Much Learning is done by way of studying precedents and exercises. A teacher supplies a story, gives a problem, and expects a student both to solve a problem and to discover a principle. The student must find the correspondence between…

There are many situations in which a very detailed low-level description encodes, through a hierarchical organization, a recognizable higher-order pattern. The macro-molecular structural conformations of proteins exhibit higher order regularities whose recognition is complicated by many factors. ARIADNE searches for…

This paper presents a novel algorithm for learning in a class of stochastic Markov decision processes (MDPs) with continuous state and action spaces that trades speed for accuracy. A transform of the stochastic MDP into a deterministic one is presented…

We had previously shown that regularization principles lead to approximation schemes, as Radial Basis Functions, which are equivalent to networks with one layer of hidden units, called Regularization Networks. In this paper we show that regularization networks encompass a much…

What are the characteristics of the process by which an intent is transformed into a plan and then a program? How is a program debugged? This paper analyzes these questions in the context of understanding simple turtle programs. To understand…

A system for visual recognition is described, with implications for the general problem of representation of knowledge to assist control. The immediate objective is a computer system that will recognize objects in a visual scene, specifically hammers. The computer receives…

In this thesis, I examine how spinning off new ventures from academic institutions works in an environment outside developed high tech clusters and how it affects models of ventures. I examine these questions by studying the case of Belgium. There…

We have developed a method and prototype program for assisting two experts in their attempts to construct a single, consensus knowledge base. We show that consensus building can be effectively facilitated by a debugging approach that identifies, explains, and resolves…

This report shows how knowledge about the visual world can be built into a shape representation in the form of a descriptive vocabulary making explicit the important geometrical relationships comprising objects' shapes. Two computational tools are offered: (1) Shapestokens are…

This thesis describes the development and experimental verification (via liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance techniques) of new methods for controlling open quantum systems. First, methods that improve coherent control through the use of both strong control fields and detailed knowledge…