Every year, AI Magazine devotes one fourth of its annual production to a special issue based on the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence conference. Because IAAI is the premier venue for documenting the transition of AI technology into application, these special issues provide a snapshot of the state of the art in AI with the practical syllogism in mind; they present work that has value because it delivers value in use.

Labor monitoring is crucial in modern health care, as it can be used to detect (and help avoid) significant problems with the fetus. In this article we focus on detecting hypoxia (or oxygen deprivation), a very serious condition that can arise from different pathologies and can lead to life-long disability and death. We present a novel approach to hypoxia detection based on recordings of the uterine pressure and fetal heart rate, which are obtained using standard labor monitoring devices. Then, we use the parameters of these models as attributes in a binary classification problem.

In this article we provide insight into the BodyMedia FIT armband system -- a wearable multi-sensor technology that continuously monitors physiological events related to energy expenditure for weight management using machine learning and data modeling methods. Since becoming commercially available in 2001, more than half a million users have used the system to track their physiological parameters and to achieve their individual health goals including weight-loss. We describe several challenges that arise in applying machine learning techniques to the health care domain and present various solutions utilized in the armband system. We demonstrate how machine learning and multi-sensor data fusion techniques are critical to the system's success.

The focus of this paper is the calculation of similarity between two concepts from an ontology for a Human-Like Interaction system. In order to facilitate this calculation, a similarity function is proposed based on five dimensions (sort, compositional, essential, restrictive and descriptive) constituting the structure of ontological knowledge. The paper includes a proposal for computing a similarity function for each dimension of knowledge. Later on, the similarity values obtained are weighted and aggregated to obtain a global similarity measure. In order to calculate those weights associated to each dimension, four training methods have been proposed. The training methods differ in the element to fit: the user, concepts or pairs of concepts, and a hybrid approach. For evaluating the proposal, the knowledge base was fed from WordNet and extended by using a knowledge editing toolkit (Cognos). The evaluation of the proposal is carried out through the comparison of system responses with those given by human test subjects, both providing a measure of the soundness of the procedure and revealing ways in which the proposal may be improved.

This article is the first report in the best of AI in Japan series. This series will focus on the prominent accomplishments made in the AI field, not only the research and development but also the AI-related events in society. As the first in the forthcoming series, this opening article features a historical background and the contemporary AI-research activities in Japan. It then highlights some recent prominent results from the industry. Finally, a future perspective is given.

Labor monitoring is crucial in modern health care, as it can be used to detect (and help avoid) significant problems with the fetus. In this article we focus on detecting hypoxia (or oxygen deprivation), a very serious condition that can arise from different pathologies and can lead to life-long disability and death. We present a novel approach to hypoxia detection based on recordings of the uterine pressure and fetal heart rate, which are obtained using standard labor monitoring devices. The key idea is to learn models of the fetal response to signals from its environment. Then, we use the parameters of these models as attributes in a binary classification problem. A running count of pathological classifications over several time periods is taken to provide the current label for the fetus. We use a unique database of real clinical recordings, both from normal and pathological cases. Our approach classifies correctly more than half the pathological cases, 1.5 hours before delivery. These are cases that were missed by clinicians; early detection of this type would have allowed the physician to perform a Caesarean section, possibly avoiding the negative outcome.

Fourteenth International Conference held in cooperation with AAAI. ICEIS 2012 will be held June 28 at www.aaai.org/Magazine/calendar.php. RuleML-2012 will be Artificial Intelligence. IAAI-13 will be held July 14-18, 2013, France. in Bellevue, Washington, USA AIIDE-12 will be 2012 will be held June 10-14, 2012 in on Digital Storytelling.

The AAAI-12 technical Christos Papadimtriou (University of abstracts, and poker competition program will kick off with the opening California, Berkeley) will deliver the posters.

Then we add some world knowledge, in the form of commonsense statements, to help in the text understanding. The result combines this knowledge to form a multidimensional space where concepts, people, groups, and projects are all represented as vectors. From that space we retrieve information relevant to lab visitors--dynamically creating their presence in the vector space by creating a vector from the projects they have chosen as favorites. We then use the vector space to determine the relevance of objects in the space to each other--determining which projects are similar, which projects would be good fits for a lab visitor, and which projects fit which lab themes. Additionally, we have designed a user interface that makes this system easy and social to interact with. The following subections discuss our approach to interface design, our methods for extracting semantic information from the text base, and for assessing similarity of user interests with that knowledge.

In many real-life domains, such as trading environments, selfinterested entities need to operate subject to limited time and information. Additionally, the web has mediated an ever broader range of transactions, urging participants to concurrently trade across multiple markets. All these have generated the need for technologies that empower prompt investigation of large volumes of data and rapid evaluation of numerous alternative strategies in the face of constantly changing market conditions (Bichler, Gupta, and Ketter 2010). AI and machine-learning techniques, including neural networks and genetic algorithms, are continuously gaining ground in the support of such trading scenarios. User modeling, price forecasting, market equilibrium prediction, and strategy optimization are typical cases where AI typically provides reliable solutions. Yet, the adoption and deployment of AI practices in real trading environments remains limited, since the proprietary nature of markets precludes open benchmarking, which is critical for further scientific progress.