The Listener is an automated system that unintrusively performs knowledge acquisition from informal input. The Listener develops a coherent internal representation of a description from an initial set of disorganized, imprecise, incomplete, ambiguous, and possibly inconsistent statements. The Listener can…

We describe an adaptation of the knowledge gradient, originally developed for discrete ranking and selection problems, to the problem of calibrating continuous parameters for the purpose of tuning a simulator. The knowledge gradient for continuous parameters uses a continuous approximation…

The project “hedgerow” is a cooperation between the head of the nature conservation project “Altmühlleiten”, the assistant professor of the department of didactics of geography of the Catholic University of Eichstätt, and pupils of a primary school. The aim of…

Information Retrieval Systems normally deal with keywordbased technologies. Although those systems reach satisfactory results, they aren’t able to answer more complex queries done by users, especially those directly in natural language. To do that, there are the KnowledgeBased Systems, which…

Detecting and characterizing extrasolar planets has become a very relevant field in Astrophysics. There are several methods to achieve this, but by far the most difficult and potentially most rewarding approach is direct imaging of the planets. Coronagraphs can be…

This dissertation sets a detailed, technical history of ideas of Dutch-born lens maker and natural philosopher Nicolas Hartsoeker (1656-1725). Hartsoeker's case exemplifies the kinds of intellectual journeys a university-educated man with technical skills undertook to navigate the chaos and uncertainty…

An application of Zadeh’s prototype theory in the Knowledge Acquisition process, is presented here, and as a practical example, to define a method for predicting the evolution of the forest fire occurrence-danger rate in INCEND-IA: A KBS for prediction and…

The main advantage of a recurrent architecture is the ability to store information from prior system states. A recurrent fuzzy controller includes hidden fuzzy variables which makes the controller more appropriate to deal with dynamic systems. We are currently investigating…

In todays world where nearly every company is dependent on the Internet to survive, it is not surprising that the role of intrusion detection has become extremely important within the last decade. Intrusion detection involves determining whether some entity has…

It has been noticed that during the initial semesters of Computing Engineering that the amount of human tutors is insufficient. The students/tutors ratio is very high and there is a great difference in the acquired knowledge and backgrounds. The idea…