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AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 195
AIList Digest Thursday, 25 Sep 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 195
Today's Topics:
Queries - Public-Domain Ops5 & XLisp & Lsmalltalk &
Kyoto Common Lisp & LISP-to-FORTRAN Conversion &
Cognitive Science Schools,
AI Tools - OPS5 & OPSx & UNIX Tools,
Expert Systems - Literature Resources & Implementation Styles
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 20 Sep 86 15:32:14 GMT
From: ritcv!eer@ROCHESTER.ARPA (Ed Reed)
Subject: Public domain Ops5 in any language
I'm looking for one of the versions of OPS5 in lisp (or ?)
that's in the public domain. I've heard that there are pd versions
running around, but haven't found any here, yet.
If in lisp (as I expect) I can use FranzLisp, DecCommonLisp, and
xlisp, and maybe InterLisp on a Xerox Dlion.
Thanks for the help..
Ed Reed
Rochester Inst. Technology,
Rochester, NY
....seismo!rochester!ritcv
Delphi: eertest
GEnie: SQA.INC
------------------------------
Date: 19 Sep 1986 21:30-EDT
From: cross@wpafb-afita
Subject: xlisp query
Would appreciate a pointer to where I could download the source code for
xlisp 1.6 and any demonstratable programs written in xlisp. I'm aware
of the stuff published in AI Expert and have downloaded it, but cannot
find the source code. Thanks in advance.
Steve Cross
------------------------------
Date: 24 Sep 86 03:50:21 GMT
From: booter@lll-crg.arpa (Elaine Richards)
Subject: Lsmalltalk and XLisp
I spaced out on my friend's login name. He is at Cal State University
Hayward, which has no news feed. He is a fanatic for smalltalk and
LISP and I hope you folks out there can assist. Please no flamage, this
guy is not a regular netter and he really would love some contacts.
Here is what he asked me to post.
*****************************************************
* e-mail responses to *
* {seismo,ihnp4,pyramid}!lll-crg!csuh!jeff *
* -or- *
* hplabs!qantel!csuh!jeff *
*****************************************************
#1
To all people,places, and things who possess some
knowledge about Lsmalltalk:
I am just getting into Lsmalltalk and I am interested
in communicating with others who have some experience with it. I
am using Smalltalk 'blue' as my map of the Lsmalltalk system; can
anyone suggest a way around class-variables and methods ( is the
class Smalltalk the only way?). Is there anyone who has done some
interesting applications they would like to share?
jeff
#2
The young and struggling C.S. department of the
Calif. State University of Hayward would like to get to Xlisp.
If somebody out there knows were we can get it, could you please
pass that information along?
jeff
------------------------------
Date: 23 Sep 86 01:00:29 GMT
From: zeus!stiber@locus.ucla.edu (Michael D Stiber)
Subject: Kyoto Common Lisp
Does anyone have experience using this Lisp, or have any information
about it. I am specifically interested in comments on Ibuki Lisp, an
implementation of Kyoto Common Lisp that runs on the IBM RT.
Michael Stiber
ARPANET: stiber@ucla-locus.arpa
USENET: ...{ucbvax,ihpn4}!ucla-cs!stiber
Born too late to be a yuppy -- and proud of it!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 86 08:32:13 edt
From: jlynch@nswc-wo.ARPA
Subject: LISP Conversion
I am gathering information concerning the conversion or
translation of programs written in LISP to FORTRAN. Would
appreciate comments from anyone who has tried to do this and the
likelihood of success. Interested in both manual methods as well
as conversion routines or programs. I will summarize replies
for the AILIST. Thanks, Jim Lynch (jlynch@nswc-wo.arpa)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 86 11:03:20 -0500
From: schwamb@mitre.ARPA
Subject: Cognitive Science Schools
Well, now that some folks have commented on the best AI schools in
the country, could we also hear about the best Cognitive Science
programs? Cog Sci has been providing a lot of fuel for thought to
the AI community and I'd like to know where one might specialize
in this.
Thanks, Karl (schwamb@mitre)
------------------------------
Date: 18 Sep 86 13:38:33 GMT
From: gilbh%cunyvm.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: AI Grad Schools
One might consider CUNY (City University of New York) too.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 86 07:39:34 MDT
From: halff@utah-cs.arpa (Henry M. Halff)
Subject: Re: Any OPS5 in PC ?
In article <8609181610.AA08808@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>,
EDMUNDSY%northeastern.edu@RELAY.CS.NET writes:
> Does anyone know whether there is any OPS5 software package availiable in PC?
> I would like to know where I can find it. Thanks!!!
