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Program & Exhibit Guide

SIXTEENTH NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AAAI-)

ELEVENTH CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS

OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (IAAI-)

July -,

Omni Rosen Hotel and Orange County Convention Center

Orlando, Florida

SPONSORED BY THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Cosponsored by NASA Ames Research Center, DARPA, Microsoft Corporation, Office of Naval Research,

Naval Research Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation.

ContentsAcknowledgments / Awards / Botball / Conference at a Glance / DC- / Exhibition / ‒General Information / ‒IAAI- Program / ‒Intelligent Systems Demonstrations / ‒Invited Talks / ‒Maps / , Registration / Receptions / Robot Building Laboratory / Robot Competition and Exhibition / ‒Special Events and Programs / ‒Special Meetings / Sponsoring Organizations / Student Posters / Technical Program Monday / Technical Program Tuesday / ‒Technical Program Wednesday / ‒Technical Program Thursday / ‒Tutorial Forum / ‒Workshop Program / ‒

AcknowledgmentsThe American Association for Artificial Intelli-gence wishes to acknowledge and thank the fol-lowing individuals for their generous contribu-tions of time and energy to the successful cre-ation and planning of the Sixteenth NationalConference on Artificial Intelligence and theEleventh Conference on Innovative Applica-tions of Artificial Intelligence.

■ AAAI- Program Cochairs Jim Hendler, University of Maryland &DARPA/ISO Devika Subramanian, Rice University

■ AAAI- Associate Program CochairsHenry Kautz, AT&T LabsBruce Porter, University of Texas, Austin

■ AAAI- Assistant Program ChairVibhu Mittal, Just Research & Carnegie Mellon University

■ IAAI- Conference ChairRamasamy Uthurusamy, General Motors Research

■ IAAI- Conference CochairBarbara Hayes-Roth, Extempo Systems, Inc.

■ Intelligent Systems Demonstrations ChairGeorge Ferguson, University of Rochester

■ Mobile Robot Competition ChairAlan C. Schultz, Naval Research Lab

■ Robot Contest SubchairLisa Meeden, Swarthmore College

■ Robot Exhibit SubchairsKaren Zita Haigh, Honeywell TechnologyMarc Böhlen, Carnegie Mellon University

■ Robot Challenge SubchairTucker Balch, Carnegie Mellon University

■ Robot Building Laboratory ChairDavid Miller, KISS Institute for PracticalRobotics

■ SIGART/AAAI- Doctoral ConsortiumChairJanyce Wiebe, New Mexico State University

■ Student Abstract and Poster ChairSven Koenig, Georgia Institute of Technology

■ Student Volunteer CoordinatorThomas Haynes, Wichita State University

■ Tutorial ChairBart Selman, Cornell University

■ Workshop Chair and CochairDavid Leake, Indiana UniversityMarie desJardins, SRI International

A complete listing of the AAAI- and IAAI-Program Committee member appears in theconference proceedings.

Sponsoring OrganizationsAAAI gratefully acknowledges the generouscontributions of the following organizations toAAAI-:

■ ACM/SIGART

■ ActivMedia Robotics

■ Ben Wegbreit

■ Defense Advance Research Projects Agency

■ Real World Interface, A Division of ISRobotics Inc.

■ Microsoft Corporation

■ NASA Ames Research Center

■ National Science Foundation

■ Naval Research Laboratory

■ Office of Naval ResearchCont

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Special Events & Programs

AAAI RecognitionAwards

AAAI is pleased to announce the recipients of

two new awards, to be presented annually at the

national conference: The AAAI Classic Paper

Award and the AAAI Distinguished Service

Award.

The AAAI Classic Paper Award

The AAAI Classic Paper Award will be giv-

en to the author of the most influential paper(s)

from the First National Conference on Artificial

Intelligence, held in at Stanford Universi-

ty, Stanford, California. The Awards Commit-

tee has selected John McDermott to receive this

award for his paper, “R: An Expert in the Com-

puter Systems Domain.” McDermott is being

honored for seminal contributions to the devel-

opment of knowledge-based systems and to the

establishment of their commercial applicability.

The AAAI Distinguished Service Award

The AAAI Distinguished Service Award recog-

nizes one individual each year for extraordinary

service to the AI community. The AAAI Awards

Committee is pleased to announce that the first

recipient of this award will be Barbara J. Grosz,

Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science

at Harvard University and a past president of

AAAI. Grosz is being honored for her contribu-

tions to the field of artificial intelligence

through sustained service in a multitude of aca-

demic, professional society, and government

leadership roles, at the local, national and inter-

national levels, through which she has had a

major effect on the field and on those working

in it.

