Evaluating a Legal Argument Program: The BankXX Experiments

In this article we evaluate the BankXX program from several perspectives. BankXX is a case-based legal argument program that retrieves cases and other legal knowledge pertinent to a legal argument through a combination of heuristic search and knowledge-based indexing. The program is described in detail in a companion article in Artificial Intelligence and Law 4: 1--71, 1996. Three perspectives are used to evaluate BankXX:(1) classical information retrieval measures of precision and recall applied against a hand-coded baseline; (2) knowledge-representation and case-based reasoning, where the baseline is provided by the functionality of a well-known case-based argument program, HYPO (Ashley, 1990); and (3) search, in which the performance of BankXX run with various parameter settings, for instance, resource limits, is compared. In this article we report on an extensive series of experiments performed to evaluate the program. We also describe two additional experiments concerning(1) the program's search behavior; and (2) the use of a modified form of precision and recall based on case similarity. Finally we offer some general conclusions that might be drawn from these particular experiments.     

The historical workstation project

Since 1978 research in the development of software dedicated to the specific problems of historical research has been undertaken at the Max-Planck-Institute für Geschichte in Göttingen. From a background of practical experiences during these years, a concept of what an appropriate workstation for an historian would be has been derived. It stresses the necessity of three components: (a) software, derived from a detailed analysis of what differentiates information contained in historical sources from such present in current material, (b) databases which are as easily available as printed books and (c) knowledge bases which allow software and data bases to draw upon the information contained in historical reference works. A loose network of European research projects, dedicated to the realization of such a setup, is described.Manfred Thaller has a Ph.D. (1975) in Modern and Medieval History and held a post-doctoral fellowship in sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna). Since 1978 he has been at the Max-Planck-Institute for History, where he is a research fellow for Historical Information Science.     

A Mathematical Analysis of Pānini’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Śivasūtras</Emphasis>

In Pninis grammar of Sanskrit one finds the ivastras, a table which defines the natural classes of phonological segments in Sanskrit by intervals. We present a formal argument which shows that, using his representation method, Pninis way of ordering the phonological segments to represent the natural classes is optimal. The argument is based on a strictly set-theoretical point of view depending only on the set of natural classes and does not explicitly take into account the phonological features of the segments, which are, however, implicitly given in the way a language clusters its phonological inventory. The key idea is to link the graph of the Hasse-diagram of the set of natural classes closed under intersection to ivastra-style representations of the classes. Moreover, the argument is so general that it allows one to decide for each set of sets whether it can be represented with Pninis method. Actually, Pnini had to modify the set of natural classes to define it by the ivastras (the segment h plays a special role). We show that this modification was necessary and, in fact, the best possible modification. We discuss how every set of classes can be modified in such a way that it can be defined in a ivastra-style representation.¹     

Knowledge discovery and system-user partnership: On a production “adversarial partnership” approach

We examine the relationship between systems and their users from the knowledge discovery perspective. Recently knowledge discovery in databases has made important progress, but it may also bring some potential problems to database design, such as issues related to database security, because an unauthorised user may derive highly sensitive knowledge from unclassified data. In this paper we point out that there is a need for a comprehensive study on knowledge discovery in human-computer symbiosis. Borrowing terms from algorithm design and artificial intelligence literature, we propose a notion called database-user adversarial partnership. We point out that this notion is general enough to cover various knowledge discovery and security of issues related to databases and their users. Furthermore, we point out the notion of database-user adversarial partnership can be further generalised into system-user adversarial partnership. Opportunities provided by knowledge discovery techniques and potential social implications are also discussed.     

End-to-end communications management using TMN “X” interfaces

The ongoing integration of LANs and WANs to support global communications and businesses and the emergence of integrated broadband communication services has created an increased demand for cooperation between customers, network and service providers to achieve end-to-end service management. Such a cooperation between autonomous authorities, each defining their own administrative management domains, requires the application of an open standardized framework to facilitate and regulate interworking. Such a framework is given by the ITU-T recommendations on TMN, where the so-called X interface is of particular importance for inter-domain management. In this paper, we explain the role of the TMN X interface within an inter-domain TMN architecture supporting end-to-end communications management. We identify the important issues that need to be addressed for the definition and realization of TMN X interfaces and report about our practical experiences with the implementation of TMN X interfaces in the PREPARE project.     

