Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!ucbvax.berkeley.edu!daemon From: daemon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU (The devil himself) Newsgroups: mod.techreports Subject: (none) Message-ID: <8601240707.AA14143@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 02:07:33 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8601240707.AA14143 Posted: Fri Jan 24 02:07:33 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jan-86 04:57:42 EST Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 2358 Approved: techreports@smu.csnet >From smu!leff Mon Jan 20 15:15:28 1986 remote from convex Received: by convex (4.12/4.7) id AA01284; Mon, 20 Jan 86 15:15:28 cst Received: by csevax.smu (4.12/4.7) id AA16599; Mon, 20 Jan 86 14:18:59 cst Date: Mon, 20 Jan 86 14:18:59 cst From: convex!smu!leff (Laurence Leff) Message-Id: <8601202018.AA16599@csevax.smu> To: ucbvax!post-techreports Subject: Rutgers Tech reports R U T G E R S U N I V E R S I T Y Department of Computer Science TECHNICAL REPORTS AND TECHNICAL MEMOS * * * CBM-TM-84 \4/80 \"An Experiment in Extracting Some Properties of Binary Relations" \D. Nagel \ \ \1/82 \A method of overlaying training instances generated from a database in a graph representation is used to learn definitional information about the relations in the database. An experiment is described where algebraic properties of relations such as functionality and symmetry are discovered in a simple family database using this method. Once these properties are discovered the capability for making inferences in the database is extended. The efficiency of answering queries may be improved and new insights into the data may be developed. \* CBM-TM-85 \4/80 \"Some Considerations on Extracting Definitional Information about Relations" \D. Nagel \ \ \1/82 \I. @u(Introduction) Several of the current systems in Artificial Intelligence are represented in binary relational databases and rely on the semantics of relations as a source of knowledge for information retrieval. Examples of these systems include those developed by Lindsay [5,6], Raphael [10], Elliott [2], Brown [1], and Sridharan [11]. In these systems inferences can be made from a set of properties specified for each relation. Inferences can also be made from specified associations between relations. One interesting aspect is the degree to which making these inferences can be automated. Some methods are proposed in this paper for using machine learning to extract relational properties and recognize semantic ties between relations so that this definitional information will not have to be prespecified. In some cases these methods may not technically be categorized as learning because they primarily involve summarization. It is also difficult to pin down what is encompassed by semantics. However, this paper discusses concepts of learning, and the presentation is directed at capturing semantics. Extracting definitional information or more broadly, learning semantics of relations, provides a base for the study of interesting databases. This could be done in a symbiotic system where the interaction between the researcher and the system provides a means for improving the performance of the system in general and obtaining new insights in the scientific data. It could also be coupled with a system for automatic theory formation. Presently, applications using semantics of relations for making inferences have been most successful in areas where properties and relationships are well understood such as kinship relations. \* CBM-TM-86 \5/80 \"Representational Facilities of AIMDS: A Sampling" \N.S. Sridharan \ \ \1/82 \I. @u(Introduction) The quest for fundamental and general mechanisms of intelligence, especially problem solving and heuristic search techniques, that guided early research in Artificial Intelligence has given way in the last decade to the search for equally fundamental and general methods for structuring and representing knowledge. This is the result of the realization that a duality exists between knowledge and search: Knowledge of the task domain can abbreviate search and search thru a problem space can yield new knowledge. AIMDS is one of the recently developed systems which permits experimentation with knowledge representation in the course of building an AI program. \* CBM-TM-87 \6/80 \"The Role of Object Knowledge in Human Planning" \C.F. Schmidt \ \ \1/82 \AI research on planning provides an important reference point from which the cognitive psychologist can build an understanding of human planning. It is argued that the human planning context differs from this reference point due to the incomplete knowledge that persons typically possess about the situation within which the plan will be executed. Various types of general functional knowledge about objects are then defined. This knowledge serves as a source of default assumptions for use in the planning process, and thus allows planning to continue despite the absence of complete knowledge of the planning situation. However, such assumption-based expectations must be tested. From this point of view, planning must also include a process for a kind of hypothesis testing and plan revision. The implications of this claim are briefly discussed. \* CBM-TM-88 \9/80 \"Initial Thoughts on Characterization of Expert Systems" \S. Amarel \ \ \1/82 \Expertise in a given domain is commonly characterized by skillful, high performance, problem solving activity in the domain. An expert solves problems in a domain more rapidly, more accurately, and with less conscious deliberation about his plan of attack than a novice does. An excellent discussion of general characteristics of expert behavior appears in a recent article in @u(Science) by Larkin et al. [1]. Expert behavior is equivalent to high performance problem solving behavior in a specific domain. It requires: knowledge of the domain, knowledge of problem solving schemas and methods, knowledge/experience about solution of specific problems in the domain with given methods, knowledge about special properties and regularities in the problem space, and highly effective ways of @u(using) all these bodies of knowledge in approaching the solution of new problems in the domain. Essentially, expert problem solving requires the conceptualization/formulation of a given problem within a framework wherein knowledge is embodied in definitions of states, moves, constraints, evaluation functions, etc. in such a way that solutions are attained with very little search. In other words, an expert problem solver works within a highly 'appropriate' problem representation: he describes situations and problem types within 'appropriate'conceptual frameworks, he specifies problem decompositions that minimize subproblem interactions, he often uses hierarchies of abstractions in his planning, he uses 'macromoves' where a novice would painstakingly have to piece together elementary moves, and he has rules for early recognition of unpromising as well as of promising developments. An expert problem solver behaves as if the great variety of knowledge sources needed for his solution-construction activities are available to him in a @u(compiled) procedural form. Usually, expertise in a domain requires @u(problem solving experience) in the domain. One can be scholar in a domain, and not an expert--if he does not know how to effectively @u(apply) domain knowledge to a variety of specific situations. Also, expertise implies a certain amount of robustness in performance-- which means that it is not sufficient to know how to handle a few 'textbook' cases; it is important to be able to handle a broad range of variations. \* CBM-TM-89 \3/81 \"Review of Characteristics of Current Expert Systems*" \S. Amarel \ \ \1/82 \This report does not cover all current work in the area of Expert systems. It is intended to introduce a set of dimensions for characterizing Expert systems and to describe some of the important Expert systems that are now in existence (or are under active development) in terms of these dimensions. We have a dual purpose: (a) to illustrate via concrete examples the dimensions that are being introduced, and (b) to show what is the current state of the field from the perspective of this system of dimensions. We are using here ten main dimensions, and an optional eleventh called @ux(Special Features), which provides added flexibility for the presentation of relevant information about a system. Two of the main dimensions, @ux(Performance) and @ux(Utility), are concerned with the quality of the system's behavior and the impact of the system on the domain of application and on AI. Another two dimensions are concerned with the system's scope, its ability to handle situations that are outside its area of major expertise, and its ability to improve: they are called @u(Breadth, Intelligence, Robustness) and @u(Expertise improvement ability). The remaining six dimensions are concerned with the type of tasks performed by the system, its structure and its means of interacting with users: they are called @u(Task type, Main Method, Mode of Knowledge Representation, User Interface for main task, Explanation facilities) and @u(Reasoning under Uncertainty). The systems considered are DENDRAL, CASNET/GLAUCOMA, MACSYMA, MYCIN, INTERNIST, PROSPECTOR and CRYSALIS. *This report covers material which was prepared for inclusion in the Chapter 'What are Expert Systems' (co-authored with Ron Brachman, Carl Engelman, Robert Engelmore, Edward Feigenbaum and David Wilkins) of a book on Expert Systems which is currently under preparation; the book is based on the Rand Workshop on Expert Systems which took place in San Diego, California on August 25-28, 1980. \* CBM-TM-90 \3/81 \"A Precedence Scheme for Selection and Explanation of Therapies" \John Kastner Sholom M. Weiss \ \ \1/82 \A general scheme to aid in the selection of therapies is described. A topological sorting procedure within a general production rule representation is introduced. The procedure is used to choose among competing therapies on the basis of precedence rules. This approach has a degree of naturalness that lends itself to automatic explanation of the choices made. A system has been implemented using this approach to develop an expert system for planning therapies for patients diagnosed as having ocular herpes simples. An abstracted example of the system's output on an actual case is given. \* CBM-TM-91 \3/81 \"A System for Empherical Experimentation with Expert Knowledge \ P. Politakis S.M. Weiss \ \ \1/82 \An approach to the acquisition of expert knowledge is presented based on the comparison of dual sources of knowledge: expert-modeled rules and cases with known conclusions. A system called SEEK has been implemented to give to the expert interactive advice about rule refinement. SEEK uses a simple frame model for expressing expert-modeled rules. The advice takes the form of suggestions of possible experiments in generalizing or specializing rules in the model. This approach has proven particularly valuable in assisting the expert in domains where two diagnoses are difficult to distinguish. Examples are given from an expert consultation system being developed for rheumatology. \* CBM-TM-92 (new) \10/81 \Knowledge-Based Acquisition of Rules for Medical Diagnosis \C. Kulikowski, G. Drastal \ \ \1/82\Medical consultation systems in the EXPERT framework contain rules written under the guidance of expert physicians. We present a methodology and preliminary implementation of a system which learns compiled rule chains from positive case examples of a diagnostic class and negative examples of alternative diagnostic classes. Rule acquisition is guided by the constraints of physiological process models represented in the system. Evaluation of the system is proceeding in the area of glaucoma diagnosis, and an example of an experiment in this domain is included. \* CBM-TM-93 \1/82 \AIMDS: Applications and Performance Enhancements \N.S. Sridharan \ \ \1/82 \AIMDS is a programming environment (language, editors, display drivers, file system) in which several