AAAI President David L. Waltz will present

the awards on Wednesday, July , at : AM in

Grand Ballroom C, Omni Rosen Hotel.

AAAI Fellows Recognition DinnerEach year the American Association for Artifi-cial Intelligence recognizes a small number ofmembers who have made significant sustainedcontributions to the field of artificial intelli-gence, and who have attained unusual distinc-tion in the profession. AAAI is pleased to an-nounce the three newly elected Fellows for :

■ Harry G. Barrow, Schlumberger CambridgeResearch, UK

■ James A. Hendler, University of Marylandand DARPA/ISO

■ Daniel S. Weld, University of Washington

The Fellows Recognition Dinner will beheld Monday, July , from : - : PM inthe Signature Ballroom, first level, the OmniRosen Hotel. A reception will begin at :

PM, followed by dinner at : PM. (By invita-tion only).

AAAI-99 OutstandingPaper AwardThis year, AAAI’s National Conference on Arti-ficial Intelligence honors one paper that exem-plifies the highest standards in technical contri-bution and exposition. The winning paper is“PROVERB: The Probabilistic Cruciverbalist”by Greg A. Keim, Noam M. Shazeer, Michael L.Littman, Sushant Agarwal, Catherine M.Cheves, Joseph Fitzgerald, Jason Grosland, FanJiang, Shannon Pollard and Karl Weinmeister,Duke University

Program Cochairs Jim Hendler and DevikaSubramanian will present the winners with theircertificates on Tuesday, July in Grand Ball-room C, Omni Rosen Hotel.

Program Committee DinnerThe AAAI- Program Committee Dinner willbe held Tuesday, July , from : – : PM

in the Signature Ballroom, first level, the Om-ni Rosen Hotel to honor the contributions of allthe members of the AAAI- and IAAI- Pro-gram Committees. (By invitation only.)

Opening ReceptionThe AAAI- opening reception will be held inthe Junior Ballroom of the Omni Rosen Hotel,Monday, July from :–: PM. This event,which has moved to a new day, will provide thetraditional opportunity for attendees to socializeat the beginning of the main technical confer-ence. A variety of hors d’oeuvres and a no-hostbar will be available. Admittance to the recep-tion is free to AAAI- registrants. A $. perperson fee ($. for children) will be chargedfor spouses and other nontechnical conferenceregistrants. Guest tickets are available in onsiteregistration.

AI FestivalThe AI Festival will be held in Exhibition HallA of the Orange County Convention Center,Wednesday, July from :–: PM. Thisevent, which was very popular in , will pro-vide attendees the opportunity to stroll amongnumerous exciting events—the Mobile RobotCompetition and Exhibition, the IntelligentSystems Demos, and the Student Posters—en-livened by informal supper and conversation.Admittance to the festival is free to AAAI-registrants. A $. per person fee ($. forchildren) will be charged for spouses and othernon-technical conference registrants. Guesttickets are available in onsite registration.

Student Abstract Poster Program

Students whose abstracts were chosen for inclu-sion in the conference proceedings will displaytheir work at the Student Abstract Poster Ses-sion in Exhibit Hall A, Orange County Con-vention Center on Wednesday, July from:–: PM in conjunction with the AI Fes-tival. In addition, participants in theAAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consortium will dis-play their poster presentations during this ses-sion. All students will be available for questions.

AAAI/SIGART DoctoralConsortium (DC-99)

The Fourth AAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consor-tium program will be held on Sunday and Mon-day, July -, from :–: PM in Salon, Omni Rosen Hotel. The Doctoral Consor-tium provides an opportunity for a group ofPh.D students to discuss and explore their re-search interests and career objectives in an in-terdisciplinary workshop together with a panelof established researchers. The sixteen studentsaccepted to participate in this program will alsoparticipate in the Student Poster program onWednesday, July , from :–: PM duringthe AI Festival. All interested AAAI- studentregistrants are invited to observe the presenta-tions and participate in discussions at the work-shop. AAAI and ACM/SIGART gratefully ac-knowledge a grant from the National ScienceFoundation, Knowledge and Cognitive SystemsProgram for student travel to this event.

AAAI Annual Business Meeting

The AAAI Annual Business Meeting will beheld Thursday, July , from :–: PM inSalon , second level, Omni Rosen Hotel.

Conference Committee Meeting

The AAAI Conference Committee Meeting willbe held Thursday, July , from :–: AM inSalon , second level, Omni Rosen Hotel.

Executive Council Meeting

The AAAI Executive Council Meeting will beheld Sunday, July , from : AM—: PM inSignature Ballroom, first level, Omni RosenHotel. Continental breakfast will be available at: AM.

