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cs/9603104

D. A. Cohn, Z. Ghahramani, M. I. Jordan

Active Learning with Statistical Models

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 129-145

cs.AI

For many types of machine learning algorithms, one can compute the statistically `optimal' way to select training data. In this paper, we review how optimal data selection techniques have been used with feedforward neural networks. We then show how the same principles may be used to select data for two alternative, statistically-based learning architectures: mixtures of Gaussians and locally weighted regression. While the techniques for neural networks are computationally expensive and approximate, the techniques for mixtures of Gaussians and locally weighted regression are both efficient and accurate. Empirically, we observe that the optimality criterion sharply decreases the number of training examples the learner needs in order to achieve good performance.

cs/9604101

T. Walsh

A Divergence Critic for Inductive Proof

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 209-235

cs.AI

Inductive theorem provers often diverge. This paper describes a simple critic, a computer program which monitors the construction of inductive proofs attempting to identify diverging proof attempts. Divergence is recognized by means of a ``difference matching'' procedure. The critic then proposes lemmas and generalizations which ``ripple'' these differences away so that the proof can go through without divergence. The critic enables the theorem prover Spike to prove many theorems completely automatically from the definitions alone.

cs/9604102

E. Marchiori

Practical Methods for Proving Termination of General Logic Programs

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 179-208

cs.AI

Termination of logic programs with negated body atoms (here called general logic programs) is an important topic. One reason is that many computational mechanisms used to process negated atoms, like Clark's negation as failure and Chan's constructive negation, are based on termination conditions. This paper introduces a methodology for proving termination of general logic programs w.r.t. the Prolog selection rule. The idea is to distinguish parts of the program depending on whether or not their termination depends on the selection rule. To this end, the notions of low-, weakly up-, and up-acceptable program are introduced. We use these notions to develop a methodology for proving termination of general logic programs, and show how interesting problems in non-monotonic reasoning can be formalized and implemented by means of terminating general logic programs.

cs/9604103

D. Fisher

Iterative Optimization and Simplification of Hierarchical Clusterings

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 147-178

cs.AI

Clustering is often used for discovering structure in data. Clustering systems differ in the objective function used to evaluate clustering quality and the control strategy used to search the space of clusterings. Ideally, the search strategy should consistently construct clusterings of high quality, but be computationally inexpensive as well. In general, we cannot have it both ways, but we can partition the search so that a system inexpensively constructs a `tentative' clustering for initial examination, followed by iterative optimization, which continues to search in background for improved clusterings. Given this motivation, we evaluate an inexpensive strategy for creating initial clusterings, coupled with several control strategies for iterative optimization, each of which repeatedly modifies an initial clustering in search of a better one. One of these methods appears novel as an iterative optimization strategy in clustering contexts. Once a clustering has been constructed it is judged by analysts -- often according to task-specific criteria. Several authors have abstracted these criteria and posited a generic performance task akin to pattern completion, where the error rate over completed patterns is used to `externally' judge clustering utility. Given this performance task, we adapt resampling-based pruning strategies used by supervised learning systems to the task of simplifying hierarchical clusterings, thus promising to ease post-clustering analysis. Finally, we propose a number of objective functions, based on attribute-selection measures for decision-tree induction, that might perform well on the error rate and simplicity dimensions.

cs/9605101

G. I. Webb

Further Experimental Evidence against the Utility of Occam's Razor

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 397-417

cs.AI

This paper presents new experimental evidence against the utility of Occam's razor. A~systematic procedure is presented for post-processing decision trees produced by C4.5. This procedure was derived by rejecting Occam's razor and instead attending to the assumption that similar objects are likely to belong to the same class. It increases a decision tree's complexity without altering the performance of that tree on the training data from which it is inferred. The resulting more complex decision trees are demonstrated to have, on average, for a variety of common learning tasks, higher predictive accuracy than the less complex original decision trees. This result raises considerable doubt about the utility of Occam's razor as it is commonly applied in modern machine learning.

cs/9605102

S. H. Nienhuys-Cheng, R. deWolf

Least Generalizations and Greatest Specializations of Sets of Clauses

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 341-363

cs.AI

The main operations in Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) are generalization and specialization, which only make sense in a generality order. In ILP, the three most important generality orders are subsumption, implication and implication relative to background knowledge. The two languages used most often are languages of clauses and languages of only Horn clauses. This gives a total of six different ordered languages. In this paper, we give a systematic treatment of the existence or non-existence of least generalizations and greatest specializations of finite sets of clauses in each of these six ordered sets. We survey results already obtained by others and also contribute some answers of our own. Our main new results are, firstly, the existence of a computable least generalization under implication of every finite set of clauses containing at least one non-tautologous function-free clause (among other, not necessarily function-free clauses). Secondly, we show that such a least generalization need not exist under relative implication, not even if both the set that is to be generalized and the background knowledge are function-free. Thirdly, we give a complete discussion of existence and non-existence of greatest specializations in each of the six ordered languages.

cs/9605103

L. P. Kaelbling, M. L. Littman, A. W. Moore

Reinforcement Learning: A Survey

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 237-285

cs.AI

This paper surveys the field of reinforcement learning from a computer-science perspective. It is written to be accessible to researchers familiar with machine learning. Both the historical basis of the field and a broad selection of current work are summarized. Reinforcement learning is the problem faced by an agent that learns behavior through trial-and-error interactions with a dynamic environment. The work described here has a resemblance to work in psychology, but differs considerably in the details and in the use of the word ``reinforcement.'' The paper discusses central issues of reinforcement learning, including trading off exploration and exploitation, establishing the foundations of the field via Markov decision theory, learning from delayed reinforcement, constructing empirical models to accelerate learning, making use of generalization and hierarchy, and coping with hidden state. It concludes with a survey of some implemented systems and an assessment of the practical utility of current methods for reinforcement learning.

cs/9605104

J. Gratch, S. Chien

Adaptive Problem-solving for Large-scale Scheduling Problems: A Case Study

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 365-396

cs.AI

Although most scheduling problems are NP-hard, domain specific techniques perform well in practice but are quite expensive to construct. In adaptive problem-solving solving, domain specific knowledge is acquired automatically for a general problem solver with a flexible control architecture. In this approach, a learning system explores a space of possible heuristic methods for one well-suited to the eccentricities of the given domain and problem distribution. In this article, we discuss an application of the approach to scheduling satellite communications. Using problem distributions based on actual mission requirements, our approach identifies strategies that not only decrease the amount of CPU time required to produce schedules, but also increase the percentage of problems that are solvable within computational resource limitations.

cs/9605105

P. Tadepalli, B. K. Natarajan

A Formal Framework for Speedup Learning from Problems and Solutions

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 445-475

cs.AI

Speedup learning seeks to improve the computational efficiency of problem solving with experience. In this paper, we develop a formal framework for learning efficient problem solving from random problems and their solutions. We apply this framework to two different representations of learned knowledge, namely control rules and macro-operators, and prove theorems that identify sufficient conditions for learning in each representation. Our proofs are constructive in that they are accompanied with learning algorithms. Our framework captures both empirical and explanation-based speedup learning in a unified fashion. We illustrate our framework with implementations in two domains: symbolic integration and Eight Puzzle. This work integrates many strands of experimental and theoretical work in machine learning, including empirical learning of control rules, macro-operator learning, Explanation-Based Learning (EBL), and Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) Learning.

