Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 264
AIList Digest Thursday, 20 Nov 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 264
Today's Topics:
Reviews - Spang Robinson Report & Recent Press Releases,
Open House - Invitation to USC AI & VLSI Demo,
Seminar - Trajectory Planning in Time-Varying Environments (MIT) &
An Expert System for Building Layout (CMU) &
New Paths in Knowledge Engineering (BBN)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: WED, 10 oct 86 17:02:23 CDT
From: leff%smu@csnet-relay
Subject: Spang Robinson Report Summary
Spang Robinson Report, November 1986 Vol 2, No 11
__________________________________________________________________________
Discussion of AI Applications to Manufacturing
Carnegie Group has 90 percent of their toolkit
sales and 100- per cent of their custom contracts
from manufacturing clients. A spin off from Composition Systems is
selling tools to manufacturing customers. (Composition Systems
sells an expert system for newspaper layout [LEFF])
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has formed an AI in Manufacturing
Advisory Committee (contact Michael Tew 313 271-1500).
Allen Bradley will have "knowledge base technologies" in their line
of factory controllers.
__________________________________________________________________________
Software Review of Knowledge Craft
__________________________________________________________________________
California Intelligence is selling products that add frame and blackboard
facilities to EXSYS, FRAME and TABLET respectively.
They can also be used with other AI tools and even to mix AI tools
with other applications. TABLET also allows the addition of variables
to expert systems that do not have them. FRAME will call an outside
program when the value of the slot is needed.
__________________________________________________________________________
Other Material:
Nihol Life, Japan, is developing an expert system that will assess the
insurability of people with various medical conditions.
Boeing has a Knowledge-Based System Center in Japan that provides info
to various companies operating in Japanese, both American and Japan
Fujitsu is including an expert system to help choose algorithms
for image processing with its general purpose image processing system.
Fujitsu will be selling an AI tool for its 68010 based engineering work
station.
Intellicorp will be entering the Japanese market on its own when its
contract with CSK expires this November.
SRI Cambridge will be organizing a multi-million dollar natural
language effort in England.
__________________________________________________________________________
BOOKs Reviewed
Portraits of Success: Impressions of Silicon Valley by Carolyn Caddes
On Machine Intelligence by Donald Michie
------------------------------
Date: WED, 10 oct 86 17:02:23 CDT
From: leff%smu@csnet-relay
Subject: summary of recent press releases
>From the report on the IEEE Annual Briefing for the Media
James A. Sprowl of the Illinois Institute of Technology is developing
an auotmated client interviewing and legal document assembly system
which automated wills, contracts, pleadings and others. It is designed
to assist nonspecialized attorneys.
__________________________________________________________________________
Robert L. Degenhart AT&T Bell Labs, 201 - 564-4091
Bell Labs has developed an IC chip containing 256 electronic neurons.
It contains 25,000 transistors, 100,000 resistors on 1/4 square inch of
silicon. Retrieval speed is 400 nanoseconds and anticipate their use
in image processors. Neural networks permit greater chip density
and require fewer layers of lithography. They have been able to
fabricate chips with one tenth of a micron features.
__________________________________________________________________________
>From Lisp Machine Inc
They have marketing TI's Explorer along with PICON a real-time expert
system application package and IKE, a consultation style expert system.
PICON achieves 200 rule frames/seconds in 2000 rule systems. They
project 1000 rule frames/second in 10,000 rule systems by the end of 1987.
__________________________________________________________________________
>From Knowledge Engineering, 274 West 12th Street, PO Box 366, Village
Station, New York, New YOrk 10014-0366
They are marketing a review of AI market resources for $47.50.
They also publish a Knowledge Engineering Newsletter for $275.00 a year.
__________________________________________________________________________
>From Phillip G. Ryan Public Relations
Release arguing that AI provides a career opportunity for MIS Managers.
Provides a rating form for a person's company to see how it stands
competitively in applying AI to their needs. This was publicity for
Software People Concepts Inc. and AI Services Company.
Also another one publicizing the same two companies saying that 40 percent of
the largest 500 companies are actively pursuing AI but that it's not MIS
people doing the work.
They are also publicizing Halbrecht Associates arguing that demand for
expert systems developers is high but that there is practically no
demand for "natural language, speech input/output, vision systems,
automatic theorem proving, automatic programming and super computing"
Companies are turning to traditional software engineers to do their
expert systems.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 86 10:53 EST
From: TAKEFUJI%scarolina.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Invitation to USC AI & VLSI Demo
From: Dr. Yoshiyasu Takefuji
Date: Dec. 6, 1986
Time: 1 PM
Place: On the third floor at Engineering Building in Columbia,
South Carolina
Hello.
