Author: SRI International

  • Why Ask?

    In this paper, we address the problem, ‘What makes an answer appropriate?’ We do so by investigating indirect answers to questions in task-oriented dialogues.

  • Natural Language Access To A Melanoma Data Base

    This paper describes ongoing research towards developing a system that will allow physicians personal access to patient medical data through natural language queries to support both patient management and clinical research.

  • Coherence and Coreference

    In this paper, formal definitions are given for several coherence relations, based on the operations of an inference system; that is, the relations between successive portions of a discourse are characterized in terms of the inferences that can be drawn from each.

  • Engineering Design Viewed as an Activity in Artificial Intelligence

    The process of problem solving has been studied in artificial intelligence research for the past few decades. This paper describes the engineering design process from several viewpoints, and then relates this process to procedures that can be implemented using computers.

  • Focusing in Dialog

    This paper examines focusing in dialog, discusses focusing mechanisms based on domain structure clues, and, from this perspective, indicates future research problems entailed in modeling the focusing process more generally.

  • Investigating The Process Of Natural Language Communication

    This research seeks to identify and computationally formalize the knowledge and processes needed for participation in natural language dialogs about ongoing tasks.

  • Encoding Knowledge In Partitioned Networks

    This paper discusses network notations for encoding a number of different kinds of knowledge, including taxonomic information; general statements involving quantification; information about processes and procedures; the delineation of local contexts, beliefs, and wishes; and the relationships between syntactic units and their interpretations.

  • Recovering Intrinsic Scene Characteristics From Images

    We suggest that an appropriate role of early visual processing is to describe a scene in terms of intrinsic characteristics – such as range, orientation, reflectance, and incident illumination – of the surface element visible at each point in the image.

  • Road Tracking and Anomaly Detection In Aerial Imagery

    This report describes a new procedure for tracking road segments and finding potential vehicles in imagery of approximately 1 to 3 feet per pixel ground resolution.

  • Use of Sensors in Programmable Automation

    In this paper we are concerned with the application of sensor-mediated programmable automation to material-handling, inspection, and assembly operations in batch-produced, discrete-part manufacturing.

  • Synthesis: Dreams = Programs

    Deductive techniques are presented for deriving programs systematically from given specifications. The specifications express the purpose of the desired program without giving any hint of the algorithm to be employed.

  • PROSPECTOR: A Computer-Based Consultation System For Mineral Exploration

    This paper reviews the principles and status of PROSPECTOR, a computer-based consultation program for mineral exploration. The mechanisms for representing ore deposit models by networks of inference rules are described, and the overall approach is compared to alternative decision-making methodologies.