In order for next-generation expert systems to demonstrate the performance, robustness, flexibility, and learning ability of human experts, they will have to be based on cognitive models of expert human reasoning and learning. We call such next-generation systems cognitive expert systems. Research at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Connecticut is directed toward understanding the principles underlying cognitive expert systems and developing computer programs embodying those principles. The Causal Model Acquisition System (CMACS) learns causal models of physical mechanisms by understanding real-world natural language explanations of those mechanisms.

An important issue in achieving acceptance of computer systems used by the nonprogramming community is the ability to communicate with these systems in natural language. Often, a great deal of time in the design of any such system is devoted to the natural language front end. An obvious way to simplify this task is to provide a portable natural language front-end tool or facility that is sophisticated enough to allow for a reasonable variety of input; allows modification; and, yet, is easy to use. It allows for user input to be in sentence or nonsentence form or both, provides a detailed parse tree that the user can access, and also provides the facility to generate responses and save information.

The AI lab at the Courant Institute at New York University (NYU) is pursuing many different areas of artificial intelligence (AI), including natural language processing, vision, common sense reasoning, information structuring, learning, and expert systems. Other groups in the Computer Science Department are studying such AI-related areas as text analysis, parallel Lisp and Prolog, robotics, low-level vision, and evidence theory.

A new computer language for manufacturing is being used to link complex systems of equipment whose components are supplied by multiple vendors. The Cell Management Language (CML) combines computational tools from rule-based data systems, object-oriented languages, and new tools that facilitate language processing. These language tools, combined with rule processing, make it convenient to build new interpreters for interfacing and understanding a range of computer and natural languages; hence, CML is being used primarily to define other languages in an interpretive environment, that is, as a meta-interpreter. For example, in CML it is quite easy to build an interpreter for machine tool languages that can understand and generate new part programs.

This article provides a discussion of factory design and an artificial intelligence (AI) approach to this problem. Major issues covered include knowledge acquisition and representation, design methodology, system architecture, and communication. The facilities design expert systems (FADES developed by the author is presented and described to illustrate issues in factory design.

The Parametric Interpretation Expert System (PIES) is a knowledge system for interpreting the parametric test data collected at the end of complex semiconductor fabrication processes. The system transforms hundreds of measurements into a concise statement of all the overall health of the process and the nature and probable cause of any anomalies. A key feature of PIES is the structure of the knowledge base, which reflects the way fabrication engineers reason causally about semiconductor failures. This structure permits fabrication engineers to do their own knowledge engineering, to build the knowledge base, and then to maintain it to reflect process modifications and operating experience.

This is the second part of a two-part article describing AI work at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). In the Space Operations Directorate, these groups include (1) the Mission Planning and Analysis Division (MPAD) - Technology Development and Applications Branch, (2) the Spacecraft Software Division, and (3) the Systems Division - Systems Support Section. This second part of the article describes the AI work in the Space Operations Directorate. The first part of the article, published in the last week of AI Magazine, (7:1, Summer 1986) described the AI work in the Research and Engineering Directorate.

This report describes recent and continuing research in artificial intelligence and related fields being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Although AI research takes place primarily in the Department of Computer and Information Science ( in School of Engineering and Applied Science), many aspects of this research are preformed in collaboration with other engineering departments as well as other schools at the University, such as the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, and Wharton School.

The objectives of this document (a part of a retrospective monograph on the AGE Project currently in preparation) are (1) to define what is meant by blackboard systems and (2) to show the richness and diversity of blackboard system designs. In Part 1 we discussed the underlying concept behind all blackboard systems -- the blackboard model of problem solving. We also traced the history of ideas and designs of some application systems that helped shape the blackboard model. In application systems, the blackboard system components are integrated into the domain knowledge required to solve the problem at hand.

In this article, we present a programming language for expressing classificatory problem solvers. CSRL (Conceptual Structures Representation Language) provides structures for representing classification trees, for navigating within those trees, and for encoding uncertainly judgments about the presence of hypotheses. We discuss the motivations, theory, and assumptions that underlie CRSL. Also, some expert systems constructed with CSRL are briefly described.