Agent Books

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS AND INTERFACES Edited by

HORIA-NICOLAI TEODORESCU University of South Florida (USF)

DANIEL MLYNEK Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

ABRAHAM KANDEL University of South Florida

And H.-J. ZIMMERMANN RWTH

Published by KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS /BOSTON / DORDRECHT / LONDON P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands 2000, ISBN 0-7923-7763-X, pp. 451

Sold and distributed: in North, Central and South America by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. and in all other countries by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

"Intelligent interfaces and systems" constitute important topics in the last decade artificial intelligence conferences. The field is developing both by the increasing number of applications and by their complex capabilities as intelligent agents, speech and image understanding, environment decision making, bio-inspired sensor and neuro-fuzzy systems.

The volume is addressing a very wide range of scientists, employing both theoretical and practical aspects, experienced knowledge in building and using intelligent systems.

The Editors (well-known personalities in the artificial intelligence field, with a prodigious scientific activity authors of many books, tutorials and papers) selected fundamental aspects, software-, sensors-, and hardware-related issues, in order to realize a comprehensive coverage of the field.

The volume is organized in four sections each of them being structured in more chapters.

The first two chapters of the section "Intelligent agents and bio-inspired systems" deal with aspects of building and using various types of "intelligent agents". Chapter 1: "A tutoring based approach to the development of intelligent agents" particularly presents "Disciple", an apprenticeship, multistrategy learning system mend to develop intelligent agents (supervised learning - through examples, explanations and corrections - for specific tasks). Machine learning and knowledge acquisition techniques (inductive, explanation-based, analogy, experimentation) are employed. Chapter 2: "An object-oriented framework for building collaborative network agents" is developed on the design of software agents supporting interoperability in a heterogeneous computing system with a dynamically creating agents mechanism. In the third chapter "Navigation: Animals as Autonomous Robots" - animats (intelligent systems that mimic animal behavior) carry out complex spatial-navigation tasks (multiple target finding, barrier detour and maze learning) in a discrete (in time and space) diffusion surface. The system has been proposed as a guidance schema for the efficient identification of suspected land mines. The fourth chapter "From configurable circuits to bio-inspired systems" describes six applications in the domain of configurable computing, considering both static systems (SPYDER - REconfigurable Processor Development System, RENCO - REconfigurable Network Computer, FPGA - based backpropagation neural network), and dynamic systems (The Firefly machine, The Bio Watch and The FAST Neural Network -Flexible, Adaptable-Size Topology).

The second section of the volume is devoted to "Intelligent data processing". In chapter 5, "Fuzzy Data Mining", fuzzy inference procedures are used to process the extraction of useful information from databases. Chapters 6 and 7 "Feature-oriented hybrid neural adaptive systems and applications" and, respectively, "Algebraic neuro-fuzzy systems and applications", describes feature-space, neuro, neuro-fuzzy and hybrid methods in intelligent data processing, and demonstrates different applications ranging from feature extraction and pattern recognition, to human-like signal and image processing, to decision making.

"Interfaces", the third part of the book deals with aspects related to intelligent interfaces. In "Neuro-fuzzy approach to natural language understanding and processing" - chapters 8 (part I) and 9 (part II), a generic, dynamically-configurable neuro-fuzzy device (NFD), having interactive communication capabilities, with an environment dependent evolution and behavior, is designed. New algorithms of progressive learning are presented. In chapter 10" Graph matching and similarity" the focus is on the fundamental aspects of graph manipulation in view of increasing the intelligence of graphical interfaces.

The fourth section of the volume "Applications and High-tech Management" comprises interesting, well developed "Diagnosis systems and strategies" (chapter 11), "intelligent non-destructive testing and evaluation" methods - industrial applications (chapter 12), in uncertainty, fuzzy and neural approaches. Finally, the last two chapters "Managing high-tech projects", part I and II, emphasize the importance of an integrative perspective on intelligent systems playing an essential part in the success of such projects.

The volume also contains an index of terms, which facilitate a very quick and direct access to new technical, domain-specific, terms. Extensive references are included, offering the reader a perspective on the currently existing literature and trends.

The contributors joint together in this volume to offer a valuable systematic overview of the "Intelligent interfaces and systems" domain and a deep practical knowledge in building and using these intelligent tools in a very wide range of applications. This book is conceived to be an important reference on intelligent systems for a large audience and is highly recommended for graduate and postgraduate students, engineers from high-tech industries and researchers, teachers - to be used as supplementary readings in graduate and post-graduate courses.

