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…

by Abbinav Taneja., Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology and Policy Program; and, (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-116).

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…

Currently, Draper Laboratory is in the development stages of a gliding autogyro airdrop system. The goal of the project is to design a platform capable of placing small, high value items into urban terrain. Theoretically, autogyros can achieve descent rates…

This paper presents the results of an ongoing effort to develop a direct solder bumping process for electronics packaging. The proposed process entails delivering molten droplets onto specific locations on electronic devices to form solder bumps. This study is focused…

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,…

Does knowledge of language consist of symbolic rules? How do children learn and use their linguistic knowledge? To elucidate these questions, we present a computational model that acquires phonological knowledge from a corpus of common English nouns and verbs. In…

Reasoning about motion is an important part of our commonsense knowledge, involving fluent spatial reasoning. This work studies the qualitative and geometric knowledge required to reason in a world that consists of balls moving through space constrained by collisions with…

How can we insure that knowledge embedded in a program is applied effectively? Traditionally the answer to this question has been sought in different problem solving paradigms and in different approaches to encoding and indexing knowledge. Each of these is…

by Kimberly G. Waters., Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-46).