programs are being constructed for modeling commonsense reasoning and legal argumentation. The main obstacle to realistic applications in these and other areas is system performance when the knowledge bases used are scaled up one or two orders of magnitude. The other obstacle is user performance resulting from the complexity of constructing and debugging large scale knowledge bases. This proposal argues that performance enhancement of AIMDS as a system is needed and that the usual solutions of software tuning have been exhausted and that new hardware ideas fitted to the characteristics of the task need to be experimented with. We adopt as important constraints: the requirement that existing programs should receive graded enhancement of performance, maintaining continuity of application programs; that user programs should not reflect changing machine configurations or architectures. Redesign and recoding of AIMDS should provide the necessary opacity to the user. With these constraints in mind, we suggest interim solutions and long-term solutions. The interim solutions include: converting large-address space personal Lisp machines with bit-mapped graphics; fast coding of low-level functionalities via microprogramming. The long-term solutions include the building and testing of multiprocessors. The long-term solutions open up a number of rather difficult software and hardware research problems whose solutions depend upon having good facilities to experiment in the search for answers. \* CBM-TM-94 \9/82 \"The AIMDS Interactive Command-Parser" \B. Lantz \ \ \9/82 \Characters entered by the user are parsed immediately in order to provide interactive services to the user while he is entering comands. Services provided to the user include immediate verification of syntax, supplying the user with information about the correct syntax and semantics of a command, completion of long descriptive atom names, pretty printing the entered command, and defining special functions for selected characters. The parser accepts user defined grammars, thus providing a useful command parser for a great variety of applications. \* CBM-TM-95 \9/82 \"The AIMDS On-Line Documentation Facility" \B. Lantz \ \ \9/82 \The documentation system for the AIMDS language is designed to be suitable for both beginning and expert users, and to be capable of serving the needs of a changing system such as AIMDS. The documentation must be quickly and easily updatable, and the updated information should be available to, and easily used by, a wide variety of users. This paper is a short description of the documentation system for the AIMDS language. It includes a discussion of the considerations taken during the design of the documentation system, a description of the implemented system, and instructions for using the system for other documentation tasks. \* CBM-TM-96 \9/82 \"Implementing Aimds on a Multiprocessor Machine. Some Considerations" \J. Roach N.S. Sridharan \ \ \4/83 \As a possible long term solution for performanc enhancement of AIMDS, a Lisp based multiprocessor system was proposed. Converting an existing AI knowledge based system from the current uniprocessor environment into a multiprocessor based regime is a largely unexplored research question. This report discusses some of the issues raised by such a proposal and attempts to evaluate some of the current models of parallel processing in regards to implementing an AIMDS based system. An extensive bibliography with commentary is included. \* CBM-TM-97 \1/82 \"Knowledge-Based Acquisition of Rule for Medical Diagnosis" \George A. Drastal Casimir A. Kulikowski \11/82 \ \ \Medical consultation systems in the EXPERT framework contain rules written under the guidance of expert physicians. We present a methodology and preliminary implementation of a system that learns compiled rule chains from positive case examples of a diagnostic class and negative examples of alternative diagnostic classes. Rule acquisition is guided by the constraints of physiological process models represented in the system. Evaluation of the system is proceeding in the area of glaucoma diagnosis, and an example of an experiment in this domain is included. \* CBM-TR-94 \5/81 Revised \"A Guide to the Use of the EXPERT Consultation System" \S. Weiss K. Kern C. Kulikowski M. Uschold \ \ \1/82 \EXPERT is a system for designing and applying consultation models. An EXPERT model consists of hypotheses (conclusions), findings (observations), and rules for logically relating findings to hypotheses. Three phases of model development are outlined for users of the system. These include: the design of a decision-making model, compilation of the model, and consultation using the model. The facilities of the system are described, and examples of models and consultation sessions are presented. \* CBM-TR-107 \1/80 \"Description Languages and Learning Algorithms: A Paradigm for Comparison" \R. Banerji T. Mitchell \ \@u(Keywords:) Inductive inference, learning, generalization, description languages. \ \1/82 \We propose and apply a framework for comparing various methods for learning descriptions of classes of objects given a set of training exemplars. Such systems may be usefully characterized in terms of their descriptive languages, and the learning algorithms they employ. The basis for our characterization and comparison is a general-to-specific partial ordering over the description language, which allows characterizing learning algorithms independent of the description language with which they are associated. Two existing learning systems are characterized within this framework, and correspondences between them made clear. \* CBM-TR-108 (NOT ISSUED) \"Plausible Inference in a Structured Concept Space" \ \ \ \1/82 \ \* CBM-TR-109 \5/80 \"The Role of World Knowledge in Planning" \N.S. Sridharan C.F. Schmidt J.L. Goodson \ \ \1/82 \Common-sense planning demands a rich variety of world knowledge. We have examined here the view that world knowledge can be structured to form the interface between a hierarchy of action types and a hierarchy of types of objects. World knowledge forming this interface includes not only the traditional statements about preconditions and outcomes of actions, but also the normal states of objects participating in the actions and normative actions associated with the objects. Common-sense plans are decomposed into goal-directed, preparation, and the normative components. This has heuristic value and may serve to simplify the planning algorithm. The algorithm invokes world knowledge for goal customization, action specification, computation of preconditions and outcomes, object selection, and for setting up subgoals. \* CBM-TR-110 \5/80 \"An Experimental Transformation of a Large Expert Knowledge-Base" \R.N. Goldberg S.M. Weiss \ \ \1/82 \An experiment is described in which a significant part of the INTERNIST knowledge base for diagnosis in internal medicine is translated into an EXPERT model. INTERNIST employs the largest and broadest knowledge base of all the medical consultation systems which have been developed in recent years. EXPERT is a general system for designing consultation models. The translated model shows reasonable competence in the final diagnostic classification of 431 test cases. There are differences in the internal representation and reasoning strategies of the two systems. However, when a knowledge base has been encoded in a relatively uniform manner, this experiment demonstrates the feasibility of transfer of knowledge between large-scale expert systems. \* CBM-TR-111 \6/80 \"A Process for Evaluating Tree-Consistency" \J.L. Goodson \ \ \1/82 \General knowledge about conceptual classes represented in a concept hierarchy can provide a basis for various types of inferences about an individual. However, the various sources of inference may not lead to a consistent set of conclusions about the individual. This paper provides a brief glimpse at how we represent beliefs about specific individuals and conceptual knowledge, discusses some of the sources of inference we have defined, and describes procedures and structures that can be used to evaluate agreement among sources whose conclusions can be viewed as advocating various values in a tree partition of alternate values. \* CBM-TR-112 \9/80 \"A Methodology for the Construction of Natural Language Front Ends for Medical Consultation Systems" \V. Ciesielski \ \ \1//82 \A methodology for constructing natural language front ends for Associational Knowledge type (AK-type) medical consultation systems is described. AK-type consultation systems use associational knowledge of the form "if A and B and C then conclude D with a weight of w" to perform diagnostic reasoning. It is shown that the knowledge needed to "understand" patient description is not the associational knowledge in the consultation system but rather knowledge of structural relations and the way they are expressed in surface language. The two main structural relations involved are: (1) ATTRIBUTE of OBJECT = VALUE. Surface forms of this relation are variants and augmentations of the template "The X of Y is V". (2) OBJECT have-component COMPONENT. Surface forms of this relation are variants and augmentations of the template "The X has/contains/includes Y". This kind of knowledge can be represented in the Attribute-Component/Structured Object (AC/SO) package which was developed as part of this research. The AC/SO package is given a definition of the @u(concept) "PATIENT" for a disease area and the corresponding lexicon. \* CBM-TR-113 \9/80 \"Designing Consistent Knowledge Bases: An Knowledge Acquisition" Approach to Expert \P. Politakis \S. Weiss \ \ \3/82 \This paper reports on an empirical evaluation approach to assist in the acquisition of expert knowledge for high performance knowledge-based consultation systems. A framework is provided by a general consultation system EXPERT and a tabular scheme for acquiring expert decision rules. Two levels of abstraction are identified in the knowledge acquisition process: logical analysis of the tables and expectation-driven analysis of the knowledge base. Possible ways of recognizing redundancy and "gaps" in knowledge within a table are illustrated. Tools are described which facilitate the recognition of potential problems in the knowledge base. These include the extraction of incorrectly diagnosed cases organized by their known conclusions; the grouping of rules with a tabulation of their utility on all cases; and the determination of the impact of rule changes on all cases. Possible approaches to learning and modifying rules in the knowledge base are described. \* CBM-TR-114 \9/80 \"Learning Problem-Solving Heuristics by Experimentation" \T. Mitchell P. Utgoff R. Banerji \ \ \1/82 \This paper concerns building heuristic problem solvers capable of improving their performance through experience. Specifically, we consider improving performance by learning domain-specific heuristics for directing the problem solving search. Each heuristic characterizes conditions under which a specific operator will be useful in leading to problem solutions. The discussion takes the form of a progress report on the design of a computer program, called LEX, to acquire problem solving heuristics by experimentation. LEX is designed to (1) propose practice problems, (2) attempt to solve them, (3) analyze the steps it performed in solving the problem, then (4) formulate domain-specific heuristics designed to improve its performance on subsequent problems. The major results reported here are an initial design for LEX in the domain of symbolic integration, a hand trace illustrating its operation, and an analysis of the successes and failures of this initial design. \* CBM-TR-115 \9/80 \"Plan Recognition and Revision: Understanding Another Actor" the Observed Actions of \C.F. Schmidt \ \1/82 \@u(Introduction) In Heider's (l959) classic work in cognitive social psychology he developed the claim that a naive or comonsense theory of social causation underlies our understanding of the observed actions of others. Heider arrived at