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Conference at a Glance

morning afternoon evening

SUNDAY, JULY 18Registration Registration Special Java Tutorial SP4

Tutorial Forum Tutorial ForumWorkshops Workshops

AAAI/SIGART DC AAAI/SIGART DCRBL– RBL–

Monday, July 19Registration Registration AAAI-99 Opening Reception

IAAI– IAAI– Mentoring Tutorial MPTutorial Forum Tutorial Forum 999 Fellows Dinner

Workshops WorkshopsAAAI/SIGART DC AAAI/SIGART DC

RBL– RBL–

TUESDAY, JULY 20Registration Registration Program Committee Dinner

AAAI-99 & IAAI-99 AAAI-99 & IAAI-99Keynote & Invited Talks Invited Presentations

Exhibition/IS Demos Exhibition/IS DemosRobot Program Robot Program

WEDNESDAY, JULY 21Registration Registration AI Festival

AAAI-99 & IAAI-99 AAAI-99 & IAAI-99Keynote & Invited Talks Invited Presentations Student Poster Session

Exhibition & IS Demos Exhibition & IS Demos Exhibition & IS DemosRobot Program Robot Program Robot Program

THURSDAY, JULY 22Registration Registration

AAAI-99 AAAI-99 Keynote & Invited Talks Invited Presentations

Tuto

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Tutorial ForumAAAI- Technical registration includes admission to up to four tutorials and the correspondingfour tutorial syllabi. A maximum of four consecutive tutorials may be taken due to parallel sched-ules. Tutorial attendees may redeem their tutorial syllabi tickets at the tutorial rooms. Attendees whowish to obtain syllabi from other tutorials may purchase them separately for $. per syllabus inonsite registration. The Special Java Tutorial (SP) and the Mentoring Tutorial (MP) are open toall AAAI- and require no preregistration.

Session I: Sunday, July

: AM – : PM

SA: Knowledge-Based SchedulingSteve Chien and Stephen SmithSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

SA: Automatic Programming by Means of Genetic ProgrammingJohn Koza and Forrest BennettSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

SA: Robotic Soccer: The Research Challenges and the Concrete Simulation and Real Robot PlatformsPeter Stone and Manuela VelosoSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

Session II: Sunday, July

: ‒ : PM

SP: Economically Founded Multiagent SystemsTuomas SandholmSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

SP: Markov Decision Processes and Planning under UncertaintyLeslie Kaelbling and Michael LittmanSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

SP: Recent Progress in Machine LearningTom Mitchell and Andrew MooreSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

: ‒ : PM

SP: Plenary Tutorial: Java for Lisp ProgrammersSean LukeSalons & , Omni Rosen Hotel

Session III: Monday, July

: AM ‒ : PM

MA: Evaluating Machine Learning and Knowledge DiscoveryDavid Jensen and Foster ProvostSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

MA: The Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research TechniquesCarla Gomes, Ken McAloon and Carol TretkoffSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

Tutorial Forum & RBL

MA: Statistical Methods in Natural Language ProcessingLillian Lee and John LaffertySalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

Session IV: Monday, July

: ‒ : PM

MP: Behavior-Based RoboticsMaja Mataric and Ronald ArkinSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

MP: Advances in Reasoning and Search for Model-Based Autonomous SystemsHenry Kautz, Pandu Nayak, Bart Selman, and Brian WilliamsSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

MP: Genetic Algorithms, Evolution Strategies and AIDarrell Whitley and Thomas BaeckSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

: ‒ : PM

MP: Mentoring Tutorial: How Not to Present a PaperEugene FreuderSalons & , Omni Rosen Hotel

Robot Building LabThe Robot Building Laboratory will be held in Room A/B, level two, Orange County Con-vention Center at the following times:

Sunday, July : AM – : PM

Monday, July : AM – : PM

Monday, July : PM – : PM (RBL- Contest/Exhibition)

Preregistration is required. AAAI- Robot Building Laboratory participants will spend two daysseeing how easy or difficult it is to implement their favorite AI techniques on an actual robot.This year’s kit will feature pneumatic actuators and a sonar range finder in addition to the tradi-tional collection of DC motors and analog sensors. Participants will be grouped into small teams,each of which will build their own mobile robot. The AAAI- RBL will start with a quick tu-torial on robot basics covering sensors, effectors and realtime programming techniques. Partici-pants will spend most of their time designing, building and programming their mobile robot.Throughout the laboratory there will be individual team tutorials covering specific aspects ofrobot design and programming. Demonstrations of other robot systems and technologies will al-so take place, and an extensive library of robot functions will be available. Some portions of themobility system will be provided prebuilt, thereby assuring that all groups get a good start on afully functional robot. There will be ample opportunity for individual design, creativity, testingand redesign. At the end of the session all the robots will participate in a double elimination tour-nament. Then we will see which robot has the right stuff to best accomplish the task (which willbe specified at the beginning of the robot lab)! Later in the conference, courageous volunteersfrom the RBL will have a chance to have their robots participate in an exhibition match with theNational Finalists of the High School Botball Tournament. This tournament will be open to allthe attendees of AAAI. The lab is being organized and taught by the KISS Institute for PracticalRobotics (KIPR) for AAAI. Instructors and assistants are from KIPR’s trained staff. David Milleris the lead instructor.

