Speaker-independence and large lexicon access are still two of the greatest problems in automatic speech recognition. Cognitive and information-theory approaches try to solve the recognition problem by proceeding in almost opposite directions. The former rely on knowledge representation, reasoning and…

We consider a nonlinear mathematical program, with twice continuously differentiable functions., If a point x$ sb0$ does not satisfy a certain Second Order Sufficient Condition (SOS) for optimality (that does not require any constraint qualification, see, e.g., BEN-ISRAEL, BEN-TAL and…

The incorporation of temporally extended actions, or options , into the reinforcement learning framework has proven to be useful in planning and knowledge representation. Options provide a form of temporal abstraction, as they represent courses of action of variable duration.…

"Model Driven Software Development" is a recent trend in development of software-intensive systems. In the Model Driven Software Development process, all knowledge pertaining to the software system to be built is represented in the form of models, in the right…

People are efficient when they make decisions under uncertainty, even when their decisions have long-term ramifications, or when their knowledge and their perception of the environment are uncertain. We are able to experiment with the environment and learn, improving our…

A cis-regulatory module (CRM) is a DNA region of a few hundred base pairs that consists of clustering of several transcription factor binding sites and regulates the expression of a nearby gene. This thesis presents a new computational approach to…

Narratives play a significant role in many computer games, and this is especially true in genres such as role-playing and adventure games. Even so, many games have narratives which possess a certain number of flaws that can deteriorate the playing…