cs/9605106

L. Pryor, G. Collins

2Planning for Contingencies: A Decision-based Approach

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 287-339

cs.AI

A fundamental assumption made by classical AI planners is that there is no uncertainty in the world: the planner has full knowledge of the conditions under which the plan will be executed and the outcome of every action is fully predictable. These planners cannot therefore construct contingency plans, i.e., plans in which different actions are performed in different circumstances. In this paper we discuss some issues that arise in the representation and construction of contingency plans and describe Cassandra, a partial-order contingency planner. Cassandra uses explicit decision-steps that enable the agent executing the plan to decide which plan branch to follow. The decision-steps in a plan result in subgoals to acquire knowledge, which are planned for in the same way as any other subgoals. Cassandra thus distinguishes the process of gathering information from the process of making decisions. The explicit representation of decisions in Cassandra allows a coherent approach to the problems of contingent planning, and provides a solid base for extensions such as the use of different decision-making procedures.

cs/9606101

S. Bhansali, G. A. Kramer, T. J. Hoar

A Principled Approach Towards Symbolic Geometric Constraint Satisfaction

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 419-443

cs.AI

An important problem in geometric reasoning is to find the configuration of a collection of geometric bodies so as to satisfy a set of given constraints. Recently, it has been suggested that this problem can be solved efficiently by symbolically reasoning about geometry. This approach, called degrees of freedom analysis, employs a set of specialized routines called plan fragments that specify how to change the configuration of a set of bodies to satisfy a new constraint while preserving existing constraints. A potential drawback, which limits the scalability of this approach, is concerned with the difficulty of writing plan fragments. In this paper we address this limitation by showing how these plan fragments can be automatically synthesized using first principles about geometric bodies, actions, and topology.

cs/9606102

R. I. Brafman, M. Tennenholtz

On Partially Controlled Multi-Agent Systems

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 4, (1996), 477-507

cs.AI

Motivated by the control theoretic distinction between controllable and uncontrollable events, we distinguish between two types of agents within a multi-agent system: controllable agents, which are directly controlled by the system's designer, and uncontrollable agents, which are not under the designer's direct control. We refer to such systems as partially controlled multi-agent systems, and we investigate how one might influence the behavior of the uncontrolled agents through appropriate design of the controlled agents. In particular, we wish to understand which problems are naturally described in these terms, what methods can be applied to influence the uncontrollable agents, the effectiveness of such methods, and whether similar methods work across different domains. Using a game-theoretic framework, this paper studies the design of partially controlled multi-agent systems in two contexts: in one context, the uncontrollable agents are expected utility maximizers, while in the other they are reinforcement learners. We suggest different techniques for controlling agents' behavior in each domain, assess their success, and examine their relationship.

cs/9608103

K. Yip, F. Zhao

Spatial Aggregation: Theory and Applications

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 1-26

cs.AI

Visual thinking plays an important role in scientific reasoning. Based on the research in automating diverse reasoning tasks about dynamical systems, nonlinear controllers, kinematic mechanisms, and fluid motion, we have identified a style of visual thinking, imagistic reasoning. Imagistic reasoning organizes computations around image-like, analogue representations so that perceptual and symbolic operations can be brought to bear to infer structure and behavior. Programs incorporating imagistic reasoning have been shown to perform at an expert level in domains that defy current analytic or numerical methods. We have developed a computational paradigm, spatial aggregation, to unify the description of a class of imagistic problem solvers. A program written in this paradigm has the following properties. It takes a continuous field and optional objective functions as input, and produces high-level descriptions of structure, behavior, or control actions. It computes a multi-layer of intermediate representations, called spatial aggregates, by forming equivalence classes and adjacency relations. It employs a small set of generic operators such as aggregation, classification, and localization to perform bidirectional mapping between the information-rich field and successively more abstract spatial aggregates. It uses a data structure, the neighborhood graph, as a common interface to modularize computations. To illustrate our theory, we describe the computational structure of three implemented problem solvers -- KAM, MAPS, and HIPAIR --- in terms of the spatial aggregation generic operators by mixing and matching a library of commonly used routines.

cs/9608104

R. Ben-Eliyahu

A Hierarchy of Tractable Subsets for Computing Stable Models

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 27-52

cs.AI

Finding the stable models of a knowledge base is a significant computational problem in artificial intelligence. This task is at the computational heart of truth maintenance systems, autoepistemic logic, and default logic. Unfortunately, it is NP-hard. In this paper we present a hierarchy of classes of knowledge bases, Omega_1,Omega_2,..., with the following properties: first, Omega_1 is the class of all stratified knowledge bases; second, if a knowledge base Pi is in Omega_k, then Pi has at most k stable models, and all of them may be found in time O(lnk), where l is the length of the knowledge base and n the number of atoms in Pi; third, for an arbitrary knowledge base Pi, we can find the minimum k such that Pi belongs to Omega_k in time polynomial in the size of Pi; and, last, where K is the class of all knowledge bases, it is the case that union{i=1 to infty} Omega_i = K, that is, every knowledge base belongs to some class in the hierarchy.

cs/9609101

A. Gerevini, L. Schubert

Accelerating Partial-Order Planners: Some Techniques for Effective Search Control and Pruning

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 95-137

cs.AI

We propose some domain-independent techniques for bringing well-founded partial-order planners closer to practicality. The first two techniques are aimed at improving search control while keeping overhead costs low. One is based on a simple adjustment to the default A* heuristic used by UCPOP to select plans for refinement. The other is based on preferring ``zero commitment'' (forced) plan refinements whenever possible, and using LIFO prioritization otherwise. A more radical technique is the use of operator parameter domains to prune search. These domains are initially computed from the definitions of the operators and the initial and goal conditions, using a polynomial-time algorithm that propagates sets of constants through the operator graph, starting in the initial conditions. During planning, parameter domains can be used to prune nonviable operator instances and to remove spurious clobbering threats. In experiments based on modifications of UCPOP, our improved plan and goal selection strategies gave speedups by factors ranging from 5 to more than 1000 for a variety of problems that are nontrivial for the unmodified version. Crucially, the hardest problems gave the greatest improvements. The pruning technique based on parameter domains often gave speedups by an order of magnitude or more for difficult problems, both with the default UCPOP search strategy and with our improved strategy. The Lisp code for our techniques and for the test problems is provided in on-line appendices.

