Knowledge 3.1 Logic Programming 3.2 Automated Reasoning 3.3 Deductive Systems 4. Deep Knowledge 4.1 Deliberate Expansion of Knowledge Bases 4.2 Structures of Consciousness 4.3 What Is Inductive Logic? 5. Information Management 5.1 Managerial Cybernetics 5.2 Decision Support Systems 5.3 The Unix Development Environment 6. AI Techniques 6.1 Concepts and Techniques 6.2 Applications 6.3 The AI Development Environment 7. Vision of Possibilities As I begin to close off the theoretical part (chapters 2-4), I'm looking for concrete systems and applications to write about in chapters 5 and 6. If anyone has suggestions about systems that I can review, please contact me at the address listed at the end of this article. * * * Here are three diagrams that summarize the approach to knowledge engineering that I've taken in the manuscript. The first diagram (figure 1) shows a canonical or ideal form that seems to underlie most (all?!) interactive knowledge systems. Figures 2 and 3 summarize the literature that I have found to be a good basis for teaching the theory and practice of knowledge systems and intelligent databases to young knowledge engineers. +---------+ ________ |knowledge|_________ | | base | | | +---------+ | | | | | | | +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ | expert |____| inter- |____|inference|____| inter- |____| user | | | | face | | engine | | face | | | +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ | | | | | | | +---------+ | ________ | black- | ________ | board | +---------+ Figure 1. An interactive knowledge system. Without much difficulty most block diagrams of knowledge systems can fit into this framework. 5. Rule-Based Expert Systems (Buchanan & al. 1984) ======================================================= 4. Principles of Artificial Intelligence (Nilsson 1980) 3. Automated Reasoning (Wos & al. 1984) 2. Automated Theorem Proving (Loveland 1978) ======================================================= 1. Mathematical Logic (Shoenfield 1967) Figure 2. The five levels of knowledge engineering as seen from the theoretical perspective. The concept of a production system and the concept of representation-inference-control can be traced on each of the five levels. 5. Concepts and Terminology for the Conceptual Schema and the Information Base (van Griethuysen 1982) ===================================================== 4. Advances in Data Base Theory (Gallaire & al. 1981) 3. Towards a Logical Reconstruction of Relational Database Theory (Reiter 1984) 2. Automated Theorem Proving (Loveland 1978) ===================================================== 1. Mathematical Logic (Shoenfield 1967) Figure 3. The five levels of knowledge engineering and automated reasoning as seen from the practical perspective of deductively- augmented (intelligent) relational databases. The diagram is motivated by the practical need for intelligent deductions in large commercial databases. One more diagram, figure 4, helps round out this preliminary Vision. I drew figure 4 after using Argonne's Interactive Theorem Prover (ITP). ITP is a beautiful tool for giving young knowledge engineers experience and understanding of how to build a production system consisting of entities (the knowledge base of atomic and molecular clauses), operators (rules of inference), and control (strategies such as forward and backward demodulation and forward and backward subsumption). +------------+ ----------->| Choice |------------ | | strategies | | | +------------+ | | || | | || | | +---------------+ V +------------+ | | +------------+ | Backward |----| Knowledge |----| Inference | | strategies |----| base |----| rules | +------------+ | | +------------+ A +---------------+ | | || | | || | | +------------+ | | | Forward | | ------------| strategies |<----------- +------------+ Figure 4. Argonne National Laboratory's Interactive Theorem Prover (ITP). This diagram is adapted from Allen and Luckham 1970 and Wos et al. 1984 (section 4.4, "Order of Operations"). The flow of operations is clockwise, beginning with the choice strategies. ITP stops when the knowledge base exhibits an appropriate termination condition such as the null clause in refutation proofs. The corrpesondonce between ITP and an abstract production system is: ITP Production system -------------- ----------------- knowledge base entities inference rules operations strategies control That is why we ITP addicts are so excited about using ITP in knowledge engineering. ITP serves as an example of a production system and a production-system-building tool. If you've ever tried using Yaps in the University of Maryland Lisp environment, I think you'll agree that ITP is a lot simpler. I don't mean of course to tell people not to use the Maryland systems or other production-system-building tools. My intention here is only to recommend the Argonne system as the easiest way that I know of for new knowledge engineers to effortlessly gain full knowledge of production systems through ITP-based experience and understanding. Note the nice picture that results when we combine figure 1 (the interactive knowledge system) and figure 4 (ITP). Simply replace the middle section of figure 1 by figure 4. The knowledge bases in each diagram correspond well; the inference engine and blackboard of the interactive knowledge system correspond to the inference-rule module and strategy modules of ITP. The resulting picture is clean and neat. What more could a young knowledge engineer ask for? * * * I look forward to hearing your replies to these ideas. We are children of the cybernetic revolution and we are witnessing the rising sunshine of the Age of Enlightenment. Jai Guru Dev, Tom Scott Department of Mathematics and Statistics Bowling Green State University Bowling Green OH 43403-0221 Csnet: scott@bgsu UUCP: ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!bgsuvax!scott Day phone: 419-372-2636 ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Mon Jul 15 17:01:24 1985 Date: Mon, 15 Jul 85 17:01:20 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a014921; 14 Jul 85 2:47 EDT Date: Sat 13 Jul 1985 22:53-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #93 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sun, 14 Jul 85 11:48 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 14 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 93 Today's Topics: Games - Progress in Chess, Learning - Forgetting, AI Tools - Interlisp Comments, Natural Language - Aymara FAB Lab ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 5 Jul 85 19:28:02-EDT From: Fred Hapgood Subject: Progress in Chess It is my recollection that the first good chess program, Northwestern's CHESS 3.0, had earned a USCF rating of about 2100 in 1973. In the subsequent twelve years quite impressive advances have been made both in chess programs and the hardware running them. Yet apparently all that this progress has bought has been a measly 100 rating points. What conclusions might be drawn from these facts? One, surely, is that it might take much longer than any of us think to build a machine that plays even 2400 chess, let alone at world champion level. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 85 16:03:56 PDT From: Richard K. Jennings Subject: Falling Away; re Furth's message. > From: "furth john%d.mfenet" >Subject: The Best Chess Program > To attain an independent and useful intelligence, the learner > must be able to discard significant portions of the means by which > it has arrived at its present level of ability. The original hub > of its actions must *fall away* and a new one be generated. > So the adult forgets the involvements of childhood and the state > the cares of its early days. With whatever vestiges remain, the > organism must take on a whole new orientation to meet new > needs with a closer approach to the optimum. It is better to > forget the past than to live there. The best chess program > will forget most everything its author ever told it to do. This is certainly true for persons in general. The recent TV series & book entitled 'The Brain' talked about people who didn't seem to be able to forget very well, and the problems they had in normal life. Along these lines, it is possible to develop some rather interesting perspectives 'on the meaning of it all'. Suppose for a moment, one of the key features of our species is that regardless of how important person an person thinks he or she is, they 'fall away' (read die) after a rather short period of time (on the cosmic scale). If immortality could be achieved, this would not occur and the 'intelligence' of the species by Furth's implicit definition would be reduced. Consequently, the immortality quest is ephemeral at best, and certainly not a quest that should be funded by the entire race. Rich. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 85 19:27:40 PDT From: Steve Crocker Subject: Interlisp comments are first class citizens I must have missed the first flame about comments in Interlisp, but I'll jump in anyway. I have used Interlisp for a decade and it's a sheer delight to see how many good ideas have been implemented and are just sitting there waiting for the semi-experienced user to discover them. The method of handling comments is one of the minor delights, but a delight nonetheless. As has been noted, comments in Interlisp are simply functions that don't have any useful value. The "*" is used as the function symbol, and that works fine, although any other symbol such as ";" or "comment" could have been used as well. Once you get the idea that comments are simply "useless" functions, I find it hard to understand why there's much trouble placing them correctly. The prettyprinter always prints them out in an identifiable way, and the compiler and/or DWIM package catch the majority of errors you might make. No similar service exists is most other languages, including most dialects of Lisp. One of the neat things we were able to do with Interlisp comments is adopt a convention that each function definition contain a comment that describes its purpose, inputs and output as its first "action." (The compiler knows enough to generate nothing when it sees a comment, so it doesn't take up either time or space in the object code.) Using the Masterscope system, we built some tools that generate documentation for a file full of functions. This documentation includes all of the Masterscope goodies -- who calls the function, what variables are referenced, etc. -- and the initial comment for the function. All of this information is collected in a Scribe file and turned into a substantial document. This kind of thing is not necessary for the programmer who's debugging a couple of functions in a context he knows intimately, but it sure does help the next programmer or the same programmer a year later. This kind of tool was almost trivial to build because comments are part of the code and not incidental frosting lost at the first turn of the lexical analyzer. (Anybody who thinks he has a natural language parser that handles metaphors is invited to try that last sentence!) There are always alternative ways of doing things and differences and taste and style, but most of the criticisms of Lisp in general and Interlisp in particular come from people who grew up (?) with batch compilers of line-oriented, statement-oriented languages. I think those are three of the worst things that ever happened in computing, and will continue to haunt us for another several decades. Steve Crocker ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 09:50:16 edt From: Eric Nyberg Subject: Re: Interlisp Comments In reply to Steven Tepper's comments in AIList #86, I would like to make the following points about commenting Interlisp programs. Placing a comment in the "wrong" place may result in a comment value being used by a function in an undesirable way. During compilation, the compiler issues a warning whenever this sort of situation is noticed (VALUE OF COMMENT USED). The printing of comments as "**COMMENT**" during pretty printing is the system default. Mr. Tepper was too quick to flamethrow before checking his Interlisp manual on this. There is a variable called **COMMENT**FLG which controls this behaviour. If **COMMENT**FLG is NIL, comments are printed. Otherwise, the value of **COMMENT**FLG is printed (initially set to "**COMMENT**"). There is also a function called PP* {nlambda*} which performs a PP with all comments expanded. I refer Mr. Tepper and others interested in reading about the comment facility to Sections 6.8.1 - 6.8.4 in the Interlisp-D manual (I'm afraid my comments don't apply to older versions of Interlisp). For info on how to change the font used for comments, see section 6.8.5. The rest of Steven's complaints about the position and font used for comments can all be remedied by resetting various parameters that control the format of comments (see the above sections). If one takes the extra time to set up his/her programming environment the way he/she likes it, it is possible to have the comments just about anywhere (and any size). It seems that there are many user "hooks" in Interlisp-D that allow this sort of customization. It is too bad that the documentation is sometimes very difficult to understand, even when tracked down. I disagree with Steven's conclusion that Interlisp "discourages" comments. The *default environment* handles comments in a discouraging way, but a few lines of code in the init file can remedy the situation. Eric Nyberg GTE Laboratories ehn0@gte-labs.CSNET ------------------------------ Date: Tue 9 Jul 85 02:51:46-CDT From: Werner Uhrig Subject: A visit to the Aymara FAB Lab [DDJ July 85] [ from Dr. Dobb's Journal, July 1985 - "Of Interest" by Michael Swaine] A VISIT to the FAB Lab ======================= --- A blip of 'deja vu' struck as I read in the March IEEE Software about IVAN GUZMAN DE ROJAS and his plan for doing natural-language translation via the peculiarly algebraic Andean Indean language Aymara. Yes, trivial recall was working perfectly; halfway down the Andean peak of press releases on my desk I found the announcement of the opening of the AYAMARA FAB LAB in Sunnyvale. A coincidence worthy of a drive down the peninsula. DEAN NORMAN, director of the lab, ... explained that Guzman, discovering the Aymara, lacking irregular verbs and gender, was an unprecedentedly logical language (although its logic was not standard two-valued logic), had succeeded in codifying the algorithmic structure of it syntax. For the first time, someone had expressed a natural language in software. Wasn't Guzman, I asked, considering the application of his achievement in the design of translation machines, the notion being that computerized Aymara could serve as the bridge in a multilanguage translation system? Right, Norman answered, although at AFL they were taking the process in a somewhat different direction. Did I recall the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from linguistics? I did, more or less: that language delimited the thinkable thoughts, and thus our culture and perceptions. Under normal conditions we see only those distinctions for which we have words. In cultures in which green is not a major linguistic division of the spectrum, it is also not a primary perceptual division. Norman nodded. The principle can be applied to any language-processing system, natural or artificial. Curious as it might sound, the Aymara- speaking software would, to a certain extend, think like an Aymaran. With it's multi-valued logic, it would make distinctions that would never occur to a New York stock-broker; with its lack of grammatical gender, it would fail to make distinctions the stockbroker would unconsciously make. And Aymaran is only the easiest language, not the only one, to which the principle can be applied. Employing Guzman's translation techniques, it would be possible to develop front-end packages that, with the proper filtering out of Aymaran values and perceptions, would embody pure upper-class British perceptions or ancient Greek thought processes. We could examine the way judges in ancient Sumeria examined evidence. That, Norman explained, was what they were up to at AFL: just as the developers of expert systems were trying to capture the knowledge of selected individuals in software, AFL was trying to capture the style of thinking, the intellectual spirit of whole cultures. I mulled that over. Wouldn't there be a great advantage, I asked, in combining the two approaches, developiong a system with a specifiable style of thinking? Couldn't one develop, say, a machine with the knowledge of a high-energy physicist and the spirit of a 12th-century Mandarin? Or the knowledge of a modern statesman and the intellectual style of the first Continental Congress? But Norman suddenly looked uncomfortable and said that he couldn't discuss details of ongoing projects. [given that I quote verbatim a large junk of text here, I feel it proper to make a plug for DDJ, one of the very few worthwhile commercial computer magazines: DDJ appears monthly, subscription is $25/year, airmail Canada $46, other countries $62 and if your technical newsstand doesn't have it you should ask for it. DDJ, PO Box 27809, Sand Diego, CA 92128 call (800)321-3333 and (619)485-9623 or 566-6947 for subscription problems (not having one is a problem, right? ;-) disclaimers galore - Werner ] ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From csvpi@vpics1 Tue Jul 16 22:14:07 1985 Date: Tue, 16 Jul 85 22:14:04 edt From: csvpi@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: R Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a001588; 16 Jul 85 15:39 EDT Date: Tue 16 Jul 1985 11:09-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #94 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Tue, 16 Jul 85 22:07 EST AIList Digest Tuesday, 16 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 94 Today's Topics: Seminars - Temporal Reasoning (SRI) & Geometric Reasoning (Penn) & Electronic Encyclopedia (MIT), Conferences - Aerospace Applications of AI & Cognitive Science Society Annual Conference ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 10 Jul 85 12:22:15-PDT From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Temporal Reasoning (SRI) Temporal Imagery: An Approach to Reasoning about Time for Planning and Problem Solving Thomas Dean Yale University 11:00 AM, Monday, July 15 Room EJ232, SRI International Reasoning about time typically involves drawing conclusions on the basis of incomplete information. Uncertainty arises in the form of ignorance, indeterminacy, and indecision. Despite the lack of complete information a problem solver is continually forced to make predictions in order to pursue hypotheses and plan for the future. Such predictions are frequently contravened by subsequent evidence. The talk will describe a computational approach to temporal reasoning that directly confronts these issues. The approach relies upon a method for keeping track of the dependency relations among assertions in a temporalized data base. The resulting computational framework extends the functionality of reason maintenance systems [Doyle 79] to handle assertions with a temporal extent. The techniques developed extend the functionality of current approaches to dealing with time in planning (e.g., [Sacerdoti 77], [Tate 77], [Vere 83], and [Allen 83]). Examples from robot problem solving will be used to illustrate the techniques. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jul 85 12:25 EDT From: Tim Finin Subject: Seminar - Geometric Reasoning (Penn) A GEOMETRIC REASONING SYSTEM FOR MOVING AN OBJECT WHILE MAINTAINING CONTACT WITH OTHERS Anastasia Koutsou, Dept. of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh Thursday, 11 July 1985 3:00 pm 216 Moore This paper concerns the problem of moving a polyhedral object while maintaining contact with a set of stationary polyhedral objects. A method is developed for deriving a sequence of compliant-guarded motions in order to move an object from an initial configuration to a final configuration while it is in contact. This sequence is derived from a sequence of spatial relationships among the features of the objects. The construction of a graph of spatial relationships representing the space where the object is in contact with its environment is described. This is done using a geometric reasoning system which is able to find a relationship equivalent to a conjunction of two relationships and to construct the new features among which the new relationship holds. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 1985 10:49 EDT (Fri) From: Crisse Ciro Subject: Seminar - Electronic Encyclopedia (MIT) Wednesday, July 17 8th Floor Playroom NE43 3:00 PM INTERACTIVE SIMULATIONS FOR AN ELECTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Alan Borning Computer Science Department University of Washington In the first part of this seminar, I'll describe work on a prototype electronic encyclopedia. The prototype makes use of the text from an existing print encyclopedia, and employs a window-oriented browser on a Symbolics 3600 computer. Selected articles in the prototype also include some features that take advantage of the new medium, including interactive simulations, links to a picture library stored on a videodisk, and active text for browsing cross references, expanding abbreviations, and converting from one measurement system to another. The construction of a comprehensive electronic encyclopedia that takes full advantage of the computer medium will be an enormous task, and will require good computer-based tools to support the encyclopedia's authors. The second part of the seminar will concern research on one such tool: a kit for constructing interactive simulations. Using this kit, authors can construct simulations of such things as manipulable diagrams illustrating geometric theorems or simulations of physics experiments. The kit, an extension of the ThingLab system, uses constraints to specify the relations between parts of the simulations, and provides convenient graphical tools for assembling and manipulating simulations. As part of the talk two videoptapes will be shown: first, a brief demo of the prototype electronic encyclopedia, and second, a demo of ThingLab, including recent enhancements. Refreshments will be served HOST: Randall Davis ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 1985 10:47-EDT From: cross Subject: Conference - Aerospace Applications of AI AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE September 16-19, 1985 Dayton Convention Center, Dayton Ohio The purpose of the conference is to establish the present state of the art in AI in selected areas of importance to the aerospace community. There will be session in avionics, manufacturing, maintenance, decision support systems, expert system building tools, programming languages, man-machine interfaces, and new architectures. Each session will be keynoted by a prominent researcher who will differeniate between present capabilities and research problems. Keynote speakers are: B. Chandrasekaran, M. Fox, T. Garvey, V. Lesser, D. Michie, K. Bowen, W. Rouse, E. Sacerdoti, M. Stefik, and E. Taylor. In addition, each session will include presentation from industry and government labs. Each session will conclude with a panel discussion. The conference will also feature a session that explores senior management expectations. Exhibits will be open to the public. Conference fee: $225.00 (includes luncheon and banquet). Registration: AAAIC'85, PO Box 31250, Dayton OH 45431-0250 send for a registration form or call (513) 426-8530 for more information Lodging: A Block of rooms is reserved at the Stouffer's Dayton Plaza. Reseravations are preferably made with the conference registration form. If necessary, reservations can be made directly with Stouffer's, (513) 224-0800. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jul 85 05:46:02 pdt From: gluck@SU-PSYCH (Mark Gluck) Subject: Cognitive Science Society Annual Conference: General Info [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] SCHEDULE: Thursday, August 15th, 8:30am - Saturday, August 17th, 5:00pm AIRLINE TRANSPORTATION: 30-35% Discount on American Airlines, call 1-800-433-1790. Conference code is: star file s7387. Closest airport is Orange Country/John Wayne. Taxi to campus if $5.00. DORMITORY ACCOMIDATIONS: Double Rate: $38.00 per person per day Single Rate: $45.00 per person per day LOCATION: At the campus of Univ. California, Irvine (also known as U. Cal, Disney), which is about 40 miles south of LA and 5 miles from the beach. REGISTRATION: General: $65.00 Student: $45.00 MAJOR ADDRESSES: Endel Tulving, Allen Newell, Shimon Ullman, Roger Schank ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Fri Jul 19 23:58:58 1985 Date: Fri, 19 Jul 85 23:58:53 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a017640; 19 Jul 85 14:08 EDT Date: Fri 19 Jul 1985 09:41-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #95 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sat, 20 Jul 85 05:29 EST AIList Digest Friday, 19 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 95 Today's Topics: Queries - Prolog-Lisp Combinations & Scheme Benchmark Programs & Graphic User Interfaces & AI Handbook & Machine Learning List, Machine Learning - Mistakes, AI Tools - LISP vs. C, Publications - Announcement of IRList ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 15 Jul 85 11:51:05-PDT From: Yigal Arens Subject: Request for Prolog-Lisp combinations I'm interested in finding out about implementations of Prolog in Lisp or Lisp in Prolog(?), or any other version of either that allows one to program in both. I'm also interested in hearing from people who have experience using such a combination, and who can give me an idea how efficiently it works. Please respond to ARENS@USC-ECLC.ARPA. Thanks, Yigal Arens USC ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jul 1985 1649-CDT From: Arthur Subject: Scheme Benchmark Programs Sought I am beginning a Scheme performance evaluation project here at TI CSL, an initial task being to build a suite of benchmark programs. Beyond the Gabriel Lisp Benchmark Suite translated to Scheme and examples from 'Abelson & Sussman', most Scheme programs around these days seem to be "systems" code such as compilers and editors. I am soliciting Scheme "applications" code, especially programs that show off **canonical Scheme programming style**, e.g., extensive use of lexical scoping and first-class functions/environments/continuations in solving a problem. Users of MIT Scheme, Scheme 84, Chez Scheme, and T, let's see that simple, fast, elegant code you've been writing! What's in it for you? Well, possible enshrinement of your name and all or part of your favorite program in a "standard" benchmark suite for Scheme. Also, the good feeling that comes with advancing the cause of Lisp-Done-Right, since I hope to show off the performance advantages of the Scheme runtime model. Code that is as dialect-independent as possible (ideally conforms to the Revised Revised Report) would be appreciated. The ultimate suite of programs will be made available to interested parties, of course. Thanks for your cooperation, Arthur Altman Texas Instruments Computer Science Laboratory (214) 995-0383 CSNET: altman@ti-csl ARPANET: altman%ti-csl@csnet-relay U.S. Postal Service: M.S. 238, P.O. Box 226015, Dallas, Texas, 75266 ------------------------------ Date: Wed 17 Jul 85 13:47:57-PDT From: Mark Richer Subject: QUERY - references on graphic user interfaces I am trying to collect references on the design, implementation and evaluation of user interfaces, particularly interfaces that employ interactive graphics (basically any bit-map display graphics), multiple windows, non-keyboard input devices (e.g., mouse), etc. Basically what are the key articles that have formed the core of conventional wisdom on workstation design and user-interfaces. Even more specifically, I want to get references on user-interface design in knowledge-based systems, especially browsers. Besides STEAMER and work I know of from Stanford (Mitch Model and ONCOCIN more recently), I have come across very little in the AI literature on graphic interfaces. Perhaps, I have missed some key articles, even in IEEE Computer or something. If I get a good response I can make a bibliography available one way or another on the net. I really would like complete references to specific articles rather than check out Englebart or Card&Moran. Though general pointers are also welcome. Thanks in advance to anyone that can contribute. mark ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 85 23:19 EST From: Bill Faulkner Subject: Review request for AI Handbook I was recently thumbing through the July issue of Scientific American when I came across a Computer Science book club offer. A business reply card advertised a 3-volume Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for $4.95 as an incentive to enter the bookclub (which requires you to buy 3 more of their books during the next year). The Handbook and the book club are being offered by the "Library of Computer and Information Sciences" Riverside, NJ. I have been considering taking the risk and as a precautionary measure thought that I would ask if anybody out there has gotten a look at this Handbook. If any of you have subscribed, I would appreciate any comments you have about the Handbook, the company, and/or the quality and type of books being offered. Please send your replies directly to me at puppy@clemson if you're on csnet puppy.clemson@csnet-relay if you're on arpanet William Faulkner [This offer has been mentioned previously on AIList. The book club is reputable and efficient, and offers substantial discounts and rebates. Only about 5% of their offerings have any connection with AI, however; the rest is slanted toward data processing people and micro owners. Some of their currently-offered "past selections" are Wilensky's LISPcraft; Abelson & Sussman's Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs; Schmucker's Fuzzy Sets, Natural Language Computations, and Risk Analysis; and Pavlidis' Algorithms for Graphics and Image Processing. I think they had Steele's book on CommonLisp, but it's not advertised this month. The Handbook of AI is an excellent introduction to major currents in the field; read it cover to cover if you can find the time. I have my doubts about whether people will consult this often enough as a reference work to justify owning their own copies, but having it on your shelf can give you a warm feeling. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 85 07:52:15 EDT (Thu) From: schwamb@mitre.ARPA Subject: Machine Learning List Our group here at MITRE is starting a new machine learning project oriented toward the improvement of expert system rule bases. Does anyone know if there is a machine learning list like AIList? This would certaintly be helpful for us, providing another outlet to banter ideas around. If there isn't a list, perhaps someone might be interested in starting one up. After all, with the coming MACHINE LEARNING journal starting in '86, the field will now have a better focus and more interest. Karl Schwamb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 85 10:18 pst From: "furth john%c.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA Subject: Mistakes Perhaps the computer fails to beat the best human player for the reason that "Computers don't make mistakes." This cliche does not hold up for every use of term, "mistake" -- one could say that the computer has made at least one mistake if it has lost. Let us define "error" as a certain sort of mistake which might not be a mistake after all. An "error" will occur when the response to an input is not "standard", a "standard" response being a part of the structure which is the context of the input. The computer program understands nothing but chess -- its responses are all standard. The human player, on the other hand, has experiences that differ in some or many respects from the experience of playing chess. When he or she receives an input in a game of chess, one which would elicit a standard response from the computer, a pattern there may be matched to a pattern outside of chess altogether, with the result that the human player responds with a non-standard move. Often this "error" will truly be a mistake. If the error turns out be superior to the standard move, then the player will profit by remembering and repeating it. The very attribute which gives the computer its power, the ability to process ideas in an entirely discrete manner, will always isolate it from the real world. Only with difficulty can a program even approach human experience. How then can the chess program obtain the breadth of experience which I am associating here with superior perform- ance? I suggest that the chess program be taught other games, mostly similar ones, say Checkers or Go, but also games of chance, Monopoly, for instance, or card games. Any goal oriented activity should do, so long as it can be discretized. We should shake the computer up a bit in hopes that it will survive and gain some insights otherwise unattainable. John Furth ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 85 14:56:21 BST From: Fitch@ucl-cs.arpa Subject: Re: LISP v C Some of us can do useful work on a small LISP system. The whole of the integration code for REDUCE was developed on a 400Kbyte usable store machine. Not all LISPs are that big. I know I am now using 1Mb virtual, but LISP provides a better environment in 512K than C. John Fitch ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 85 14:47 EST From: Ed Fox Subject: Announcement of IRList This is to announce a new list on information retrieval. You may submit material for the digest to IRList%vpi@csnet-relay from the Internet, IRList@vpi from CSNET, IRList@vpics1 from BITNET. Administrative requests should be sent to IRList-Request. As you might expect, archival copies of all digests will be kept; feel free to ask IRList-Request for recent back issues. Note that FTP is not possible, so all communication must be by EMAIL or phone or letter. IRList is open to discussion of any topic related to information retrieval. Certainly, any material relating to ACM SIGIR is of interest. Our field has close ties to artificial intelligence, database management, information and library science, linguistics, ... A partial list of topics suitable are: Information Management/Processing/Science/Technology AI Applications to IR Indexing Abstracting Information Display Citations Information Theory Cognitive Psychology Knowledge Representation Communications Networks Language Understanding Computational Linguistics Library Science Computer Science NL Processing Cybernetics Natural Languages Data Abstraction Pattern Recognition Document Representations Library Science Electronic Books Probabilistic Techniques Expert Systems for IR Speech Analysis Full-Text Retrieval Statistical Techniques Hardware aids for IR Contributions may be anything from tutorials to rampant speculation. In particular, the following are sought: Abstracts Reviews Lab Descriptions Research Overviews Work Planned or in Progress Half-Baked Ideas Conference Announcements Conference Reports Bibliographies History of IR Queries and Requests Address Changes The only real boundaries to the discussion are defined by the topics of other mailing lists. Please do not send communications to both this list and AIList or the Prolog list, except in special cases. I have no objection to distributing material that is destined for conference proceedings or any other publication. I am involved in SIGIR Forum and unless you request otherwise may include submissions in whole or in part in future paper versions of the FORUM. Indeed, this is one form of solicitation for FORUM contributions! Both IRList and the FORUM are unrefereed. [...] -- Ed Fox Dr. Edward A. Fox, Asst. Prof., Dept. of Computer Science, 562 McBryde Hall, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU or Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA 24061; (703)961-5113 or 6931. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From csvpi@vpics1 Sun Jul 21 23:06:25 1985 Date: Sun, 21 Jul 85 23:06:16 edt From: csvpi@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a025775; 21 Jul 85 0:25 EDT Date: Sat 20 Jul 1985 20:23-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #96 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sun, 21 Jul 85 11:28 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 21 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 96 Today's Topics: Books - Library of Computer and Information Science & AI Handbook, AI Tools - Lisp vs. C & Vaxy Lisps, Survey - Spatial Reasoning ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat 20 Jul 85 18:38:17-PDT From: Rich Alderson Subject: Re: V3 #95--AI Handbook I took this offer up several years ago. I have managed to pick up a few nice items through the club, enough to justify the postage required to turn down most of their monthly offerings. It has been handy to have my own AIHB around when libraries had funny summer or between-quarter hours, for example. They have NOT had Steele's Common Lisp as yet, or I would have gotten it through them. Oh, well.... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 85 13:04 PDT From: "Watson Mark%SAI"@LLL-MFE.ARPA Subject: Lisp Vs C I agree with John Fitch that both exploratory programming and development work can be effectively done on a small memory Lisp machine. I have found it convenient to work with a 5000 line program (Charles Forgy's OPS5) on a 512K Macintosh using a commercially available Lisp compiler and still have lots of room for anciliary Lisp functions and hundreds of production rules. Programs written in C certainly run much faster than those written in compiled Lisp, but software development time is much greater. Mark Watson ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 85 16:10:00 EDT From: " CUGINI, JOHN" Reply-to: " CUGINI, JOHN" Subject: Vaxy Lisps About 2 weeks ago, I broadcast a request for information on the availability of flavorful Lisps to run on a VAX. I got a few responses and also some requests to be informed on the responses, so herewith a condensation of the results: ********* begin Vaxy-Lisp references ********************* Local DEC rep for AI applications is: Richard Brimer 8301 Professional Place Landover MD 20785 ms: DC0-912 They (DEC) are developing a flavors system, called VAXFLAVORS, much like Symbolics'. ******************************************************** From: MPW 26-JUN-1985 14:29:37 Return-Path: You probably should be aware of NIL, a lisp implementation for VMS developed at MIT. NIL has a flavor system, and is available for a nominal tape-copying/distribution charge. Contact Glenn Burke at (617) 253-3546 for further information. He's hard to get by phone; you may have better luck with net mail to GSB@MIT-MC. Mike Wellman ******************************************************** From: CARR 26-JUN-1985 14:44:23 Subj: psl blurb Please send a psl [portable standard lisp] blurb for psl/vax/vms to CUGINI@NBS-VMS. Thanks, Harold [psl is available from University of Utah for $750] ******************************************************** From: chaowatkins 26-JUN-1985 15:56:06 Subj: lisp Return-Path: John, XLISP is a small, toy lisp. It is in public domain. The main purpose is to allow users to play with `object oriented programming' approach. The copy I have runs on the Z80. There must be a copy that runs on the IBM-PC by now, i assume. i can get you the name of the bulletin board to call for the Z80 copy, let me know. VAX/VMS has Common Lisp running on it. The compiler is developed at DEC. For object-oriented programming purposes, try: 1) Symbolics lisp machine -- FLAVORS system 2) Xerox -- SMALLTALK scw (my arpa address is : chaowatkins@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA) ******************************************************** From: FAHLMAN 27-JUN-1985 10:43:39 Return-Path: DEC has been selling a Common Lisp for the Vax (VMS only, though a unix version is about to enter field test) for over a year, with professional-level support. It is certainly the most solid and well-supported Lisp available for VMS at this point, and because it is a Common Lisp code can be ported to many other machines. There is no object-oriented support available from DEC yet, but we at CMU are close to releasing a portable Flavors package for Common Lisp. -- Scott Fahlman ******************************************************** From: mcguire 28-JUN-1985 15:33:10 The best vax/lisp I've used is "T" which is a version of Scheme. It has lexical scoping, closures, objects, and an optimizing compiler. It was developed at the Yale C.S department and since you are at NBS you can probably get it directly from them (there was company comercially distributing it but I think no longer). The contact point should still be John O'Donnel (? odonnel@yale.arpa). If that address doesn't work, let me know and I'll try to hunt up the right address. ******************************************************** There is CSI Lisp (Cognitive Systems, Inc) which runs on top of VAX/LISP, but with object-oriented stuff. cost $10K. address: Cognitive Systems Inc. 234 Church St. New Haven CT 06510 ******************************************************** From: vasoll%okstate. 26-JUN-1985 11:29:59 Return-Path: John, I have an old note from back in Dec. `84 that indicates a fellow named David Betz wrote the original implementation of XLISP. Another person, John Woods, picked that up and enhanced it, then posted it to net.sources on USENET. I don't have an electronic address for Mr. Betz, but John Woods was reachable back in December at mit-eddie!jfw. Hope this helps, Mark Vasoll Department of Computing and Information Sciences Oklahoma State University UUCP: {cbosgd, ea, ihnp4, isucs1, mcvax, pesnta, uokvax}!okstate!vasoll ARPA: vasoll%okstate.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa ******************************************************** Return-Path: I have been using VAXLISP for about six months now. I have implemented an expert system to reason about grasping objects in it. It is truly a full-fledged implementation of Common LISP. I generally use Guy Steele's language specification instead of the user's manual for a reference. The features that I have found lacking in it (not many) have been in the area of problems with the specification, rather than the implementation. I can't comment on price -- I don't know how much we paid for it. [I think it costs $5K -- JC ] Performance of the system when the VAX doesn't have loads of memory can be pretty bad. However, the compiler is quite good. One grad student here implemented a window system including a terminal driver in compiled LISP code, and it ran quite rapidly. It all depends on how well you write the code (declares can be very important to speeding up compiled code). As far as xlisp goes, it can run on VAX/VMS if you have a C compiler. It is a good language in which to learn LISP, but it is only on the verge of being a useful language for real work. XLISP was written by David Betz (I think his address is Betz@YALE, but I can't remember for sure). XLISP is a public domain LISP which has some syntactic similarity to Common LISP, but by no means is it Common LISP at present. For one thing, Common LISP is lexically scoped except when told otherwise. XLISP is dynamically scoped. XLISP contains a smalltalk-like object oriented programming interface. If you are interested in object oriented Common LISPs (that is one of the drawbacks of the language specification -- they didn't include object oriented programming), I suggest you consider a few possibilities: HP has a specification for a flavors-like extension to the Common LISP specification (contact snyder@hplabs.csnet or hplabs!snyder.UUCP). I'm not sure if the implementation is complete or whether they sell it independently of the LISP system itself. The same grad student I mentioned above implemented a subset of flavors in Common LISP. Distribution of this implementation has not been worked out yet, but I am sure it will be possible to obtain it. If you are interested, I could check up on it for you. John Diamant Usenet: ...decvax!cwruecmp!diamant Case Western Reserve University CSNet: diamant@Case Cleveland, Ohio ARPA: diamant%Case@CSNet-Relay ********* end of Vaxy_Lisp references ************** John Cugini Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology National Bureau of Standards Bldg 225 Room A-265 Gaithersburg, MD 20899 phone: (301) 921-2431 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 85 15:43:00 EDT From: " CUGINI, JOHN" Reply-to: " CUGINI, JOHN" Subject: Spatial reasoning About 2 weeks ago, I broadcast a request for information on AI work in the realm of spatial reasoning. I got a few responses and also some requests to be informed on the responses, so herewith a condensation of the results: ********* begin spatial-reasoning references ********************* Return-Path: Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by NBS-VMS.ARPA ; 8 Jul 85 02:36:36 EDT From: Bill Park The big names in the field are Tomas Lozano-Perez and Rod Brooks at MIT, and Sharir & Co. at Courant Inst., NYU. *************************************************** [this one came, unbidden, from ailist, but I'm repeating it for completeness - JC] Date: Thu, 27 Jun 85 14:14 EST From: "S. Holland" Subject: Seminar - Shape from Function (GMR) SHAPE FROM FUNCTION VIA MOTION ANALYSIS with Application to the Automatic Design of Orienting Devices for Vibratory Part Feeders Dr. Tomas Lozano-Perez MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Cambridge, MA. 02139 Wednesday, August 14, 1985, 11:00 a.m. General Motors Research Laboratories Computer Science Department Warren, Michigan 48090-9057 This talk explores the premise that the function of many devices can be characterized by how they interact with other objects.... ..... Dr. Lozano-Perez has authored technical articles in the areas of motion planning, robot programming, and model-based object recognition. He has been affiliated with the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory since 1973. Steve Holland informs me that this talk will be held at GMR and that Tomas is reachable at tlp%mit-oz@mit-mc or via u.s. mail to MIT AI Lab. -- KIL *************************************************** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1985 14:14 EDT From: Juliana Kraft Subject: Spatial Reasoning Query For 3D you must consider 6 degrees of freedom (3 translational and 3 rotational). I recommend "Motion Planning with Six Degrees of Freedom," by Bruce Donald, (261 pp), MIT AI-TR 791, available from Publications Office MIT AI Laboratory Room NE43-818 545 Tech Square Cambridge, MA 02139 (617) 253-6773. *************************************************** Return-Path: Received: from CMU-CS-CAD.ARPA by NBS-VMS.ARPA ; 9 Jul 85 18:07:29 EDT Date: 9 Jul 1985 18:01:34-EDT From: Bharat.Dave@CMU-CS-CAD To: cugini@nbs-vms Subject: Re: Spatial reasoning Does your query about "spatial reasoning" refer to the physical objects (as in buildings) ? If so, then I don't know of any reference or work that specifically addresses it. But you may try the following- it contains a number of references which may be of interest to you. DRC-12-23-84 A Bibliography on Knowledge-Based Expert Systems in Engineering, D. Sriram (can be obtained from) Design Research Center Carnegie-Mellon University Doherty Hall A219 Pittsburgh PA 15213 Dave **************************************************** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 85 12:25 EDT From: Tim Finin Subject: Seminar - Geometric Reasoning (Penn) A GEOMETRIC REASONING SYSTEM FOR MOVING AN OBJECT WHILE MAINTAINING CONTACT WITH OTHERS Anastasia Koutsou, Dept. of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh Thursday, 11 July 1985 3:00 pm 216 Moore [...] ********* end of spatial-reasoning references ************** John Cugini Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology National Bureau of Standards Bldg 225 Room A-265 Gaithersburg, MD 20899 phone: (301) 921-2431 ------------------------------ Date: Thu 18 Jul 85 14:36:24-PDT From: Ken Laws Reply-to: AIList-Request@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Re: Spatial reasoning Thanks for sharing your summaries with us. Spatial reasoning is a lot harder than people realize. We had a fellow here who started naively with the "logic" approach -- "It's easy, you just define an AT predicate and a MOVE predicate ..." -- and then began to learn the real problems when he started writing programs for a robot arm. A year later he said "You know, I've almost finished developing an AT predicate!" The problem he and others in the SRI Robotics Group have solved is the transformation of spatial knowledge from one time and sensor to knowledge relative to another [loosely-coupled] coordinate system after an arbitrary sequence of arm motions and sensing steps. The AT predicate must therefore be developed as a fuzzy specification of [bent] error ellipses or probability distributions, and propagating these spatial uncertainties through sequences of imprecise motions is pretty hairy. (Contact Smith@SRI-AI if you want more details.) Spatial (and temporal) reasoning has received quite a bit of attention from the philosophers and linguists. Annette Herskovits of Stanford has written several papers on the semantics and pragmatics of spatial prepositions, and Lotfi Zadeh has developed fuzzy representations of spatial language. I have a 1974 paper by Norman Sondheimer, UWashington CSD Report 205, English as a Basis for Command Languages for Machines and Some Problems of Spatial Reference; I'm sure there are many such papers. The Commonsense Summer people at SRI (under Jerry Hobbs' leadership) attempted to formalize spatial reasoning, but didn't come up with much that wasn't already familiar to the robotics community (e.g., the Edinburgh RAPT system for constrained motion planning). Mathematicians and computer scientists (and others) have worried about traveling salesmen, bin-packing, spatial layout, tool motion, polygonal decomposition, cartographic mapping, and many other problems. In the architecture domain, I've seen papers by John Grason and Charles Eastman of CMU (e.g., CACM 13/4, April 1970, and CACM 15/2, February 1972) on space planning. Some of the most interesting recent work in spatial reasoning seems to be that of Earnest Davis at Yale (the MERCATOR representation) and of John Tsotsos at U. Toronto (combined spatial/temporal reasoning in the ALVEN system for interpreting ultrasound heart images). -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Fri Jul 26 01:21:05 1985 Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 01:20:54 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a001446; 25 Jul 85 16:12 EDT Date: Thu 25 Jul 1985 11:57-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #97 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 26 Jul 85 02:09 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 25 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 97 Today's Topics: News - SIGART Chapter Forming, Seminars - Speech Acts and Rationality (SRI) & Design Expert Systems (CMU) & Typed Logical Calculus (SU) & Correcting Misconceptions (Penn) & Time and Causation (SRI) & Realism in Cognitive AI (CSLI) & Reformulation of Knowledge (Rutgers) & Function from Form (Rutgers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 19 Jul 85 16:49:09-CDT From: David Throop Subject: SIGART Chapter Forming A SIGART chapter is forming for Austin, Texas. SIGART is part of Association for Computing Machinery. It's the Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence. Monthly program and dinner meetings will start this fall. Each month an invited speaker from industry or academia will talk on some aspect of AI in Central Texas. Dr. Jonathan Slocum (MCC) will be our first dinner speaker. He will talk on Machine Translation of Natural Languages. That meeting will be Wed, Sept. 4th; the place has not yet been chosen. We have already chosen a board: Drs. Elaine Rich (MCC), Woodrow Bledsoe (MCC & UT), Doug Lenat (MCC), Harry Tennant (Texas Instruments) and Bruce Porter (UT) will serve. I am responsible for the initial organization. We are inviting strong participation from the several industrial AI groups in the area. Austin SIGART will provide a common ground the hardware people, the software people and the research people that are making AI happen here. If you want to help this organization get going, come to our business meeting. Our first one will be a dinner meeting on Thur, July 25, at 6:30 pm, at SIRLOIN STOCKADE 8828 Research Blvd (between Ohlen and Burnett) The dinner will be $8.00 for a full sirloin dinner. If you're coming, inform Rodney Lancaster, of TI Advanced Systems Software 250-6456 Dsg.Lancaster%CSL60%TI-CSL@CSnet-Relay.ARPA We need a rough advance count. The agenda will include: Ratifying our initial bylaws and officers Certifying ourselves as an active chapter to the national SIGART Securing a place for our program meetings Publicity and Membership Speakers and Programs We will also need assistance, as the time of our first program meeting approaches, getting sign-up sheets for the dinner circulated at the AI office sites in town. Membership will be open to all people in the area with an interest in AI; discounts will be available to those who have memberships in the ACM or the national SIGART. I'm looking forward to working with a strong SIGART program for Austin soon. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 17 Jul 85 14:12:17-PDT From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Speech Acts and Rationality (SRI) Speech Acts and Rationality Phil Cohen SRI AI Center 11:00 AM, Monday, July 22 SRI International, Building E, Room EJ232 This talk will describe how a theory of communication can be grounded in a theory of rational interaction. I will present a formalism, jointly developed with Hector Levesque, that characterizes how an agent's beliefs and goals eventually lead to action, and how goals to affect the beliefs and goals of other agents leads to communication. Communicative acts will be modelled along the lines of Grice's account of non-natural meaning. I will show how the speech acts of informing, requesting, and questioning can be defined (rather than stipulated) in this framework. Importantly, these definitions will allow one to distinguish insincere imperatives from true requests, and exam questions from real questions. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 85 11:54:18 EDT From: Mary.Lou.Maher@CMU-RI-CIVE Subject: Seminar - Design Expert Systems (CMU) The next DRC seminar on expert systems for design applications is Tuesday July 23 in the Adamson Wing at 1:30. Refreshments will be served at 1:15. HYBRID KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS: REQUIREMENTS AND ADVANTAGES Rene Banares-Alcantara Experiments with the application of knowledge-based systems to engineering design have shown us that the use of hybrid systems is necessary. Hybrid knowledge-based systems make it possible to take full advantage of the existing programs, and also allow the automization of a larger portion of the design process. Hybridity is a concept that can be achieved in several dimensions: knowledge representation and abstraction, implementation languages, problem solving methods, etc. In order to construct hybrid systems it is necessary to be able to mix different components (programming languages, modules, programs, levels of abstraction, etc.) into a common working space. Although no complete solution has been developed to accomplish this goal, the blackboard model seems to be the ideal paradigm for this purpose. DECADE (Design Expert for CAtalyst Development) will be presented as one system that partially illustrates the above ideas. [Automization? Hybridity? The latter >>is<< listed in the American Heritage dictionary, but do we need it? -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 85 1359 PDT From: Carolyn Talcott Subject: Seminar - Typed Logical Calculus (SU) There will be as short series of talks given by visitors to the computer science department from Japan. The seminars will occur on Thursdays at 4pm. The announcement for the first seminar is below. Speaker: Prof. Masahiko Sato, University of Tokyo Title: Typed Logical Calculus Time: Thursday, July 25, 4:00-5:00 pm Place: Room 352 Margaret Jacks Hall (Computer Science Department), Stanford We present a typed formal system QJ which is intended both as a logical system and a program- ming system. QJ is a constructive system based on free intuitionistic logic. QJ is a typed system where forms play the roles of both formulas and terms of conventional logical systems. The logic of QJ is free in the sense that forms (considered as terms) may fail to denote. The type structure of QJ is rich enough to include such data types as integers, lists, trees and function spaces. A form of QJ, when considered as a term, becomes a program in the usual sense. As a programming language, QJ becomes a typed func- tional language somewhat similar to ML. A form of QJ, when viewed as a formula, may be used to specify a program. We can also verify programs in QJ. By implementing QJ on a computer, we will have a uniform environment where we can specify, execute and verify programs. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 85 21:56 EDT From: Tim Finin Subject: dissertation defense - Correcting Misconceptions (Penn) Dissertation Defense CORRECTING OBJECT RELATED MISCONCEPTIONS Kathleen Filliben McCoy 10:00 am, Monday July 29, 1985 554 Moore, University on Pennsylvania Analysis of a corpus of naturally occurring data shows that users conversing with a database or expert system are likely to reveal misconceptions about the objects modelled by the system. Further analysis reveals that the sort of responses given when such misconceptions are encountered depends greatly on the discourse context. This work develops a context-sensitive method for automatically generating responses to object-related misconceptions with the goal of incorporating a correction module in the front-end of a database or expert system. The method is demonstrated through the ROMPER system (Responding to Object-related Misconceptions using PERspective) which is able to generate responses to two classes of object-related misconceptions: misclassifications and misattributions. The transcript analysis reveals a number of specific strategies used by human experts to correct misconceptions, where each different strategy refutes a different kind of support for the misconception. In this work each strategy is paired with a structural specification of the kind of support it refutes. ROMPER uses this specification, and a model of the user, to determine which kind of support is most likely. The corresponding response strategy is then instantiated. The above process is made context sensitive by a proposed addition to standard knowledge-representation systems termed object perspective. Object perspective is introduced as a method for augmenting a standard knowledge-representation system to reflect the highlighting affects of previous discourse. It is shown how this resulting highlighting can be used to account for the context-sensitive requirements of the correction process. Advisors: Aravind Joshi, Bonnie Webber Committee: Tim Finin, Ellen Prince, Ralph Weischedel ------------------------------ Date: Wed 24 Jul 85 13:59:10-PDT From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Time and Causation (SRI) Title: Time and Causation from the Standpoint of AI. Nontitle: The Frame Problem is not. Yoav Shoham Yale University, SRI-AI 11:00 AM, Monday, July 29 SRI International, Building E, Room EJ232 Most tasks undertaken by AI researchers involve reasoning about time in one way or another. In particular, the somewhat ill-defined areas of planning and naive physics reasoning rely crucially on the passage of time and the taking place of change. I am aiming at a general and yet rigorous theory of time and change. I am primarily interested in a useful notational device. Psychological plausibility is only an added benefit, and philosophical truth is something over which I lose little sleep. The talk is structured as follows: 1. A first-order theory of time, which could be viewed as a generalization of James Allen's theory. 2. A modal version of the same theory. Several interval-based modal logics will be presented, along with the few of their theoretical properties which I am beginning to understand. 3. The theory of causal counterfactuals, a particular theory of change that relies on part 1. I will demonstrate how this theory appears to avoid three major problems: a. The cross-world identification problem for time tokens. b. The frame problem. c. A nameless problem encountered in the philosophy literature. Also, in the spirit of recent "rigorous reconstructions" I will reformulate Ken Forbus' Qualitative Process theory in terms of causal counterfactuals. In the unlikely event of our having time left over I'll discuss Richard Waldinger's toy car. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 24 Jul 85 17:04:56-PDT From: Emma Pease Subject: Seminar - Realism in Cognitive AI (CSLI) [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] David H. Helman, Department of Philosophy Case Western Reserve University ``Realism and Antirealism in Cognitive Artificial Intelligence'' Ventura Conference Room, Thursday, August 1, 2:15 pm In the philosophy of mind, one controversy between realists and antirealists concerns the semantics of sentences embedded in attitude reports. Antirealists believe that the interpretation or reference of a sentence embedded in an attitude report is a psychological state of the agent who is the subject of the attitude report. Realists believe that the interpretation or reference of a sentence is a state of the world and not a state of mind, whether or not the sentence is embedded in an attitude report. In this paper, I show how these two semantic analyses may be associated with different theories of mental representation in cognitive artificial intelligence. Realists in cognitive artificial intelligence describe the mind by supposing that agents partially represent objects' law-like interactions. Antirealism does not, perhaps, constitute a single well-defined research strategy in cognitive artificial intelligences. We may, however, certainly count as antirealists those researchers in cognitive artificial intelligence who attempt to simulate mental processes by means of procedures which mirror tenets of associationist psychology. I argue that acurate computational models of mind must contain elements from both realist and antirealist research programs. --David Helman ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 85 18:52:40 EDT From: Smadar Subject: Seminar - Reformulation of Knowledge (Rutgers) REFORMULATION OF KNOWLEDGE Erik Van Releghem. AI Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and GTE Fundamental Research Laboratories We describe a system for reformulation of knowledge as a powerful extension of the knowledge representation system KRS. We define reformulation operators that change the structure of knowledge. A mathematical model describes the operators and shows their power and limitations. We show applications of reformulation in matters of defining analogies, definition of office procedures and computer vision in order to demonstrate the use of reformulation as a high-level AI tool. Date: Thursday, July 25, 1985 Time: 10:30-11:30 AM Place: Hill Center, Room 423 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 85 18:52:40 EDT From: Smadar Subject: Seminar - Function from Form (Rutgers) FUNCTION FROM FORM David J. Braunegg MIT AI Lab, and GTE Fundamental Research Laboratories I propose an approach to reasoning about the function of an object based on its shape. A particular domain, hand tools, is chosen to demonstrate this approach. The novelty of this approach is its combination of reasoning by analogy to the shapes of known tools with reasoning from the possible motions of tools. Each of these methods compensates for the deficiencies of the other. When combined with the use of domain heuristics, they form a powerful reasoning system for determining function from form. (WARNING: This talk concerns research which is in its early stages. No claims of results or working programs are expressed or implied.) Date: Thursday, July 25, 1985 Time: 11:30 AM-12:00 PM Place: Hill Center, Room 423 ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Fri Jul 26 01:20:41 1985 Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 01:20:36 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a003683; 26 Jul 85 0:48 EDT Date: Thu 25 Jul 1985 20:56-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #98 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 26 Jul 85 02:13 EST AIList Digest Friday, 26 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 98 Today's Topics: Queries - Lisp for Commodore 128 & AI Management & CS Taxonomy & AI Databases & Geometry Survey & Space Planning, AI Tools - ITP & Symbolics LISP/PROLOG, Programming Languages - Interlisp Comments, Games - Psychological Strategies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Jul 85 10:42 EDT From: Emanuel.henr@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Lisp for Commodore 128 machine. I have been reading this list for some time, and have found it quite informative. I have also been impressed by the informed level of the discussion. I would like to draw upon this now. I just purchased the new Commodore 128 machine. It can run CPM-80, and read IBM System 34 format disks (& Kaypro, Osborn disks). I would like to know which of the LISP Packages that are available in this format are the best to get. There seems to be a wide spred of prices across the offered LISPs. Are the expensive ones that much better ? Is one Outstanding ? Is one a best compromise of price and power ? I thank you in advance for your response. Keith j. Emanuel Xerox/Human Factors. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 85 11:11:07 edt From: simmons@EDN-VAX (Bob Simmons) Subject: DCA Query on AI Management At the Defense Communications Agency, we have been laying the groundwork for an in-house AI group, primarily to test and evaluate emerging expert system technology. We are also considering the possibility of expanding to in-house development within the next three to five years. I'm interested in the issues and specific problems that other organizations have faced or expect to face when forming an in-house group. I expect that these problems are quite different from the concerns of a corporation developing a commercial product. In particular, other than questions about the best hardware/software combination, our concerns center on careful selection of a problem domain, management of AI pilot projects, and justification of the effort to upper-level management. As an aside, I found David Prerau's "Selection of an Appropriate Domain for an Expert System" in the latest issue of AI Magazine to be a great springboard into a pool of important questions. We plan on using that article as a guideline for our own interviews with our technical managers. I'd appreciate any input that you have on this matter. If you are going to be at IJCAI, please drop me a quick note and I'll look you up sometime during that week. If not, please respond via electronic mail. If the response warrants a summary (hopefully it will), I'll send a synopsis of the interesting/important observations to AILIST. Bob Simmons Automated Technologies Planning DCA/DCEC Code R802 1860 Wiehle Avenue Reston, VA 22090 ARPANET: simmons@edn-vax.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 85 16:37:54 EDT From: "Dr. Ron Green" (ARO) Subject: Computer Science Taxonomy I would like to find out if there is a generally accepted taxonomy for computer science. The first level of break out that I desire is hardware, software, and AI. I feel that I would like to see two or three levels of detail below this. If there are some taxonomies like this I would appreciate being told about them. The next phase will be soliciting names of persons and their categories of expertise for review of proposals for basic research. Thanks, Ron [There are several such taxonomies. One of the best is the Computing Reviews classification system (published in CACM, January 1982). The various online abstracting services, including those of the defense department, have their own taxonomies, as do the librarians and, no doubt, the NSF and various government statistical agencies. Academics in CS often build taxonomies in support of curriculum development; see, for instance, Schenk and Pinkert's survey in the 1978 National Computer Conference, pp. 1209-1212. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 85 10:15:27 EDT From: Robert.Frederking@CMU-CS-CAD Subject: AI databases? [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] I'm looking for a declarative knowledge-base to use as a domain for the NL parser I'm working on. It must be frame-oriented and rich in domain knowledge, and preferably should contain intentional information (what the defining features of a particular subset are, for instance) and "common sense" knowledge. (I don't actually expect to find all this in one KB.) Note that I am specifically looking for content, not an empty KR system. I'm already aware of the NLM database. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 85 09:47:46 EDT From: Rob.Woodbury@CMU-CS-CAD Subject: geometry survey [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] I am doing a survey on computer based representations of geometry in engineering and architecture. The intent of the survey is to collect in one place an overview of all (or as close as possible to all) existing modelling techniques and applications and all current areas of research. Of particular interest is any work on spatial reasoning, motion planning and vision systems. I will make results available. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks -rob- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jul 1985 15:07:13-EDT From: Bharat.Dave@CMU-CS-CAD Subject: Re: Space Planning Although this pertains to architecture, it would be interesting to hear from others about issues of design and models of descriptions used. Most of the work done in `space planning' in architecture, has concentrated on geometric descriptions and manipulations (which is probably closer to applications in robotics than architecture). Designers employ words, drawings and perceptual notions which have not yet been fully investigated. To put it differently, diagrams are used as a vehicle of statement as well as interpretation of topological and semantic concepts. To go beyond bin-packing spatial layouts, real world knowledge will have to be built into the system (i.e. there are rules which are broadly observed, some others come into play only in certain contexts; some of these are stricter than the others and the rest are pure flights of fancy...). Any of these rules or a combination of them, may be utilized for specifying or evaluating given spatial configuration. And also, some mechanism for alternating between various design-states will have to be built in. Probably, what confuses the most about human designers is the kind of mental representations they use. It seems more like abstract analog models of real spaces and elements than simple surrogate verbal concepts. `Mental Models' (ed.) by Gentner and Stevens has some interesting papers on spatial models used by novices and experts in various domains. --Bharat Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jul 85 14:40:28 edt From: Tom Scott Subject: ITP, how to order it According to Ross Overbeek (overbeek@anl-mcs), who is one of the developers of Argonne's Logic Machine Architecture/Interactive Theorem Prover (LMA/ITP) and a co-author of "Automated Reasoning" (Wos et al. 1984), you can obtain the software from Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) at the following address and telephone number: Numerical Algorithms Group 1101 31st Street, Suite 100 Downers Grove, IL 60515 (312) 971-2337 If I remember correctly, the cost of LMA/ITP was $75.00 (seventy-five). One of our logicians, Charlie Applebaum (applebau@bgsu), is working on LMA/ITP with some of the people at Mitre and Argonne, so that may be the reason for the low price charged to BGSU. But I think the $75.00 price is what NAG charges anyone for LMA/ITP, simply to cover the distribution costs. The same software is available from one of the innumerable departments at Argonne National Laboratory for something in the neighborhood of $1050.00 (one thousand fifty). I always thought the federal government was expensive; now I know it is. Jai Guru Dev, Tom Scott UUCP: cbosgd!osu-eddie!bgsuvax!scott Dept. of Math. & Stat. CSNET/ARPANET: scott@bgsu Bowling Green State Univ. ATT: 419-372-2636 Bowling Green OH 43403-0221 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 85 09:16 EDT From: Scott Garren Subject: Symbolics LISP/PROLOG From: Yigal Arens I'm interested in finding out about implementations of Prolog in Lisp or Lisp in Prolog(?), or any other version of either that allows one to program in both. [...] Symbolics has a Prolog written in Lisp. The 3600 architecture has been expanded with additional instructions that implement backtracking, unification, and cut. We have also extended Lisp with a logic variable data type. The result is a well integrated environment where the user can call back and forth between the languages. All the operating system and networking functions are accessible from Prolog. Symbolics Prolog also offers what we believe is the highest performance of any commercially available Prolog. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 85 11:15:36 EDT From: Tim Subject: More Interlisp comments Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 09:50:16 edt From: Eric Nyberg Subject: Re: Interlisp Comments I disagree with Steven's conclusion that Interlisp "discourages" comments. The *default environment* handles comments in a discouraging way, but a few lines of code in the init file can remedy the situation. But all he said was that Interlisp "discourages" comments, not that it prohibits them. The default Interlisp environment makes comments about as inconvenient to use as it possibly can without actually prohibiting them. Furthermore, as you yourself admit, the documentation which describes how to change the environment is very difficult to find and use. And no matter how you change the environment, you still have to be careful where you put your comments. (The preferred place for documenting a variable would be right where the variable is declared, which you can't do. My preferred place for documenting a clause of a CONDition is at the beginning of the clause, which you can't do. The nicest place to describe an argument which you're sending to some function would be right after the argument itself, which you can't do. Sometimes I like to include "afterthoughts" at the end of a function which tell how that function might be improved or something, which you can't do.) If this sort of thing does not "discourage" the use of comments, I honestly don't know what it would take for a language to do so. Twinerik ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 85 10:06 EDT From: Jong@HIS-BILLERICA-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Re: Mistakes The recent comment on "mistakes" in chess and the limitation of expert systems to their (narrow) field of expertise brings up an interesting point. Computer-science experts have been trying to win chess championships for years; why aren't they trying to win the World Series of Poker? The answer is simply that in poker, you win or lose less on the basis of the cards in your hand and more on the basis of the expression on your face and your opponents'. The knowledge base for that game goes far beyond the odds of filling an inside straight. The great chess champion Emmanuel Lasker said that chess was not simply a mathematical exercise but a fight, a fight between two people. Lasker was a master of the psychological pressures of the game. He knew when to make a deliberately inferior move that rattled an opponent into thinking Lasker had a prepared variation (one line of play exhaustively studied by one opponent), when really Lasker had nothing planned but a head game. Lasker knew which of his contemporaries to attack and which to play defensively; which knew the openings well and which were end-game masters; and which liked complications and which shied away from them. With this knowledge he became champion. A chess program is not likely to play based on its opponent, because of the programming difficulties involved, and, I suspect, because that is not an attractive line of research for its programmers. Right now, though, human masters are beating chess programs by playing to their weaknesses (for instance, when to jump out of a book opening to the program's disadvantage). In a larger sense, this is probably a discussion of "intuition" as it applied to AI. Obviously, we have a long way to go before we have an expert system that bases its conclusions based to any degree on the fact that the inquiring human has grass on his shoes. [See Scientific American, July 1978, for an article on Nicholas Findler's research into automating poker strategies. I seem to recall that the project ended before a player was developed that could detect and bluff the Mathematically Fair Player. -- KIL] ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From csvpi@vpics1 Sun Jul 28 06:53:14 1985 Date: Sun, 28 Jul 85 06:53:07 edt From: csvpi@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a001584; 28 Jul 85 3:31 EDT Date: Sat 27 Jul 1985 23:16-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #99 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sun, 28 Jul 85 11:45 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 28 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 99 Today's Topics: Query - Theorem Proving and Program Verification, AI Tools - ITP & LMI Prolog, Applications - Space Planning and Architecture, Literature - Computational Intelligence & AI Report Vol. 2 No. 6 & Byte AI Special Issue ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jul 85 14:00:35 pdt From: Jim Fehrle Subject: Theorem Proving and Program Verification I'm looking for information on using theorem proving techniques to prove assertions about programs, such as (for example): o Data structure X is not modified unless the variable LOCK is true. o The memory allocated by procedure X is always released before X terminates. o The variable POINTER always points to a data element of type T. Any references to books or articles on this subject would be appreciated. Jim Fehrle Hewlett Packard {ucbvax, hplabs, ihnp4!hpfcla} !hpda!jef ------------------------------ Date: 26 July 85 22:26-EDT Date: 26 July 85 22:26-EDT From: BYKAT%UTCVM.BITNET@Berkeley Subject: Re: ITP, how to order it Just to add a little to Tom Scott's note in AIList Digest V3 #98 (7/20/85): Page 177 of the "Automated Reasoning" (Wos et al., 1984) states: "Both LMA and ITP are in the public domain." Yet, as Tom Scott points out, the Argonne National Lab charges $1050, educational institution or not! (Rather a lot to cover distribution costs.) Alex Bykat ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 21:25:06 EDT From: George J. Carrette Subject: Info about Prolog for LMI-LAMBDA and 36xx LM-Prolog is a LispMachine implementation of prolog that has been in commercial and university distribution for both the LMI-LAMBDA and Symbolics 36xx for over a year. The emphasis in the implementation is on richness, maturity in datastructures (i.e. not just expressions or lists but array's, multiple processes and other lispmachine capabilities), the logically consistent implementation of NOT, the error checking and handling capabilities such as occurs check and circularity handling and performance in its database indexing and ASSUME/RETRACT mechanism. The LMI-LAMBDA version includes a special microcode-load. Both versions are distributed in SOURCE FORM and require no additional hardware. The 36xx version is available for release 5 or 6, and the LMI-LAMBDA version for release 1 or 2. A brilliant hacker could possible port LM-PROLOG to an enviroment such as VAX-NIL where he had sufficient lispmachine compatibility and hooks into the compiler and kernel. -gjc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 09:33 EDT From: Seth Steinberg Subject: Re: Space Planning I used to work for the old Architecture Machine Group at MIT and saw a number of programming efforts which emulated or assisted architects and urban planners. How the human mind deals with spatial reasoning is still a mystery but architects are given specific training in how to deal with architectural problems. This body of knowledge is the study of design methodology. The department head, who was from Eindhoven, was noted for developing the SAR design methodology which involved the use of architectural grammars. One graduate student did his thesis on the grammar of Mediterranean hill towns while another parsed the layout of furniture in an apartment building full of cooperating retired people. The SAR method looked rather theoretical to me but it was very popular in Holland and Latin American countries with left wing governments (read "democracies"). They encouraged user involvement in the planning process and would actually teach factory workers how to deal with "basic variants" at their afterwork planning sessions. A visit to a good architecture library (e.g. Roche at MIT) should turn up a fair bit on this subject. Obviously, architects deviate from any particular methodology, but the guidelines are often useful to help get started. Actually, doing architecture is a lot like doing programming from what I have seen. Back when Babbage was trying to raise funds there were architects charretting (pulling all nighters). Architectural problems and programming problems have no one right answer or right approach. Architects tend to approach a problem vaguely until they develop an appropriate "vocabulary" (sets of subunits, useful relationships, ...) for dealing with the problem before they start any serious drawing just as most programmers tend to program "middle out". Most architects are doing detail work for office remodelling jobs just as most programmers are updating huge Cobol programs to take the new tax laws into account. Finally, architects, like programmers often get carried away with the elegance of a solution and implement a bathroom with no closet space to store an extra roll of toilet paper. (I will mention no particular piece of software here). Seth Steinberg SAS @ BBN-VAX ------------------------------ Date: Mon 22 Jul 85 11:50:40-PDT From: C.S./Math Library Subject: COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE--New Journal Received [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] We have received number one of volume one, February 1985 of Computational Intelligence/Intelligence Informatique. [...] The following articles are in the first issue of this new quarterly journal: Plan parsing for intended response recognition in discourse by Candace Sidner On the adequacy of predicate circumscription for closed-world reasoning by Etherington, Mercer and Reiter. Knowledge organization and its role in representation and interpretation for time-varying data: the ALVEN system by John Tsotsos Recovering from execution errors in SIPE by David Wilkins. -- Mathematical and Computer Sciences Library. H. Llull. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jul 1985 21:20-EST From: leff%smu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: AI Report Volume 2 No. 6 o - Discussion of Darpa's strategic computing program driverless vehicle gallium arsenide work MOS implementation service parallel architectures naval battle management Lisp Machine on a chip (TI) speech recognition dataflow wafer scale integration benchmarking lisp machines o - DOD Optical computer effort nine million dollars will be allocated over three years to develop compact optical computer o - military expert systems Titan systems is developing Knowledge-Based engineering System which is optimized for expert systems related to military command and control (it has been translated from LISP into C). Also, they are developing a system called a "space tree" to determine how goals are met by decisions, allocations or maneuvers. System to select path of travel based on maps Air/land battle simulator o - The French Scene Laboratoires de Marcoussis (research labs for French corporation Compagnie Generale d'Electricite) o - expert systems process control diagnosis computer aided design scheduling in flexible manufacturing schedules o - natural language system to teach UNIX data base query o - language development FROG (integrates LISP and prolog), LISP, PROLOG, common lisp o - machine optimized for both lisp and prolog o - speech recognition system to recognize 35 words with 98 per cent accuracy o - Carnegie Group has changed the name of SRL+ to Knowledge Prolog o - Artificial Intelligence Corporation is dropping plans to develop a microcomputer version of INtellect, its natural language data base query facility Microrim has lowered the price of its system CLOUT to $2 50.00 o - Turing Institute has been formed in Scotland o - review of Texas Instruments activities o - Arthur D. Little predicts in year 20000, AI market will be 50 to 120 billion dollars [That's quite a crystal ball! -- KIL] o - The Aeronautical and Electronic Council of Japan has recommended that Japan look at "the Sixth Generation Computer" which would have computers similar to the human brain! o - fifty Japanese companies are forming a research association to look into AI applicatons to manufacturing o - article on Lotus activities in AI review of: %A William B. Gevarter %T Intelligent Machines: An Introductory Perspective %I Prentice-Hall %C Englewood Cliffs %J Third Conference on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision %C Cambridge, Massachussetts %D NOV 5-8 1984 %I Society of Photo Optical Instrumentation Engineers %A Alick Elithorn %A Ranan Banerji %T Artificial and Human Intelligence %I North-Holland ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jul 1985 22:48-EST From: leff%smu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Byte AI Special Issue definition: D MAG1 BYTE\ %V 10\ %N 4\ %D APR 1985 citations: %T TI's Arborist, Decision-Tree Analysis Software, Supports IBM %J MAG1 %P 42 %X Announcement for decision-tree analyst for making decisions. Cost is $595.00 %T Book Review %J MAG1 %P 65 %X Reviews of Build Your Own Expert System Chris Naylor Artificial Intelligence in Basic Mike James The Cognitive Computer: On Language, Learning, and Artificial Intelligence by Roger C. Schank and Peter C. Childrs %A Roger Schank %A Larry Hunter %T The Quest to Understand Thinking %J MAG1 %P 143 %K scripts natural language conceptual dependency %X discusses natural language reading including the famous restaurant script. Also discusses models of memory and "What is AI?" %A John R. Anderson %A Brian J. Reiser %T The Lisp Tutor %J MAG1 %P 159-175 %X discusses a tutor for people learning lisp. Uses the Goal-Restricted Production System with 325 production rules. It is effective in diagnosing between 45 and 80 percent of the student's errors. They compared private human tutoring, the computer program and self-taught methods. They compared at 11.4, 15 hours and 26.5 hours to get through six lessons. %A W. Lewis Johnson %A Elliot Soloway %T Proust %J MAG1 %P 179-190 %K Pascal tutor frame debug T lisp %X Describes a system for asisting beginners with debugging Pascal programs. It is 15000 lines of T. In a set of 206 student solutions to a small problem, PROUST understood completely 79 percent of the programs and identified 94 percent of the bugs. %A Michael F. Deering %T Architectures for AI %J MAG1 %P 193-206 %K FAIM1 lisp machine Zetalisp Franz lisp PSL hardware unification machine vision %X A machine coded unifier is two orders of magnitude faster than the LISP- coded unifier. Time for the aggregate function foo on six different processors (all times in microseconds) Machine Zetalisp Franz Lisp PSL VAX 53.8 13.9 5.6 68000 65.2 43.6 5.8 68010 68.6 43.6 10.6 68020 16.1 19.9 3.1 MIT CADR 19.0 3600 6.4 It has been found that by adding features to emulate bit-field dispatch instructions and stripping off tag bits to conventional micros, they would be much faster for type-checking LISPS. Parallel machines sharing a large common memory is bad because there is not enough memory bandwidth to go around. %A Patrick H. Winston %T The Lisp Revolution %J MAG1 %P 209-218 %X lisp tutorial %A Carl Hewitt %T The Challenge of Open Systems %J MAG1 %P 223-242 %K parallel AI computation logic programming due process reasoning %A Dana H. Ballard %A Christopher M. Brown %T Vision %J MAG1 %P 245-261 %K MOSAIC Hough transform %X work done by Larry Roberts on block world vision; optical flow, vision and the abstraction hierarchy MOSAIC that uses stereo to understand pictures of buildings, the challenges of animal vision, Hough transformation %A Geoffrey E. Hinton %T Learning in Parallel Networks %J MAG1 %P 265-273 %K Hopfield nets %X networks that minimize their energy probablistic nets %A Jerome A. Feldman %T Connections %J MAG1 %P 277-284 %K Necker cube semantic nets connectionist natural language %A John K. Stevens %T Reverse Egnineering the Brain %J MAG1 %P 286-299 %X describes various neural circuit analogies with a few words about adapting the brains circuitry for use in computers %A Robert H. Michaelsen %A Donald Michie %A Albert Boulanger %T The Technology of Expert Systems %J MAG1 %P 303-312 %K tax advice %X describes the basic concepts of expert systems in terms of a tax advice system. Goes over some of the famous expert systems and expert system shells. Also discusses the basic concepts of forward and backward chaining, networks and frames %A Beverly A. Thompson %A William A. Thompson %T Inside an Expert Systems %J MAG1 %P 315-330 %K plant identification Pascal %X describes the outline of a small expert system for plant identification which could be written in Pascal %T Artificial Intelligence at Home %J MAG1 %P 445 %K Dynamic Master Systems TOPSI OPS-5 %X announcement for TOPSI, an OPS5 in.terpreter for Z80 based systems %A Bruce D'Ambrosio %T Insight - A Knowledge System %J MAG1 %P 345-347 %X This is a 95 dollar system offering a backward-chaining inference engine with confidence values for the IBM-PC. It is compiler based and will handle up to 4000 rules. It does lack various debugging facilities such as a display of the currently active rule chains. %A William M. Raike %T The Fifth Generation in Japan %J MAG1 %P 401-406 %K Kazuhiro Fuchi ICOT MITI prolog ESP KL0 PSI S-810 %X discusses choice of kernel language for fifth generation effort; decision as to whether research should be open or closed and their supercomputers; apparently they do not know about advanced software development tools like RATFOR and are doing their work in Fortran. They have no optimizing FORTRAN for their supercomputer. If they do not tweak existing code it runs no faster on the supercomputer than on the conventional machine. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From csvpi@vpics1 Mon Jul 29 04:43:02 1985 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 85 04:42:55 edt From: csvpi@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a004787; 28 Jul 85 20:55 EDT Date: Sun 28 Jul 1985 16:58-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #100 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Mon, 29 Jul 85 04:32 EST AIList Digest Monday, 29 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 100 Today's Topics: Literature - Recent Articles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Jul 1985 22:49-EST From: leff%smu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Recent Articles [long message] %T Object's Shape digitized with Human-like Method %J Electronics Week %D JUN 3, 1985 %P 24 %K France Eurosoft laser 3-D digitization computer vision %X Eurosoft Informatique SA is selling a system that digitizes three dimensional objects using a laser beam. The object is rotated on a turntable for the laser beam to look at it. An IBM-XT based version is anticipated shortly. %A John F. King %T Fuzzy Logic Provides New Way to Deal with Uncertainty %J Electronics Week %D JUN 3, 1985 %P 40-41 %K Zadeh Maachen CMOS Kumamoto University train cardiology manufacturing %X Describes fuzzy logic, work done using fuzzy logic in cardiology, automatic train operation, loan applicants and stock portfolios. Also describes Kumamoto Universities' efforts to develop a fuzzy logic set in CMOS. %T Elson Heads GM Move to Push Machine Vision %J Electronics Week %D JUN 3, 1985 %P 48 %K computer vision %X gives short biography of Gerlad L. Ellson, the man who is directing the Machine Intelligence Technology Implementation Section who is directing GM efforts in computer vision. Also describes need for 44,000 vision systems in GM plants, up from 500 systems in use. %J CACM %D JUN 1985 %V 28 %N 6 %P A-32 %K T CSI Lisp Scheme Cognitive Systems %X ad for CSI Lisp, an implementation of T designed to run on top of Common Lisp and LISP-VM %A Karen A. Frenkel %T Automating the Software-Development Cycle %J CACM %D JUN 1985 %V 28 %N 6 %P 578-589 %K software engineering PSI Kestrell space station KBSA Intermetrics PQCC %X describes uses of computers in program and software development. outlines PSI and Programmer's Apprentice projects, the system to diagnose failures in the life support system for the space station. There is a proposal from Rome Air Development Center to apply AI to software over a fifteen year period, some steps of which are being implemented by Reasoning Systems and the Kestrel Institute. Intermetrics has developed a compiler code generator based on the ideas of the Production Quality Compiler Compiler Project. This work was also used by GTE in developing a digital telephone switch using multiple microcomputers. Adequate code sequences are generated with 200 rules and some additional optimization is provided with 500 sequences. Intermetrics is using this technique to build four compilers for another company plus one for the Air Force. Waterloo has developed a system to analyze Message traces for debugging purposes in a real time telecommunication system. This system can analyze bugs in 20 minutes that would have taken a human about ten times as long. This system includes tables of automated tools used in software, electronics and telecommunications as well as a bunch of expert systems that have already been impelmented. They also include a breakdown of 138 expert systems by field of application: computing 19.6% electronics 6.5% engineering 3.7% financial services 3.6% general 8.0% medicine 15.9% military 10.9% oil and mineral 7.2% professional services 3.6% research 7.2% other 13.8% %T Light-Assembly Models Take Center Stage at Robots 9 %J Electronics %D JUN 24, 1985 %P 71-74 %K semiconductor manufacturing market estimate Seiko Microbot clean room Unimation Intelledex Hitachi Cincinnati Milacron %X describes robots for use in light assembly such as computer manufacture Halbrecht and Quist and the Robot Institute of America predict that light-assembly robots will make up 40% of the market up from 3% in 1982. The entire market which was $100 million in 1980 will leap to $2 billion in 1990. Describes robots from Microbot and Unimation (which have the low particle shedding rates needed for clean rooms) as well as other companies. Also describes a new sealant dispensing system. %T IC-Design Tool Set is built on AI Foundation %J Electronics %D JUN 24, 1985 %P 63 %K Carnegie Group Silicon Design Labs VLSI DAS/LOGIC %X Silicon Design Labs has developed a silicon compiler-compiler for developing new silicon compilers for different technologies. Carnegie Group has developed an alternate system for capturing VLSI design knowledge based up expert-systems. The user enters timing requirements, constraints and funcitonal specs for the circuit he wants. Using SPICE-models, DAS/Signal anlysis creates the design rules for the layout program. This is part of a much larger article on silicon compilers. %T Gold Hill Computer Gives IBM PC's the Smarts %J Electronics %D JUN 24, 1985 %P 50-51 %K Lisp microcomputer %X describes Gold HIll computer which has developed a subset of Common Lisp for IBM PC's. Includes estimates of total dollar value for AI software and PC-based AI software year AI based software PC AI software 1984 90 10 1985 130 20 1986 60 300 1987 110 550 1988 230 730 1989 400 1090 1990 700 1550 (numbers in millions of dollars and were read off a bar graph) %J InfoWorld %D July 1, 1985 %P 55 %K Microcomputer Data Base Systems MDBS GURU natural language Knowledgeman database systems %X An ad which says "Isn't it time you had a Guru? Artificial Intelligence From MDBS. Coming Soon. MDBS is the company which makes knowledgeman, a relational data base management system for micros. I would suspect this would be a product to compete with CLOUT from RBASE. %T Nanobytes %J BYTE %D JUL 1985 %P 10 %K franz lisp UNIX PC %X Franz Inc. Berkeley, CA planned to begin shipping Franz Lisp for AT&T's UNIX PC this month. Franz also expects to provide a complete Common LISP for the UNIX PC by late August %T Nanobytes %J BYTE %D JUL 1985 %P 10 %K natural language translation linguistic products English Spanish %X "Lingusistic Products: The Woodslands, TX announced two language-translation programs for the IBM PC. English/Spanish and Spanish/English programs are $490 each or $790 together." %A W. C. Kabat %A A. S. Wojcik %T Automated Synthesis of Combinational Logic Uisng Theorem-Proving Techniques %J IEEETC %D JUL 1985 %V C-34 %N 7 %P 610-632 %K design automation multivalued logic hyperresolution %A Tom Manuel %T The Pell-mell Rush into Expert Systems Forces Integration Issue %J Electronics %D JUL 1, 1985 %P 54-59 %K Cognitech Harvey Newquist Human Edge HP Inference KEE Litton XCON Expertelligence Experlisp OPS5 lisp machine arity Xsys Picon Texaco %X General article on expert systems and expert system tools %T Program gives AI capability to UNIX-based Computers %J Electronics %D JUL 1, 1985 %P 68 %K lisp Unilisp %X announcement of of a new lisp for UNIX machines. Has optional packages for math, statistical and graphics functions. Costs $895.00 %T Lotus Strikes a Deal with AI Pioneers %J InfoWorld %D JUN 3, 185 %P 15-16 %K Mitch Kapor Jerrold Kaplan Arity Dataspeed Teknowledge %X describes Lotus activities in AI for microcomputers including deals with Jerrald Kaplan, Teknowledge and Arity Corporation (a start up). The company wants practical applications of AI to microcomputer software. %A Ivars Peterson %T Artificial Reality %J Science News %V 127 %D JUN 22, 1985 %N 25 %P 396-397 %K CRITTER VIDEOPLACE Myron Krueger computer graphic %X describes a computer system that senses a person's movements and changes a graphic display. The applications described are artistic in nature but they pointed possible applications of AI and the use of such systems in operator interface for nuclear power plants. %A J. D. Yang %A M. N. Huhns %A L. M. Stephens %T An Architecture for Control and Communications in Distributed Artificial Intelligence Systems %J IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics %P 316-326 %V SMC-15 %N 3 %D MAY/JUN 1985 %K PSC logic design %X gives an application of the proposed architecture to logic design %A Agata Muszycka %A Rajjan Shinghal %T An Empirical Comparison of Pruning Strategies in Game Trees %J IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics %P 316-326 %V SMC-15 %N 3 %D MAY/JUN 1985 %A Yuzo Hiral %T Mutually Linked HASPs: A Solution for Constraint Satisfaction Problems by Associative Processing %J IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics %P 316-326 %V SMC-15 %N 3 %D MAY/JUN 1985 %X HASP stands for Human Associative Processor %T Expert Systems Tool Kit Available for UNIX-PCs %J IEEE Micro %D JUN 1985 %V 5 %N 3 %P 93 %K Radian expert system %X announcement of expert system shell for UNIX PCs %T Sperry to Market TI Symbolic Processors %J Electronic News %D JUL 8, 1985 %P 22 %X Sperry signed a three year marketing agreement for TI's explorer with the Knowledge Engineering Environment Sofware developed by Intellicorp %T AI brings smarts to PC-Board Assembly %J Electronics %D JUL 15, 1985 %P 17-18 %K Hughes industrial engineering %X describes successful system by Hughes to set up the sequence of hand assembly steps in PC-board layout %T Says Fighter Pilots of Future will use AI %J Electronic News %D JUL 15, 1985 %K Wright Patterson Air Force Base %A Tsukasa Furukawa %T Symbolics Enters Japan AI Venture %J Electronic News %D JUL 15, 1985 %K Nichimen lisp machine Nihon %X Symbolics is entering into a joint venture with Nichimen Co. to help sell things to Japan. First year sales are projected to be four million dollars. Already Symbolics has sold four million [?] computers to Japan with 13 at Nippon Telephone and Telegraph and three at Canon Inc. %A Koji Kobayashi %T Computers and Communcations: Toward Peace and Prosperity %J High Technology %D AUG 1985 %P 10-11 %K natural language machine translation voice recognition NEC %X discusses activities of NEC in computers and communications including a proposed system that will translate voice input from one language to another in real time to be readied by year 2000. %T Hitachi Technology 85 %J High Technology %D AUG 1985 %P 42-45 %X corporate relations advertising showing work done on the robot hand, process and assembly robots, image processing chips and systems %A Robert Haavind %T Playing to win a New Generation %J High Technology %D AUG 1985 %P 63-65 %K prolog lisp machine KL1 mandala ICOT %X describes new parallel and other novel architectures being developed in Japan including those for AI %A David B. Macqueen %A Donald T. Sannella %T Completeness of proof systems for equational specifications %J IEEE Software Engineering %V SE-11 %N 5 %D MAY 1985 %P 454-460 %K clear algebraic specifications equational logic proof systems induction ground equations %X Contrary to popular belief, equational logic with induction is not complete for initial models of equational specifications. Indeed, under some regimes (the Clear specification language and most other algebraic specification languages) no proof system exists which is complete even with respect to ground equations. A collection of known results is presented along with some new observations. %A George J. Pothering %T A Methodology for Conducting Advanced Undergraduate Computer Science Courses %J ACM SIGCSE Bulletin %V 17 %N 1 %D MAR 1985 %P 130-134 %K AI courses %X describes an AI course. The main purpose of this article is to show how to get a course taught when there is no faculty available who knows the subject to be covered. This is done by letting the students teach the course. %A Gadi Kaplan %T Robots getting smarter, but slowly, say experts %J The Institute %D JULY 1985 %P 8 %K CMU Terrogator Aurthur C. Sanderson %X summary of "New Direction in Robots" which was a session of the 1985 National Media Briefing. describes work on mobile robots and applications to installing windshields in cars %T Computer-assisted urological test facilitates diagnosis %J IEEE Computer %D APR 1985 %V 18 %N 4 %P 104 %K urology Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital Russel Lawson %X describes system to analyze urodynamic studies. They anticipate developing an expert system to interface with same. Anyone interested in expert systems applications to urology might want to contact Russel Lawson at Froedtert memorial Lutheran Hospital %A Alexander Borgida %A Sol Greenspan %A John Mylopoulos %T Knowledge Representation as the Basis for Requirements Specifications %J IEEE Computer %V 18 %N 4 %D APR 1985 %P 82-90 %A Kevin Smith %T Britain Promotes Open Architecture %J Electronics Week %D APR 29, 1985 %P 22 %K Alvey IKBS parallel architecture expert system Alice %X discusses British efforts in expert systems and parallel architectures %T LOOK AHEAD %J Datamation %P 14 %V 31 %N 12 %D JUN 15, 1985 %K Mitsubishi Japan prolog smalltalk %X Mitsubishi Electric is due to announce a work station based on artificial intelligence based on Prolog and Smalltalk %A M. Shridhar %A A. Baldreldin %T A High-Accuracy Syntactic Recognition Algorithm for Handwritten Numerals %J IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics %P 152-158 %V SMC-15 %N 1 %D JAN/FEB 1985 %A M. A. L. Thathachar %A P. S. Sastry %T A New Approach to the Design of Reinforcement Schemes for Learning Automata %J IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics %P 162-168 %V SMC-15 %N 1 %D JAN/FEB 1985 %A H. Niemann %A H. Bunke %A I. Hofmann %A G. Sagerer %A F. Wolf %A H. Feistel %T A Knowledge Based System for Analysis of Gated Blood Pool Studies %J IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence %V PAMI-7 %N 3 %D MAY 1985 %P 246-259 %K fuzzy membership function medical image analysis cardiology %A Henri Prade %T A Computational Approach to Approximate and Plausible Reasoning with Applications to Expert Systems %J IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence %V PAMI-7 %N 3 %D MAY 1985 %K fuzzy logic %X describes a relationship between possibility distributions and fuzzy systems %A David M. Weber %T Navigation Systems: It's Academic %J Electronics Week %D APR 15, 1985 %P 24 %K Jean-Paul Laumond Laboratoire d'Automatique du CNRS %X describes work done on the robot navigation problem with applications to DARPA's autonomous vehicle program %A John Malpas %T Prolog as a Unix System Tool %J UnixWorld %D JUL 1985 %P 48-53 %V 2 %N 6 %K human engineering %X describes the use of prolog to develop a filter for analyzing performance of non-technical people in using PC work %T Japanese firm gets AI expertise from U. S. Joint Venture %J Electronics Week %D MAY 6, 1985 %P 14 %K Carnegie Group Japan Artificial Intelligent Technology %X Pittsburgh's Carnegie Group and Tokyo's Artificial Intelligent Technology will be doing joint development with Artificial Intelligent Technology marketing Carnegie Group's software in East Asia %A Henry Beechold %T File Gateway Adds to Clout %J Infoworld %D APR 22, 1985 %P 48-49 %K database query natural language microcomputer microrim rbase %X review of Clout, a natural language interface to microcomputers sold by Microrim for $249.00 two out of a possible four disks (due to overpriced support plan) performance: excellence documenation: good ease of use: excellent error handling: excellent support: fair %J CACM %D MAY 1985 %P A-20 %K Levien Instrument Byso Lisp Franz %X advertisement for Byslo Lisp, for the PC and costs $150.00 claims that benchmarks faster on the AT than Franz Lisp on a VAX %A David M. Weber %T Consumer-goods Giants aim at Robotics Market %J Electronics %D JUN 17, 1985 %P 23-24 %K Sony Telefunken Toshiba Panasonic %X describes entries seen at Robotics 9 show %A James Fallon %T Solartron Receives $4.5M in Pacts from U.K.'s Alvey %J Electronic News %V 31 %N 1548 %D MAY 6, 1985 %P E %K Schlumberger Britain health monitoring expert system aerospace %X describes grant to Solartron, a division of Schlumberger, for work in aerospace and health-monitoring %T Lisp Cuts Price of Systems 35% %J Electronic News %D JUN 10, 1985 %V 31 %N 1553 %P 27 %K Lisp Machine Lambda Aerospace David Carlton %X new prices for Lisp Machine Inc. products: single user Lambda $65,000 2 x 2 unit: 110,000. Also all systems now include the standard configuration to four Meg. Also LMI named David Carleton to manage its Aerospace division %T Carnegie Markets AI in Far East %J Electronic News %D JUN 10, 1985 %V 31 %N 1553 %P 37 %K Intelligent Technology Japan %X describes Carnegie Group's marketing efforts in Far East and Japan %T See AI benefit for 32-bit CPU sales - If barriers are