From: ariel@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Ariel Rogson)
Subject: December meetings of the LA ACM.
Reply-To: ariel@CS.UCLA.EDU
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Dept.
Distribution: la
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:42:17 GMT

               ACM -- ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY
 
                 Schedule of events for December 1992.
  For further information, join LA ACM and receive DATA-LINK monthly.
       Call Edwin Quinones, Membership Chairman, (310) 212-6459.
 
                                  ***

                Joint LA ACM Chapter and TACART Meeting
                       Wednesday, 2 December 1992
            AI in Space: Past, Present, and Possible Futures
                  Dr. Donald D. Rose, CEO, 4C Research

While Artificial Intelligence has become increasingly present in recent
space applications, new missions being planned will require even more
incorporation of AI techniques.  I will discuss some of the progress
made in the past, some current directions and issues, and speculate
about the future of AI in various space scenarios.  

For example, AI has been applied to device and vehicle diagnosis. 
Increases in flight duration and craft complexity in the near future
will make sophisticated "artificial diagnosticians" even more essential
than they are today.  In particular, programs will have to help
unmanned vehicles repair themselves if needed.  Machine learning
techniques could help in this regard, e.g., to aid prediction of
impending faults before they occur, so that system disruptions and
downtime can be minimized.  

Intelligent robots for roaming extraterrestrial surfaces are another
essential AI application, allowing humans to maximize scientific gain
while minimizing time and danger to various missions.  The most
prevalent paradigm has been to build one or a few robots with a
relatively high level of intelligent processing on-board each one. 
However, an alternate approach would use tens or even hundreds of
smaller, less (individually) intelligent robots per mission.  One
advantage of using an army of "dumbots" would be increased
fault-tolerance.  If you lose one robot, many others remain to finish
the mission goals.  Another approach would be to use one or more
self-replicating robots.  We will discuss some of these different
approaches.

Another fruitful AI space application involves data analysis and
discovery.  For example, NASA scientists have constructed systems to
automatically classify data into meaningful categories.  Results have
included classification of well-known star classes, as well as the
discovery of new classes.  Such systems not only can lead to new
knowledge, but can be essential for sifting through the mounting
quantities of mission data being gathered from space missions.

In summary, AI should enable future missions to pose much less risk to
human lives, increase the amount of exploration that can be done
without leaving Earth, and enhance the effectiveness of missions in
which we or our surrogates go where no one has gone before.

Dr. Rose was born in a log cabin in midtown Manhattan.  He eventually
moved to Florida and received his B.A. in Economics from the University
of Florida, after which he decided to head west (since he was a young
man).  At the University of California at Irvine he received his M.S.
and Ph.D. in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence.
Dr. Rose currently performs AI consulting and is CEO of his consulting
company, 4C Research.  His other interests include screen-writing and
performing (guitar/vocals & comedy), and he can be seen regularly at
the Santa Monica Improv.
 
                                  ***
 
Meetings are held at the Ramada Hotel, 6333 Bristol Parkway, Culver City
east of the intersection of Sepulveda Blvd. and Centinela Ave.  Exit the
San Diego (405) Freeway southbound at Sepulveda-Centinela or northbound
at Slauson-Sepulveda.  A social hour at 6:30 PM precedes dinner at 7:00
and the program at 8:00.  Reservations are required for dinner, not for
the program; call Jim Matheny, (310) 375-5940, before Tuesday noon.
 
                                  ***
 
     Coming Events in Special Interest Groups and Neighbor Chapters
 
                                  ***
 
           San Gabriel Valley Chapter ACM and LA ACM TACPLAN
                  There's Life in the Old Dog Yet (?)
                  Dr. Jon Flower, Parasoft Corporation
                       Wednesday, 9 December 1992
        Pepper Mill Restaurant, 795 East Walnut Street, Pasadena
                  6:30 Social, 7:00 Dinner, 8:00 Talk

Fortran/66 and Fortran/77 have both made vital contributions to the
computing industry as many generations of hardware have been built with
a fundamental goal of increasing the performance of applications in the
language.  The successes of these are manifest in the enormous
quantities of Fortran code to be found in nearly every organization.

The current trend in computing hardware & software, however, emphasizes
entirely new technologies such as parallel processing and stresses ease
of code development and, most importantly maintenance.  The question of
how Fortran can evolve to meet and, perhaps, direct these developments
will be discussed together with examples of the new FORTRAN/90
language.  Some discussion will also be made of "High Performance
FORTRAN" and its role in the future of computing.

For reservations call John Radbill at (818) 354-3873 by noon Monday,
7 December 1992.
-- 
"Children may not obey, but / Ariel "The Rogue" Rogson \
  children will listen."    \ ariel@CS.UCLA.EDU        /
The Witch, "Into The Woods" /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\