this conclusion largely by carefully considering the systematic ways in which linguistic terms that refer to persons and actions are used. More recently philosophers, linguists, logicians, and computer scientists in the area of artificial intelligence have contributed to our understanding of the relations between the concepts that we use to describe behavior from an intentional point of view. This includes terms such as can, believe, know, want, and the various verbs of action. These investigations alert us to the structure of intentional terms but tell us nothing about the processes that are involved in using these intentional concepts to understand and describe the actions of others. Process models of knowledge-directed cognitive tasks such as action understanding can be constructed, evaluated, and tested if we adapt the tools of AI research to this task. \* CBM-TR-116 \10/80 \"FOCUSER: A Strategic Interaction Paradigm for Language Acquisition" \D. Smith \ \ \1/82 \FOCUSER learns language: it acquires lexicon, syntax, and semantics from a cooperative teacher using a strategic interaction paradigm. The system uses knowledge of teaching/learning strategies to establish and maintain the foci of the interaction. This paper presents several focusing mechanisms and demonstrates the use of these mechanisms in a teaching/learning environment. \* CBM-TR-117 \5/80 \The Need for Biases in Learning Generalizations" \T.M. Mitchell \ \ \1/82 \The ability to make an appropriate "inductive leap" when generalizing from a small set of @u(training) instances is possible only under a priori biases for choosing an appropriate generalization out of the many possible. Understanding the origins and justification of such biases is critical to further progress in the field of machine learning. The notion of an UNbiased learner is defined, then the notion of bias, its usefulness, and some classes of justifiable biases are considered. \* CBM-TR-118 \2/81 \"Problems of Representation in Heuristic Problem Solving; Related Issues in the Development of Expert Systems" \S. Amarel \ \ \1/82 \The problem of representation in problem solving is concerned with the choice of formulation of a problem for a system which is organized in accordance with a given problem solving schema. Key issues are: (a) understanding the relationships between such a choice and the efficiency with which the system can be expected to find a solution to the problem; (b) finding ways of choosing an 'appropriate' problem formulation -- from the point of view of minimizing the computational effort needed to construct a solution; and (c) finding ways of shifting from one problem formulation to another in a manner that increases problem solving performance. Progress in this difficult area has been stimulated in recent years by work on expert systems and by related research on theory formation and expertise acquisition. In this paper, a conceptual framework is presented for handling problem representations. The grammatical specification of solutions for a problem class plays an important role in this framework. A detailed analysis of representational shifts in a specific class of problems -- the Tower of Hanoi problems -- is presented in terms of the proposed framework. Ten formulations of this class of problems are considered in the context of production, reduction and relaxed reduction schemas of problem solving. Possible developmental paths for moving between these formulations are explored. The emphasis is on an analysis of the acquisition and transformation of various bodies of knowledge that are components of problem formulations, and on the characterization of problems encountered in trying to mechanize knowledge transformations that lead to problem formulations of increased power. \* CBM-TR-119 \4/81 \"Reasoning by Default" \N.S. Sridharan C.F. Schmidt J.L. Goodson \ \ \1/82 \Plausible reasoning is used on many occasions when deductive reasoning fails. One form of such reasoning permits making assumptions that are consistent with what is known provided there is support for it. Support refers to the availability of a default rule whose prerequisites are true or believable. In this paper we relate a concept hierarchy to default theories, advance several @ux(principles of default rule formulation) and discuss how these principles may be partially ordered by their @u(permissiveness). \* CBM-TR-120 \4/81 \"A Bibliography on Machine Learning" \B. Nudel P. Utgoff \ \ \1/82 \The following is a bibliography on machine learning. It is structured by having references labelled with pointers to one or more of a set of six categories from which we make a taxonomy of the field. We exclude, or de-emphasize, areas where extensive bibliographies already exist, such as induction of numerical discriminants (pattern recognition), the adaptive system approach to learning (within control theory), and data interpolation and approxmation by curve fitting (within numerical analysis). \* CBM-TR-121 \6/81 \"Developing Microprocessor Based Expert Models Instrument Interpretation" \S. Weiss C.A. Kulikowski R. Galen \ \ \1/82 \We describe a scheme for developing expert interpretive systems and transferring them to a microprocessor environment. The scheme has been successfully implemented and tested by producing a program for interpreting results from widely used medical laboratory instrument: a scanning densitometer. Specialists in the field of serum protein electrophoresis analysis provided the knowledge needed to build an interpretive model using EXPERT, a general production rule system for developing consultation models. By constraining a few of the structures used in the general model, it was possible to develop procedures for automatically translating the model to a specialized application program and then to a microprocessor assembly language program. Thus, the model development can take place on a large machine, using established techniques for capturing and conveniently updating expert knowledge structures, while the final interpretive program can be targeted to a microprocessor depending on the application. Our experience in carrying out the complete process illustrates many of the requirements involved in taking an expert system from its early development phase to actual implementation and use in a real world application. \* CBM-TR-122 \7/81 \"A Research Strategy for Computational Studies of Event and Action Perception" \N.S. Sridharan J.L. Goodson C.F. Schmidt \ \ \1/82 \An initial step towards an information processing theory of human event and action perception can be taken by defining the computational problem constructing a framework in which plausible processes and representations can be explored. The problem of event and action perception is defined as moving from a sequence of "images," descriptions of objects and their positions, into representations of changes, movements, events, and actions. A computational framework for exploring various expectation and data-driven process disciplines is proposed. This framework addresses two problems of choice posed to the human information processing system: 1) the @b[selection] of observations; and 2) the selection of @b[grain] or levels of representation. \* CBM-TR-123 \9/81 \"An Interactive Planner that Creates a Structured, Annotated Trace of its Operation" \John Bresina \ \ \3/82 \This report presents a planning system which is capable of performing commonsense reasoning in incompletely specified real world domains. The major focus is on the plan generation/extension component - PLANX10 which makes plausible assumptions, is capable of being restarted, and is guided by plan critics and/or interactively by the user. PLANX10 creates and uses an explicit structured, annotated trace of its planning process. \* CBM-TR-124 \ll/81 \"Common Virtual Arrays in PDP-11 Fortran: An Exercise in Software Engineering" \R. Schwanke \ \ \1/82 \DEC has added @i(virtual arrays) to RSX-11 Fortran-IV-Plus, as a means of allowing user programs to contain more than 32K words of code and data. However, these arrays may not be used in COMMON or EQUIVALENCE statements, which severely limits their usefulness. The Expert consultation system at Rutgers ran headlong into the 32K word limit when it was transported from a DECSystem-20 to a PDP-11/60 running RSX-11M. This provided the impetus to make virtual arrays more useful. I describe a simple program which, in combination with existing DEC software and a simple programming standard, makes virtual arrays behave as if they resided in an unnamed COMMON block of virtual storage. The mechanism imposes no additional run time overhead. This technique is an example of modifying a language by means of simple auxiliary processors, and of applying software engineering principles to a severely constrained program adaptation problem. \* CBM-TR-125 ALSO LISTED AS LRP-TR-12 \11/81 \"Representing Knowledge in AIMDS: Introduction using TAXMAN Examples" \N.S. Sridharan \ \ \1/82 \This report begins with a quick overview of artificial intelligence; and come to focus on the idea of knowledge as being the essence of how our intelligence operates. Representation of knowledge in a machine is the sytematic expression of knowledge as for representing knowledge as symbol structures. The remaining sections illustrate the facilities, of the language AIMDS, for representing knowledge in a machine. Examples and illustrations are drawn from the TAXMAN application, so that you will see some representation of legal concepts and facts. The main representations are of objects, object classes, intension and extension of classes, class hierarchies, state changes, actions and patterns of actions forming action hierarchies. These are the elements of a "logical template" representation of those concepts of law that are precise unambiguous. The report is aimed at a multi-disciplinary audience comprised of logicians, philosophers, lawyers, politicians and computer scientists, who gathered for a conference, "Logica, Informatica, Diritto" [Logic, Informatics and Law] in Florence, Italy held in April 1981. Therefore, I have tried to keep my presentation at a very simple level. My purpose will be served if I arouse enough interest in you that you will follow up the newly developing field of Artificial Intelligence. \* CBM-TR-126 \2/82 \"Expert Behavior and Problem Representations" \S. Amarel \ \ \1/82 \Expert behavior is characterized by high-performance problem solving behavior in a specific domain. Commonly, this type of behavior requires the conceptualization/formulation of a given problem within a highly 'appropriate' representational framework - where 'appropriateness' refers to a computational efficiency, and it is task specific. The problem of how to choose an 'appropriate' problem formulation and how to change it to fit the characteristics of a task, is it at the heart of the problem of problem representations in AI. In this paper, relationships between characteristics of 'intelligent expert' systems and developmental processes of problem reformulation are discussed. The nature of problem reformulation sequences is explored in the context of expertise acquisition in the domain of Tower of Hanoi problems. Our work suggests that 'intelligent expert' systems must have available large amounts of knowledge of various kinds - both domain independent and domain specific; they must have the ability to maintain several alternative formulations of a problem class and to move among them in a flexible manner as required by the specific problem on hand; and they must be able to perform a variety of theory formation and program synthesis tasks in order to improve their performance with experience. \* CBM-TR-127 \3/82 \"Plan Formation in Large, Realistic Domains" \N.S. Sridharan and J.L. Bresina \ \ \3/82 \In this paper we focus on the engineering issue of how a planning system may be organized to work effectively in large and realistic task domains. We consider three aspects of this issue: (i) generating and manipulating large and complex plans, (ii) handling large and complex knowledge bases, and (iii) operating with an incomplete knowledge base and/or world model. A knowledge description formalism is introduced, which allows a rule base to be well-structured for efficient retrieval by inheritance. An interactive planning system, PLANX10, is described which builds an explicit plan graph, that allows interactive guidance, plan refinement and revision. \* CBM-TR-128 \9/82 \"Evolution of a Plan Generation System" \NS Sridharan JL Bresina CF Schmidt \ \ \9/82 \We begin by discussing the role of a plan generation system in a plan recognition process. A planning system in this context should be able to plan robustly despite the absence of specific plan relevant knowledge, making assumptions where appropriate, be capable of revising plans and be able to make no more committments to specifics than needed. Three plan generators (PGEN, PLANX10, and PLANX10-D), forming stages in the evolution, are described and critiqued. The sequence moves toward plan representations supporting greater flexibility and modularity of the planner's control structure, containing appropriate information (annotations, constraint descriptions and ordered description spaces) to enable plan revision. Out of this emerges a set of uniform plan modification operators usable for plan generation as well as plan revision. We then discuss briefly plan execution monitoring and revision within this framework. \* CBM-TR-129 \9/82 \"A Future for Knowledge Representation Systems" \N.S. Sridharan \ \ \9/82 \ \* CBM-TR-130 \1/83 \"Using Empirical Analysis to Refine Expert System Knowledge Bases" \P.G. Politakis \ \ \11/82 \This thesis describes a system that provides a unified design framework for building and empirically verifying an expert system knowledge base. SEEK is a system which gives interactive advice about rule refinement during the design of an expert system. The advice takes the form of suggestions for possible experiments in generalizing or specializing rules in a model of reasoning rules produced by an expert. Case experience, in the form of stored cases with known conclusions, is used to interactively guide the expert in refining the rules of a model. This approach is most effective when a model of the expert's knowledge is relatively accurate and small changes in the model may improve performance. The system is interactive; we rely on the expert to focus the system on those experiments that appear to be most consistent with his domain knowledge. The design framework of SEEK consists of a tabular model for expressing expert-derived rules and a general consultation system for applying a model to specific cases. The system has been used in building large-scale expert medical consultation systems, with examples taken from an expert consultation model for the diagnosis of rheumatic diseases. \* CBM-TR-131 \10/82 \"Multiple Strategies of Reasoning for Expert Systems" \Yao Yuchuan Casimir A. Kulikowski \ \ \11/82 \In expert systems the heuristics used for combining the weight of evidence can be based on probabilistic, fuzzy set, or subjective confidence factors. Although the underlying assumptions for each of the methods differ, it can be shown that there are correspondences between them and that it is possible to develop a model of expert reasoning for medical consultation using any one of the methods. We have developed a system for representing expert knowledge, called ESMES which is an outgrowth of the EXPERT scheme developed earlier at Rutgers. ESMES allows the use of alternative strategies in the solution of a consultation problem. In this paper we report on the performance of ESMES for a prototype glaucoma consultation model, using reasoning mechanisms similar to those of the EXPERT, MYCIN, INTERNIST I, and PROSPECTOR systems. \* CBM-TR-132 \9/82 \"Treatment Selection and Explanation in Expert Medical Consultation: Application to a Model of Ocular Herpes Simplex" \John K. Kastner Sholom M. Weiss Casimir A. Kulikowski \11/82 \ \ \This paper describes a general scheme for use in expert consultation systems to aid in the selection of therapies. The scheme consists of a topological sorting procedure within a general production rule representation. The procedure is used to choose among competing therapies on the basis of precedence rules. This approach has a degree of naturalness that lends itself to automatic explanation of the choices made. An expert system for planning therapies for patients diagnosed as having ocular herpes simplex has been implemented using this approach. Examples of the system's output on actual cases are given. \* CBM-TR-133 \7/83 \"Knowledge Structures for a Modular Planning System" \N.S. Sridharan \J.L. Bresina \ \ \7/83 \In this paper, we discuss knowledge structures used in a modular system for user-interactive planning in realistic task domains. A theme which is reflected throughout the paper is the policy of developing common representations useful in many modules of the planning system. We believe thse representations will be useful in other Artificial Intelligence systems with similar demands on knowledge and reasoning skills. We present uniform representations for (i) descriptions of objects and actions, including partial and indefinite descriptions, (ii) world knowledge of task domains, (iii) a trace of the planning process which includes alternate solutions, and (iv) an organizational mechanism for both the world knowledge as well as the knowledge gathered during the planning process (e.g., the constraints among the objects and actions contained in a plan solution). \* CBM-TR-134 \7/83 \"A Mechanism for the Management of Partial and Indifinite Descriptions" \N.S. Sridharan \J.L. Bresina \ \ \7/83 \Schemes of knowledge representation are designed to represent definite and indefinite descriptions. We relate here our experieince in using partial and indefinite descriptions of actions and objects arising in a planner. We identify three sources of indefinite descriptions: (i) need to refer to objects and actions that are yet unrealized (even in a complete world model, (ii) the incompleteness of the world model, and (iii) the need for the planner to postpone choices by expressing constraints on the selection of objects and the sequencing of actions. We demonstrate a uniform mechanism for the representation of descriptions that allows computing referents, maintaining co-references and the detection of inconsistent indefinite descriptions. The mechanism allows the grouping of object and action descriptions, structured by @i[specificity] and equivalence relationships. It is hoped that our experiencxe may be valuable to anyone concerend with knowledge representation, whether it is applied to planning, natural language processing, knowledge acquisition, or expert system engineering. \* CBM-TR-135 \10/83 \"Program Synthesis as a Theory Formation Task-- Problem Representations and Solution Method" \Saul Amarel \ \ \10/83 \This paper is concerned with theory formation processes in the context of a program synthesis task. The problem is to synthesize a program, in a given programming language, that satisfies a given set of input-output data associations in the domain of finite partially ordered structures. The associations are presented in a data-space, and the possible solutions/programs, i.e., the programming language, define a program-space. Several formulations of the theory formation problem are presented. The movement to formulations of higher effectiveness involves structuring of program-space in a way that facilitates links to be established with data-space, and increasing the amount of reasoning that takes place in data-space. The role of models (algebraic, geometric) is extremely important in the strong problem formulations. Three main approaches are discussed. The first two were developed in previous work: One is based on heuristic hill climbing in program-space; and the second is more goal-oriented, and it involves "navigation" in program-space under the guidance of an algebraic model. Work on the third approach is more recent, and it is based on detailed reasoning in data-space. Two methods are presented in connection with the data-driven approach: a combination method and an elimination method. By shifting the reasoning towards the data-space, several interesting domain-dependent problems of concept specialization and generalization are encountered. Basic AI issues that are identified, and on which more work is needed, include: the formation of macromoves in "appropriate" representations of program-space and data-space; development of methods for combining "partially correct" programs, and for modifying "almost correct" programs; and exploring the interplay between the choice of a domain of a theory and the formation of an "interesting" theory for the domain. \* CBM-TR-136 \"Strategies for Expert Consultation in Therapy Planning" \John. Karl Kastner \ \ \1/84 \This thesis deals with the problem of designing tools for building consultation systems for therapy planning. In the past, several therapy planning systems have been developed for which the necessary code was specially crafted for a particular problem or a paticular domain. In contrast, this work presents a set of procedures that have been found to be useful in the development of consultation models for several different problems in several different domains. In addition, the procedures are applicable to a general class of problems known as "classification problems". \* CBM-TR-137/LCSR-TR-53 \3/84 \N.S. Sridharan J.L. Bresina \ \ \3/84 \The problem solving ability of an AI program is critically dependent on the nature of the symbolic formulation of the problem given to the program. Improvement in performance of the problem solving program can be made not only by improving the strategy of directing search but also by shifting the problem formulation to a more appropriate form. Certain formulations are more amenable to incremental acquisition of problem solving strategy than others. With this in mind, an @i{extensible problem reduction method} is developed that allows @i{incremental strategy construction}. The overall objective of our present research is to study strategy acquisition and problem reformulation for planning problems. We illustrate the combined use of @i{analytical} and @i{empirical} methods. We demonstrate @i{Case Study} and @i{Plan Recognition} as techniques that permit improvement of problem solving strategy using @i{single} problem instances. The work we propose here builds on our earlier work on Plan Recognition and on Plan Generation. CBM-TR-138 \5/84 \"Hardware Fault Diagnosis & Expert Systems" \Allen Ginsberg \ \ \5/84 \Recent research in Expert Systems has begun to deal with problem domains that do not fit into the "classification problem" mode, the latter being the sort of problems that have been most amenable to Expert System technology. Hardware Fault Diagnosis(HFD) is an example of such a problem domain. Problems in HFD typically involve a "localization" problem as a component, i.e., @i[where] is the location of the fault? This paper takes a critical look at some current work in HFD, viz. Genesereth, Davis, with a view towards determining the differences between classification and localization problems that are likely to necessitate new approaches to knowledge representation and acquisition if Expert Systems are to be sucessful in such a domain. \* CBM-TR-139 \5/84 \"Localization Problems and Expert Systems" \Allen Ginsberg \ \ \5/84 \Expert systems approaches to problem solving have recently had enormous success and influence in the field of AI. The most successful of these systems tend to deal with a certain kind of problem type which have been called "classification problems." Very recently, we have seen the emergence of a number of expert systems that deal with a different category of problem, a category that I will call "localization problems." The purpose of this paper is to characterize this class of problems, contrast it with the classification problem category, give some examples of localization problems, and suggest some new avenues for expert system research