overcome %J Electronic News %D APR 15, 1985 %V 31 %N 1545 %P M %K Raj Reddy Tom Knight Hewlett-Packard MIT L. J. Thomas %X describes comments made about the future of AI at the International Solid State Circuits Conference %T DEC Group Names Head; Ex-Chief is Now Lisp CEO %J Electronic News %D MAY 27, 1985 %V 31 %N 1551 %P 20 %K DEC LMI Ward D. MacKenzie %X Ward D. MacKenzie is leaving DEC to join LMI as chairman and chief executive ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Tue Jul 30 23:16:02 1985 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 85 23:15:50 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a012554; 30 Jul 85 0:19 EDT Date: Mon 29 Jul 1985 20:37-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #101 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Tue, 30 Jul 85 23:00 EST AIList Digest Tuesday, 30 Jul 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 101 Today's Topics: Conferences - Knowledge Engineering/Expert Systems & 2nd ACM Northeast Regional Conference & 3rd Conference on Logic Programming ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Jul 85 16:52:19 cdt From: porter@anl-mcs (Porter) Subject: Workshop on Knowledge Engineering/Expert Systems Below is the tentative program for the Workshop on Knowledge Engineering/Expert Systems, At Lake Arrowhead, California, September 4-6, 1985. For information regarding invitations contact the General Chairman, Sig Porter (porter@anl-mcs Merdan Group, Inc./PO Box 17098/San Diego, CA 92117). Workshop on Knowledge Engineering/Expert Systems Tentative Program (July 22, 1985) Greg Kearsley, Courseware, Program Chairman Wednesday, September 4, 1985, Afternoon Knowledge Acquisition Carlton B. Solloway, JPL, Chair Knowledge Acquisition: Building the Oleophilic Advisor Gloria Reiss, Rockwell International Corp Automating Knowledge Acquisition: Eliminating Your Job Jim Kornell, General Research Corp Knowledge Engineering and the New Arcana Lee Duke, Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility Autonomous Vehicle Planning System: Development and Knowledge Acquisition David Tseng, Hughes Aircraft Co. AI Center Building a Weather Forecasting Expert System From Examples Charles Riese, Radian Corp Thursday, September 5, 1985 Knowledge Representation/Tutoring Paul Harmon, Harmon Associates, Chair Achieving A General Intelligent Tutor Through a Flexible and Extendible Knowledge Representation Glen Silverstein, Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation Building Knowledge Representation Structures Via Intelligent Authoring Systems Bret Wallach, Advanced Processing Laboratories Representation and Acquisition of Knowledge in Medical Expert Systems Klaus-Peter Adlassnig, University of Calif Berkeley Intelligent Simulations for Navy Training Jim Hollan, Institute for Cognitive Science, UCSD Inference Strategies Penny Nii, Stanford, Chair Universal Weak Method John Laird, Xerox PARC High Level Control of Inferencing Peter Hirsch, IBM The Role of Frame Based Representation in Reasoning Richard Fikes, Intellicorp Using Logic as a basis of a Problem Solving Expert Richard Weyhrauch, Stanford University Friday, September 6, 1985 Knowledge System Programming Environments Bruce Bullock, Teknowledge Federal Systems, Chair Overview of STROBE Read Smith, Schlumberger-Doll Research Perspective on KEE Mike Williams, Intellicorp Directions for Future Environments Mike Fehling, Teknowledge ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 85 18:05:33 edt From: Alan Gunderson Subject: Extended Deadline-2nd ACM Northeast Regional Conference CALL FOR PAPERS *** DEADLINE EXTENDED *** SECOND ANNUAL ACM NORTHEAST REGIONAL CONFERENCE Integrating the Information Workplace: the Key to Productivity 28-30 October 1985 Sheraton-Tara Hotel Framingham, Mass. and The Computer Museum Boston, Mass. The conference sessions are grouped into tracks corresponding to major areas of interest in the computer field. Papers are solicited for the Conference's Artificial Intelligence Track. The Track's program will emphasize "real world" approaches and applications of A. I. Topics of interest include: ___________________________ Natural Language Man-Machine Interface A. I. Tools and Environments A. I. Hardware Expert Systems Due to publication delays of the Call for Papers, the paper deadline has been extended to: September 1, 1985 Please send three copies of your paper to: Dr. David S. Prerau Track Chairman Artificial Intelligence Track ACM Northeast Regional Conference GTE Laboratories Inc. 40 Sylvan Road Waltham MA 02254 For additional information on the Conference, write: ACM Northeast Regional Conference P.O. Box 499 Sharon MA 02067 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 85 19:05:39 -0200 From: Ehud Shapiro Subject: call for papers - Logic Programming CALL FOR PAPERS Third International Conference on Logic Programming Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK July 14-18, 1986 In cooperation with: Association for Computing Machinery British Computer Society IEEE Computer Society Japan Society for Software Science and Technology The conference will consider all aspects of logic programming, including, but not limited to: Theory and foundations Architectures and Implementations Methodology Programming Languages and Environments Applications Relations to other computation models, programming languages, and programming methodologies. Of special interest are papers related to parallel processing, papers discussing novel applications and applications that address the unique character of logic programming, and papers which constitute a contribution to computer science at large. Papers can be submitted under two categories, short -- up to 2000 words, and long -- up to 6000 words. Submissions will be considered on the basis of appropriateness, clarity, originality, significance, and overall quality. Authors should send eight copies of their manuscript, plus an extra copy of the abstract, to: Ehud Shapiro ICLP Program Chairman The Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot 76100, Israel. Deadline for submission of papers is December 1, 1985. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by February 28, 1986. Camera ready copies are due April 1st, 1986. General Chairman Keith Clark Imperial College of Science and Technology 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom Local Arrangements and Exhibition Chairman Richard Ennals Imperial College of Science and Technology 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom Program Committee Martin van Caneghem, University of Marseille, France Veronica Dahl, Simon Fraser University, Canada Maarten van Emden, University of Waterloo, Canada Kazuhiro Fuchi, ICOT, Japan Koichi Furukawa, ICOT, Japan Ake Hanssen, Uppsala University, Sweden Kenneth M. Kahn, Xerox PARC, USA Peter Koves, Logicware Inc., Canada Giorgio Levi, University of Pisa, Italy John Lloyd, University of Melbourne, Australia Frank G. McCabe, Imperial College, UK Jack Minker, Maryland University, USA Fernando Pereira, SRI International, USA Luis M. Pereira, University of Lisbon, Portugal Antonio Porto, University of Lisbon, Portugal Ehud Shapiro, Chairman, Weizmann Institute, Israel ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Thu Aug 1 03:23:02 1985 Date: Thu, 1 Aug 85 03:22:57 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a027917; 1 Aug 85 2:48 EDT Date: Wed 31 Jul 1985 22:58-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #102 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Thu, 1 Aug 85 04:34 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 1 Aug 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 102 Today's Topics: Queries - PRESS & Loglan, Linguistics - Aymara, Expert Systems - Definition, Games - Chess Programs and Cheating, AI Tools - POPLOG ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Jul 85 10:08 EST From: D E Stevenson Subject: Information on PRESS I would like to get a copy of PRESS. Can anyone tell me how to obtain one? PRESS is the name of the symbolic algebra system that he developed at Edinburgh. I have read spots here and there about it, mostly in the applied math literature. It is written in PROLOG and is reputed to be very fast. I asked for PROLOG-based systems on the symalg net; PRESS was the only system identified. I am interested in functional/logic programming and numerical analysis; I thought I might get a copy and see what I could do with it. Steve Stevenson (803) 656-5880 ------------------------------ Date: Sun 28 Jul 85 18:11:09-PDT From: FIRSCHEIN@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Loglan LOGLAN was (is?) a language designed to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that the natural languages limit human thought. The Loglan Institute was set up to publish books on the subject and to carry out investigations in loglan. Does anyone know whether the Loglan Institute still exists and what has been done with loglan? Does anyone have a current address for them? [The most recent address I have is The Loglan Institute, Inc., 2261 Soledad Rancho Road, San Diego, CA 92109. -- KIL ] ------------------------------ Date: Mon 29 Jul 85 10:59:04-PDT From: Ken Laws Subject: Aymara Robert Van Valin ("ucdavis!harpo!lakhota"@BERKELEY) sent me a clipping from the SSILA Newsletter. It's a letter from Dr. M.J. Hardman-de-Bautista, Director of the Aymara Language Materials Program, stressing that Ivan Guzman de Rojas is not associated with the ALMP, does not himself speak Aymara, and bases his work in machine translation on a grammar and dictionary written over 400 years ago by a Jesuit priest. He claims that Mr. Guzman's published examples of Aymara are nearly all grammatically incorrect and that the stated meanings for acceptable sentences are often wildly inaccurate. "His poor understanding of Aymara word and sentence structure results in forms that are simply unintelligible to the Aymara." Which is not to say that Guzman's translation program can't work, but it does cast a suspicious light on the matter. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 85 15:38 PDT From: Miller.pasa@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Defining the Expert System I am spending this summer as an intern for Xerox AI Systems group where part of my task is to come up with a working definition of what constitutes an "Expert System." Having done some rather extensive reading on AI in general and expert systems in particular throughout the past month, I have come to two conclusions: First, due perhaps to media hype, the term "expert system" tends to get bantered about extremely loosely and broadly and is applied to a wide variety of programs and packages. Second, the only definitions which seem to exist in testbooks, articles, or company literature all seem to go something like this: "An expert system is a computer program which does what an expert does." While this definition is basic, I would like some more detail. So here's the question: What do you, as a knowledgeable person in the field of AI, consider to be the necessary minimum attributes for an "Expert System?" Is it fair to give the same title to both CADUCEUS and to 'Tell Me Doctor' from Apple? Why or why not? Can you build an "Expert System" with ART? How about TOPSI from Dynamic Master Systems (1000 rules maximum, forward-chaining, $75) ? How many rules does it take to make a system 'expert'? What kind (and how large) of a domain must an "expert system" address? Etc. If you've got (or would care to write) a working definition of your own, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on any of the above questions or any others that may come to mind. Pointers towards reading sources probably wouldn't hurt. Look at this as a very informal survey of the field-- linguistically speaking, a term can only be defined by those who use it. If anybody's interested, I'll be glad to compile the results and send a copy. Please reply to me at Miller.pasa@Xerox.ARPA --Chris Miller [Alex Goodall supplies the following definitions in The Guide to Expert Systems (published by Learned Information): An expert system is a computer system that performs functions similar to those normally performed by a human expert. An expert system is a computer system that uses a representation of human expertise in a specialist domain in order to perform functions similar to those normally performed by a human expert in that domain. An expert system is a computer system that operates by applying an inference mechanism to a body of specialist expertise represented in the form of 'knowledge'. He prefers the latter, but discusses all three in his first chapter. Feigenbaum, in Knowledge Engineering for the 1980's (quoted by Gevarter in An Overview of Expert Systems and by Kolbus and Mazzetti in Artificial Intelligence Emerges) says: An 'expert system' is an intelligent computer program that uses knowledge and inference procedures to solve problems that are difficult enough to require significant human expertise for their solution. The knowledge necessary to perform at such a level, plus the inference procedures used, can be thought of as a model of the expertise of the best practitioners of the field. The knowledge of an expert system consists of facts and heuristics. The 'facts' constitute a body of information that is widely shared, publicly available, and generally agreed upon by experts in a field. The 'heuristics' are mostly private, little-discussed rules of good judgement (rules of plausible reasoning, rules of good guessing) that characterize expert-level decision making in the field. The performance level of an expert system is primarily a function of the size and quality of the knowledge base that it possesses. I don't care for the words "intelligent" and "difficult" in the first paragraph, but the intention is clear. As for size, expert systems for process control (e.g., using fuzzy logic or qualitative "derivatives") can be quite small. I remember a news note in Expert Systems (a journal from Learned Information) about a system with 7 rules that was said to function well. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Sun 28 Jul 85 15:11:41-EDT From: Oolong Reply-to: LIAO%Weslyn.Bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA Subject: More on Chess Programs and Cheating In reading Dr. Laws objection, let me begin by saying that I certainly agree that programs are better chess machines than people are. Further, I agree that superior memory and speed in a computer does NOT give a program an unfair advantage. But perhaps I should clarify my position a bit more: I believe that chess programs with moves written INTO the program cheat in the sense that they will ALWAYS carry around ENCODED (and thus represented) moves. Human players do not, on the whole, do any such thing. Perhaps it would be best to try a Searleian approach to the problem. In particular, you might be right about the way humans play chess...we may have some moves memorized and yet not always have them actively represented. Perhaps to some extent, these might one of (or at least part of) Searle's unconcious Intentional states. However, I'm not convinced of that this position completely accounts for the way we play. Consider players who are familiar with each other's form of play. One cannot store every move made in every game played and associate each game with the correct player (that goes for programs as well). Still one recognizes particular COMBINATIONS of moves ("chunking" a la Hofstadter) through experience of following the other player's games and, moreover, direct play reinforces those experiences. As Searle would put it - these experiences/practices create capacities presumably realized as neural pathways (a sort of learning, if you will). So in effect, the "practiced moves" become part of the background and never become embedded/encoded representations. This background only creates the capacity to create the representations needed to decide what move to make (i.e. to recognize a pattern of moves made and then decide what moves are needed thwart such a strategy). Certainly, if one chooses to memorize particular moves, that is one's perogative, but on a whole, we don't do that. If you will notice, this is the reason I argued for the notion of "playing from our own experiences". This position that I hold has the implication that we recognize strategies by the results of our experience and so it is actually a part of us. I think the interpretation of "run what ya brung" does not escape the problem of the program playing by its author's experiences and not its own. Now let's consider the situation where two players are not familiar with each other's form of play. Certainly, there can be no pre-memorized set of optimal opening moves since you have no experience with this player's strategic tendancies. Yet, how is it that you open with your favorite move when you do not know what else to do. Do you do it thinking "This is the right move to make", or do you just move from experience? How is it then you decide on what strategy to use? Presumably, it makes more sense, perhaps, to say that we use memorized moves going into such a game but use our background (thus experience) to recognize what the other person is doing. In this way a human player can "probe" the other player's strategy, though this probing technique may be an inefficient way of deciding the optimal strategy. However, this relies on experience and again, a computer with built in moves cannot "probe" if it MUST to rely on built-in moves (i.e. experiences not its own). In fact, this is a form of learning and the acquirement of experience (a la Searle). Personally, I do not see how my position differs from Mr. Jennings - I too believe that a computer should "learn how to play chess" before it is allowed to play in a tournament rather than rely on moves ENCODED into the program. I see one major problem however - one may keep entire games on disk/tape for use later on in other tournaments with other players but after a while you may exceed disk/tape memory. One may