This thesis considers three complications that arise from applying reinforcement learning to a real-world application. In the process of using reinforcement learning to build an adaptive electronic market-maker, we find the sparsity of data, the partial observability of the domain,…

This thesis examines the evolution of Internet based knowledge networks (e-knowledge networks) in the domain of sustainable development. The objective of this thesis is to use an engineering systems approach to understand knowledge networks, identify the barriers to their sustainability…

This report develops a conceptual framework in which to talk about mathematical knowledge. There are several broad categories of mathematical knowledge: results which contain the traditional logical aspects of mathematics; examples which contain illustrative material; and concepts which include formal…

by Sherry L. Buschmann., Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2001., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-116).

The central thesis of this report is that human language is NP-complete. That is, the process of comprehending and producing utterances is bounded above by the class NP, and below by NP-hardness. This constructive complexity thesis has two empirical consequences.…

The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposes to continue its work on a group of closely interconnected projects, all bearing on questions about how to make computers able to use more sophisticated kinds of knowledge to solve difficult problems. This proposal explains…

The problem of automatic face recognition is to visually identify a person in an input image. This task is performed by matching the input face against the faces of known people in a database of faces. Most existing work in…

Computers open up new ways to think about knowledge and learning. Learning computer science should draw upon and feed these new approaches. In a previous paper called "Leading a Child to a Computer Culture" I discuss some ways to do…

If we are provided a face database with only one example view per person, is it possible to recognize new views of them under a variety of different poses, especially views rotated in depth from the original example view? We…

This thesis presents two applications of the prototypical make-to-stock queue model that are mainly motivated by supply chain management and e-commerce issues. In the first part, we consider the decentralized version of the make-to-stock model. Two different agents that we…