cs/9609102

D. J. Litman

Cue Phrase Classification Using Machine Learning

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 53-94

cs.AI

Cue phrases may be used in a discourse sense to explicitly signal discourse structure, but also in a sentential sense to convey semantic rather than structural information. Correctly classifying cue phrases as discourse or sentential is critical in natural language processing systems that exploit discourse structure, e.g., for performing tasks such as anaphora resolution and plan recognition. This paper explores the use of machine learning for classifying cue phrases as discourse or sentential. Two machine learning programs (Cgrendel and C4.5) are used to induce classification models from sets of pre-classified cue phrases and their features in text and speech. Machine learning is shown to be an effective technique for not only automating the generation of classification models, but also for improving upon previous results. When compared to manually derived classification models already in the literature, the learned models often perform with higher accuracy and contain new linguistic insights into the data. In addition, the ability to automatically construct classification models makes it easier to comparatively analyze the utility of alternative feature representations of the data. Finally, the ease of retraining makes the learning approach more scalable and flexible than manual methods.

cs/9610101

G. Zlotkin, J. S. Rosenschein

Mechanisms for Automated Negotiation in State Oriented Domains

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 163-238

cs.AI

This paper lays part of the groundwork for a domain theory of negotiation, that is, a way of classifying interactions so that it is clear, given a domain, which negotiation mechanisms and strategies are appropriate. We define State Oriented Domains, a general category of interaction. Necessary and sufficient conditions for cooperation are outlined. We use the notion of worth in an altered definition of utility, thus enabling agreements in a wider class of joint-goal reachable situations. An approach is offered for conflict resolution, and it is shown that even in a conflict situation, partial cooperative steps can be taken by interacting agents (that is, agents in fundamental conflict might still agree to cooperate up to a certain point). A Unified Negotiation Protocol (UNP) is developed that can be used in all types of encounters. It is shown that in certain borderline cooperative situations, a partial cooperative agreement (i.e., one that does not achieve all agents' goals) might be preferred by all agents, even though there exists a rational agreement that would achieve all their goals. Finally, we analyze cases where agents have incomplete information on the goals and worth of other agents. First we consider the case where agents' goals are private information, and we analyze what goal declaration strategies the agents might adopt to increase their utility. Then, we consider the situation where the agents' goals (and therefore stand-alone costs) are common knowledge, but the worth they attach to their goals is private information. We introduce two mechanisms, one 'strict', the other 'tolerant', and analyze their affects on the stability and efficiency of negotiation outcomes.

cs/9610102

J. R. Quinlan

Learning First-Order Definitions of Functions

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 139-161

cs.AI

First-order learning involves finding a clause-form definition of a relation from examples of the relation and relevant background information. In this paper, a particular first-order learning system is modified to customize it for finding definitions of functional relations. This restriction leads to faster learning times and, in some cases, to definitions that have higher predictive accuracy. Other first-order learning systems might benefit from similar specialization.

cs/9611101

R. A Helzerman, M. P. Harper

MUSE CSP: An Extension to the Constraint Satisfaction Problem

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 239-288

cs.AI

This paper describes an extension to the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) called MUSE CSP (MUltiply SEgmented Constraint Satisfaction Problem). This extension is especially useful for those problems which segment into multiple sets of partially shared variables. Such problems arise naturally in signal processing applications including computer vision, speech processing, and handwriting recognition. For these applications, it is often difficult to segment the data in only one way given the low-level information utilized by the segmentation algorithms. MUSE CSP can be used to compactly represent several similar instances of the constraint satisfaction problem. If multiple instances of a CSP have some common variables which have the same domains and constraints, then they can be combined into a single instance of a MUSE CSP, reducing the work required to apply the constraints. We introduce the concepts of MUSE node consistency, MUSE arc consistency, and MUSE path consistency. We then demonstrate how MUSE CSP can be used to compactly represent lexically ambiguous sentences and the multiple sentence hypotheses that are often generated by speech recognition algorithms so that grammar constraints can be used to provide parses for all syntactically correct sentences. Algorithms for MUSE arc and path consistency are provided. Finally, we discuss how to create a MUSE CSP from a set of CSPs which are labeled to indicate when the same variable is shared by more than a single CSP.

cs/9612101

N. L. Zhang, D. Poole

Exploiting Causal Independence in Bayesian Network Inference

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 301-328

cs.AI

A new method is proposed for exploiting causal independencies in exact Bayesian network inference. A Bayesian network can be viewed as representing a factorization of a joint probability into the multiplication of a set of conditional probabilities. We present a notion of causal independence that enables one to further factorize the conditional probabilities into a combination of even smaller factors and consequently obtain a finer-grain factorization of the joint probability. The new formulation of causal independence lets us specify the conditional probability of a variable given its parents in terms of an associative and commutative operator, such as ``or'', ``sum'' or ``max'', on the contribution of each parent. We start with a simple algorithm VE for Bayesian network inference that, given evidence and a query variable, uses the factorization to find the posterior distribution of the query. We show how this algorithm can be extended to exploit causal independence. Empirical studies, based on the CPCS networks for medical diagnosis, show that this method is more efficient than previous methods and allows for inference in larger networks than previous algorithms.

cs/9612102

J. C. Schlimmer, P. C. Wells

Quantitative Results Comparing Three Intelligent Interfaces for Information Capture: A Case Study Adding Name Information into an Electronic Personal Organizer

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 329-349

cs.AI

Efficiently entering information into a computer is key to enjoying the benefits of computing. This paper describes three intelligent user interfaces: handwriting recognition, adaptive menus, and predictive fillin. In the context of adding a personUs name and address to an electronic organizer, tests show handwriting recognition is slower than typing on an on-screen, soft keyboard, while adaptive menus and predictive fillin can be twice as fast. This paper also presents strategies for applying these three interfaces to other information collection domains.

cs/9612103

L. M. deCampos

Characterizations of Decomposable Dependency Models

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 5, (1996), 289-300

cs.AI

Decomposable dependency models possess a number of interesting and useful properties. This paper presents new characterizations of decomposable models in terms of independence relationships, which are obtained by adding a single axiom to the well-known set characterizing dependency models that are isomorphic to undirected graphs. We also briefly discuss a potential application of our results to the problem of learning graphical models from data.

cs/9701101

D. R. Wilson, T. R. Martinez

Improved Heterogeneous Distance Functions

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 1-34

cs.AI

Instance-based learning techniques typically handle continuous and linear input values well, but often do not handle nominal input attributes appropriately. The Value Difference Metric (VDM) was designed to find reasonable distance values between nominal attribute values, but it largely ignores continuous attributes, requiring discretization to map continuous values into nominal values. This paper proposes three new heterogeneous distance functions, called the Heterogeneous Value Difference Metric (HVDM), the Interpolated Value Difference Metric (IVDM), and the Windowed Value Difference Metric (WVDM). These new distance functions are designed to handle applications with nominal attributes, continuous attributes, or both. In experiments on 48 applications the new distance metrics achieve higher classification accuracy on average than three previous distance functions on those datasets that have both nominal and continuous attributes.

cs/9701102

S. Wermter, V. Weber

SCREEN: Learning a Flat Syntactic and Semantic Spoken Language Analysis Using Artificial Neural Networks

