This article discusses the First International Symposium on Integrating Knowledge and Neural Heuristics, held on 9 to 10 May 1994 in Pensacola, Florida. The highlights of the event are summarized, organized according to the five areas of concentration at the conference: (1) integration methodolo-gies; (2) language, psychology, and cognitive science; (3) fuzzy logic; (4) learning; and (5) applications.

As a field, knowledge representation has often been accused of being off in a theoretical no-man's land, removed from, and largely unrelated to, the central issues in AI. This article argues that recent trends in KR instead demonstrate the benefits of the interplay between science and engineering, a lesson from which all AI could benefit. This article grew out of a survey talk on the Third International Conference on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-92) (Nebel, Rich, and Swartout 1992) that I presented at the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-93).

To enhance the quality and consistency of its customer- support organization, Reuters embarked on a global knowledge development and reuse project. The system supports 38 Reuter products worldwide. This article presents a case study of Reuter experience in putting a global knowledge organization in place, building knowledge bases at multiple distributed sites, deploying these knowledge bases in multiple sites around the world, and maintaining and enhancing knowledge bases within a global organizational framework. This project is the first to address issues in multicountry knowledge development and maintenance and multicountry knowledge deployment.

As a field, knowledge representation has often been accused of being off in a theoretical no-man's land, removed from, and largely unrelated to, the central issues in AI. This article argues that recent trends in KR instead demonstrate the benefits of the interplay between science and engineering, a lesson from which all AI could benefit. This article grew out of a survey talk on the Third International Conference on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR-92) (Nebel, Rich, and Swartout 1992) that I presented at the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-93).

Mach-5 aircraft concept jointly funded IntelliCorp (Mountain View, Calif.), a by the National Aeronautics and vendor of knowledge-based live modeling ZEBCO MotorGuide (Tulsa, Okla.), a Space Administration and the United software, has joined PDES, a fishing tackle manufacturer, has implemented States Air Force. The aircraft utilizes global consortium working to accelerate speech-recognition technology neural technology to improve maneuverability, the development and deployment to develop a voice-activated reliability, and efficiency. of the standard for the exchange of control system for fishing boats.

The supply-chain integrated ordering network (SCION) depot-bookings system automates the planning and scheduling of perishable and nonperishable commodities and the vehicles that carry them into J. Sainsbury depots. This initiative is strategic, enabling the business to make the key move from weekly to daily ordering. The system is mission critical, managing the inward flow of commodities from suppliers into J. Sainsbury's depots. The system leverages AI techniques to provide a business solution that meets challenging functional and performance needs. The SCION depot-bookings system is operational, providing schedules for 22 depots across the United Kingdom.

Reinforcement learning has become one of the most actively studied learning frameworks in the area of intelligent autonomous agents. This article describes the results of a three-day meeting of leading researchers in this area that was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Because reinforcement learning is an interdisciplinary topic, the workshop brought together researchers from a variety of fields, including machine learning, neural networks, AI, robotics, and operations research. Thirty leading researchers from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, representing from many different universities, government, and industrial research laboratories participated in the workshop. The goals of the meeting were to (1) understand limitations of current reinforcement-learning systems and define promising directions for further research; (2) clarify the relationships between reinforcement learning and existing work in engineering fields, such as operations research; and (3) identify potential industrial applications of reinforcement learning.

This article is a reflection on the goals and focus of the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) Conference. The author begins with an historical review of the conference. He then goes on to discuss the role of the IAAI conference, including an examination of the relationship between AI scientific research and the application of AI technology. He concludes with a presentation of the new vision for the IAAI conference.

Reuters is a worldwide company focused on supplying financial and news information to its more than 40,000 subscribers around the world. To enhance the quality and consistency of its customer- support organization, Reuters embarked on a global knowledge development and reuse project. The resulting system is in operational use in North America, Europe, and Asia. The system supports 38 Reuter products worldwide. This article presents a case study of Reuter experience in putting a global knowledge organization in place, building knowledge bases at multiple distributed sites, deploying these knowledge bases in multiple sites around the world, and maintaining and enhancing knowledge bases within a global organizational framework. This project is the first to address issues in multicountry knowledge development and maintenance and multicountry knowledge deployment. These issues are critical for global companies to understand, address, and resolve to effectively gain the benefits of global knowledge systems.

An important problem faced by auditors is gauging how much reliance can be placed on the accounting systems that process millions of transactions to produce the numbers summarized in a company's financial statements. Accounting sys-ems contain internal controls, procedures designed to detect and correct errors and irregularities that can occur in the processing of transactions. In a complex accounting system, it can be an extremely difficult task for the auditor to anticipate the possible errors that can occur and evaluate the effectiveness of the controls at detecting them. An accurate analysis must take into account the unique features of each company's business processes. To cope with this complexity and variability, the COMET system applies a model-based reasoning approach to the analysis of accounting systems and their controls. An auditor uses COMET to create a hierarchical flowchart model that describes the intended processing of business transactions by an accounting system and the operation of its controls. COMET uses the constructed model to automatically analyze the effectiveness of the controls in detecting potential errors. Price Waterhouse auditors have used COMET on a variety of real audits in several countries around the world.