A range of different encoding techniques have been developed, along with a number of approaches to applying knowledge. Most of the effort to daze however, has concentrated on representing and manipulating knowledge about a specific domain of application, like game-playing ([14D, natural language understanding ([153, [19]), speech understanding ([8], [II)), chemistry ([7]), etc. This paper explores a number of issues involving representation and use of what we term meta-level knowledge, or knowledge about knowledge'. It begins by defining the term, then exploring a few of its varieties and considering the range of capabilities it makes possible. Four specific examples of meta-level knowledge are described, and a demonstration given of their application to a number of problems, including interactive tranfer of expertise and the "intelligent" use of knowledge. Finally, we consider the long term implications of the concept and its likely impact on the design of large programs.

This chapter will discuss one example of how AI techniques are being integrated with, and extending, existing molecular biology sequence analysis methods. AI ideas of complex representations, pattern recognition, search, and machine learning have been applied to the task of inferring and recognizing structural patterns associated with molecular function. We wish to construct such patterns, and to recognize them in unknown molecules, based on information inferred solely from protein primary (amino acid) sequences.

The RNA secondary structure prediction problem (2 RNA) is a critical one in molecular biology. Secondary structure can be determined directly by x-ray diffraction, but this is difficult, slow, and expensive. Moreover, it is currently impossible to crystallize most RNAs. Mathematical models for prediction have therefore been developed and these have led to serial (and some parallel) computer algorithms, but these too are expensive in terms of computation time. The general solution has asymptotic running time exponential in N (i.e., proportional to 2 N), where N is the length of the RNA sequence. Serial approximation algorithms which employ heuristics and make strong assumptions are significantly faster, on the order of N 3 or N 4, but their predictive success rates are low -- often less than 40 percent -- and even these algorithms can run for days when processing very long (thousands of bases) RNA sequences. Neural network algorithms that perform a multiple constraint satisfaction search using a massively parallel network of simple processors may provide accurate and very fast solutions.

How could one represent with a single prototype the class of figures which have an even number of disconnected parts?

How could one represent with a single prototype the class of figures which have an even number of disconnected parts?

Methods of Approach At the outset it might be well to distinguish sharply between two general approaches to the problem of machine learning.

The editors have provided him with special introductory sections as a ing guide to a thorough understand of the reports.

Empirical rule learning and analytic Most learning is based on experience, and this requires a learning methods have predominantly used the first path, representation for the experiential input given to the whereas connectionist systems have relied on the second.

J. H. Conway, On Numbers and Games, Academic Press, New In this article, a number of concepts that are of importance York, 1976. in research on game-playing programs have been J. H. Conway, "All Games Bright and Beautiful," Am.

Step 6 is a goal-assertion the input, another algorithm might result. Thus one could resolution that functions similarly to the goal-goal resolution break a into a[1],..., a [length(a)/2] and a [length(a)/ above. The final synthesized program is: 2 1],..., a[length(a)] and find an algorithm that recursively calls f on both the first and second halves of its f(x) if x NIL then 0 else car(x) f(cdr(x)).