dealing with problems in this category. \* CBM-TR-140 \5/84 \"Investigations in the Mathematical Theory of Problem Space Representations and Problem Solving Methods" \Allen Ginsberg \ \ \5/84 \In this paper I address the issue of how a system that has the ability to do problem solving and planning - in the sense of being in possession of generalized schemas or templates for carrying out these activities - can know whether a particular type of planning or, if you will, problem solving strategy, is a "good" one to employ in solving problems in a particular domain? It seems to me that, in general, in order to make such judgements in a reasonable fashion a problem solver must either be in possession of some general theoretical facts concerning the nature and structure of problem types, i.e., a theory of problem types, or at the very least, have been programmed by someone having such a theory. This paper is a step in the direction of constructing such a theory. The structure of the paper is as follows. First I discuss the nature of problem solving and planning in general, and give a preliminary description of a particular planning template. Next I describe and illustrate a mathematical framework within which one can formulate problem representations. Finally I deal with the question of what facts about the structure of a problem representation are relevant to the determination of whether or not the aforementioned planning template is applicable to the problem at hand. \* CBM-TR-141 \5/84 \"Representation & Problem Solving: Theoretical Foundations" \Allen Ginsberg \ \ \10/84 \The word "representation" and its cognates is probably the most popular word in AI today. If anything qualifies as "the fundamental assumption of AI," it is probably the view that intelligence is essentially the ability to construct and manipulate symbolic @i[representations] of some "reality" in order to achieve desired ends. Furthermore, probably every researcher in AI would agree that the key to AI's success lies with the general area known as "knowledge representation." This point of view has been buttressed not only by the failures of early "general purpose" AI systems, but much more so by the recent success of expert systems. The philosophy behind the expert systems approach is one that has, rightfully come to infect the entire field of AI: intelligence essentially depends upon the ability to @i[represent] and store a potentially vast amount of knowledge in ways that enable it to be easily accessed and utilized in the performance of various tasks. The key concept here is @i[representation]. Given the fact that AI has come to embrace these doctrines, and the likelihood that there is a good deal of truth in them, it is incumbent upon us to examine their foundations, for better or for worse. It would be nice to have answers to questions such as What is a representation?, When are two or more representations representations of the same or different real world situations?, What are the ways in which representations can be "manipulated?" It would be even nicer if the answers to such questions were provided by a general formal theory of representation. In this paper I attempt to lay some of the groundwork for such a theory, with emphasis on the role of representation in problem solving. \* CBM-TR-142 \5/84 \"A Model for Automated Theory Formation for Problem Solving Systems" \A. Ginsberg \ \ \5/84 \The goal of this paper is to contribute towards the understanding and eventual mechanization of the processes whereby an @i[intelligent] problem solver @i[learns] to improve its performance in a given task domain by formulating and using @i[theories] regarding that domain. In order to achieve this goal it is necessary for us, as designers of such a system, to have a fairly good idea of a) the various sorts of knowledge that are required for a problem solver to acquire new knowledge that will hopefully improve performance, and of b) how each of these types or sources of knowledge comes into play in this process. In this paper I give an abstract description of the domains of knowledege required for theory formation, and also illustrate the ideas with a concrete example. The type of system contemplated in this paper incorporates ways of structuring background knowledge that are natural and will, I believe, prove to be useful in designing self-improving AI programs. In this paper I address the issue of how a system that has the ability to do problem solving and planning - in the sense of being in possession of generalized schemas or templates for carrying out these activities - can know whether a particular type of planning or, if you will, problem solving strategy, is a "good" one to employ in solving problems in a particular domain? It seems to me that, in general, in order to make such judgements in a reasonable fashion a problem solver must either be in possession of some general theoretical facts concerning the nature and structure of problem types, i.e., a theory of problem types, or at the very least, have been programmed by someone having such a theory. This paper is a step in the direction of constructing such a theory. The structure of the paper is as follows. First I discuss the nature of problem solving and planning in general, and give a preliminary description of a particular planning template. Next I describe and illustrate a mathematical framework within which one can formulate problem representations. Finally I deal with the question of what facts about the structure of a problem representation are relevant to the determination of whether or not the aforementioned planning template is applicable to the problem at hand. \* CBM-TR-143 \5/84 \"A Knowledge Representation Framework for Expert Control of Interactive Software Systems" \Apte, C. S. Weiss \ \ \10/84 \Expert problem solving strategies in many domains make use of detailed quantitative or mathematical techniques coupled with experiential knowledge about how these techniques can be used to solve problems. In many such domains, these techniques are available as part of complex software packages. In attempting to build expert systems in these domains, we wish to make use of these existing packages, and are therefore faced with an important problem: how to integrate the existing software, and knowledge about its use, into a practical expert system. We define a framework of a @i[hybrid model] for representing problem solving knowledge in such domains. A hybrid model consists of a @i[surface] and a @i[deep] model. The surface model is the production rule-based expert subsystem that is driven by domain specific control and interpretive knowledge. The deep model is the existing software, reorganized as necessary for its interpretation by the surface model. We present an outline of a specialized form-based system for acquisition and representation of expert knowledge required for this hybrid modeling. \* CBM-TR-144 (THESIS) \9/84 \"A Framework for Expert Control of Interactive Softweare Systems" \C.V. Apte \ \ \10/84 \Expert problem-solving strategies in many domains require the uise of detailed mathematical techniquers coupled with experiential knowledge about how and when to use the appropriate techniques. In many of these domains, such techniques are made available to experts in large software packages. In attempting to build expert systems for these domains, we wish to make use of these existing packages, and are therefore faced with an important problem: how to integrate the existing software, and knowledge about its use, into a practical expert system. The expert knowledge is used, in dynamic selection of appropriate programs and parameters, to reach a successful goal in the problem-solving. This kind of expert problem-solving is achieved through two interacting bodies of knowledge; problem domain knowledge, and knowledge about the programs that comprise the software package. This thesis describes the framework of a @i[hybrid expert system] for representing problem-solving knowledge in these domains. This hybrid system may be characterized as consisting of a @i[surface] model and a @i[deep] model. The surface model is a production-rule based expert subsystem that consists of heuristics used by an expert. The deep model is a collection of methods, each parameterized by a set of controlling and observed parameters. The method and their results are reasoned about using their parameter sets. The existing software is reorganized as necessary to map it into the deep model structure of a hybrid system. This framework has evoled out of an effort to build an expert system for performding well-log analysis (ELAS - @i[Expert Log Analysis System]). A generalized expert-system building methodology based upon principles drawn from ELAS is introduced. The use of @i[method-abstractions] in assembling a hybrid system is discussed. The notion of @i[worksheet-reasoning] is defined, and discussed. \* CBM-TR-145 (THESIS) \10/84 \"Shift of Bias for Inductive Concept Learning" \Paul E. Utgoff \ \ \ll/84 \We identify and examine the fundamental role that bias plays in inductive concept learning. Bias is the set of all influences, procedural or declarative, that causes a concept learner to prefer one hypothesis to another. Much of the success of concept learning programs to date results from the program's author having provided the learning program with appropriate bias. To date there has been no good mechanical method for shifting from one bias to another that is better. Instead, the author of a learning program has himself had to search for a better bias. The program author manually generates a bias, from scratch or by revising a previous bias, and then tests it in his program. If the author is not satisfied with the induced concepts, then he repeats the manual-generate and program-test cycle. If the author is satisfied, then he deems his program successful. Too often, he does not recognize his own role in the learning process. Our thesis is that search for appropriate bias is itself a major part of the learning task, and that we can create mechanical procedures for conducting a well-directed search for an appropriate bias. We would like to understand better how a program author does about doing his search for appropriate bias. What insights does he have? What does he learn when he observes that a particular bias produces poor performance? What domain knowledge does he apply? We explore the problem of mechanizing the search for appropriate bias. To that end, we develop a framework for a procedure that shifts bias. We then build two instantiations of the procedure in a program called STABB, which we then incorporate in the LEX learning program. One, called "constraint back propagation" uses analytic deduction. We report experiments with the implementations that both demonstrate the usefulness of the framework, and uncover important issues for this kind of learning. \* CBM-TR-146 \5/85 \"A Framework for Representation of Expertise in Experimental Design for Enzyme Kinetics" \Von-Wun Soo, Casimir A. Kulikowski, David Garfinkel \ \ \5/85 \In this paper, we present part of our current research on expert systems in enzyme kinetics. Because of the richness and diversity of the problem solving knowledge required in this domain, we have found it to be an excellent vehicle for studying issues of knowledge representation and expert reasoning in AI. Biochemical experimental design, the focus of this paper, is a major problem solving activity of the enzyme kineticist that has not been explored by expert systems researchers. Their problem solving expertise can usually be described as the application of a sequence of methods. In designing a complicated biochemical experiment, the experimenter has several methods to choose from at any stage. These methods are represented as computer programs which can be organized into a hierarchy. This paper proposes a structure for these problem solving methods and an expert consultation system for experimental design. We have found that problem solving expertise in experimental design can be divided into three phases. In