Costin Mihaela, scientific researcher, Computer Science Institute, Romanian Academy, Associated professor AI discipline, Automatics and Computer Science University, Technical University, Gh. Asachi, Iasi, Romania.

This book should be a must read for all med students as well as clinicians. It provides an unusually precise and clear link between what often appears as "common" symptoms and previously un-discussed causes such as food related chemicals, pesticides, chemical exposures, organic solvents and metals. Having seen many antidotal references in the pop literature to these issues, it is good to finally see an authoritative scientific text on the subject.

This book is very well-written and well-organized. EZ to navigate and no problems finding specific info when I need it. Thanks!

I found this book very perfect and useful for studying on travel and tourism. It is still update for its text after 12 years past. I wonder if there is a latest edition . I will surely recoommend this book to tourism students. The only problem is our native language is Thai. That made me have an idea to translate it to Thai for Thai students. Only loose leaf for the purpose of study. How can I manage to do that legally ?

Yaowadee Saiaram

These novels were published by TSR and tie into the Agent 13 supplement for their Top Secret RPG. The story is set in the 1930's and concerns one man's quest against The Brotherhood, an organization of evil. Agent 13 is similar to The Spider, but not just a carbon copy. The book races along at a quick pace, which is what every thriller wishes it did.

I wish these guys would write more novels!!!

I took the EA exam in 2005. I purchased the 2005 edition of this book as my primary study guide and also used the IRS's website for additional exam questions. The exam back then was 4 parts - I passed all 4 parts on my first try. Overall score on each section was about 75%. I didn't dedicate too much time to studying, but this book is very concise and will provide you with the necessary information to pass the exam.

An author who believes and extrapolates fairly well that Islam is not a "spent force". He gives an insight in a remarkable manner - the background and the origins of the Western Civilization.

Keeping that in mind he inspires - the individual Muslim - to reinspect the imitation which encompases the current Muslim cultural orbit.

A strong point in his word would be Asad's assertion that the influence of Islamic thought is certainly possible in the scientific domain which would by all means lead to results different from the current western norm.

Certainly follows the Asad tradition - " For those who think . . . "

Professor Erhard Dabringhaus was one of my girl friends professors at Wayne State University in Detroit. She told me about Professor Dabringhaus story. But can you believe that our government, after the war (WWII) used Klaus Barbie as a secret agent, instead of lining "the Butcher of Lyons" up against the nearest wall and shooting him. Erhard Dabringhaus a member of the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) stationed in Augsburg, West Germany in 1948. He worked as a handler of Klaus and met with him at least three times a week to gather intelligence. Perhaps this was a good thing as we needed it to counter Soviet and Communist East German agents working in the West, particular West Germany. It was a time of great tension between the East and West. Germany still did not have a real government and war could break out any second between Russia and the West. No one trusted any one, secret agents and spies were everywhere. The big question was, would the Soviets invade? If so where? People as despicable and despised as the hated Klaus were needed to counter the threat from Stalin's Soviet Empire and his world domination quest!

This proceedings is a 1,333 page compendium of technical papers each of which is based on the concept of Artificial Intelligence. Only papers which "...included significant intelligent systems content..." and which excluded purely classical methods were published. About 180 separate papers in the English language appear in a standard format: introduction, presentation, conclusion, references. The authors are from universities and research organizations throughout the world.

The subjects presented are unlimited in scope and describe applications in nearly every imaginable field. However, the single common thread is the inclusion of higher mathematics to rationalize the procedure. Whether a paper deals with objects, actions, or information, or a combination of these, the authors customarily provide a mathematical formulation. In many cases, the authors conducted an experiment to demonstrate or test the application in a real-life setting. Computing systems were usually employed to help generate solutions.

This was not intended to be read like a novel from chapter to chapter, nor can a typical scientist or engineer be expected to have the expertise to fully comprehend every paper. It is essentially a research reference on current applications in Artificial Intelligence which incorporates extensive reference lists, with website and email addresses, affording pursuit of the concepts in depth.

It is highly recommended to scientists, engineers, and research personnel with very strong mathematical skills as a resource publication.

Leonard C. Silvern
Systems Engineering Laboratories
Clarkdale, AZ

Useful info on photographers, classes, theatres, and the industry in general. In depth interviews with agents, and a review of over 100 of them in easy to read, consise summaries. Helped me get an agent and make my move to LA a smooth one.