Contact
Computer*Thought
1721 West Plano Parkway
Suite 125
Plano, TX 75075
214/424-3511
ctvax!mark.UUCP
Disclaimer: I know people at Computer*Thought, but I don't know anything about
their OPS-5. I don't know how well it works. I don't even know if I would
know how to tell how well it works.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 86 06:15:37 cdt
From: mlw@ncsc.ARPA (Williams)
Subject: OPSx for PCs
For parties seeking OPS5 on PCs...an implementation of OPS/83 is being
marketed by Production Systems Technologies, Inc.
642 Gettyburg Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
(412)362-3117
I have no comparison information relating OPS5 to OPS83 other than the
fact that OPS83 is compiled and is supposed to provide better performance
in production on micros than is possible with OPS5. I'd be glad to see
more information on the topic in this forum.
Usual disclaimers...
Mark L. Williams
(mlw @ncsc.arpa)
------------------------------
Date: 18 Sep 86 19:21:50 GMT
From: ssc-vax!bcsaic!pamp@uw-beaver.arpa (wagener)
Subject: Re: Info on UNIX based AI Tools/applications (2nd req)
In article <1657@ptsfa.UUCP> jeg@ptsfa.UUCP (John Girard) writes:
>
>This is a second request for information on Artificial Intelligence
>tools and applications available in the unix environment.
>
> Expert System Shells
> Working AI applications (academic and commercial)
I can recomend at least one good comprehensive listing of
tools,languages and companies;
The International Directory of Artificial Intelligence
Companies,2nd edition,1986,Artificial
Intelligence Software S.R.L.,Via A. Mario,12/A,
45100 ROVIGO, Italy. Della Jane Hallpike,ed.
Ph.(0425)27151
It mainly looks at the companies, but it does have descriptions
of their products.
Also look into D.A.Waterman's book, A guide to expert systems;
Addison-Wesley Pub.Co.,1985.
I also recomend you check out the Expert system Magazines;
1) Expert Systems - The Ineternational Journal of
Knowledge Engineering;Learned Information Ltd.,
(This is an English Publication. It's US office
address is;
Learned information Co.
143 Old Marlton Pike
Medfor,NJ 08055
PH.(609) 654-6266
Subscription Price: $79
2) Expert Systems User; Expert Systems User Ltd.
Cromwell House,
20 Bride Lane
London EC4 8DX
PH.01-353 7400
Telex: 23862
Subscription Price: $210
3) IEEE Expert - Intelligent Systems and their Applications
IEEE Computer Society
IEEE Headquartes
345 East 47th Street
New York,NY 10017
IEEE Computer Society West Coast Office
10662 Los Vaqueros Circle
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Subscription Price (IEEE Members): $12/yr
4) AI Expert
AI Expert
P.O.Box 10952
Palo Alto, CA 94303-0968
Subscription Price: $39/yr $69/2yr $99/3yr
There are some good product description sections and articles
in these (especially the British ones which are the older
publications). There are quite a number of systems out there.
Good luck.
Pam Pincha-Wagener
------------------------------
Date: 20 Sep 86 15:44:00 edt
From: Walter Hamscher <hamscher@ht.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: queries about expert systems
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1986 17:10 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
1. Production systems are the implementation of many expert systems.
In what other forms are "expert systems" implemented?
[I use the term "expert system" to describe the codification of any
process that people use to reason, plan, or make decisions as a set of
computer rules, involving a detailed description of the precise
thought processes used. If you have a better description, please
share it.]
``Expert System'' denotes a level of performance, not a technology.
The particularly important aspirations are generality and robustness.
Every program strives for some degree of generality and robustness, of
course, but calling a program an expert system means it's supposed to
be able to do the right thing even in situations that haven't been
explicitly anticipated, where ``the right thing'' might just be to
gracefully say ``I dunno'' when, indeed, the program doesn't have the
knowledge needed to solve the problem posed.
Production systems, or, more accurately, programs that work by running
a simple interpreter over a body of knowledge represented as IF-THEN
rules, ease the construction of simple expert systems because it's
possible to encode the knowledge without having to commit to a
particular order or context of using that knowledge. The interpreter
determines what rule to apply next at runtime, and so long as you
don't include contradictory rules or assume a particular order of
application, such systems are easy to construct and work pretty well,
i.e. can be general (solve a wide variety of problem instances) and
robust (degrade gracefully by saying ``i dunno'' (no rules, or only
very general rules apply) in unusual situations, rather than trapping
out with an error).