object by saying, "Well, we could get a program to convenietly forget certain moves (etc) and install the better ones." My problem with that response is the question "What constitutes moves to be forgotten?" Presumably, all this is a question of Intentionality. After reading Searle's chapter on the "Background" (from "Intentionality") I am beginning to suspect that we may just forget the details of particular capacities and retain some sort of skeletal structure of that capacity (whatever that maybe). Just what is forgotten and how it is forgotten is a question I offer to the forum for consideration. - drew liao ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1985 23:58:11-BST From: Aaron Sloman Subject: POPLOG - A mixed language development system. [Forwarded from the Prolog Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.] Poplog is available on VAX and DEC 8600 computers. It includes Prolog (compiled to machine code), Common Lisp (large subset ready now, remainder available early 1986), POP-11 (comparable in power to Common Lisp, but uses a PASCAL-like syntax), VED an integrated multi-window multi-buffer screen editor, which can be used for all interactions with programs, operating system utilities, online help, program libraries, teaching libraries, etc. VED includes 'compile this procedure' 'compile from here to here' 'splice output into current file' etc.) Incremental compilers are provided for Prolog, Lisp, and POP-11. All the languages compile to the same intermediate POPLOG 'Virtual machine' language, which is then compiled to machine code. The 'syscompile' facilities make it easy to add new front end compilers for additional languages, which all share the same back-end compiler, editor and environmental facilities. Mixed language facilities allow sharing of libraries without re-coding and also allow portions of a program to be written in the language which is most suitable. Approximate recent Prolog benchmarks, for naive reverse test, without mode declarations: VAX/780 + VMS 4.2 KLIPS VAX/750 + Unix 4.2 2.4 KLIPS (750+Systime accelerator) DEC 8600 13.0 KLIPS SUN2 + Unix 4.2 2.5 KLIPS (also HP 9000/200) GEC-63 + Unix V approx 6 KLIPS The Prolog is being substantially re-written, for greater modularity and improved efficiency. Mode declarations should be available late 1985, giving substantial speed increase. POP-11 and Common Lisp include both dynamic and lexical scoping, a wide range of data-types, strings, arrays, infinite precision arithmetic, hashed 'properties', etc. (Not yet packages, rationals or complex numbers.) POP-11 includes a pattern-matcher (one-way unification) with segment variables and pattern-restrictors. External_load now allows 'external' modules to be linked in and unlinked dynamically (e.g. programs written in C, Fortran, Pascal, etc.). This almost amounts to a 'rapid prototyping' incremental compiler for such languages. A considerable number of AI-projects funded by the UK Alvey Programme in universities and industry now use a mixture of Prolog and POP-11, within Poplog. Enquiries: UK Educational institutions: Alison Mudd, Cognitive Studies Programme, Sussex University, Brighton, England. 0273 606755 -- Aaron Sloman ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vpics1 Thu Aug 8 06:15:37 1985 Date: Thu, 8 Aug 85 06:15:25 edt From: comsat@vpics1.VPI To: fox@opus (FRANCE,RDJ,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a024285; 7 Aug 85 13:51 EDT Date: Wed 7 Aug 1985 09:38-PDT Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V3 #103 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Thu, 8 Aug 85 05:57 EST AIList Digest Wednesday, 7 Aug 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 103 Today's Topics: Queries - Zetalisp Menu and Mouse Functions, Networking & Company Projects & Parallel Processing and Economics & Theorem Proving, Education - Architecture and Programming, Linguistics - Loglan, Games - Poker, Expert Systems - Knowledge Bases & Definition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Aug 85 13:50:38 CDT (Thu) From: ihnp4!mmm!rouner@mmm.ARPA Subject: Query - Zetalisp Menu and Mouse Functions, Networking We are developing expert systems on both the XEROX 1108 (Dandelion Interlisp-D) and the SYMBOLICS 3640. For a variety of reasons, we would like to develop a system that runs without modification on both the Symbolics and Dandelion. It would be great if we could find Zetalisp implementation of the Interlisp-D menu and mouse functions. Our goal is to emulate the Macintosh interface and its appearance on both machines, as that is what our users want. We are aware that KEE which runs on both SYMBOLICS and XEROX has implemented some of the Interlisp functions in the SYMBOLICS version, but unfortunately the implementation is incomplete and does not yield equivalent visual display. The Interlisp Compatibility Package from SYMBOLICS does not support either the menu or mouse functions. Has any of this already been done and are there any significant problems in trying to create a package that will run without modifications on both machines? A second need is to develop a password controlled access to the Symbolics both from the terminal and over TCP/IP network. Additionally, we need to provide password controlled access to selected files. Has any work been done in this area? What are the loopholes? Finally, has anyone developed an Imagen 8/300 printer support package that works with the Symbolics Hardcopy System over TCP/IP to either UNIX 4.2 VAX or an IMAGEN host? I wish to have services that are provided by Symbolics over CHAOSNET with the now-discontinued LGP, including font changes and screen dumps. Thanks for your help. If there are sufficient requests, I will post a summary. Bill Rouner, USENET address: ihnp4!mmm!rouner ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Aug 85 20:00:33 cdt From: Raj Doshi Subject: query about company projects... I was reading the recent issue of AI Magazine (Summer 1985) and saw a few ads of Companies (ads placed by respective Personnel Departments), that got me interested. For example, OLIVETTI's ad said that they are doing work in : - ICAI - Inexact Knowledge - Non-Monotonic Logics. INFERENCE CORP's ad said they are consultants on projects such as: - Scheduling & Planning Missions PERCEPTRONICS ads said that they are working on: - Planning Aids - Training Systems & intelligent CAI - Robotics & Remote Systems. I want to know more about these projects/oppurtunites. (I did not want to write to personel for this). I was wondering if some technical person(s) at the above mentioned companies, would like to communicate with me ???????? Thanks in advance. - raj doshi ------------------------------ Date: 02 Aug 85 15:31:01 EDT (Fri) From: "Emil J. Volcheck" Subject: Parallel Processing and Economics & Theorem Proving Economists use mathematical models to analyze the behavior of large systems, in fact some of these models are basically simulations of an open system in which many individuals are making economic decisions. If someone can prove theorems pertaining to parallel processing on distributed systems, these results may carry over to economics, and vice-versa. Does anyone know of research pertaining to this idea, or does anyone have thoughts about this? Also -- Does anyone know of a place in the literature about theorem-proving where proving a theorem is defined as "The unification of necessary (given) with sufficient (goal) conditions" ? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this too. --Emil Volcheck ------------------------------ Date: 6 Aug 85 14:11:42 PDT (Tuesday) From: Hoffman.ES@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: Architecture and Programming Seth Steinberg outlined some intriguing similarities between the practice of architecture and the practice of programming. The teaching of both disciplines can also be strikingly similar: architecture students get about as much structural engineering as programmers get mathematics or electrical engineering, both are given numerous "toy" problems as examples and exercises, most learning occurs in the lab rather than from lecture, no one has a good way to test for natural talent, and some people can be quite good with little formal training. --Rodney Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Aug 85 11:06:42 PDT From: Hibbert.pa@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: Loglan The Loglan Institute's current address is: The Loglan Institute, Inc. Route 10, Box 260 Gainesville, FL 32601 The language is undergoing continual revision, and a push is currently on to scale up a project to increase the vocabulary considerably. There are plans to Go Public Again sometime in the next year or two. This means publishing something like the June 1960 Scientific American article, which would require some major progress on the state of the languge to be worthwhile. I can answer questions about the language if anyone is interested. (I'm not sure AIList is the right place for a long summary of the current state of the language and the institute. A year ago, when I was on Usenet, I sent them to net.nlang.) The editor of the member's newsletter has a uucp address if you want to talk to someone who's deeply involved in the work: John Lees is addressible as "ihnp4!umich!cosivax!bugs!jrl"@DECVAX or UCBVAX. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Aug 85 10:24:25 edt From: "Col. G. L. Sicherman" Subject: Poker [See Scientific American, July 1978, for an article on Nicholas Findler's research into automating poker strategies. I seem to recall that the project ended before a player was developed that could detect and bluff the Mathematically Fair Player. -- KIL] This is correct but misleading. Due to a misconception, we stated in the article that the Mathematically Fair Player's weakness was that it could be bluffed out of any hand. Later we realized that this could not be true, because the M.F.P. decides whether to stay or fold without considering its opponents' bets! The M.F.P. cannot be bluffed - a clear sign of weakness to any experienced player. Of course, the weakness consisted precisely of ignoring the opponents' behavior. The M.F.P. consistently came out on top in tests where this flaw did not matter. Further details appear in M. A. Bramer's recent compilation, _Computer Game-Playing: Theory and Practice_ (1983). --G. L. S. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 1985 09:31-EDT From: Robert.Frederking@CMU-CS-CAD.ARPA Subject: No Knowledge Bases? My earlier request for sample AI knowledge bases turned up exactly zero responses. Does this perhaps confirm what I've suspected for a while? That people like to build all kinds of fancy KR systems, with various kinds of inheritance, topologies, etc., but nobody is interested in "populating" these systems with real AI-type knowledge? The k-bases I'm familiar with all generally consist of fairly mundane database information, stuck into fancy AI mechanisms, where the Lisp code actually contains all the interesting AI-type knowledge (especially, knowledge of what the nodes in the network mean). Some might speculate that this implies that the right way to build AI systems is like any other software system: lots of meticulous work on normal procedural code. I'd prefer to think that either: (1) nobody has really put a lot of effort into building a "real" knowledge base yet, because it wouldn't be at all enjoyable, or (2) we still don't have a proper understanding of how to represent intentional and control knowledge in a declarative way, not to mention trying to represent domain knowledge in a declarative way. ------------------------------ Date: Thu 1 Aug 85 08:53:13-PDT From: Mark Richer Subject: What is an "expert system" What is the nature of human expertise? In what sense are current programs "expert?" Are they "expert" in a sufficiently rich enough sense that they warrant the usage of this term? Saying a program does something that requires intelligence or expertise opens one up to including all programs that do this including ones that use numerical and other techniques that are not normally associated with AI .. how about a graphics program being an expert system because it can create a picture that would otherwise require human expertise. I prefer the term "knowledge based system," perhaps because it doesn't imply as much and is more general (e.g., simulations, data bases, etc. can use AI techniques of KR and inference without solving problems). I have heard the Flores and Winograd's new book (in press?) has an interesting discussion on expert systems. mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu 1 Aug 85 09:58:29-PDT From: WYLAND@SRI-KL.ARPA Subject: Expert System Definition I offer the following candidate definition for expert system programs, which attempts to differentiate expert system programs from conventional decision making programs (i.e., any program with an IF THEN statement.): An expert system is a computer program that makes decisions (and/or judgements) according to a set of rules that operate on a set of facts, and can explain each decision (or judgement) by giving the sequence of rules and the facts used to make that decision. This is different from the concept that an expert system "does what an expert does", since a conventional FORTRAN program can be written do do what an expert does, but cannot explain why the decision was made. For example, an expert may have a rule that says IF(there is a fire) THEN(turn on the fire sprinklers). This kind of decision making is done in conventional programs all the time. The thing that differentiates expert systems is the possibility of asking for an explanation of a decision: why a decision is made (or proposed). Decision explanation is done in conventional expert systems by using a rule based system design and using the rules and facts invoked in a decision to "explain" the decision. The rule based system design consists of rules, facts, and a logic engine that applies the rules to the facts to make decisions. In its simplest form, the rules are decision making algorithms with a specified form, and the facts are input or derived data elements used by the rules in making decisions. Explanation consists of listing the rules and facts (in some form) that were used to reach a given decision (or are being used in an interactive process of making a decision). Not all expert systems explain their decisions, but it is the ability to explain the decisions that is important. A rule based decision system can have this ability, even though the explanation mechanism is not built in to the product. Dave Wyland WYLAND@SRI-KL ------------------------------ Date: Fri 2 Aug 85 10:25:02-PDT From: WYLAND@SRI-KL.ARPA Subject: Expert System Definition Thanks for the note. I'll try to answer the points you raised in order. "If we take that FORTRAN program and add a few steps which will take an input of "WHY?" after the sprinklers have been turned on and respond with the string "__BECAUSE THERE WAS A FIRE" does that then make it an expert system? Why or why not?" "Is this a dumb question?" No, it's a SIMPLE question: generally the nastiest, most difficult, and most interesting kind. (i.e., What is energy?) If my definition is accurately descriptive, that does make the FORTRAN program an expert system, since it can explain its decision. It is a good example because it represents a marginal case. The problem with the FORTRAN expert system program you have described is that it doesn't appear to work for nested rules. Nested rules are where you have more than one rule invoked in a chain of logic to reach a decision. For example: IF(the smoke alarm is on) THEN(there is a fire) IF(the alarm lever is pulled) THEN(there is a fire) IF(there is a fire) THEN(turn on the sprinklers) IF(sprinkler test switch is on) THEN(turn on the sprinklers) The (turn on the sprinklers) decision must be explainable in terms of the rules actually used in making the decision, and the explanation must be able to cover all the rules that were invoked. The first answer to why the sprinklers went off may be that (there is a fire). The next answer to the repeated question "why" can be either that (the smoke alarm is on) or (the alarm lever is pulled) depending on which rule was activated. (The third answer to "why" is "because!", since there is no prior rule.) "(Let me ramble for a minute and correct me where I'm wrong.) Is the difference between this approach and the more conventional expert system design the fact that an expert system can trace back through its decision making process?" Yes, I think this is the essential feature of expert systems. "Perhaps I am missing the qualitative difference between an expert system design and the design of the FORTRAN program. Does it lie in the fact that the logic engine views rules and facts SEPERATELY and attempts to apply the one to the other." No, I think this is a practical requirement of the explanation process. For example, if you try to do nested rule explanations in conventional IF THEN format FORTRAN, I think it will get very messy because you will probably wind up with indexed arrays, pointers, and variables to tie everything together. A "rule based" approach to the same program might start by replacing the IF THEN statements with calls to a subroutine with the components of the IF THEN statement passed as parameters and the subroutine performing the IF THEN evaluation. If the parameters for the various IF THEN rules are arranged in a list (or FORTRAN array), you now have a simpler structure for evaluating the rules and keeping track of the results. Further work in this direction will make it easier to enter the rules and their explanations, etc. The practical purpose of this exercise is to make it easier to design the expert system by handling the rules, their processing, and their explanations in simpler, more regular fashion. I hope this helps. Keep asking the simple questions: they're the ones with the important answers. Good luck, Dave Wyland ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************