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 35-85

cs.AI

Previous approaches of analyzing spontaneously spoken language often have been based on encoding syntactic and semantic knowledge manually and symbolically. While there has been some progress using statistical or connectionist language models, many current spoken- language systems still use a relatively brittle, hand-coded symbolic grammar or symbolic semantic component. In contrast, we describe a so-called screening approach for learning robust processing of spontaneously spoken language. A screening approach is a flat analysis which uses shallow sequences of category representations for analyzing an utterance at various syntactic, semantic and dialog levels. Rather than using a deeply structured symbolic analysis, we use a flat connectionist analysis. This screening approach aims at supporting speech and language processing by using (1) data-driven learning and (2) robustness of connectionist networks. In order to test this approach, we have developed the SCREEN system which is based on this new robust, learned and flat analysis. In this paper, we focus on a detailed description of SCREEN's architecture, the flat syntactic and semantic analysis, the interaction with a speech recognizer, and a detailed evaluation analysis of the robustness under the influence of noisy or incomplete input. The main result of this paper is that flat representations allow more robust processing of spontaneous spoken language than deeply structured representations. In particular, we show how the fault-tolerance and learning capability of connectionist networks can support a flat analysis for providing more robust spoken-language processing within an overall hybrid symbolic/connectionist framework.

cs/9703101

G. DeGiacomo, M. Lenzerini

A Uniform Framework for Concept Definitions in Description Logics

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 87-110

cs.AI

Most modern formalisms used in Databases and Artificial Intelligence for describing an application domain are based on the notions of class (or concept) and relationship among classes. One interesting feature of such formalisms is the possibility of defining a class, i.e., providing a set of properties that precisely characterize the instances of the class. Many recent articles point out that there are several ways of assigning a meaning to a class definition containing some sort of recursion. In this paper, we argue that, instead of choosing a single style of semantics, we achieve better results by adopting a formalism that allows for different semantics to coexist. We demonstrate the feasibility of our argument, by presenting a knowledge representation formalism, the description logic muALCQ, with the above characteristics. In addition to the constructs for conjunction, disjunction, negation, quantifiers, and qualified number restrictions, muALCQ includes special fixpoint constructs to express (suitably interpreted) recursive definitions. These constructs enable the usual frame-based descriptions to be combined with definitions of recursive data structures such as directed acyclic graphs, lists, streams, etc. We establish several properties of muALCQ, including the decidability and the computational complexity of reasoning, by formulating a correspondence with a particular modal logic of programs called the modal mu-calculus.

cs/9704101

P. Agre, I. Horswill

Lifeworld Analysis

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 111-145

cs.AI

We argue that the analysis of agent/environment interactions should be extended to include the conventions and invariants maintained by agents throughout their activity. We refer to this thicker notion of environment as a lifeworld and present a partial set of formal tools for describing structures of lifeworlds and the ways in which they computationally simplify activity. As one specific example, we apply the tools to the analysis of the Toast system and show how versions of the system with very different control structures in fact implement a common control structure together with different conventions for encoding task state in the positions or states of objects in the environment.

cs/9705101

A. Darwiche, G. Provan

Query DAGs: A Practical Paradigm for Implementing Belief-Network Inference

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 147-176

cs.AI

We describe a new paradigm for implementing inference in belief networks, which consists of two steps: (1) compiling a belief network into an arithmetic expression called a Query DAG (Q-DAG); and (2) answering queries using a simple evaluation algorithm. Each node of a Q-DAG represents a numeric operation, a number, or a symbol for evidence. Each leaf node of a Q-DAG represents the answer to a network query, that is, the probability of some event of interest. It appears that Q-DAGs can be generated using any of the standard algorithms for exact inference in belief networks (we show how they can be generated using clustering and conditioning algorithms). The time and space complexity of a Q-DAG generation algorithm is no worse than the time complexity of the inference algorithm on which it is based. The complexity of a Q-DAG evaluation algorithm is linear in the size of the Q-DAG, and such inference amounts to a standard evaluation of the arithmetic expression it represents. The intended value of Q-DAGs is in reducing the software and hardware resources required to utilize belief networks in on-line, real-world applications. The proposed framework also facilitates the development of on-line inference on different software and hardware platforms due to the simplicity of the Q-DAG evaluation algorithm. Interestingly enough, Q-DAGs were found to serve other purposes: simple techniques for reducing Q-DAGs tend to subsume relatively complex optimization techniques for belief-network inference, such as network-pruning and computation-caching.

cs/9705102

D. W. Opitz, J. W. Shavlik

Connectionist Theory Refinement: Genetically Searching the Space of Network Topologies

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 177-209

cs.AI

An algorithm that learns from a set of examples should ideally be able to exploit the available resources of (a) abundant computing power and (b) domain-specific knowledge to improve its ability to generalize. Connectionist theory-refinement systems, which use background knowledge to select a neural network's topology and initial weights, have proven to be effective at exploiting domain-specific knowledge; however, most do not exploit available computing power. This weakness occurs because they lack the ability to refine the topology of the neural networks they produce, thereby limiting generalization, especially when given impoverished domain theories. We present the REGENT algorithm which uses (a) domain-specific knowledge to help create an initial population of knowledge-based neural networks and (b) genetic operators of crossover and mutation (specifically designed for knowledge-based networks) to continually search for better network topologies. Experiments on three real-world domains indicate that our new algorithm is able to significantly increase generalization compared to a standard connectionist theory-refinement system, as well as our previous algorithm for growing knowledge-based networks.

cs/9706101

M. E. Pollack, D. Joslin, M. Paolucci

Flaw Selection Strategies for Partial-Order Planning

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 223-262

cs.AI

Several recent studies have compared the relative efficiency of alternative flaw selection strategies for partial-order causal link (POCL) planning. We review this literature, and present new experimental results that generalize the earlier work and explain some of the discrepancies in it. In particular, we describe the Least-Cost Flaw Repair (LCFR) strategy developed and analyzed by Joslin and Pollack (1994), and compare it with other strategies, including Gerevini and Schubert's (1996) ZLIFO strategy. LCFR and ZLIFO make very different, and apparently conflicting claims about the most effective way to reduce search-space size in POCL planning. We resolve this conflict, arguing that much of the benefit that Gerevini and Schubert ascribe to the LIFO component of their ZLIFO strategy is better attributed to other causes. We show that for many problems, a strategy that combines least-cost flaw selection with the delay of separable threats will be effective in reducing search-space size, and will do so without excessive computational overhead. Although such a strategy thus provides a good default, we also show that certain domain characteristics may reduce its effectiveness.

cs/9706102

P. Jonsson, T. Drakengren

A Complete Classification of Tractability in RCC-5

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 6, (1997), 211-221

cs.AI

We investigate the computational properties of the spatial algebra RCC-5 which is a restricted version of the RCC framework for spatial reasoning. The satisfiability problem for RCC-5 is known to be NP-complete but not much is known about its approximately four billion subclasses. We provide a complete classification of satisfiability for all these subclasses into polynomial and NP-complete respectively. In the process, we identify all maximal tractable subalgebras which are four in total.

