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AIList Digest Volume 6 Issue 085
AIList Digest Saturday, 30 Apr 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 85
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - AIList Lives!,
AI Tools - NETtalk Database,
Education - AI Texts & PARRY,
Applications - Graphic Design & Railroad
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Date: Fri 29 Apr 88 00:52:12-PDT
From: Ken Laws <LAWS@KL.SRI.COM>
Reply-to: AIList-Request@SRI.COM
Subject: AIList Lives!
Several people have now volunteered to take over all or part
of the AIList administrative duties. Some of the volunteers
are on Bitnet and CSNet, some are at commercial companies on
the Arpanet. I thank you all (Todd Ogaswara, Scott Corzine,
Fareed Asad-Harooni, Tracy Wells, David Smith, Kevin Whiting,
David Mittman) for the offers, but will leave any delegation
of duties to the new moderator, Nick Papadakis at AI.AI.MIT.EDU.
Nick has offered to host the list after his system wizard gets
over the chicken pox. I'm sure Nick will do a great job, and
MIT offers an excellent environment for continuing the list.
-- Ken
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 09:30:36 edt
From: terry@cs.jhu.edu (Terry Sejnowski <terry@cs.jhu.edu>)
Subject: NETtalk Database
There have many requests for the NETtalk database. A training
dictionary of 20,000 words marked with phonemes and stresses is
now available from:
Kathy Yantis
Cognitive Science Center
Johns Hopkins University
34th and Charles Streets
Baltimore, MD 21218
Please specify the media you want:
1/2" tape, 9 track
1600, 3200 or 6250 bpi
UNIX or ANSI labelled (VMS compatible)
1/4" Sun cartridge (Quick-11, TAR)
5 1/4" 1.2 MB floppy (MS-DOS)
Enclose a check or money order for $50 to cover costs made out
to: Johns Hopkins Cognitive Science Center.
Terry Sejnowski
------------------------------
Date: 28 Apr 88 02:27:05 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!tub!tmpmbx!netmbx!morus@uunet.uu.net (Thomas M.)
Subject: Re: AI texts
In article <4894@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> demers@beowulf.UUCP (David E Demers) writes:
>In article <1516@gumby.cs.wisc.edu> g-zeiden@gumby.cs.wisc.edu
(Matthew Zeidenberg) writes:
>>I'm teaching intro AI here at the Univ. of Wisconin this coming
>>summer, and I'm trying to choose a text. I'm considering Rich,
>>Winston, Nilsson and Tanimoto's books. Any opinions?
>>
>From a didactical point of view you might consider the TIME-LIFE book
"Artificial intelligence" which visualizes some of the main topics like
rule-based reasoning, learning, knowledge representations, pattern recogni-
tion. Good source for overhead-transparencies.
Some anekdotes about the "authorities" in the field too.
For the same reason - good visualization - have look at HARMON/KING
"Expert Systems" (John Wiley & Sons 1985).
For a critical look upon the ideas of KI there is DREYFUS/DREYFUS
"Mind over Machine" (The Free Press 1986).
-- Thomas Muhr
--
! Thomas Muhr Knowledge-Based Systems Dept. Technical University of Berlin !
! BITNET/EARN: muhrth@db0tui11.bitnet !
! UUCP: morus@netmbx.UUCP (Please don't use from outside Germany) !
! BTX: 030874162 Tel.: (Germany 0049) (Berlin 030) 87 41 62 !
------------------------------
Date: 11 Apr 88 13:05:41 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert@uunet.uu.net (Gilbert
Cockton)
Subject: Re: conversations?
In article <37291OK2@PSUVMB> OK2@PSUVMB.BITNET writes:
> Both PARRY and ELIZA take advantage of the tactic of predefining the
>context of the conversation (a conversation with a paranoiac, or conversation
>with a therapist) to imply real meaning to sentences the program generates from
>key words picked from the human's sentences.
If my memory is correct, PARRY was not just a program, but required a
human operator to intervene between the input from the psychiatrists
and others to whom PARRY was demonstrated, presumably doing a simple
translation from English to S-expressions :-)
------------------------------
Date: Fri Apr 29 10:24:50 EDT 1988
From: sas@BBN.COM
Subject: expert systems for graphic design?
The closest I have seen is an expert system to design business cards.
Get in touch with Ron MacNeil at the MIT Arts and Media Technology
Center for more info.
Seth
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 88 17:16:45 GMT
From: pattis@june.cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis)
Subject: Re: expert systems for graphic design?
Jock Mackinlay (sp?) wrote a thesis on under Mike Genesereth at Stanford,
about a year or two ago, that discussed a program that decided on the way
to graphically display such information.
------------------------------
Date: 26 Apr 88 03:15:43 GMT
From: ed298-ak@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Edouard Lagache)
Subject: Re: Expert Systems in the Railroad Industry (is AI needed?).
