A Strategy for Speeding-up the Computation of Characteristic Sets
In this note a strategy is presented that speeds up the computation of characteristic sets several times in many cases. We test the possibility of success for this strategy in the quasi-sense by 50 examples, where the strategy succeeds in 58 and fails in 23 of the 81 completed cases. The speed-up of the strategy, while successful, ranges from a few to hundred times, whereas in the failure case the computation may be slightly slowed down (not less than 0.6 times).

title: Automated Generation of Diagrams with Maple and Java
abstract: This note shows how to draw diagrams automatically from the predicate specification of a given set of geometric relations among a set of points in the plane. It is done first in Maple by translating the geometric relations into polynomial equations, decomposing the obtained system of polynomials into irreducible representative triangular sets, and finding an adequate numerical solution from each triangular set. A Java class coding the solution and the polynomials in each triangular set is generated, compiled, and then executed with the main Java programs to draw a diagram. The whole process combining symbolic elimination in Maple with numerical computation, graphic drawing, and letter labeling in Java is fully automatic. The drawn diagrams may be animated and fine-tuned by mouse click and dragging and saved as PostScript files. We present the drawing method, discuss some techniques of implementation, and give several sample diagrams drawn by our program.

title: Clifford Term Rewriting for Geometric Reasoning in 3D
abstract: Clifford algebra formalism has been used recently in combination with standard term-rewriting techniques for proving many non-trivial geometric theorems. The key issue in this approach consists in verifying whether two Clifford expressions are equal. This paper is concerned with the generalization of the work to 3D geometric problems. A rewriting system is proposed and its theoretical properties are investigated. Some examples and potential applications are also presented.

title: Reasoning about Surfaces Using Differential Zero and Ideal Decomposition
abstract: This paper presents methods for zero and ideal decomposition of partial differential polynomial systems and the application of these methods and their implementations to deal with problems from the local theory of surfaces. We show how to prove known geometric theorems and to derive unknown relations automatically. In particular, an algebraic relation between the first and the second fundamental coefficients in a very compact form has been derived, which is more general and has smaller degree than a relation discovered previously by Z. Li. Moreover, we provide symmetric expressions for Li's relation and clarify his statement. Some examples of theorem proving and computational difficulties encountered in our experiments are also discussed.

title: A simple method for implicitizing rational curves and surfaces
abstract: This paper presents a simple method for converting rational parametric equations of curves and surfaces into implicit equations. The method proceeds via writing out the implicit polynomial F of estimated degree with indeterminate coefficients u i , substituting the rational expressions for the given parametric curve or surface into F to yield a rational expression g / h in the parameter s (or s and t ), equating the coefficients of g in terms of s (and t ) to 0 to generate a sparse, partially triangular system of linear equations in u i with constant coefficients, and finally solving the linear system for u i . If a nontrivial solution is found, then an implicit polynomial is obtained; otherwise, one repeats the same process, increasing the degree of F . Our experiments show that this simple method is efficient. It performs particularly well in the presence of base points and may detect the dependency of parameters incidentally.

title: On Wu's Method for Proving Constructive Geometric Theorems
abstract: In 1977 Wu Wen-tsiin discovered an efficient method for mechanical theorem proving. This method has been applied to prove and discover theorems in various kinds of geometries. Based on an extension of one of Wu's algorithmic procedures, the author implemented a prover CPS for proving so-called constructive geometric theorems, as well as a general theorem prover PS. Using this prover we proved more than one hundred non-trivial theorems and discovered also a number of interesting ones. This paper is a summarization of our early work, as a abbreviation of the chapter 2 from my Chinese doctoral dissertation.

title: On Connectedness: A Solution Based on Oscillatory Correlation
abstract: A long-standing problem in neural computation has been the problem of connectedness, first identified by Minsky and Papert (1969). This problem served as the cornerstone for them to establish analytically that perceptrons are fundamentally limited in computing geometrical (topological) properties. A solution to this problem is offered by a different class of neural networks: oscillator networks. To solve the problem, the representation of oscillatory correlation is employed, whereby one pattern is represented as a synchronized block of oscillators and different patterns are represented by distinct blocks that desynchronize from each other. Oscillatory correlation emerges from LEGION (locally excitatory globally inhibitory oscillator network), whose architecture consists of local excitation and global inhibition among neural oscillators. It is further shown that these oscillator networks exhibit sensitivity to topological structure, which may lay a neurocomputational foundation for explaining the psychophysical phenomenon of topological perception.

title: Synchrony and Desynchrony in Integrate-and-Fire Oscillators
abstract: Due to many experimental reports of synchronous neural activity in the brain, there is much interest in understanding synchronization in networks of neural oscillators and its potential for computing perceptual organization. Contrary to Hopfield and Herz (1995), we find that networks of locally coupled integrate-and-fire oscillators can quickly synchronize. Furthermore, we examine the time needed to synchronize such networks. We observe that these networks synchronize at times proportional to the logarithm of their size, and we give the parameters used to control the rate of synchronization. Inspired by locally excitatory globally inhibitory oscillator network (LEGION) dynamics with relaxation oscillators (Terman & Wang, 1995), we find that global inhibition can play a similar role of desynchronization in a network of integrate-and-fire oscillators. We illustrate that a LEGION architecture with integrate-and-fire oscillators can be similarly used to address image analysis.

title: Nonlinear quantification scheduling in image computation
abstract: Computing the set of states reachable in one step from a given set of states, i.e. image computation, is a crucial step in several symbolic verification algorithms, including model checking and reachability analysis. So far, the best methods for quantification scheduling in image computation, with a conjunctively partitioned transition relation, have been restricted to a linear schedule. This results in a loss of flexibility during image computation. We view image computation as a problem of constructing an optimal parse tree for the image set. The optimality of a parse tree is defined by the largest BDD that is encountered during the computation of the tree. We present dynamic and static versions of a new algorithm, VarScore, which exploits the flexibility offered by the parse tree approach to the image computation. We show by extensive experimentation that our techniques outperform the best known techniques so far.

title: Identifying reasoning strategies in medical decision making: A methodological guide
abstract: Reasoning strategies are a key component in many medical tasks, including decision making, clinical problem solving, and understanding of medical texts. Identification of reasoning strategies used by clinicians may prove critical to the optimal design of decision support systems. This paper presents a formal method of cognitive-semantic analysis for the identification and characterization of reasoning strategies deployed in medical tasks and demonstrates its use through specific examples. Although semantic analysis was originally developed in the investigation of knowledge structures, it can also be applied to identify the reasoning and decision processes used by physicians and medical trainees in clinical tasks. Assumptions underlying the methods, as well as illustrations of their use in diagnostic explanation tasks, are presented. We discuss semantic analysis in the context of the current interests in developing medical ontologies and argue that a frame-based propositional analytic methodology can provide a systematic way of addressing the construction of such ontologies. Although the application of propositional analysis methods has some limitations, we show how such limitations are being addressed and present some examples of information tools that have been developed to ease, and make more systematic, the process of analysis.

title: On avoidable and unavoidable claws
abstract: A claw of degree k is a directed tree consisting of k paths emerging from a common root. We prove that every claw of order n with degree less than 19 50 n appears in every n -vertex tournament. We also construct avoidable claws with degree approaching 11 23 n . Thus for large n , the maximum λ such that every claw with degree λn appears in every n -vertex tournament satisfies λ ⩽ 11 23 . This improves earlier bounds.