The Phase Space is a powerful tool for representing and reasoning about the qualitative behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems. Significant physical phenomena of the dynamical system---periodicity, recurrence, stability and the like---are reflected by outstanding geometric features of the trajectories in…

This research is concerned with designing representations for analytical reasoning problems (of the sort found on the GRE and LSAT). These problems test the ability to draw logical conclusions. A computer program was developed that takes as input a straightforward…

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…

Three important trends - unrelenting globalization, growing worldwide electronic connectivity, and increasing knowledge intensity of economic activity - are creating new opportunities for global politics, with challenging demands for information access, interpretation, provision and overall use. This has serious implications…

This paper analyzes the suitability of reinforcement learning (RL) for both programming and adapting situated agents. We discuss two RL algorithms: Q-learning and the Bucket Brigade. We introduce a special case of the Bucket Brigade, and analyze and compare its…

Explanation-based learning occurs when something useful is retained from an explanation, usually an account of how some particular problem can be solved given a sound theory. Many real-world explanations are not based on sound theory, however, and wrong things may…

Most knowledge representation languages are based on classes and taxonomic relationships between classes. Taxonomic hierarchies without defaults or exceptions are semantically equivalent to a collection of formulas in first order predicate calculus. Although designers of knowledge representation languages often express…

Intelligent agents in the physical world must work from incomplete information due to partial knowledge and limited resources. An agent copes with these limitations by applying rules of conjecture to make reasonable assumptions about what is known. Circumscription, proposed by…

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…

The goal of this thesis is to apply the computational approach to motor learning, i.e., describe the constraints that enable performance improvement with experience and also the constraints that must be satisfied by a motor learning system, describe what is…