cs/9707101

D. L. Mammen, T. Hogg

A New Look at the Easy-Hard-Easy Pattern of Combinatorial Search Difficulty

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 47-66

cs.AI

The easy-hard-easy pattern in the difficulty of combinatorial search problems as constraints are added has been explained as due to a competition between the decrease in number of solutions and increased pruning. We test the generality of this explanation by examining one of its predictions: if the number of solutions is held fixed by the choice of problems, then increased pruning should lead to a monotonic decrease in search cost. Instead, we find the easy-hard-easy pattern in median search cost even when the number of solutions is held constant, for some search methods. This generalizes previous observations of this pattern and shows that the existing theory does not explain the full range of the peak in search cost. In these cases the pattern appears to be due to changes in the size of the minimal unsolvable subproblems, rather than changing numbers of solutions.

cs/9707102

T. Drakengren, P. Jonsson

Eight Maximal Tractable Subclasses of Allen's Algebra with Metric Time

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 25-45

cs.AI

This paper combines two important directions of research in temporal resoning: that of finding maximal tractable subclasses of Allen's interval algebra, and that of reasoning with metric temporal information. Eight new maximal tractable subclasses of Allen's interval algebra are presented, some of them subsuming previously reported tractable algebras. The algebras allow for metric temporal constraints on interval starting or ending points, using the recent framework of Horn DLRs. Two of the algebras can express the notion of sequentiality between intervals, being the first such algebras admitting both qualitative and metric time.

cs/9707103

J. Y. Halpern

Defining Relative Likelihood in Partially-Ordered Preferential Structures

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 1-24

cs.AI

Starting with a likelihood or preference order on worlds, we extend it to a likelihood ordering on sets of worlds in a natural way, and examine the resulting logic. Lewis earlier considered such a notion of relative likelihood in the context of studying counterfactuals, but he assumed a total preference order on worlds. Complications arise when examining partial orders that are not present for total orders. There are subtleties involving the exact approach to lifting the order on worlds to an order on sets of worlds. In addition, the axiomatization of the logic of relative likelihood in the case of partial orders gives insight into the connection between relative likelihood and default reasoning.

cs/9709101

M. Tambe

Towards Flexible Teamwork

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 83-124

cs.AI

Many AI researchers are today striving to build agent teams for complex, dynamic multi-agent domains, with intended applications in arenas such as education, training, entertainment, information integration, and collective robotics. Unfortunately, uncertainties in these complex, dynamic domains obstruct coherent teamwork. In particular, team members often encounter differing, incomplete, and possibly inconsistent views of their environment. Furthermore, team members can unexpectedly fail in fulfilling responsibilities or discover unexpected opportunities. Highly flexible coordination and communication is key in addressing such uncertainties. Simply fitting individual agents with precomputed coordination plans will not do, for their inflexibility can cause severe failures in teamwork, and their domain-specificity hinders reusability. Our central hypothesis is that the key to such flexibility and reusability is providing agents with general models of teamwork. Agents exploit such models to autonomously reason about coordination and communication, providing requisite flexibility. Furthermore, the models enable reuse across domains, both saving implementation effort and enforcing consistency. This article presents one general, implemented model of teamwork, called STEAM. The basic building block of teamwork in STEAM is joint intentions (Cohen & Levesque, 1991b); teamwork in STEAM is based on agents' building up a (partial) hierarchy of joint intentions (this hierarchy is seen to parallel Grosz & Kraus's partial SharedPlans, 1996). Furthermore, in STEAM, team members monitor the team's and individual members' performance, reorganizing the team as necessary. Finally, decision-theoretic communication selectivity in STEAM ensures reduction in communication overheads of teamwork, with appropriate sensitivity to the environmental conditions. This article describes STEAM's application in three different complex domains, and presents detailed empirical results.

cs/9709102

C. G. Nevill-Manning, I. H. Witten

Identifying Hierarchical Structure in Sequences: A linear-time algorithm

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 67-82

cs.AI

SEQUITUR is an algorithm that infers a hierarchical structure from a sequence of discrete symbols by replacing repeated phrases with a grammatical rule that generates the phrase, and continuing this process recursively. The result is a hierarchical representation of the original sequence, which offers insights into its lexical structure. The algorithm is driven by two constraints that reduce the size of the grammar, and produce structure as a by-product. SEQUITUR breaks new ground by operating incrementally. Moreover, the method's simple structure permits a proof that it operates in space and time that is linear in the size of the input. Our implementation can process 50,000 symbols per second and has been applied to an extensive range of real world sequences.

cs/9711102

L. H. Ihrig, S. Kambhampati

Storing and Indexing Plan Derivations through Explanation-based Analysis of Retrieval Failures

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 161-198

cs.AI

Case-Based Planning (CBP) provides a way of scaling up domain-independent planning to solve large problems in complex domains. It replaces the detailed and lengthy search for a solution with the retrieval and adaptation of previous planning experiences. In general, CBP has been demonstrated to improve performance over generative (from-scratch) planning. However, the performance improvements it provides are dependent on adequate judgements as to problem similarity. In particular, although CBP may substantially reduce planning effort overall, it is subject to a mis-retrieval problem. The success of CBP depends on these retrieval errors being relatively rare. This paper describes the design and implementation of a replay framework for the case-based planner DERSNLP+EBL. DERSNLP+EBL extends current CBP methodology by incorporating explanation-based learning techniques that allow it to explain and learn from the retrieval failures it encounters. These techniques are used to refine judgements about case similarity in response to feedback when a wrong decision has been made. The same failure analysis is used in building the case library, through the addition of repairing cases. Large problems are split and stored as single goal subproblems. Multi-goal problems are stored only when these smaller cases fail to be merged into a full solution. An empirical evaluation of this approach demonstrates the advantage of learning from experienced retrieval failure.

cs/9711103

N. L. Zhang, W. Liu

A Model Approximation Scheme for Planning in Partially Observable Stochastic Domains

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 199-230

cs.AI

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a natural model for planning problems where effects of actions are nondeterministic and the state of the world is not completely observable. It is difficult to solve POMDPs exactly. This paper proposes a new approximation scheme. The basic idea is to transform a POMDP into another one where additional information is provided by an oracle. The oracle informs the planning agent that the current state of the world is in a certain region. The transformed POMDP is consequently said to be region observable. It is easier to solve than the original POMDP. We propose to solve the transformed POMDP and use its optimal policy to construct an approximate policy for the original POMDP. By controlling the amount of additional information that the oracle provides, it is possible to find a proper tradeoff between computational time and approximation quality. In terms of algorithmic contributions, we study in details how to exploit region observability in solving the transformed POMDP. To facilitate the study, we also propose a new exact algorithm for general POMDPs. The algorithm is conceptually simple and yet is significantly more efficient than all previous exact algorithms.