AI & Society and society

This article looks at the broadest implications of public acceptance of AI. A distinction is drawn between conscious belief in a technology, and organic belief where the technology is incorporated into an unconscious world model. The extent to which we feel threatened by AI's apparent denial of spirit is considered, along with a discussion of how people react to this threat. It is proposed that organic acceptance of AI models would lead to a rebirth of popular spiritual concepts as paradoxical as the New Age ideas that have their roots in the theories of physics. Finally the relevance of this speculation is discussed in terms of how it could impinge upon public acceptability of AI technology.     

Global culture, local cultures and the internet: The Thai example

This paper addresses the questions of whether and, if so, how and to what extent the Internet brings about homogenisation of local cultures in the world. It examines a particular case, that of Thai culture, through an investigation and interpretation of a Usenet newsgroup, soc.culture.thai. Two threads of discussion in the newsgroup are selected. One deals with criticisms of the Thai government and political leaders, and the other focuses on whether the Thai language should be a medium, or perhaps the only medium, of communication in the newsgroup. It is found that, instead of erasing local cultural boundaries, creating a worldwide monolithic culture, the Internet reduplicates the existing cultural boundaries. What the Internet does, on the contrary, is to create an umbrella cosmopolitan culture which is necessary for communication among people from disparate cultures. That culture, however, is devoid of thick backgrounds, in Michael Walzer's sense.     

Understanding Computer-based “Informated” Environments

The paper introduces the concept of Computer-based Informated Environments (CBIEs) to indicate an emergent form of work organisation facilitated by information technology. It first addresses the problem of inconsistent meanings of the informate concept in the literature, and it then focuses on those cases which, it is believed, show conditions of plausible informated environments. Finally, the paper looks at those factors that when found together contribute to building a CBIE. It makes reference to CBIEs as workplaces that comprise a non-technocentric perspective and questions whether CBIEs truly represent an anthropocentric route of information technology.     

Modal Pure Type Systems

We present a framework for intensional reasoning in typed -calculus. In this family of calculi, called Modal Pure Type Systems (MPTSs), a propositions-as-types-interpretation can be given for normal modal logics. MPTSs are an extension of the Pure Type Systems (PTSs) of Barendregt (1992). We show that they retain the desirable meta-theoretical properties of PTSs, and briefly discuss applications in the area of knowledge representation.     

Verifying programs in the calculus of inductive constructions

This paper deals with a particular approach to the verification of functional programs. A specification of a program can be represented by a logical formula [Con86, NPS90]. In a constructive framework, developing a program then corresponds to proving this formula. Given a specification and a program, we focus on reconstructing a proof of the specification whose algorithmic contents corresponds to the given program. The best we can hope is to generate proof obligations on atomic parts of the program corresponding to logical properties to be verified. First, this paper studies a weak extraction of a program from a proof that keeps track of intermediate specifications. From such a program, we prove the determinism of retrieving proof obligations. Then, heuristic methods are proposed for retrieving the proof from a natural program containing only partial annotations. Finally, the implementation of this method as a tactic of theCoq proof assistant is presented.This research was partly supported by ESPRIT Basic Research Action Types for Proofs and Programs and by Programme de Recherche Coordonnes and CNRS Groupement de Recherche Programmation.     

A Typology of Translation Problems for Eurotra Translation Machines

This paper presents a detailed study of Eurotra Machine Translation engines, namely the mainstream Eurotra software known as the E-Framework, and two unofficial spin-offs – the C,A,T and Relaxed Compositionality translator notations – with regard to how these systems handle hard cases, and in particular their ability to handle combinations of such problems. In the C,A,T translator notation, some cases of complex transfer are wild, meaning roughly that they interact badly when presented with other complex cases in the same sentence. The effect of this is that each combination of a wild case and another complex case needs ad hoc treatment. The E-Framework is the same as the C,A,T notation in this respect. In general, the E-Framework is equivalent to the C,A,T notation for the task of transfer. The Relaxed Compositionality translator notation is able to handle each wild case (bar one exception) with a single rule even where it appears in the same sentence as other complex cases.     

