PROSET — A Language for Prototyping with Sets

We discuss the prototyping language PROSET(Prototyping with Sets) as a language for experimental and evolutionary prototyping, focusing its attention on algorithm design. Some of PROSET’s features include generative communication, flexible exception handling and the integration of persistence. A discussion of some issues pertaining to the compiler and the programming environment conclude the pape

Presupposition, perceptional relativity and translation theory

The intertwining of assertions and presuppositions in utterances affects the way a text is perceived in the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). Presuppositions can be thought of as shared assumptions that form the background of the asserted meaning. To translate presuppositions as assertions, or vice versa, can distort the thematic meaning of the SL text and produce a text with a different information structure. Since a good translation is not simply concerned with transferring the propositional content of the SL text, but also its other semantic and pragmatic components, including thematic meaning, a special attention should be accorded to the translation of presupposition. This article examines the intrinsic relation between presupposition and thematic meaning, why the concept is relevant to translation theory, and how presupposition can affect the structure and understanding of discourse. Unshared presuppositions are major obstacles in translation, as cultural concepts may be conveyed through expressions that yield presuppositions. To attain an optimal proximity to the SL text, presupposition needs to be singled out as a distinct aspect of meaning, and distinctions need to be made between definite and indefinite meaning, topic and comment, topic and focus, presupposition and entailment, and presupposition and implicature

Multi-Paradigm Reasoning for Access to Heterogeneous GIS

Accessing and querying geographical data in a uniform way has become easier in recent years. Emerging standards like WFS turn the web into a geospatial web services enabled place. Mediation architectures like VirGIS overcome syntactical and semantical heterogeneity between several distributed sources. On mobile devices, however, this kind of solution is not suitable, due to limitations, mostly regarding bandwidth, computation power, and available storage space. The aim of this paper is to present a solution for providing powerful reasoning mechanisms accessible from mobile applications and involving data from several heterogeneous sources. By adapting contents to time and location, mobile web information systems can not only increase the value and suitability of the service itself, but can substantially reduce the amount of data delivered to users. Because many problems pertain to infrastructures and transportation in general and to way finding in particular, one cornerstone of the architecture is higher level reasoning on graph networks with the Multi-Paradigm Location Language MPLL. A mediation architecture is used as a “graph provider” in order to transfer the load of computation to the best suited component – graph construction and transformation for example being heavy on resources. Reasoning in general can be conducted either near the “source” or near the end user, depending on the specific use case. The concepts underlying the proposal described in this paper are illustrated by a typical and concrete scenario for web applications

Nomad, a naval message understanding system

We are building systems to automatically analyze Navy messages. Such messages typically are terse and use many abbreviations and Navy jargon. As a result, they are more difficult to understand than everyday English.The NOMAD system interacts with a message sender to ensure that only unambiguous and reasonably correct messages are generated. The VOX system will allow a human tutor to interactively extend the knowledge base of NOMAD

The NOMAD system : expectation-based detection and correction of errors during understanding of syntactically and semantically ill-formed text

Most large text-understanding systems have been designed under the assumption that the input text will be in reasonably "neat" form (for example, newspaper stories and other edited texts). However, a great deal of natural language text (for example, memos, messages, rough drafts, conversation transcripts, etc.) have features that differ significantly from "neat" texts, posing special problems for readers, such as misspelled words, missing words, poor syntactic construction, unclear or ambiguous interpretation, missing crucial punctuation, etc. Our solution to these problems is to make use of expectations, based both on knowledge of surface English and on world knowledge of the situation being described. These syntactic and semantic expectations can be used to figure out unknown words from context, constrain the possible word senses of words with multiple meanings (ambiguity), fill in missing words (ellipsis), and resolve referents (anaphora). This method of using expectations to aid the understanding of "scruffy" texts has bee incorporated into a working computer program called NOMAD, which understands scruffy texts in the domain of Navy ship-to-shore messages

The VEX-93 environment as a hybrid tool for developing knowledge systems with different problem solving techniques

The paper describes VEX-93 as a hybrid environment for developing knowledge-based and problem solver systems. It integrates methods and techniques from artificial intelligence, image and signal processing and data analysis, which can be mixed. Two hierarchical levels of reasoning contains an intelligent toolbox with one upper strategic inference engine and four lower ones containing specific reasoning models: truth-functional (rule-based), probabilistic (causal networks), fuzzy (rule-based) and case-based (frames). There are image/signal processing-analysis capabilities in the form of programming languages with more than one hundred primitive functions. User-made programs are embeddable within knowledge basis, allowing the combination of perception and reasoning. The data analyzer toolbox contains a collection of numerical classification, pattern recognition and ordination methods, with neural network tools and a data base query language at inference engines's disposal. VEX-93 is an open system able to communicate with external computer programs relevant to a particular application. Metaknowledge can be used for elaborate conclusions, and man-machine interaction includes, besides windows and graphical interfaces, acceptance of voice commands and production of speech output. The system was conceived for real-world applications in general domains, but an example of a concrete medical diagnostic support system at present under completion as a cuban-spanish project is mentioned. Present version of VEX-93 is a huge system composed by about one and half millions of lines of C code and runs in microcomputers under Windows 3.1.Postprint (published version

Space exploration: The interstellar goal and Titan demonstration

Automated interstellar space exploration is reviewed. The Titan demonstration mission is discussed. Remote sensing and automated modeling are considered. Nuclear electric propulsion, main orbiting spacecraft, lander/rover, subsatellites, atmospheric probes, powered air vehicles, and a surface science network comprise mission component concepts. Machine, intelligence in space exploration is discussed

Evaluating Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Capabilites of Ontology Specification Languages

The interchange of ontologies across the World Wide Web (WWW) and the cooperation among heterogeneous agents placed on it is the main reason for the development of a new set of ontology specification languages, based on new web standards such as XML or RDF. These languages (SHOE, XOL, RDF, OIL, etc) aim to represent the knowledge contained in an ontology in a simple and human-readable way, as well as allow for the interchange of ontologies across the web. In this paper, we establish a common framework to compare the expressiveness of "traditional" ontology languages (Ontolingua, OKBC, OCML, FLogic, LOOM) and "web-based" ontology languages. As a result of this study, we conclude that different needs in KR and reasoning may exist in the building of an ontology-based application, and these needs must be evaluated in order to choose the most suitable ontology language(s)