cs/9711104

D. Monderer, M. Tennenholtz

Dynamic Non-Bayesian Decision Making

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 231-248

cs.AI

The model of a non-Bayesian agent who faces a repeated game with incomplete information against Nature is an appropriate tool for modeling general agent-environment interactions. In such a model the environment state (controlled by Nature) may change arbitrarily, and the feedback/reward function is initially unknown. The agent is not Bayesian, that is he does not form a prior probability neither on the state selection strategy of Nature, nor on his reward function. A policy for the agent is a function which assigns an action to every history of observations and actions. Two basic feedback structures are considered. In one of them -- the perfect monitoring case -- the agent is able to observe the previous environment state as part of his feedback, while in the other -- the imperfect monitoring case -- all that is available to the agent is the reward obtained. Both of these settings refer to partially observable processes, where the current environment state is unknown. Our main result refers to the competitive ratio criterion in the perfect monitoring case. We prove the existence of an efficient stochastic policy that ensures that the competitive ratio is obtained at almost all stages with an arbitrarily high probability, where efficiency is measured in terms of rate of convergence. It is further shown that such an optimal policy does not exist in the imperfect monitoring case. Moreover, it is proved that in the perfect monitoring case there does not exist a deterministic policy that satisfies our long run optimality criterion. In addition, we discuss the maxmin criterion and prove that a deterministic efficient optimal strategy does exist in the imperfect monitoring case under this criterion. Finally we show that our approach to long-run optimality can be viewed as qualitative, which distinguishes it from previous work in this area.

cs/9712101

J. Frank, P. Cheeseman, J. Stutz

When Gravity Fails: Local Search Topology

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 249-281

cs.AI

Local search algorithms for combinatorial search problems frequently encounter a sequence of states in which it is impossible to improve the value of the objective function; moves through these regions, called plateau moves, dominate the time spent in local search. We analyze and characterize plateaus for three different classes of randomly generated Boolean Satisfiability problems. We identify several interesting features of plateaus that impact the performance of local search algorithms. We show that local minima tend to be small but occasionally may be very large. We also show that local minima can be escaped without unsatisfying a large number of clauses, but that systematically searching for an escape route may be computationally expensive if the local minimum is large. We show that plateaus with exits, called benches, tend to be much larger than minima, and that some benches have very few exit states which local search can use to escape. We show that the solutions (i.e., global minima) of randomly generated problem instances form clusters, which behave similarly to local minima. We revisit several enhancements of local search algorithms and explain their performance in light of our results. Finally we discuss strategies for creating the next generation of local search algorithms.

cs/9712102

H. Kaindl, G. Kainz

Bidirectional Heuristic Search Reconsidered

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 7, (1997), 283-317

cs.AI

The assessment of bidirectional heuristic search has been incorrect since it was first published more than a quarter of a century ago. For quite a long time, this search strategy did not achieve the expected results, and there was a major misunderstanding about the reasons behind it. Although there is still wide-spread belief that bidirectional heuristic search is afflicted by the problem of search frontiers passing each other, we demonstrate that this conjecture is wrong. Based on this finding, we present both a new generic approach to bidirectional heuristic search and a new approach to dynamically improving heuristic values that is feasible in bidirectional search only. These approaches are put into perspective with both the traditional and more recently proposed approaches in order to facilitate a better overall understanding. Empirical results of experiments with our new approaches show that bidirectional heuristic search can be performed very efficiently and also with limited memory. These results suggest that bidirectional heuristic search appears to be better for solving certain difficult problems than corresponding unidirectional search. This provides some evidence for the usefulness of a search strategy that was long neglected. In summary, we show that bidirectional heuristic search is viable and consequently propose that it be reconsidered.

cs/9801101

G. Gogic, C. H. Papadimitriou, M. Sideri

Incremental Recompilation of Knowledge

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 23-37

cs.AI

Approximating a general formula from above and below by Horn formulas (its Horn envelope and Horn core, respectively) was proposed by Selman and Kautz (1991, 1996) as a form of ``knowledge compilation,'' supporting rapid approximate reasoning; on the negative side, this scheme is static in that it supports no updates, and has certain complexity drawbacks pointed out by Kavvadias, Papadimitriou and Sideri (1993). On the other hand, the many frameworks and schemes proposed in the literature for theory update and revision are plagued by serious complexity-theoretic impediments, even in the Horn case, as was pointed out by Eiter and Gottlob (1992), and is further demonstrated in the present paper. More fundamentally, these schemes are not inductive, in that they may lose in a single update any positive properties of the represented sets of formulas (small size, Horn structure, etc.). In this paper we propose a new scheme, incremental recompilation, which combines Horn approximation and model-based updates; this scheme is inductive and very efficient, free of the problems facing its constituents. A set of formulas is represented by an upper and lower Horn approximation. To update, we replace the upper Horn formula by the Horn envelope of its minimum-change update, and similarly the lower one by the Horn core of its update; the key fact which enables this scheme is that Horn envelopes and cores are easy to compute when the underlying formula is the result of a minimum-change update of a Horn formula by a clause. We conjecture that efficient algorithms are possible for more complex updates.

cs/9801102

J. Engelfriet

Monotonicity and Persistence in Preferential Logics

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 1-21

cs.AI

An important characteristic of many logics for Artificial Intelligence is their nonmonotonicity. This means that adding a formula to the premises can invalidate some of the consequences. There may, however, exist formulae that can always be safely added to the premises without destroying any of the consequences: we say they respect monotonicity. Also, there may be formulae that, when they are a consequence, can not be invalidated when adding any formula to the premises: we call them conservative. We study these two classes of formulae for preferential logics, and show that they are closely linked to the formulae whose truth-value is preserved along the (preferential) ordering. We will consider some preferential logics for illustration, and prove syntactic characterization results for them. The results in this paper may improve the efficiency of theorem provers for preferential logics.

cs/9803101

B. Srivastava, S. Kambhampati

Synthesizing Customized Planners from Specifications

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 93-128

cs.AI

Existing plan synthesis approaches in artificial intelligence fall into two categories -- domain independent and domain dependent. The domain independent approaches are applicable across a variety of domains, but may not be very efficient in any one given domain. The domain dependent approaches need to be (re)designed for each domain separately, but can be very efficient in the domain for which they are designed. One enticing alternative to these approaches is to automatically synthesize domain independent planners given the knowledge about the domain and the theory of planning. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of using existing automated software synthesis tools to support such synthesis. Specifically, we describe an architecture called CLAY in which the Kestrel Interactive Development System (KIDS) is used to derive a domain-customized planner through a semi-automatic combination of a declarative theory of planning, and the declarative control knowledge specific to a given domain, to semi-automatically combine them to derive domain-customized planners. We discuss what it means to write a declarative theory of planning and control knowledge for KIDS, and illustrate our approach by generating a class of domain-specific planners using state space refinements. Our experiments show that the synthesized planners can outperform classical refinement planners (implemented as instantiations of UCP, Kambhampati & Srivastava, 1995), using the same control knowledge. We will contrast the costs and benefits of the synthesis approach with conventional methods for customizing domain independent planners.

