bundy%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@CS.UCL.AC.UK.UUCP (01/20/87)
THE CATALOGUE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES
Alan Bundy
The Catalogue of Artificial Intelligence Techniques is a kind
of mail order catalogue. Its purpose is to promote interaction
between members of the AI community. It does this by announcing the
existence of AI techniques, and acting as a pointer into the
literature. Thus the AI community will have access to a common,
extensional definition of the field, which will: promote a common
terminology, discourage the reinvention of wheels, and act as a
clearing house for ideas and algorithms.
The catalogue is a reference work providing a quick guide to
the AI techniques available for different jobs. It is not intended to
be a textbook like the Artificial Intelligence Handbook. It,
intentionally, only provides a brief description of each technique,
with no extended discussion of its historical origin or how it has
been used in particular AI programs.
The original version of the catalogue, was hastily built in
1983 as part of the UK SERC-DoI, IKBS, Architecture Study. It has now
been adopted by the UK Alvey Programme and is both kept as an on-line
document undergoing constant revision and refinement and published as
a paperback by Springer Verlag. Springer Verlag have agreed to reprint
the Catalogue at frequent intervals in order to keep it up to date.
The on-line and paperback versions of the catalogue meet
different needs and differ in the entries they contain. In
particular, the on-line version was designed to promote UK interaction
and contains all the entries which we received that meet the criteria
defined below. Details of how to access the on-line version are
available from John Smith of the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory,
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 OQX. The paperback version was designed to
serve as a reference book for the international community, and does
not contain entries which are only of interest in a UK context.
By `AI techniques' we mean algorithms, data (knowledge)
formalisms, architectures, and methodological techniques, which can be
described in a precise, clean way. The catalogue entries are intended
to be non-technical and brief, but with a literature reference. The
reference might not be the `classic' one. It will often be to a
textbook or survey article. The border between AI and non-AI
techniques is fuzzy. Since the catalogue is to promote interaction
some techniques are included because they are vital parts of many AI
programs, even though they did not originate in AI.
We have not included in the catalogue separate entries for
each slight variation of a technique, nor have we included
descriptions of AI programs tied to a particular application, nor of
descriptions of work in progress. The catalogue is not intended to be
a dictionary of AI terminology, nor to include definitions of AI
problems, nor to include descriptions of paradigm examples.
Entries are short (abstract length) descriptions of a
technique. They include: a title, list of aliases, contributor's
name, paragraph of description, and references. The contributor's
name is that of the original author of the entry. Only occasionally
is the contributor of the entry also the inventor of the technique.
The reference is a better guide to the identity of the inventor. Some
entries have been subsequently modified by the referees and/or
editorial team, and these modifications have not always been checked
with the original contributor, so (s)he should not always be held
morally responsible, and should never be held legally responsible.
The original version of the catalogue was called "The
Catalogue of Artificial Intelligence Tools" and also contained
descriptions of portable software, e.g. expert systems shells and
knowledge representation systems. Unfortunately, we found it
impossible to maintain a comprehensive coverage of either all or only
the best such software. New systems were being introduced too
frequently and it required a major editorial job to discover all of
them, to evaluate them and to decide what to include. It would also
have required a much more frequent reprinting of the catalogue than
either the publishers, editors or readers could afford. Also expert
systems shells threatened to swamp the other entries. We have,
therefore, decided to omit software entries from future editions and
rename the catalogue to reflect this. The only exception to this is
programming languages, for which we will provide generic entries. Any
software entries sent to us will be passed on to Graeme Pub. Co., who
publish a directory of AI vendors and products.
If you would like to submit an entry for the catalogue then
please fill in the attached form and send it to:
Alan Bundy,
Department of Artificial Intelligence,
University of Edinburgh, Tel: 44-31-225-7774 ext 242
80 South Bridge,
Edinburgh, EH1 1HN, JANet: Bundy@UK.Ac.Edinburgh
Scotland. ARPAnet: Bundy@Rutgers.Edu
CATALOGUE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES:
FORMAT FOR ENTRIES
Title:
Alias:
Abstract: <Paragraph length description of technique>
Contributor: <Your name>
References: <Aim for the most helpful rather than the `classic' one.
Just one reference is the norm.>