Technology
The Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education
The Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education attracted over 400 participants from all over the world who gathered to present projects reports, exchange views, discuss common problems, and establish contacts concerning AI and education. This article presents a synopsis of the major presentations and an overview of the conference as a whole.
Recognizing Address Blocks on Mail Pieces: Specialized Tools and Problem-Solving Architecture
Srihari, Sargur N., Wang, Ching-Huei, Palumbo, Paul W., Hull, Jonathan J.
An important task in postal automation technology is determining the position and orientation of the destination address block in the image of a mail piece such as a letter, magazine, or parcel. Analysis of physical characteristics of mail pieces indicates that in order to automate the address finding task, several different image analysis operations are necessary. Some examples are locating a rectangular white address label on a multicolor background, progressively grouping characters into text lines and text lines into text blocks, eliminating candidate regions by specialized detectors (for example, detecting regions such as postage stamps), and identifying handwritten regions. Described here are several operations, their utility as predicted by statistics of mail piece characteristics, and the results of applying the operations to a task set of mail piece images.
In Memorium: Kvetoslav "Slava" Prazdny
Baird, Mike, Thorndyke, Perry W., Tenenbaum, Jay M.
Kvetoslav "Slava" Prazdny, who died September 19, 1987 in a hang-gliding accident in the California mountains, was recognized internationally as an expert in many aspects of human and machine perception. He had published over 60 articles reporting research in human perception, stereo vision, image processing, robotics, perceptual reasoning and learning, adaptive neural networks, and psychophysics. A redwood tree in Big Basin State Park is dedicated in his memory.
An Assessment of Tools for Building Large Knowledge-Based Systems
A number of tools that support the development, execution, and maintenance of knowledge-based systems are marketed commercially. Many of these tools, however, are designed for applications that can be executed on personal computers and are not suitable for building large knowledge-based systems. The market for knowledge engineering tools designed for applications that require the computational power of a Lisp machine or an engineering workstation is dominated by a few vendors. This article is an assessment of the current state of tools used to build large knowledge-based systems.
Contributors
Sargur N. Srihari is a professor and acting chairman of the Department of Computer Science, State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. The author of "Recognizing Address Blocks on Mail Pieces," Srihari is an associate editor of the journal Pattern Recognition and is chairman of the technical committee on text-processing applications of the International Mike Baird, who coauthored the tribute to Kvetoslav Prazdny, is manager of Association for Pattern Recognition. Srihari is also currently directing two Intelligence Center 1185 Coleman Avenue, Santa Clara, California 95052. Jeffrey Stone is a consultant who watches the computer industry and Jonathan J. Hull is a research assistant Digital Equipment Corporation that reports new developments and trends. The opinions expressed "Recognizing Address Blocks on Mail address is Knowledge Systems Corporation, in his article are his own. Jeffrey Stout is on the research staff of computer vision, and artificial intelligence. An Expert Elevator report on AI and education, is an Buffalo, where he is also currently Designer that Uses Knowledge-Based associate professor in the Department working on his Ph.D. His research Backtracking." of Mathematics and Computer Science interests include image processing, at Millersville University, computer graphics, and computer segmentation Jay M. Tenenbaum, who coauthored Millersville, Pennsylvania 1755 1. Palumbo is a the tribute to Kvetoslav Prazdny, is a coauthor of "Recognizing Address Schlumberger Fellow at the Schlumberger John McDermott is a principal scientist Blocks on Mail Pieces."
In Memorium: Kvetoslav "Slava" Prazdny
Baird, Mike, Thorndyke, Perry W., Tenenbaum, Jay M.
He then the Sempervirens Fund Anyone wishing Kvetoslav "Slava" Prazdny died in a completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science to make a tribute can do so in Slava's hang-gliding accident, Saturday, at the University of Essex. His name to The Sempervirens Fund, P 0 September 19th, 1987, in the California work reflected the marriage of these Drawer BE, Los Altos, California 94023 mountains. He is survived by his disciplines, as he strove to develop wife, Dagmar Dolan, and his 15 year formal computational models of old daughter Bronja Prazdny. During He was a member of American his prolific career, he had published Association for Advancement of Science, over 60 journal articles reporting American Association for Artificial research in human perception, Intelligence, The Cognitive Science stereo vision, image processing, Society, The Psychonomic Soci-robotics, perceptual reasoning and ety, International Society for Ecological learning, adaptive neural networks, Psychology, Society for Information and psychophysics. Display, SPIE, and a Fellow of the Slava derived his greatest pleasure New York Academy of Sciences.