cs/9803102

A. Moore, M. S. Lee

Cached Sufficient Statistics for Efficient Machine Learning with Large Datasets

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 67-91

cs.AI

This paper introduces new algorithms and data structures for quick counting for machine learning datasets. We focus on the counting task of constructing contingency tables, but our approach is also applicable to counting the number of records in a dataset that match conjunctive queries. Subject to certain assumptions, the costs of these operations can be shown to be independent of the number of records in the dataset and loglinear in the number of non-zero entries in the contingency table. We provide a very sparse data structure, the ADtree, to minimize memory use. We provide analytical worst-case bounds for this structure for several models of data distribution. We empirically demonstrate that tractably-sized data structures can be produced for large real-world datasets by (a) using a sparse tree structure that never allocates memory for counts of zero, (b) never allocating memory for counts that can be deduced from other counts, and (c) not bothering to expand the tree fully near its leaves. We show how the ADtree can be used to accelerate Bayes net structure finding algorithms, rule learning algorithms, and feature selection algorithms, and we provide a number of empirical results comparing ADtree methods against traditional direct counting approaches. We also discuss the possible uses of ADtrees in other machine learning methods, and discuss the merits of ADtrees in comparison with alternative representations such as kd-trees, R-trees and Frequent Sets.

cs/9803103

S. Argamon-Engelson, M. Koppel

Tractability of Theory Patching

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 39-65

cs.AI

In this paper we consider the problem of `theory patching', in which we are given a domain theory, some of whose components are indicated to be possibly flawed, and a set of labeled training examples for the domain concept. The theory patching problem is to revise only the indicated components of the theory, such that the resulting theory correctly classifies all the training examples. Theory patching is thus a type of theory revision in which revisions are made to individual components of the theory. Our concern in this paper is to determine for which classes of logical domain theories the theory patching problem is tractable. We consider both propositional and first-order domain theories, and show that the theory patching problem is equivalent to that of determining what information contained in a theory is `stable' regardless of what revisions might be performed to the theory. We show that determining stability is tractable if the input theory satisfies two conditions: that revisions to each theory component have monotonic effects on the classification of examples, and that theory components act independently in the classification of examples in the theory. We also show how the concepts introduced can be used to determine the soundness and completeness of particular theory patching algorithms.

cs/9805101

J. F\"urnkranz

Integrative Windowing

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 129-164

10.1613/jair.487

cs.AI

In this paper we re-investigate windowing for rule learning algorithms. We show that, contrary to previous results for decision tree learning, windowing can in fact achieve significant run-time gains in noise-free domains and explain the different behavior of rule learning algorithms by the fact that they learn each rule independently. The main contribution of this paper is integrative windowing, a new type of algorithm that further exploits this property by integrating good rules into the final theory right after they have been discovered. Thus it avoids re-learning these rules in subsequent iterations of the windowing process. Experimental evidence in a variety of noise-free domains shows that integrative windowing can in fact achieve substantial run-time gains. Furthermore, we discuss the problem of noise in windowing and present an algorithm that is able to achieve run-time gains in a set of experiments in a simple domain with artificial noise.

cs/9806101

A. Darwiche

Model-Based Diagnosis using Structured System Descriptions

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 165-222

cs.AI

This paper presents a comprehensive approach for model-based diagnosis which includes proposals for characterizing and computing preferred diagnoses, assuming that the system description is augmented with a system structure (a directed graph explicating the interconnections between system components). Specifically, we first introduce the notion of a consequence, which is a syntactically unconstrained propositional sentence that characterizes all consistency-based diagnoses and show that standard characterizations of diagnoses, such as minimal conflicts, correspond to syntactic variations on a consequence. Second, we propose a new syntactic variation on the consequence known as negation normal form (NNF) and discuss its merits compared to standard variations. Third, we introduce a basic algorithm for computing consequences in NNF given a structured system description. We show that if the system structure does not contain cycles, then there is always a linear-size consequence in NNF which can be computed in linear time. For arbitrary system structures, we show a precise connection between the complexity of computing consequences and the topology of the underlying system structure. Finally, we present an algorithm that enumerates the preferred diagnoses characterized by a consequence. The algorithm is shown to take linear time in the size of the consequence if the preference criterion satisfies some general conditions.

cs/9806102

L. Finkelstein, S. Markovitch

A Selective Macro-learning Algorithm and its Application to the NxN Sliding-Tile Puzzle

See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 8, (1998), 223-263

cs.AI

One of the most common mechanisms used for speeding up problem solvers is macro-learning. Macros are sequences of basic operators acquired during problem solving. Macros are used by the problem solver as if they were basic operators. The major problem that macro-learning presents is the vast number of macros that are available for acquisition. Macros increase the branching factor of the search space and can severely degrade problem-solving efficiency. To make macro learning useful, a program must be selective in acquiring and utilizing macros. This paper describes a general method for selective acquisition of macros. Solvable training problems are generated in increasing order of difficulty. The only macros acquired are those that take the problem solver out of a local minimum to a better state. The utility of the method is demonstrated in several domains, including the domain of NxN sliding-tile puzzles. After learning on small puzzles, the system is able to efficiently solve puzzles of any size.

cs/9808101

M. L. Littman, J. Goldsmith, M. Mundhenk

The Computational Complexity of Probabilistic Planning

See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying files

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol 9, (1998), 1-36

cs.AI

We examine the computational complexity of testing and finding small plans in probabilistic planning domains with both flat and propositional representations. The complexity of plan evaluation and existence varies with the plan type sought; we examine totally ordered plans, acyclic plans, and looping plans, and partially ordered plans under three natural definitions of plan value. We show that problems of interest are complete for a variety of complexity classes: PL, P, NP, co-NP, PP, NP^PP, co-NP^PP, and PSPACE. In the process of proving that certain planning problems are complete for NP^PP, we introduce a new basic NP^PP-complete problem, E-MAJSAT, which generalizes the standard Boolean satisfiability problem to computations involving probabilistic quantities; our results suggest that the development of good heuristics for E-MAJSAT could be important for the creation of efficient algorithms for a wide variety of problems.

cs/9810016

Ion Muslea

Ion Muslea

SYNERGY: A Linear Planner Based on Genetic Programming

13 pages, European Conference on Planning 1997

"Recent Advances in AI Planning" (Sam Steel & Rachid Alami eds.), p. 312-325, Springer 1997 (LNAI 1348)

cs.AI

In this paper we describe SYNERGY, which is a highly parallelizable, linear planning system that is based on the genetic programming paradigm. Rather than reasoning about the world it is planning for, SYNERGY uses artificial selection, recombination and fitness measure to generate linear plans that solve conjunctive goals. We ran SYNERGY on several domains (e.g., the briefcase problem and a few variants of the robot navigation problem), and the experimental results show that our planner is capable of handling problem instances that are one to two orders of magnitude larger than the ones solved by UCPOP. In order to facilitate the search reduction and to enhance the expressive power of SYNERGY, we also propose two major extensions to our planning system: a formalism for using hierarchical planning operators, and a framework for planning in dynamic environments.