Maximum queue size and hashing with lazy deletion

We answer questions about the distribution of the maximum size of queues and data structures as a function of time. The concept of maximum occurs in many issues of resource allocation. We consider several models of growth, including general birth-and-death processes, the M/G/ model, and a non-Markovian process (data structure) for processing plane-sweep information in computational geometry, called hashing with lazy deletion (HwLD). It has been shown that HwLD is optimal in terms of expected time and dynamic space; our results show that it is also optimal in terms of expectedpreallocated space, up to a constant factor.We take two independent and complementary approaches: first, in Section 2, we use a variety of algebraic and analytical techniques to derive exact formulas for the distribution of the maximum queue size in stationary birth-and-death processes and in a nonstationary model related to file histories. The formulas allow numerical evaluation and some asymptotics. In our second approach, in Section 3, we consider the M/G/ model (which includes M/M/ as a special case) and use techniques from the analysis of algorithms to get optimal big-oh bounds on the expected maximum queue size and on the expected maximum amount of storage used by HwLD in excess of the optimal amount. The techniques appear extendible to other models, such as M/M/1.Research was also done while the author was at Princeton University, supported in part by a Procter Fellowship.Research was also done while the author was on sabbatical at INRIA in Rocquencourt, France, and at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. Support was provided in part by National Science Foundation Research Grant DCR-84-03613, by an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award with matching funds from an IBM Faculty Development Award and an AT&T research grant, by a Guggenheim Fellowship, and by the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Contract N00014-83-K-0146 and ARPA Order 6320, Amendment 1.     

Rational representations of behaviors: Interconnectability and stabilizability

This paper presents an analysis of representation and stability properties of dynamical systems whose signals are assumed to be square summable sequences. Systems are defined as families of trajectories with no more structure than linearity and shift invariance. We depart from the usual input-output and operator theoretic setting and view relationships among system variables as a more general starting point for the study of dynamical systems. Parametrizations of two model classes are derived in terms of analytic functions which define kernel and image representations of dynamical systems. It is shown how state space models are derived from these representations. Uniqueness and minimality of these representations are completely characterized. Elementary properties like stabilizability, regularity, and interconnectability of dynamical systems are introduced and characterized in this set theoretic framework.Part of this research has been made possible by a grant from the European Community for the Systems Identification and Modeling Network (SIMONET).This research has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Arts.     

A predicate transformer for the progress property ‘to-always’

The temporal property to-always has been proposed for specifying progress properties of concurrent programs. Although the to-always properties are a subset of the leads-to properties for a given program, to-always has more convenient proof rules and in some cases more accurately describes the desired system behavior. In this paper, we give a predicate transformerwta, derive some of its properties, and use it to define to-always. Proof rules for to-always are derived from the properties ofwta. We conclude by briefly describing two application areas, nondeterministic data flow networks and self-stabilizing systems where to-always properties are useful.     

The Wearable Motherboard™: The first generation of adaptive and responsive textile structures (ARTS) for medical applications

Virtual reality (VR) has been making inroads into medicine in a broad spectrum of applications, including medical education, surgical training, telemedicine, surgery and the treatment of phobias and eating disorders. The extensive and innovative applications of VR in medicine, made possible by the rapid advancements in information technology, have been driven by the need to reduce the cost of healthcare while enhancing the quality of life for human beings.In this paper, we discuss the design, development and realisation of an innovative technology known as the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard (GTWM), or the Smart Shirt. The principal advantage of GTWM is that it provides, for the first time, a very systematic way of monitoring the vital signs of humans in an unobtrusive manner. The flexible databus integrated into the structure transmits the information to monitoring devices such as an EKG machine, a temperature recorder, a voice recorder, etc. GTWM is lightweight and can be worn easily by anyone, from infants to senior citizens. We present the universal characteristics of the interface pioneered by the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard and explore the potential applications of the technology in areas ranging from combat to geriatric care. The GTWM is the realisation of a personal information processing system that gives new meaning to the termubiquitous computing. Just as the spreadsheet pioneered the field of information processing that brought computing to the masses, it is anticipated that the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard will bring personalised and affordable healthcare monitoring to the population at large.     

