March 1998, Volume 15, No. 3
Book Shelf
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March 1998, Volume 15, No. 3 |
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Applying Case-Based Reasoning: Techniques for Enterprise System, by Ian Watson, Morgan Kaufman, 200 pages, $44.95, ISBN 1-55860-462-6 Case-based reasoning (CBR) is one of the most promising industrial applications of AI, having already been successfully implemented for applications such as customer support, quality assurance, aircraft maintenance, process planning, and decision support -- and many more applications are achievable. In the many fields where case records are routinely maintained, the cost of automating processes such as design, diagnosis and scheduling can be easily justified by the subsequent gains in efficiency. CBR has the additional advantage of being relatively simple to implement, as this book demonstrates. The author explains the principles of CBR for an industrial audience, describing the field's origins and contrasting it with mainstream information disciplines. Through case studies and step-by-step examples, the book shows the reader how to design and implement a reliable, robust CBR system in a real-world environment. Additional resources are provided in a survey of commercially available CBR tools, a comprehensive bibliography, and a listing of companies providing CBR software and services.
Watson is with the University of Salford.
This book is a comprehensive presentation of the dynamical approach to cognition. It contains a representative sampling of original, current research on topics such as perception, motor control, speech and language, decision making, and development. Included are chapters by pioneers of the approach, as well as others applying the tools of dynamics to a wide range of new problems. Throughout, particular attention is paid to the philosophical foundations of this new research program. Cognitive science has traditionally been dominated by an AI-based computational paradigm, in which cognition is taken to be the manipulation of internal symbols. Even as the potential of this paradigm continues to be explored, limitations are becoming increasingly apparent. Researchers throughout cognitive science have been casting around for alternative theoretical frameworks. Out of this flux has emerged the dynamical concept, according to which cognitive processes are behavioral patterns of non-linear dynamical systems and are best studied using the mathematics of dynamical modeling and dynamical systems theory. The book provides a conceptual and historical overview of the dynamical approach, a tutorial introduction to dynamics for cognitive scientists, and a glossary covering the most frequently used terms. Each chapter includes an introduction by the editors, outlining its main ideas and placing it in context, and a guide to further reading.
Port is with Indiana University, and van Gelder is with the University of
Melbourne (Australia).
The research and development of intelligent user interfaces has assumed heightened importance with the rapid increase of on-line information and the expanding complexity of computer applications. This book concentrates on intelligent knowledge-based user interfaces, specifically focusing on a combination of spoken language, natural language processing, and multimedia and multimodal processing. The sections of this book include editorial introductions to the topic and papers.
Maybury is with Mitre Corp., and Wahlster is with German Research Center
for AI.
This book is the culmination of the author's decade-long investigation into the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of computation, AI and cognitive science. Based on a sustained critique of the formal tradition that underlies the reigning views, he presents an argument for an embedded, participatory, "irreductionist," metaphysical alternative. The author seeks to revise our understanding not only of the machines we build but also of the world with which they interact. Smith's project begins as a search for a comprehensive theory of computation, able to do empirical justice to practice and conceptual justice to the computational theory of mind. A rigorous commitment to these two criteria ultimately leads him to recommend a radical overhaul of our traditional conception of metaphysics. Along the way, Smith offers many ideas: the distinction between particularity and individuality; the methodological notion of an "inscription error"; an argument that there are no individuals within physics; various deconstructions of the type-instance distinction; an analysis of formality as overly disconnected ("discreteness run amok"); a conception of the boundaries of objects as properties of unruly interactions between objects and subjects; an argument for the theoretical centrality of reference preservation; and a theatrical, acrobatic metaphor for the contortions involved in the preservation of reference and resultant stabilization of objects. Smith is with Indiana University. |
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