Whereas optical character recognition (OCR) systems learn to classify singlecharacters; people learn to classify long character strings in parallel, within a single fixation. This difference is surprising because high dimensionality is associated with poor classification learning. This paper suggests that the human reading system avoids these problems because the number of to-be-classified images isreduced by consistent and optimal eye fixation positions, and by character sequence regularities. An interesting difference exists between human reading and optical character recognition (OCR)systems. The input/output dimensionality of character classification in human reading is much greater than that for OCR systems (see Figure 1) . OCR systems classify one character at time; while the human reading system classifies as many as 8-13 characters per eye fixation (Rayner, 1979) and within a fixation, character category and sequence information is extracted in parallel (Blanchard, McConkie, Zola, and Wolverton, 1984; Reicher, 1969).

We investigate the effectiveness of stochastic hillclimbing as a baseline for the performance of genetic algorithms (GAs) as combinatorialevaluating In particular, we address two problems to whichfunction optimizers.

Inherent batch-to-batch variability, aging, and contamination are major factors contributing to variability in oil-field cement-slurry performance. Such variability imposes a heavy burden on performance testing and is often a major factor in operational failure. Our approach involves predicting cement compositions, particle-size distributions, and thickening-time curves from the diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectrum of neat cement powders. Our research shows that many key cement properties are captured within the Fourier transform infrared spectra of cement powders and can be predicted from these spectra using suitable neural network techniques.

As part of a collaboration with the White House Office of Media Affairs, members of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a system, called COMLINK, that distributes a daily stream of documents released by the Office of Media Affairs. Approximately 4,000 direct subscribers receive information from this service, but more than 100,000 people receive the information through redistribution channels. The information is distributed through e-mail and the World Wide Web. These invalid subscriptions cause a backwash of hundreds of bounced-mail messages each day that must be processed by the operators of the COMLINK system.

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. This initiative is strategic, enabling the business to make the key move from weekly to daily ordering. 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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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 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).