The Eigenvalue Problem for the 2D Laplacian in ℋ-Matrix Arithmetic and Application to the Heat and Wave Equation

A class of matrices (-matrices) has recently been introduced by Hackbusch for approximating large and fully populated matrices arising from FEM and BEM applications. These matrices are data-sparse and allow approximate matrix operations of almost linear complexity. In the present paper, we choose a special class of -matrices that provides a good approximation to the inverse of the discrete 2D Laplacian. For these 2D -matrices we study the blockwise recursive schemes for block triangular linear systems of equations and the Cholesky and LDL^T factorization in an approximate arithmetic of almost linear complexity. Using the LDL^T factorization we compute eigenpairs of the discrete 2D Laplacian in -matrix arithmetic by means of a so-called simultaneous iteration for computing invariant subspaces of non-Hermitian matrices due to Stewart. We apply the -matrix techniques to approximate the solutions of the high-frequency 2D wave equation for smooth initial data and the 2D heat equation for arbitrary initial data by spectral decomposition of the discrete 2D Laplacian in, up to logarithmic factors, optimal complexity.     

Continuous-time time-varying entropy

In this paper we present a definition for the entropy for time-varying continuous-time systems. This entropy differs significantly from the entropy for discrete-time systems, which is defined as the memoryless component of the spectral factor of an operator related to the system. Properties of this entropy are discussed, the relationships with ₂ and , as well as the relationship with the discrete-time entropy.The work of P. A. Iglesias was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, under Contract ECS-9309387.     

Intelligent Manufacturing:Present State and Future Trends

AI methods are introduced to an increasing extent in the field of CIM and robotics. This development results in intelligent CIM components – ICAD, ICAP, ICAM, ICAQ – and in intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) as well as in intelligent robots. This new philosophy requires a lot of prerequisites and research. ICIM or IMS is partially introduced in industry but mainly for large companies. AI as knowledge based and expert systems is ready to be introduced in an efficient way in CIM components. Intelligent, mobile robots as integrated parts of CIM and IMS are ready to be used in factory automation. One of the next steps could be the introduction of Multi-Agent and/or holonic systems. In this contribution the history and the present state of flexible manufacturing, with special emphasis on robotics, are described and further trends in development – Multi Agent Systems – are discussed mainly from the viewpoint of SMEs.     

From Pre-Historic to Post-Modern Symbolic Model Checking

Symbolic model checking, which enables the automatic verification of large systems, proceeds by calculating expressions that represent state sets. Traditionally, symbolic model-checking tools are based on backward state traversal; their basic operation is the function pre, which, given a set of states, returns the set of all predecessor states. This is because specifiers usually employ formalisms with future-time modalities, which are naturally evaluated by iterating applications of pre. It has been shown experimentally that symbolic model checking can perform significantly better if it is based, instead, on forward state traversal; in this case, the basic operation is the function post, which, given a set of states, returns the set of all successor states. This is because forward state traversal can ensure that only parts of the state space that are reachable from an initial state and relevant for the satisfaction or violation of the specification are explored; that is, errors can be detected as soon as possible.In this paper, we investigate which specifications can be checked by symbolic forward state traversal. We formulate the problems of symbolic backward and forward model checking by means of two -calculi. The pre- calculus is based on the pre operation, and the post- calculus is based on the post operation. These two -calculi induce query logics, which augment fixpoint expressions with a boolean emptiness query. Using query logics, we are able to relate and compare the symbolic backward and forward approaches. In particular, we prove that all -regular (linear-time) specifications can be expressed as post- queries, and therefore checked using symbolic forward state traversal. On the other hand, we show that there are simple branching-time specifications that cannot be checked in this way.