veach@ukans.CSNET (Glenn Veach) (06/23/86)
The following is a summary/personal comment, of the "Premier Issue" of "AI Expert" presented as "The Magazine for the Artificial Intelligence Community." As the editor, Craig LaGrow, notes it is "rare to find such a strong response from advertisers" and "quality submissions" of articles in the first run of a new magazine (particularly in the computer field with our overwhelming number of upstart publications). The advisory board of the magazine is quite impressive with the likes of John Seely Brown of Xerox PARC, Carl Hewitt of MIT, Earl Sacerdoti of Teknowledge, Donald Waterman of Rand, and Terry Winograd of Stanford, to name a few. With the commitment of such names one should expect to to see a quality publication. The feature articles as well as the "regular columns" are well written and contributed by knowledgeable authors. A feature for which the publisher should be commended, is the inclusion in many of the articles of actual code which demonstrates the technique or program which the author is presenting. By the way, the code is reportedly available for downloading from four different sources, for those who wish to try it out. Following is an annotated list of articles and columns: "Brain Waves" a column by Larry Geisel/CEO Carnegie Group Inc. in this article he writes on "The AI Explosion: A Response to National Priorities" "AI Insider" a column capsulizing industry and academic developments by Susan J. Shepherd a consultant with Academy for Educational Development "Expert's Toolbox" a column written by Jonathan Amsterdam a grad student at MIT writes an article on "Augmented Transition Networks for Natural Language Parsing" which includes code for an ATN compiler and a sample ATN grammar. "AI Apprentice" a column by Bill and Bev Thompson free-lance writers and consultants write on "PROLOG From the Bottom Up" which introduces PROLOG and the basic logical concepts, includes some basic coded procedures. "Control Over Inexact Reasoning" a feature article by Koenraad Lecot a grad student at UCLA and D. Stott Parker a prof. at UCLA. "Concurrency in Intelligent Systems" a feature by Carl Hewitt of MIT. "Rule-Based Programming in OPS83" a feature by Dan Neiman with ITT Advanced Technology Center and John Martin of Philips Laboratories. Includes code for a short program. "Multitasking for Common LISP" by Andrew Bernat of the University of Texas at El Paso. Includes code for the concurrent processing modules. "In Practice" a column by Henry Eric Firdman a consultant uses this column to look at the use of AI in real-world business applications. This issue's article -- "Components of AI Systems". "Software Review" a column by Darryl Rubin of Microsoft. Here we get a look at "Turbo PROLOG: A PROLOG Compiler for the PC Programmer." "Book Store" a column by Lance B. Eliot, director of UCLA's Expert Systems Laboratory gives short blips on four "classics". "AI Expert" will be published monthly beginning in October. The above is a sample of what they have to offer at this time. If they continue to produce similar articles it should be of interest to most in the AI community and especially those in industry seeking to apply AI to their needs, as well as to those just starting to "get into" the field. Subscription info: AI Expert PO Box 10952 Palo Alto CA 94303-0968 charter first year at $27.00 for the 12 issues.