the first phase, we deal with problems of selecting the experimental methods that satisfy an experimenter's goal, given certain postulated models. The experimental conditions and optimal design points can be derived if the model is given and the goal and the assumptions of the optimal design criterion are satisfied. In the second phase, we deal with the problems of preparing an enzyme assay. The interactions among experimental conditions and other influencing factors must be carefully controlled so that the correct concentration of a given species can be calculated. In the third phase, we face the problem of analyzing and interpreting the experimental data and recommending further refinement of the experiment. \* DCS-TM-13 \5/80 \"A Guide to Applying to Graduate School" \Don Libes \ \ \1/82 \I. @u(Introduction) As a senior at Rutgers, you should have some idea of what interests you. Start having serious conversations with yourself about what you want to do for the next few years of your life. If you liked school, liked the atmosphere, the people, the freedom to pick and choose projects to be involved with and the challenge of stimulating intellectual problems, graduate school should be heavily considered. In this sense, graduate school provides a similar environment to the one that you have just passed through though it is much more intense. You only take courses in your major. You are surrounded by people who think, talk and dream about Computer Science (and not just hacking, but research). The advantages of a graduate degree in CS are almost guaranteed to include a better chance of choosing the job that you want or perhaps, to command a higher salary. "Satisfactory employment" of last year's Computer Science Ph.D. graduates in the United States is currently 100%. Its drawbacks should be considered, too. Dedicating at least 4 years of your life to schooling is not necessary to your survival and it should be recognized that billions of people are alive today without the help of an advanced degree. If school life is not the life for you or you are sick and tired of studying, graduate school might not be the path to follow, at least in the immediate future. Putting off graduate school will also give you the opportunity to earn a nice pad of wealth that you probably wouldn't accumulate as a student. \* DCS-TM-14 \7/80 \ "Software Design Issues in the Architecture and Implementation of Distributed Text Editors" \R. Goldberg \ \ \1/82 \Conventional text editors consist of a program which runs on a single host machine and utilizes the CPU, disk, and other resources of the host to process every character that the user types on his terminal. This arrangement has several serious drawbacks, namely the @u(computational load on the host) (CPU cycles and I/O interrupts), the @u(response time seen by the user) (delay in processing user keystrokes), and the @u(communications cost). These undesirable aspects of editing files residing at a remote host have become important issues to users of text editors on large mainframe systems. The availability of cheap personal microprocessors suggests that they be used to help solve the problems. Thus the motivation for the distributed editor capabilities to be proposed in this work results from the insufficiency of existing editing facilities on timeshared computers as well as from the trend toward personal computers. \* DCS-TM-15 \3/81 \"Some Experiments in Abstraction of Relational Characteristics" \R.M. Keller D.J. Nagel \ \ \1/82 \Two experiments performed in knowledge-based inference are discussed in this paper. The experiments are directed at abstracting structural regularities and patterns inherent in a database of binary relations. A novel graph representation to facilitate abstraction is used in approaching some classical problem areas. This representation is compact and powerful, and an efficient algorithm has been developed to help control the exhaustive nature of certain types of inductive problems. One area of experimentation concerns the discovery of intensionally definable relations in a family databse. Another is the recognition of alphabetic characters using directional relations defined for points on a grid. Within a test bed system, KBLS, a scheme for computing abstractions is briefly summarized, and implications for future extensions are discussed in light of experimental results. \* DCS-TM-16 \3/83 \"Solving the Plane Geometry Problem by Learning" \Liben Xu \ \ \3/83 \The top-down technique for solving a geometry problem is described. The top-down method uses "general rules," they are obtained by learning. This report focuses on general heuristics to obtain the general rules for solving a geometry problem. \* DCS-TR-89 \5/80 \"Parts I, II, III of KNOWLEDGE BASED LEARNING SYSTEMS DS + CVS = A Proposal for Research CVS = An Intro. to the Meta-Theory & Logical Foundations" \D. Sandford \ \ \1/82 \Current state of the art experience in designing domain specific, intelligent, automated problem solving systems argues convincingly that: Firstly, large amounts of what is known as domain dependent or domain specific knowledge is crucial to achieving acceptable efficiency in realistic problem solving situations; and secondly that the task of implementing such systems "from scratch" is such a formidable one that it has impeded experimental research into the nature and role of domain specific knowledge in problem solving. This project is directed towards attaining an understanding of the processes and types of organizations required for an automated system to be able to learn for itself the relevant domain dependent knowledge from its experience with the domain. The research is based on a meta-theory of knowledge based learning systems, systems that can discover domain knowledge and use it to solve problems in a domain. The research project will employ both experimentation with implemented systems and theoretical analysis of systems. The goals are to shed light on both the detailed mechanisms by which domain dependent knowledge increases search efficiency, and to understand the type of innate biases that an automated system needs, to be able to analyze a domain and discover the appropriate domain knowledge. The research is based on a meta-theory of systems that are both knowledge based systems and learning systems. The research focusses on two kinds of systems: Systems that can build and use empirical theories of domains, and systems that use Axiomatic theories and theorem proving. The nature of domain knowledge and ways of using it in both these systems are investigated. \* DCS-TR-90 \5/80 \"Knowledge-based learning, an Example" \C. V. Srinivasan \ \ \1/82 \I. @u(Introduction) How may a machine "learn" from examples of situations that are presented to it? What may constitute the "knowledge" of a set of such situations? How should the examples be presented to the machine? Are there general principles which a machine can use to acquire the knowledge automatically by examining the examples presented to it, and to use the knowledge so obtained to solve problems in a domain? These are the general concerns of my research. \* DCS-TR-91 \7/80 \"Policy Function Scheduling" \M. Ruschitzka \ \ \1/82 \Scheduling disciplines have traditionally been specified in terms of queues and algorithms for routing jobs between the queues. Alternatively, a discipline may be formally defined by a policy function, a function of job and system parameters. A policy function scheduler is a parameterized scheduler that - when supplied with a specific policy function - behaves like the specified discipline. The formal definition allows performance measures of a discipline (e.g., the response function) to be expressed in terms of the defining policy function. We review the principles of formal definitions, summarize previous queueing-theoretical results concerning response functions of policy function schedulers, and extend them to multiple preemptive job classes with processor-sharing subclasses. For a large variety of disciplines and job classes, we also express the policy functions in terms of the resulting response functions. Given a desired realizable performance goal, this relation serves to determine the discipline that achieves it. Policy function schedulers with their explicit relation between policy and response functions, which we plot for several different job characteristics, thus offer increased precision in controlling the performance of a computer system. \* DCS-TR-92(received it, but elsie gave it back to him to be done over) \4/80 \"Average Case Behavior of the Alpha-Beta Tree Pruning Algorithm" \George Shrier \ \ \1/82 \ \* DCS-TR-93 \8/80 \A Dialogue Moderation for Program Specification - Dialogues in the PSI System" \L. Steinberg \ \ \1/82 \ \* DCS-TR-94 \9/80 \"On The Existence of Approximate Solutions for Singular Integral Equations of Cauchy Type Discretized by Gauss-Chebyshev Quadrature Formulae" \A. Gerasoulis \ \ \1/82 \It is shown that the direct Gauss-Chebyshev method used for the numerical solution of singular integral equations of Cauchy-type possesses a unique solution for any n,as long as @w( ) is not an eigenvalue of the equation. \* DCS-TR-95 \10/80 \A Mini-Max Problem" \W.L. Steiger \ \ \1/82 \"Determine an algorithm, better than complete enumeration, for the following problem: given a non-negative integer matrix, permute the entries in each column independently so as to minimize the largest row sum. This problem had arisen in determining an optimal scheduling for a factory work force." \* DCS-TR-96 \1/81 \A Comparison of Methods for Discrete L1 Curve-Fitting \W.L. Steiger \ \ \1/82 \We study discrete L1 curve-fitting of n points in k dimensional space. Execution times for the algorithms of Barrodale-Roberts (BR), Bartels-Conn-Sinclair (BCS), and Bloomfield-Steiger (BS) - three of the best LAD curve-fitting procedures - are compared over a variety of deterministic and random curve-fitting problems. Analysis of the results allows us to make surprisingly precise statements about the computational complexity of these algorithms. In particular, BR is in a different complexity class than BCS and BS as the number of points, n, increases. All algorithms are linear in the dimension, k, and BS is less complex than BCS. \* DCS-TR-97 \5/81 \"Linear Programming via Discrete L1 Curve-fitting" \W.L. Steiger \ \ \1/82 \A bounded linear programming problem with feasible solutions may be cast as a discrete L1 curve-fitting problem of the same size. This may be usefully exploited in solving dense LP problems: On the average, a recent L1 algorithm solves the equivalent L1 curve fit in far fewer steps, and taking far less time, than that which would be required by the one-phase Simplex method applied to the original problem. The relative advantage increases with problem size and the comparison is even more favorable against the two-phase Simplex method. Finally, the Klee-Minty problems on which the Simplex method is of exponential complexity, seem to be "easy" problems as equivalent L1 curve fits. \* DCS-TR-98 \11/80 \Partitioning Methods for Block-Diagonal Linear Systems and Programs \M. D. Grigoriadis \ \ \1/82 \ \* DCS-TR-99 \12/80 \Network Optimization Problems and Algorithms: An Annotated Bibliography \M. D. Grigoriadis \ \ \1/82 \This annotated bibliography is intended as a repository of notes and reminders of contributions to the field of network optimization and it is by no means historically or topically complete. It represents the current state of a computerized bibliography database and the author's attempt to track the large number of technical papers in specific areas of network optimization. While it may never reach perfect completeness, future versions of this report will be released with updates and additional references. \* DCS-TR-100 \2/81 \"Energy and Group Velocity in Semi Discretizations of Hyperbolic Equations" \R. Vichnevetsky \ \ \1/82 \Propagation properties of a numerical semi-discretization of hyperbolic equation are analyzed, using time-Fourier Transforms. It is shown that numerical solutions are of two