That may not have seemed like an answer to question #1, so let me
return to it explicitly. Production systems are not the only
technology for building expert systems, but pattern-directed
invocation is a theme common to all expert systems, whatever
technology is used. Let me explain. Another popular technology for
expert systems (in the medical domain, especially) might be called
Frames and Demons. Facts are organized in a specialization hierarchy,
and attached to each fact may be a bunch of procedures (demons) that
are run when the fact is asserted, or denied, when the program needs
to figure out whether the fact is true or not, etc. Running a demon
may trigger other demons, or add new facts, or new demons, and so the
system grinds away. The underlying principle is the same as in
production systems: there is a large body of domain specific
knowledge, plus a simple interpreter that makes no initial commitment
to the order or context in which the facts are going to be used. The
name of the game is pattern-directed invocation: the next action to
take is selected from among the ``rules'' or ``methods'' or ``demons''
that are relevant to the current situation. This characteristic is
not unique to expert systems, but (I think) every program that has
ever been called an expert system has this characteristic in common,
and moreover that it was central to its behavior.
2. A production system is in essence a set of rules that state that
"IF X occurs, THEN take action Y." System designers must anticipate
the set of "X" that can occur. What if something happens that is not
anticipated in the specified set of "X"? I assert that the most
common result in such cases is that nothing happens. Am I right,
wrong, or off the map?
In most implementations of production systems, if the current
situation is such that no rules match it, nothing happens (maybe the
program prints out the atom 'DONE :-). If the system is working in a
goal-directed fashion (e.g. it's trying to find out under what
circumstances it can take action Y (action Y might be "conclude that Z
has occurred")) and there aren't any rules that tell it anything about
Y, again, nothing happens: it can't conclude Z. In practice, there
are always very general rules that apply when nothing else does.
Being general, they're probably not very helpful: "IF () THEN SAY
Take-Two-Aspirin-And-Call-Me-In-The-Morning." The same applies to any
brand of pattern-directed invocation.
However, it's getting on the hairy edge of matters to say "System
designers must anticipate the set of X that can occur." The reason is
that productions (methods, demons) are supposed to be modular;
independent of other productions; typically written to trigger on only
a handful of the possibly thousands of features of the current
situation. So in fact I don't need to anticipate all the situations
that occur, but rather ``just'' figure out all the relevant features
of the space of situations, and then write rules that deal with
certain combinations of those features. It's like a grammar: I don't
have to anticipate every valid sentence, except in the sense that I
need to figure out what all the word categories are and what local
combinations of words are legal.
Now, to hone your observation a bit, I suggest focusing on the notion
of ``figuring out all the relevant features of the space of
situations.'' That's what's difficult. Experts (including
carbon-based ones) make mistakes when they ignore (or are unaware of)
features of the situation that modify or overrule the conclusions made
from other features. The fundamental problem in building an expert
system that deals with the real world is not entirely in cramming
enough of the right rules into it (although that's hard), it's
encoding all the exceptions, or, more to the point, remembering to
include in the program's model of the world all the features that
might be relevant to producing exceptions.
End of overly long flame.
Walter Hamscher
P.S. I am not an AI guru, rather, a mere neophyte disciple of the bona
fide gurus on my thesis committee.
------------------------------
Date: Tue Sep 23 11:33:13 GMT+1:00 1986
From: mcvax!lasso!ralph@seismo.CSS.GOV (Ralph P. Sobek)
Subject: Re: queries about expert systems (Vol 4, no. 187)
Herb,
>1. Production systems are the implementation of many expert systems.
>In what other forms are "expert systems" implemented?
I recommend the book "A Guide to Expert Systems," by Donald
Waterman. It describes many expert systems, which fall more or less
into your definition, and in what they are implemented. Production
Systems (PSs) can basically be divided into forward-chaining (R1/XCON) and
backward-chaining (EMYCIN); mixed systems which do both exist. Other
representations include frame-based (SRL), semantic nets (KAS), object-
oriented, and logic-based. The representation used often depends on what
is available in the underlying Expert System Tool. Tools now exist which
provide an intergrated package of representation structures for the expert
system builder to use, e.g., KEE and LOOPS. Expert systems are also written
in standard procedural languages such as Lisp, C, Pascal, and even Fortran.
>2. A production system is in essence a set of rules that state that
>"IF X occurs, THEN take action Y." System designers must anticipate
>the set of "X" that can occur. What if something happens that is not
>anticipated in the specified set of "X"? I assert that the most
>common result in such cases is that nothing happens.
In both forward-chaining and backward-chaining PSs nothing happens.
If the PS produces "X" then we can verify if "X" is never used. In the
general case, if "X" comes from some arbitrary source there is no
guarantee that the PS (or any other system) will even see the datum.
Ralph P. Sobek
UUCP: mcvax!inria!lasso!ralph@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
ARPA: sobek@ucbernie.Berkeley.EDU (automatic forwarding)
BITNET: SOBEK@FRMOP11
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End of AIList Digest
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