The purpose of this paper is to introduce patent litigation as a leading indicator of market
growth. We model the intensity of patent litigation and the market growth for the
personal computer and cellular phone market in the US. By…

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,…

Humans recognize optical reflectance properties of surfaces such as metal, plastic, or paper from a single image without knowledge of illumination. We develop a machine vision system to perform similar recognition tasks automatically. Reflectance estimation under unknown, arbitrary illumination proves…

We have developed a technique called RISE (Random Image Structure Evolution), by which one may systematically sample continuous paths in a high-dimensional image space. A basic RISE sequence depicts the evolution of an object's image from a random field, along…

All intelligence relies on search --- for example, the search for an intelligent agent's next action. Search is only likely to succeed in resource-bounded agents if they have already been biased towards finding the right answer. In artificial agents, the…

Industrial Ecology (IE) is a systems approach to efficient resource use and protection of the
environment. Instead of just devising improved methods of waste treatment and disposal, we look for the best
opportunities to reduce waste throughout the total material…

Flow Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) is the most prevalent material degradation mechanism for low carbon steel in steam-water flow systems. The band of uncertainty in predictions of wear rate due to FAC spans one to two orders of magnitude. Such a…

In this dissertation, I trace methods for organizing skilled workers engaged in creative, limited-term projects in the United States between the nineteenth century and the 1950s. Examining eras of system building in technical fields-civil engineering in the nineteenth century, laboratory…