types, corresponding to the two roots of a characteristic equation which is associated with the semi-discretization. The properties of those two types of solutions in terms of phase velocity, wavelength and group velocity are derived. While solutions of the first type converge to genuine solutions of the equation, solutions of the second type have group velocities opposite to the direction of flow, and are entirely spurious. \* DCS-TR-101 \2/81 \"Propagation Through Numerical Mesh Refinement for Hyperbolic Equations" \R. Vichnevetsky \ \ \1/82 \Spurious reflection that occurs at the interface between coarse and fine mesh in the numerical finite-difference approximation of hyperbolic equations is analyzed. By using time-Fourier Tranforms, a reflection ratio at the interface can be derived. It is then possible to describe exactly the reflection that occurs, in the form of a Fourier integral using this reflection ratio. Energy conservation and convergence rates are examined for a "standard" and a "modified" treatment of the interface point in the mesh refinement. \* DCS-TR-102 \5/81 \"On The Solvability of Singular Integral Equations Via Gauss- Jacobi Quadrature" \A. Gerasoulis R.P. Srivastav \ \ \1/82 \It is shown that the coefficient matrix obtained by the discretization of singular integral equations using Gauss-Jacobi quadrature formulae is non-singular for any n, if @ @ is not an eigenvalue of the equation. \* DCS-TR-103 \8/81 \"Numerical Upstream Boundary Conditions that Reduce Spurious Reflection" \R. Vichnevetsky E. Sciubba Y. Pak \ \ \1/82 \It is commonly (but erroneously) assumed that the best way to treat upstream boundaries for hyperbolic equations is to let the numerical value be equal to the imposed value. What is erroneous in this assumption is that it ignores the presence of spurious numerical solutions which may have originated inside of the computational domain and which may be present near the boundary. Such spurious solutions are characterized by short wavelength spatial oscillations, with a group velocity which is opposed to the direction of flow and are therefore moving as "packets" toward the boundary. They are reflected by the "standard" treatment whereas a better numerical treatment of the boundary should attempt to absorb them. This paper describes two methods for the modified numerical treatment of upstream boundaries of hyperbolic equations, which are effective in absorbing those spurious solutions with a remainder which decreases as @w( ) and @w( ) respectively, where @w( ) is the frequency and @w( ) is the mesh size. \* DCS-TR-104 \8/81 \"A New Lad Curve Fitting Algorithm: Slightly Overdetermined Equation Systems in L1" \E. Seneta W.L. Steiger \ \ \1/82 \We present a new algorithm for the discrete LAD curve-fitting problem for n points in k less than or equal to n dimensional space. When k is about n/3 it begins to out-perform the best current methods, and the advantage increases with k. The algorithm should be of interest in approximation theory and in robust regression. Moreover our approach may be useful in linear optimization, especially in linear programming. \* DCS-TR-105 \3/81 \"User's Guide for MEDIT, A Machine Independent Text Editor" \R. Goldberg \ \ \1/82 \A text editor is a program used to create and modify text files stored in the computer. Text editors are useful for creating and modifying computer programs, documentation, data files, letters, and many other kinds of text. MEDIT is a text editor written in MAINSAIL. It can run on any computer for which a MAINSAIL implementation exists, and on any terminal type. Both with regard to the computer on which it runs and the terminal used, it is machine-independent. The basic line editing commands have been adopted from the powerful SOS text editor for the PDP-10. The intraline editing capability of SOS has been extended in MEDIT to a video editor which keeps the screen of the terminal constantly updated to reflect the true state of the file as modifications are made. Video editing greatly increases user productivity, especially in editing of English and other unrepetitive text. On hard copy terminals and on unsupported CRT terminals, MEDIT cannot provide video editing, but it knows how to utilize full duplex capabilities to provide character by character modifications within a line of text. The commands for making changes within a line are the same for all terminals. This document contains both an introductory user's manual and as a reference manual to MEDIT. The introductory manual introduces the user to the editor while the reference manual provides complete, detailed specifications of the editor's features. The style of the introductory manual is informal to aid the learning process. For clarity, when examples of interaction with MEDIT are given, those parts that were typed by the user will be shown in @i(italics) while those parts typed by MEDIT will be in a more standard font. \* DCS-TR-106 \10/81 \"Knowledge Representation and Problem Solving in MDS" \C. V. Srinivasan \ \ \1/82 \This work presents a new approach for using a first order theory to generate procedures for solving goal satisfaction problems without using general thorem proving. The core of the problem solving system has three basic components: an inferencing mechanism based on @u(residues), a control structure for "means-end" analysis that uses @u(natural deduction), and a generalization scheme that is based on the structure of statements in the domain theory itself. The work represents a beginning in the development of knowledge based systems that can generate their own problem solving programs, evolve with experience and adapt to a changing domain theory. \* DCS-TR-107 \10/81 \"Note on Learning in MDS Based on Predicate Signatures" \C.V. Srinivasan \ \ \1/82 \This note illustrates a simple learning scheme in the context of two examples. In the first example the system learns the distinguishing features of the letters in the English alphabet, where each letter is described in terms of a relational system of features. In the second example the domain is a set of family relationships. In this case the system identifies invariant properties like "father.father=grandfather" that exist in the domain. In both examples the system first creates an abstraction of the given set of relations and uses the abstraction to identify invariant (or distinguishing) features of the given set of relations. The abstraction scheme is based on the concept of "predicate signatures" that is described in the note. The method is a general one. It can be used to identify large classes of invariant (or distinguishing) features of sets of objects where each object is described in terms of a set of relations that hold true for the object. \* DCS-TR-108 \10/81 \"Singular Integral Convergence of the Nystrom Interpolant of the Gauss-Chebyshev Method" \A. Gerasoulis \ \ \1/82 \Nystrom's interpolation formula is applied to the numerical solution of singular integral equations. For the Gauss-Chebyshev method, it is shown that this approximation converges uniformly, provided that the kernel and the input functions possess a continuous derivative. Moreover, the error of the Nystrom interpolant is bounded from above by the Gaussian quadrature errors and thus converges fast, especially for smooth functions. For C@w( ) input functions, a sharp upper bound for the error is obtained. Finally numerical examples are considered. It is found that the actual computational error agrees well with the theoretical derived bounds. \* DCS-TR-109 \12/81 \Equations - The "Improved Constraint Satisfaction Algorithms using Inter-Variable Compatibilities" \B. Nudel \ \ \1/82 \This report addresses the problem of improving algorithms for solving @b(consistent-labeling) (also called @b(constraint-satisfaction) problems. The concept of @b(compatibility) between variables in such problems is introduced. How to obtain compatibilities analytically and empirically is discussed, and various compatibility-based heuristics (as well as some useful but less effective non compatibility-based heuristics) are developed to improve a version of the Waltz algorithm which was found best of a set of consistent-labeling problem algorithms tested by Haralick [5]. Empirical results with these heuristics are very encouraging, with over an order of magnitude improvement in performance with respect to the basic algorithm on a set of randomly generated consistent-labeling problems. \* DCS-TR-110 (Thesis) \12/81 \"Software Design Issues in the Architecture and Implementation of Distributed Text Editors" (Thesis) \R. Goldberg \ \ \1/82 \This thesis analyzes the performance improvements achieved by distributing text editing software between a dedicated microprocessor and a timeshared host computer. Theoretical analysis of the problem coupled with detailed simulations of possible architectures, using data collected from over 15,000 actual editing sessions, provide strong evidence that simple, easily implemented schemes produce significant improvements of response time to user commands, communications bandwidth requirements, and host CPU utilization. \Consisting of an editor server program running on a host and a local editor running on a microprocessor, a distributed editor would a) provide general, flexible editing capabilities that are functionally indistinguishable from those of conventional video editors, b) provide the same average response on 1200 baud communications lines as conventional editors running at 9600 baud, c) isolate the user from most delays due to host timesharing pauses and communications network slowdowns, and d) reduce considerably the number of program activations and CPU cycles at the host, making distributed video editors consume fewer host resources than conventional line editors. The implementation of a prototype distributed editor based on the conclusions of the study demonstrates the practicality of implementing the required software on existing, inexpensive microprocessors such as those found in conventional terminals. \* DCS-TR-111 \3/82 \"NYSTROM'S INTERPOLATION FORMULA IN THE SOLUTION OF SINGULAR INTEGRAL EQUATIONS DISCRETIZED BY THE GAUSS-JACOBI QUADRATURE \Apostolos Gerasoulis \ \ \3/82 \The numerical solution of Singular Integral Equations of Cauchy-type at a discrete set of points t@-[i], is obtained through discretization of the original equation with the Gauss-Jacobi quadrature. The natural or Nystrom's interpolation formula is used to approximate the solution of the equation for points different than t@-[i]. Uniform convergence of the interpolation formula is shown for C@+[1] functions. Finally, error bounds are derived and for smooth function it is shown that Nystrom's formula converges faster than Lagrange's interpolation polynomials. \* DCS-TR-112 (forthcoming) \ \"Understand Consistent-Labelling Problems and Their Algorithms: Part I" \B. Nudel \ \ \4/82 \ \* DCS-TR-113 (REVISED): 2/83 \4/82 \"Consistent-Labeling Problems and Their Algorithms: Part II" \B. Nudel \ \ \10/82 \A new parameter is introduced to characterize a type of search problem of broad relevance in Artificial Intelligence, Operations Research and Symbolic Logic. This paramter, which we call inter-variable @b[compatibility] is particularly important in that complexity analyses incorporating it are able to capture the dependence of problem complexity on search order used by an algorithm. Thus compatibility-based theories can provide a theoretical basis for the extraction of heuristics for choosing good search orderings - a long-sought goal for such problems, since it can lead to significant savings during search. We carry out expected complexity analyses for the traditional Backtrack algorithm as well as for two more recent algorithms that have been found empirically to be significant improvements, Forward Checking and word-wise Forward Checking. We extract compatibility-based ordering-heuristics from the theory for Forward Checking. Preliminary experimental results are presented showing the large savings that result from their use. Similar savings can be expected for other