In article <73@edai.ed.ac.uk> ceb@edai (Colin Bridgewater) writes:
> Just to get my two penn'orth in, whatever happened to dynamic programming
>for scheduling, cargo-space optimisation and inventory control etc ? This
>well-worn technique is quite adequate for the majority of purposes envisaged
>by EL. I mention this to raise a wider issue which was possibly not in the
>mind of the original sender, namely that of the desire to throw ever more
>complex solution procedures at the simplest of problems....
>
> Why should we want to implement an expert system, when adequate techniques
>exist already ? That is, is the application of expert system technology
>appropriate to the magnitude and complexity of the problem ? Should we be
>advocating the application of such 'high-tech' solutions to all and sundry ?
>I have no doubt that such systems could be made to work, don't get me wrong
>on that, I just question whether the level of technology required in order to
>do so is justified. Surely it is better to apply the simplest solutions when-
>ever possible.
>
Dr. Bridgewater comments are not completely off the mark.
One reason I posted the question was to see if Expert System
methodologies might be useful in improving the performance
of conventional programming techniques by providing useful
heuristics for such tasks as switching. While, the areas
mentions can clearly be solved by brute force methods, it is
unlikely that human experts employ only those sorts of
stategies (since human cognition doesn't support large active
data structures); thus, there may be some interesting
enhancements possible on conventional programming techniques
by learning how human experts perform the tasks involved.
At the same time it is very much in keeping with Hubert
Dreyfus's comments that just railroad tasks are very
promising areas for expert systems that will outperform
human experts.
Any comments?
Edouard Lagache
The PROLOG Forum
lagache@violet.berkeley.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri Apr 29 10:30:55 EDT 1988
From: sas@BBN.COM
Subject: Re: Expert Systems in the Railroad Industry.
I know Francis Lynch worked on this system at General Electric in (I
think) upstate New York. At last count he was working for DEC out in
Marlborough, Mass. I am not 100% sure, but he might have presented a
paper at the 1983 AAAI.
Seth
------------------------------
Date: 27 Apr 88 18:48:30 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts@uunet.uu.net (Robert
Stanley)
Subject: Re: Expert Systems in the Railroad Industry.
In article <4643@cup.portal.com> tony_mak_makonnen@cup.portal.com writes:
>> What sort of expert systems have developed for the railroad
>> industry?
>
>Strangely enough, the one that I know of is a General Electric locomotive
>maintenance expert system. It was mentioned in a computer magazine and
>one of the railfanning mags. last year.
>yes and it was finally coded in Forth.
I missed the original post because our feed has been down for a while, so
can't e-mail a reply. The system referred to was D.E.L.T.A. (Diesel-
Electric Locomotive Troubleshooting Assistant), and not only was it
re-coded in FORTH, it was delivered on a pretty basic IBM-PC. An
interesting feature was that the system as installed in G.E.'s workshops
included a full set of locomotive schematics stored on optical disk, and
the user was pointed to the correct area by D.E.L.T.A. The system was not
developed in FORTH, but once the knowledge base had been completed (they
don't introduce new designs of diesel-electric locos very often) it became
feasible to build a "conventional" re-implementation. FORTH was chosen for
various technical reasons, including applicability of the stack approach,
and excellent run-time performance. The development was done in LISP on
something like a PDP-11/23. The original reference was:
Bonissone and Johnson "Expert System for Diesel Electric Locomotive
Repair" - IJCAI-83
I know that CN (Canadian National) have a small but active expert system
group, who have produced several small systems. One was a diagnostic
system for walkie-talkies (they use tens of thousands), and another was
some kind of locomotive fuel usage monitor/advisor. I haven't been in
touch with the group recently, so am not up on current work.
CAIP Co (Canadian Artificial Intelligence Products Corp) has a joint
agreement with CP Rail (Canadian Pacific) for the marketing of a lube oil
expert system.
The Transportation Development Centre (TDC) of Transport Canada in Montreal
is active in the expert system field, but I am not sure whether they have
any projects specifically for the rail sector.
The Japanese have been extremely active in this area, but I'd need to look
out a bibliography from a couple of years back for direct references.
A number of interesting systems have been developed in France, which has an
advanced railway system. The same is true in Britain, but I would have to
do some paper file searching for details. The only system which springs to
mind is British Telecomm's amazing British-Rail timetable advisor, which
used speech recognition and voice synthesis for unrestricted access via
telephone.
If the original poster wants more detailed information, please would (s)he
contact me via e-mail. My apologies for cluttering the net.
Robert_S
--
Robert Stanley - Cognos Incorporated: P.O. Box 9707, 3755 Riverside Drive
Compuserve: 76174,3024 Ottawa, Ontario K1G 3Z4, CANADA
uucp: decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts Voice: (613)738-1440(Research)
arpa/internet: roberts%cognos.uucp@uunet.uu.net FAX: (613)738-0002
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End of AIList Digest
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