We will have project presentation/demonstration on the following subjects:
19 graduate students and 17 undergraduate students are involved
in these projects.
1. Fuzzy inference VLSI parallel-engine
2. Fuzzy rule translator and simulator
3. Expert system for determination of fuzzy inference engine
architecture
4. Paramodulation VLSI inference engine(pattern matcher)
5. Function Description Translator from behavior description
to VLSI layout level (CIF or Magic file)
6. Terminal-based local network project to eliminate RS232c wire-jungle
7. Case studies of knowledge acquisition
8. Graphic Applications
Let me know whether you can come to see our demo.
csnet: takefuji%scarolina.edu
usenet: ncrcae!usccmi!takefuji
Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Nov 1986 10:27 EST (Tue)
From: Claudia Smith <CLAUDIA%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - Trajectory Planning in Time-Varying Environments
(MIT)
TRAJECTORY PLANNING IN TIME VARYING ENVIRONMENTS
Kamal Kant Gupta
McGill University
Montreal,Canada
ABSTRACT:
We present a novel approach to solving the trajectory planning problem
(TPP) in time-varying environments. The essence of our approach lies
in a heuristic but natural decomposition of TPP into two subproblems:
(1) planning a path to avoid collision with static obstacles and (2)
planning the velocity along the path to avoid collision with moving
obstacles. We call the first subproblem the path planning problem
(PPP) and the second the velocity planning problem (VPP). Thus, our
decomposition is summarized by the equation TPP \rightarrow PPP + VPP.
The symbol \rightarrow indicates that the decomposition holds under
certain assumptions, e.g., when obstacles are moving independently of
(i.e. not tracking) the robot. Furthermore, we pose the VPP in
path-time space, where time is explicitly represented as an extra
dimension, and reduce it to a graph search in this space. In fact,
VPP is transformed to a two-dimensional PPP in path-time space with
some additional constraints. Algorithms are then presented to solve the
VPP with different optimality criteria: minimum length in path-time
space, and minimum time.
DATE: Tuesday, Nov. 18th
TIME: 3pm
PLACE: NE43-773 (7th floor conference room)
HOST: Prof. Brooks
------------------------------
Date: 18 Nov 86 22:28:22 EST
From: Steven.Minton@k.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Seminar - An Expert System for Building Layout (CMU)
This week's seminar is being given by Robert Coyne and Tim Glavin.
As usual, Friday, 3:15 in 7220.
ABSTRACT:
We report on work in progress on a generative expert system for the design
of building layouts that can be adapted to various problem domains. The
system does not reproduce the behavior of human designers; rather, it
intends to complement their performance through (a) its ability to
systematically search for alternative solutions with promising trade-offs;
and (b) its ability to take a broad range of design concerns into account.
Work on the system also aims at providing insights into the applicability of
artificial intelligence techniques to space planning and building design in
general.
Spacial relations between the objects to be allocated serve as basic design
variables which define differences between layouts. They are represented by
a novel scheme, called an orthogonal structure, which allows us to enumerate
layouts in an abstract space, following a 'least commitment' strategy with
regard to details such as the dimensions of the objects. The
representation, and the generator based on it, are general and flexible
enough to allow generation of layouts in various 'domains'. The knowledge
required to distinguish good or 'best' layouts in particular domains is
located in special testers which are to be built up through the process of
'knowledge acquisition' as it typically occurs in the development of expert
systems.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 86 22:31:02 EST
From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" <SASW@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - New Paths in Knowledge Engineering (BBN)
The Science Development Program will present professor Donald Michie
of the Turing Institute of Scotland as the next speaker in the Guest
Lecture series. His lecture will take place on Thursday, November 20
at 4:30 p.m. in the Newman Auditorium, Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.,
70 Fawcett Street, Cambridge, Ma. Dr. Michie will be lecturing on
the topic "New Paths in Knowledge Engineering."
Following is an abstract of his talk:
Artificial Intelligence is not something sudden. It has been on
the road for centuries. In intellectual terms the task is to
complement the mathematical universalism of physics with a logic
praticular to man. New approaches based on this shift of
philosophy are today breaking into the market place, driven by
certain pressing industrial and military requirements.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
********************
