Flairs 2000 Conference Report

The Thirteenth Annual International Conference at the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society (FLAIRS) was held in Orlando, Florida, on 22 to 24 May. The conference included sessions on 11 topics. The session on validation, verification, and system certification was the most extensive. It sponsored nine paper presentations, a panel discussion, and a tutorial on the verification of software through formal theorem proving methods. Additionally, some less than traditional areas of research were also represented

Constraint Mechanisms In Automated Knowledgegeneration

In the past decade, the use of control and diagnostic reasoning systems in different areas of government, industry, and university operations has increased. A great number of thesesystems find their basis in engineering, specifically in process control. The majority of thetime devoted to the development of these systems is spent in the areas of Knowledge Engineering (KE) and Knowledge Acquisition (KA). Extensive research for the development of systemsthat perform the KE task is under way. This article presents an approach toward automaticknowledge acquisition. The objective of this research was to construct a complete knowledgebase for a diagnostic and control reasoning system from information that resides in ComputerAided Design (CAD) databases. This work will decrease the amount of time spent in themanual generation of knowledge bases for diagnostic reasoning systems. It will also enablethe creation of more reliable knowledge bases since less hand coding is required. © 1988 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Automated Knowledge Generation In Support Of Shuttle Ground Operations.

A system is described that performs automated knowledge generation (AKG) using structural databases to create semantic knowledge bases. The approach, borrowed from machine vision, uses relaxation labeling to propagate constraints through the system. A prototype system has been developed which accesses an Intergraph CAD (computer-aided design) database, \u27processes\u27 the information contained therein, and generates a frame-based knowledge base usable by NASA\u27s Knowlede-based Autonomous Test Engineer (KATE) diagnostic system. The authors present a summary of work to date and discuss some of the obstacles found by the research group during the development of the AKG system

Introducing Computational Thinking Through Stealth Teaching

The demand for additional engineering and computing degree graduates continue to increase; however, interest in pursuing these degrees is not matching the predicated demand. More specifically, attracting US students in engineering and computing field has always been a challenge; this is particularly true for female and minority students. Factors such as the “geek image”, a demanding mathematical foundation, lack of “gee whiz” element early in the curriculum, and overall misconception about the career in these areas are all contributors to this problem.This paper describes some of our activities associated with the introduction of Computational Thinking (CT) concepts to middle and high schools. The central tenet of the project is to entice students in grade 6-12 to learnsome fundamental and advance topics in engineering and computing field, thereby recognizing their own ability to understand the computing and engineering topics, and potentially recognizing their interest in such topics and potential further education and career in these fields. --From the paper