cs/9811024

Krzysztof R. Apt

Krzysztof R. Apt

The Essence of Constraint Propagation

To appear in Theoretical Computer Science in the special issue devoted to the 24th ICALP conference (Bologna 1997)

cs.AI

We show that several constraint propagation algorithms (also called (local) consistency, consistency enforcing, Waltz, filtering or narrowing algorithms) are instances of algorithms that deal with chaotic iteration. To this end we propose a simple abstract framework that allows us to classify and compare these algorithms and to establish in a uniform way their basic properties.

cs/9812010

Erik T. Mueller

Erik T. Mueller, Michael G. Dyer

Towards a computational theory of human daydreaming

10 pages. Appears in: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 120-129). Irvine, CA. 1985

cs.AI

This paper examines the phenomenon of daydreaming: spontaneously recalling or imagining personal or vicarious experiences in the past or future. The following important roles of daydreaming in human cognition are postulated: plan preparation and rehearsal, learning from failures and successes, support for processes of creativity, emotion regulation, and motivation. A computational theory of daydreaming and its implementation as the program DAYDREAMER are presented. DAYDREAMER consists of 1) a scenario generator based on relaxed planning, 2) a dynamic episodic memory of experiences used by the scenario generator, 3) a collection of personal goals and control goals which guide the scenario generator, 4) an emotion component in which daydreams initiate, and are initiated by, emotional states arising from goal outcomes, and 5) domain knowledge of interpersonal relations and common everyday occurrences. The role of emotions and control goals in daydreaming is discussed. Four control goals commonly used in guiding daydreaming are presented: rationalization, failure/success reversal, revenge, and preparation. The role of episodic memory in daydreaming is considered, including how daydreamed information is incorporated into memory and later used. An initial version of DAYDREAMER which produces several daydreams (in English) is currently running.

cs/9812017

Wolfgang Slany

Andreas Raggl, Wolfgang Slany

A reusable iterative optimization software library to solve combinatorial problems with approximate reasoning

33 pages, 9 figures; for a project overview see http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/proj/StarFLIP/

International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, 19(1--2):161--191, July/August 1998

DBAI-TR-98-23

cs.AI

Real world combinatorial optimization problems such as scheduling are typically too complex to solve with exact methods. Additionally, the problems often have to observe vaguely specified constraints of different importance, the available data may be uncertain, and compromises between antagonistic criteria may be necessary. We present a combination of approximate reasoning based constraints and iterative optimization based heuristics that help to model and solve such problems in a framework of C++ software libraries called StarFLIP++. While initially developed to schedule continuous caster units in steel plants, we present in this paper results from reusing the library components in a shift scheduling system for the workforce of an industrial production plant.

cs/9903016

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research

N Friedman, J.Y. Halpern

Modeling Belief in Dynamic Systems, Part II: Revision and Update

See http://www.jair.org/ for other files accompanying this article

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol.10 (1999) 117-167

cs.AI

The study of belief change has been an active area in philosophy and AI. In recent years two special cases of belief change, belief revision and belief update, have been studied in detail. In a companion paper (Friedman & Halpern, 1997), we introduce a new framework to model belief change. This framework combines temporal and epistemic modalities with a notion of plausibility, allowing us to examine the change of beliefs over time. In this paper, we show how belief revision and belief update can be captured in our framework. This allows us to compare the assumptions made by each method, and to better understand the principles underlying them. In particular, it shows that Katsuno and Mendelzon's notion of belief update (Katsuno & Mendelzon, 1991a) depends on several strong assumptions that may limit its applicability in artificial intelligence. Finally, our analysis allow us to identify a notion of minimal change that underlies a broad range of belief change operations including revision and update.

cs/9906002

Stevan Harnad

Stevan Harnad

The Symbol Grounding Problem

Physica D 42: 335-346

10.1016/0167-2789(90)90087-6

cs.AI

How can the semantic interpretation of a formal symbol system be made intrinsic to the system, rather than just parasitic on the meanings in our heads? How can the meanings of the meaningless symbol tokens, manipulated solely on the basis of their (arbitrary) shapes, be grounded in anything but other meaningless symbols? The problem is analogous to trying to learn Chinese from a Chinese/Chinese dictionary alone. A candidate solution is sketched: Symbolic representations must be grounded bottom-up in nonsymbolic representations of two kinds: (1) "iconic representations," which are analogs of the proximal sensory projections of distal objects and events, and (2) "categorical representations," which are learned and innate feature-detectors that pick out the invariant features of object and event categories from their sensory projections. Elementary symbols are the names of these object and event categories, assigned on the basis of their (nonsymbolic) categorical representations. Higher-order (3) "symbolic representations," grounded in these elementary symbols, consist of symbol strings describing category membership relations (e.g., "An X is a Y that is Z").

cs/9909003

Rabindra Narayan Behera

S. Mohanty (1) and R.N. Behera (2) ((1) Department of Computer Science and Application Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India, (2) National Informatics Centre, Puri, India)

Iterative Deepening Branch and Bound

39 html pages + 4 gif files (fig1,fig1(a),fig2,fig3)

cs.AI

In tree search problem the best-first search algorithm needs too much of space . To remove such drawbacks of these algorithms the IDA* was developed which is both space and time cost efficient. But again IDA* can give an optimal solution for real valued problems like Flow shop scheduling, Travelling Salesman and 0/1 Knapsack due to their real valued cost estimates. Thus further modifications are done on it and the Iterative Deepening Branch and Bound Search Algorithms is developed which meets the requirements. We have tried using this algorithm for the Flow Shop Scheduling Problem and have found that it is quite effective.

cs/9910016

Juergen Dix

Juergen Dix, Mirco Nanni, VS Subrahmanian

Probabilistic Agent Programs

44 pages, 1 figure, Appendix

cs.AI

Agents are small programs that autonomously take actions based on changes in their environment or ``state.'' Over the last few years, there have been an increasing number of efforts to build agents that can interact and/or collaborate with other agents. In one of these efforts, Eiter, Subrahmanian amd Pick (AIJ, 108(1-2), pages 179-255) have shown how agents may be built on top of legacy code. However, their framework assumes that agent states are completely determined, and there is no uncertainty in an agent's state. Thus, their framework allows an agent developer to specify how his agents will react when the agent is 100% sure about what is true/false in the world state. In this paper, we propose the concept of a \emph{probabilistic agent program} and show how, given an arbitrary program written in any imperative language, we may build a declarative ``probabilistic'' agent program on top of it which supports decision making in the presence of uncertainty. We provide two alternative semantics for probabilistic agent programs. We show that the second semantics, though more epistemically appealing, is more complex to compute. We provide sound and complete algorithms to compute the semantics of \emph{positive} agent programs.

cs/9911012

Joseph Y. Halpern

Joseph Y. Halpern

Cox's Theorem Revisited

Changed running head from original submission

Journal of AI Research, vol. 11, 1999, pp. 429-435

cs.AI

The assumptions needed to prove Cox's Theorem are discussed and examined. Various sets of assumptions under which a Cox-style theorem can be proved are provided, although all are rather strong and, arguably, not natural.