algorithms when heuristics taking account of inter-variable compatibilities are used. Our compatibility-based theories also provide a more precise way of predicting which algorithm is best for a given problem. \* DCS-TR-114 \3/82 \"The Control of Inferencing in Natural Language Understanding" \Abe Lockman \David Klappholz \ \4/82 \The understanding of a natural language text requires that a reader (human or computer program) be able to resolve ambiguities at the syntactic and lexical levels; it also requires that a reader be able to recover that part of the meaning of a text which is over and above the collection of meanings of its individual sentences taken in isolation. The satisfaction of this requirement involves complex inferencing from a large database of world-knowledge. While human readers seem able to perform this task easily, the designer of computer programs for natural language understanding faces the serious difficulty of algorithmically defining precisely the items of world-knowledge required at any point in the processing, i.e., the problem of @i[controlling inferencing]. This paper discusses the problems involved in such control of inferencing; an approach to their solution is presented, based on the notion of determining where each successive sentence "fits" into the text as a whole. \* DCS-TR-115 \4/82 \"A Survey of Research in Strategy Acquisition" \R. Keller \ \ \7/82 \This paper surveys literature in the area of strategy acquisition for artificial and human problem solving systems. A unifying view of the term "strategy" is suggested which places strategies along a continuum from abstract to concrete. Major concerns of strategy acquisition research are described, including (i) strategic component learning, (ii) strategy applicability recognition, (iii) strategy customization and (iv) strategy transformation. Various researchers' approaches to these issues are reviewed and open problems are discussed. \* DCS-TR-116 \3/82 \"Group Velocity and Reflection Phenomena in Numerical Approximations of Hyperbolic Equations: A Survey" \R. Vichnevetsky \ \ \6/82 \Recent analyses of spurious phenomena near interfaces and boundaries of numerical approximations of hyperbolic equations have produced a host of interesting, concrete results which are reviewed in this paper. What characterizes these analyses is that they rely on tools of mathematical physics, in particular in the systematic use of Fourier transforms and the concept of sinusoidal wave propagation this leads to a description of numerical inaccuracy in terms of dispersion, and a description of spurious numerical solutions in terms of wave packets and group velocities. It is in providing the mathematics needed to describe spurious reflection at numerical boundaries and at interfaces in mesh refinement that the most applied results of this theory are obtained. \* DCS-TR-117 \9/82 \"Incremental Data Flow Analysis Based on a Unified Model of Elimination Algorithms" \Barbara Gershon Ryder \ \ \9/82 \In this thesis we present our work on the development of incremental update algorithms for global data flow analysis, algorithms which modify a known data flow solution to reflect changes in the problem. We have shown that given a data flow problem defined on a digraph, the effects of a set of localized program changes can be determined @b full re-analysis by some global data flow algorithm. Our major research contributions fall into three categories. First, we have modelled three elimination methods for global data flow analysis: Allen/Cocke interval analysis, Hecht/Ullman T1-T2 analysis, and Tarjan interval analysis. Our models allow comparison among the methods and highlight the sources of worst case complexity improvement. Second, we have designed two incremental update data flow algorithms based on the Allen/Cocke algorithm (@b) and the Hecht/Ullman algorithm (@b). The complexity and correctness of these algorithms is demonstrated. Third, we have studied our incremental algorithm performance on a robust, Algol-like structured programming language @i. We have identified program structures which affect the complexity of incremental updating and established their effects singly and in concert. Specifically, for reducible digraphs we have shown that the elimination phase of @b (and/or @b) updates on each linear system in the derived sequence, a set of interval head equations and @b the equations in @b interval. Further, we have considered program changes within one interval in a nested loop in a program in @i and have characterized the set of all variables whose equations may be affected, in terms of each variable's corresponding program structure and its relation to the original change site. Thus, we have ascertained all the data flow solutions affected by the changes. Our result enables us to analyze a digraph in @i with a set of possible changes identifying @i, nodes whose equations will be affected by these changes. \* DCS-TR-118 \9/82 \"Transformational Programming--Applications to Algorithms and Systems" \Robert Paige \ \ \9/82 \Transformational programming is a nascent software development methodology that promises to reduce programming labor, increase program reliability, and improve program performance. Our research centers around a prototype transformational programming system called RAPTS (Rutgers Abstract Program Transformation System), developed during the past several years at Laboratory for Computer Science Research. Experiments in RAPTS with algorithm derivations are expected to lead to pragmatic applications to algorithm design, program development, and large system construction. \* DCS-TR-119 \9/82 \"Fast Minimal Distance Enumeration of Small Combinations" \W.L. Steiger P.M. Neuss \ \9/82 \We give a history dependent algorithm that satisfies the claims of the title. It has other desirable attributes as well. It is computationally much simpler than algorithms studied in recent work of Payne and Ives when, in enumerating n objects k at a time, k is small compared to n. In fact SN(n,k) decreases n @k[rightarrow] @k[infinity] where SN denotes the complexity of the present method and PI, that of Payne-Ives. This is probably due to the savings in overhead required by historyless enumeration. \* DCS-TR-120 \11/82 \"Incremental Data Flow Analysis" \B.G. Ryder \ \ \11/82 \In this paper we present @b[ACINCF] and @b[ACINCB], incremental update algorithms for forward and backward data flow problems, which are based on a linear equations model of Allen/Cocke interval analysis [Allen 77, Ryder 82]. We have studied their performance on a robust structured programming language @i[L]. Given a set of localized program changes in a program in @i[L], we can identify a @i[priori] the nodes in its flow graph whose corresponding data flow equations will be affected by the changes. We can characterize these affected nodes by their corresponding program structures and their relation to the original change sites. \* DCS-TR-121 \12/72 \"Finding the Two-Core of a Tree" \Ronald I. Becker Yehoshua Perl \ \ \12/82 \The 1-core of a graph is a path minimizing the sum of the distances of all vertices of the graph from the path. A linear algorithm for finding a 1-core of a tree was presented by Morgan and Slater. The problem for general graphs is NP-Hard. A 2-core of a graph is a set of two paths minimizing the sum of the distances of all vertices of the graph from any of the two paths. We consider both cases of disjoint paths and intersecting paths for a tree. Interesting relations between 1-core and 2-core of a tree are found. These relations imply efficient algorithms for finding the 2-core. The complexity of the algorithms is 0(|V|.d(T)) where d(T) is the number of edges in the diameter of the tree. These algorithms are applicable for routing highways in a system of roads. A w-point core is a path minimizing the sum of the distances of all vertices of the graph from either the vertex w or the path. A linear algorithm for finding a w-point core of a tree is presented. It is applied as a procedure for the previous algorithms. \* DCS-TR-122 \12/82 \"Circuit Partitioning with Size and Connection Constraints" \Yehoshua Perl Marc Snir \ \ \12/82 \The problem of partitioning a circuit into subcomponents with constraints on the size of each subcomponent and the number of external connections is examined. While this problem is shown to be NP complete even for very restricted cases, a pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithm is given for the case where the circuit has a tree structure. \* DCS-TR-123 \2/83 \"The Bitonic and Odd-Even Networks are more than Merging" \Y. Perl \ \ \2/83 \The known bitonic and odd-even merging networks are reinvestigated. For both networks the following results are obtained: The input vectors sorted by the network are characterized. Those vectors are recursively balanced for some definition of balance. The set of those vectors is much larger than the set of vectors known to be sorted by the network. The output vectors obtainable by applying the network to an arbitrary input vector are also characterized. Those vectors satisfy recursive dominance for some definition of dominance. \* DCS-TR-124 \2/83 \"Efficient Implementation of a Shifting Algorithm" \Y. Perl and U. Vishkin \ \ \2/83 \An efficient implementation of the shifting algorithm (BPS]) for min-max tree partitioning is given. The complexity is reduced from O(Rk@+[3]) + kn) to O(Rk(k + logd) + n) where a tree of n vertices, radius of R edges, and maximum degree d is partitioned into k+ 1 subtrees. The improvement is mainly due to the new junction tree data structure which suggests a succinct representation for subsets of edges, of a given tree, that preserves the interrelation between the edges on the tree. \* DCS-TR-125 \3/83 \"Optimum Split Trees" \Y. Perl \ \ \3/83 \A split tree is a special kind of a binary search tree introduced by Sheil [S]. He conjectured that constructing an optimum split tree is an intractable problem since there is a difficulty in applying the dynamic programming technique. We realize that the difficulty arise since top down decisions are required while applying the bottom up dynamic programming technique. We demonstrate that it is possible in this case to overcome such a difficulty, and present a polynomial algorithm for constructing an optimum split tree. This algorithm incorporates top down decisions into a dynamic programming procedure similar to Knuth's [K2] algorithm for constructing an optimum binary search tree. An improved algorithm of complexity 0(n4) is finally presented. A modification for the case that equiprobable keys are permitted is discussed. \* DCS-TR-126 \3/83 \"Heuristics for Finding a Maximum Number of Disjoint Bounded Paths" \D. Ronen \Y. Perl \ \ \4/83 \We consider the following problem: Given an integer k and a network G with two distinct vertices s and t, find a maximum number of vertex disjoint paths from s to t of length bounded by k. In a recent work [IPS] it was shown that for length greater than four this problem is NP-Hard. In this paper we present a polynomial heuristic algorithm for the problem for general length. The algorithm is proved to give optimal solution for length less than five. Experiments show very good results for the algorithm. \* DCS-TR-127 \3/83 \"THE BALANCED SORTING NETWORK" \M. Dowd Y. Perl L. Rudolph M. Saks \ \ \3/83 \This paper introduces a new sorting network, called the @u[balanced sorting network]. To sort input vectors of size n=2@+[k] the network requires 0([lg n]@+{2}) time and uses n(lg n)@+[2]/2 comparators, which are comparable to the bounds for the well known odd even and bitonic networks of Batcher [Ba]. On the other hand our network has certain advantages over these two networks. In particular the balanced sorting network consists of a sequence of k @u[identical] blocks called @u[balanced merging networks]. Thus implementations of the network as a hardware network or on the shuffle exchange interconnection model have some advantages over the corresponding implementations of the other networks mentioned above. \* -------