Introduction to this Special Issue on Innovative Applications of AI

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in research on empirical methods in natural language processing. These methods employ learning techniques to automatically extract linguistic knowledge from natural language corpora rather than require the system developer to manually encode the requisite knowledge. This article presents an introduction to the series of specialized articles on these topics and attempts to describe and explain the growing interest in using learning methods to aid the development of natural language processing systems.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in research on empirical methods in natural language processing. These methods employ learning techniques to automatically extract linguistic knowledge from natural language corpora rather than require the system developer to manually encode the requisite knowledge. The current special issue reviews recent research in empirical methods in speech recognition, syntactic parsing, semantic processing, information extraction, and machine translation. This article presents an introduction to the series of specialized articles on these topics and attempts to describe and explain the growing interest in using learning methods to aid the development of natural language processing systems.

An Introduction to this Special Issue of AI Magazine

Y. Reich (Tel-Aviv University) proposed The paper by M. Benaroch (Syracuse University) suggested the use of knowledge-based tools for mass customization of service products; it dealt in general Grundstein (Framatome, France) reported than the other methods. At the macroeconomic and J. Zahavi (both of Tel-Aviv University) level, Deinichenko et al. presented found that genetic algorithms an expert system that utilizes performed even better than a fuzzy knowledge to analyze economic on Artificial Intelligence linear programming model on their Thus, their conclusion was Academy of Sciences) and T. Szapiro (AIEM4) was held in Tel-Aviv, that AI techniques might provide (Warsaw School of Economics) noted Israel, from 8 to 10 January 1996, better results than rigid analytic the lack of models appropriate to the with participants from 13 countries. Service to customers in the financial for discerning patterns in the economic As a matter of course, almost every area was another focus of the and demographic data of developing presentation at the workshop workshop. Lange et al. described a economies. The paper by touched on AI techniques in one way system for customizing investment Edmonds and S. Moss (Manchester or another.

The Workshop on the Validation and Verification of Knowledge-Based Systems gathers researchers from government, industry, and academia to present the most recent information about this important development aspect of knowledge-based systems (KBSs). The 1995 workshop focused on nontraditional KBSs that are developed using more than just the simple rule-based paradigm. This new focus showed how researchers are adjusting to the shift in KBS technology from stand-alone rule-based expert systems to embedded systems that use object-oriented technology, uncertainty, and nonmonotonic reasoning.

The Workshop on Connectionist-Symbolic Integration: From Unified to Hybrid Approaches was held on 19 to 20 August 1995 in Montreal, Canada, in conjunction with the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The focus of the workshop was on learning and architectures that feature hybrid representations and support hybrid learning. The general consensus was that hybrid connectionist-symbolic models constitute a promising avenue to the development of more robust, more powerful, and more versatile architectures for both cognitive modeling and intelligent systems.

The first session aimed to set the component being tested. The stage for the day's discussion by focusing variation in all three of these contexts on the issues surrounding the will lead to different types of and Verification of Knowledge-use of formal specification techniques The first paper, by Formal Specifications to Design Intelligence (AAAI-94) in Seattle, Lance Miller of SAIC, was entitled Verifiable Hybrid KBS" by Rose Gamble, Washington, marked the seventh This paper provided a with its specification, and (2) the The 1994 workshop was significant basis for the comparison of validation refinement of formal specifications in that there was a definitive move in and verification techniques to for their implementation. O'Leary, from the lows the possibility of constraining techniques for validating certain University of Southern California, the experts' choices to ensure that properties of KBSs. A paper by presented a paper on the relationship any new knowledge added is valid Alun Preece, Cliff Gossner, and T. between errors and size in KBSs. This and that the knowledge base structure Radhakrishnan (all from the University paper is among the first to address ensures the knowledge is of Aberdeen, Scotland) considered this important issue.

Over 60 researchers from 10 countries took part in the Third Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) Workshop, held during the Eleventh National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C. A major trend evident at the workshop was the transition to applications in the core KDD area of discovery of relatively simple patterns in relational databases; the most successful applications are appearing in the areas of greatest need, where the databases are so large that manual analysis is impossible. Progress has been facilitated by the availability of commercial KDD tools for both generic discovery and domain-specific applications such as marketing. At the same time, progress has been slowed by problems such as lack of statistical rigor, overabundance of patterns, and poor integration. Besides applications, the main themes of this workshop were (1) the discovery of dependencies and models and (2) integrated and interactive KDD systems.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence sponsored a number of workshops in conjunction with the Eleventh National Conference on Artificial Intelligence held 11-15 July 1993 in Washington, D.C. This article contains reports of four of the workshops that were conducted: AI Models for System Engineering, Case-Based Reasoning, Reasoning about Function, and Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems.