Letters to the editor on genetics and applied epistemology, a response to "The Professor's Challenge" and a response to John Malpas; knowledge and power, and update on the Autoling System, a relativistic approach, and a response to Franklin's writings in volume 6 number 1.

This article discusses the selection of the domain for a knowledge-based expert system for a corporate application. The selection of the domain is a critical task in an expert system development. At the start of a project looking into the development of an expert system, the knowledge engineering project team must investigate one or several possible expert system domains. They must decide whether the selected application(s) are best suited to solution by present expert system technology, or if there might be a better way (or, possibly, no way) to attack the problems. If there are several possibilities, the team must also rank the potential applications and select the best available. To evaluate the potential of possible application domains, it has proved very useful to have a set of desired attributes for good expert domain. This article presents such a set of attributes. The attribute set was developed as part of a major expert system development project at GTE Laboratories. It was used recurrently (and modified and expanded continually) throughout an extensive application domain evaluation and selection process.

Expert system projects are often based on collaboration with single domain expert. This leads to difficulties in judging the suitability of the chosen task and in acquiring the detailed knowledge required to carry out the task. This anecdotal article considers some of the advantages of using a diverse collection of domain experts.

The University of Michigan is the site of a variety of AI research projects involving faculty, staff and students from several departments and institutes on the Ann Arbor campus.

The TRW Defense Systems Group develops large man-machine networks that solve problems for government agencies. Until a few years ago these networks were either tightly-coupled humans loosely supported by machines -- like our ballistic missile system engineering organization, which provides technical advice to the Air Force, or tightly-coupled machines loosely controlled by humans- like the ground station for the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Because we have been producing first-of- a kind systems like these since the early 1950s, we consider ourselves leaders in the social art of assembling effective teams of diverse experts, and in the engineering art of conceiving and developing networks of interacting machines. But in the mid-1970s we began building systems in which humans and machines must be tightly coupled to each other-systems like the Sensor Data Fusion Center. Then we found that our well-worked system development techniques did not completely apply, and that our system engineering handbook needed a new chapter on communication between people and machines. We're still writing that chapter, and it won't be finished until we can add some not-yet fully developed artificial intelligence techniques. Nevertheless, we learned some lessons worth passing along.

On October 17-19, 1984, a workshop on nonmonotonic hospitality suite-generally until late in the evenings reasoning was held at, Mohonk Mountain House, outside The workshop's only disappointment was the shortness New Paltz, New York. Speakers (and the audience) oft,en found Raymond R.eit,er and Bonnie Webbcr, and was sponsored that much more time could have been well-spent, especially by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. The hotel is an inmense of much of the work presented. Surrounded by 2000 Preprints of the papers were distributed at the workshop, acres of private preserve, in full autumnal splcndour, participants but no proceedings will be published A limit,ed number quickly forgot the outside world. The grounds of copies of the preprints can be obtained from.

Although cognitive AI is not generally viewed as being "scientific" in the same, strong sense as is physics, it shares a number of the properties of the natural sciences, especially biology. Certain of special themes of biology, notably the principles of historicity and of structure-function relations, are applicable in AI research. From a biologist's viewpoint, certain principles of cognitive AI research emerge.

The Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) Workshop has become a tradition. Meeting every year for the past nine years, it has been the forum where all the issues from basic research through applications to implementations have been discussed; it has also become a community building activity, bringing together researchers, medical practitioners, and government and industry sponsors of AIM activities. The AIM Workshop held at Fawcett Center for Tomorrow at Ohio State University, June 30 - July 3, 1984, was no exception. It brought together more than 100 active participants in AIM.

In the first section, some characteristic features of AI research in France are presented, including difficulties with the current means and the current organization of AI research. In the second section, the state-of-the-art in different areas of AI is described. Besides some weakness, and in spite of the general difficulties mentioned in the first section, strong points and great potentialities are exhibited. This allows us to conclude that AI research in France may play an important part at the international level, if the necessary means for its development in the middle and long term are given.

We're pleased to introduce this new section, "AAAI News," as a regular feature in the AI Magazine. AAAI Membership Statistics purpose is to inform AAAI members about AAAI During 1984 the AAAI membership increased from organizational activities and to allow greater participation 3,000 members to 7,492 members! by the members in these activities. The AI Magazine Bledsoe, the AAAI's Executive Council initiated several new committees to review the diverse scientific and educational Production Notes: We have changed our printer and needs of the the AAAI membership; to evaluate mailing house from the Bay Area to the Los Angeles area. We are also making slight and services. Each committee has a particular charter alterations to the design of the publication.