Botball National TournamentBotball is a game played by autonomous mobile robots. The robots are designed, built and pro-grammed by middle and high school students from across the country. Top teams from regionals inCalifornia, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and Washington, DC will participate in the Botball Na-tional Tournament to be held in the Exhibition Hall. On Tuesday, July seeding rounds for eachof the teams will be played during the Exhibit Program. During seeding the robots play by them-selves trying to get the best score by collecting their color ball and putting the balls into the goal. Adouble elimination tournament will be held on Wednesday, July during the Exhibit Program. Theteams will play two at a time until a champion robot has been determined. Come meet the AI stu-dents and researchers of tomorrow and witness the excitement of Botball, the only full-contact robotsport at the AAAI national conference. Botball is being organized by the KISS Institute for Practi-cal Robotics (KIPR) for AAAI.

Botball Teams

■ Allan D. Nease High School, St. Augustine, FL■ Bishop Kenny High School, Jacksonville, FL■ Episcopal High School, Jacksonville, FL■ Flint Hill School, Oakton, VA■ Foothill High School, San Jose, CA■ Frank H. Peterson Academy, Jacksonville, FL■ La Canada High School, La Canada-Flintridge, CA■ Langley High School, McLean, VA■ Matthew Gilbert Middle School, Jacksonville, FL■ Menlo Atherton High School, Atherton, CA■ Oak Ridge High School, El Dorado Hills, CA■ Robert E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA■ South Lakes High School, Reston, VA■ Southern High School, Baltimore, MD■ Springbrook High School, Silver Spring, MD■ Tennyson High School, Hayward, CA

Workshop ProgramAttendance at the workshops is limited, and participation is by invitation only. All workshop par-ticipants must register for the AAAI- technical program, or in the case of the jointly sponsoredworkshop (W), must register for either AAAI- or GECCO-. Registration onsite for a work-shop is possible with the prior permission of the corresponding workshop organizer. All workshopswill begin at : AM and conclude at : PM, unless otherwise noted below.

Sunday, July

W: Artificial Intelligence for Electronic CommerceOrganizers: Tim Finin and Benjamin GrosofSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Artificial Intelligence for Distributed Information NetworkingOrganizers: Sue Abu-Hakima and Steven WillmottSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Data Mining with Evolutionary Algorithms: Research Directions (/ day workshop)Jointly Sponsored by GECCO-Organizer: Alex A. Freitas: ‒ : PM, Salon , Omni Rosen Hotel

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W: Environmental Decision Support Systems and Artificial IntelligenceOrganizers: Ulisés Cortes and Miquel Sànchez-MarrèSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Agents’ ConflictsOrganizers: Catherine Tessier and Laurent ChaudronSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Intelligent Information Systems (-day workshop)Organizers: Kristian Hammond and Larry BirnbaumSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Mixed-Initiative IntelligenceOrganizer: Michael T. CoxSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Ontology ManagementOrganizers: Adam Farquhar and Kilian StoffelSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

Monday, July

W: Agent-Based Systems in the Business ContextOrganizer: Brian Drabble and Peter JarvisSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Computation with Neural SystemsOrganizer: Jim AustinSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: ConfigurationOrganizers: Boi Faltings, Eugene C. Freuder, Gerhard Friedrich, and Alexander FelfernigSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Intelligent Information Systems (-day workshop)Organizers: Kristian Hammond and Larry BirnbaumSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Intelligent Software EngineeringOrganizers: Aditya Ghose, Tim Menzies, and Ken SatohSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Exploring Synergies of Knowledge Management and Case-Based ReasoningOrganizers: David W. Aha, Irma Becerra-Fernandez, Frank Maurer, and Hector Munoz-AvilaSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Machine Learning for Information ExtractionOrganizer: Mary Elaine CaliffSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Negotiation: Settling Conflicts and Identifying OpportunitiesOrganizer: Sandip SenSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

W: Reasoning in Context for AI ApplicationsOrganizers: Patrick Brézillon, Roy Turner, Jean-Charles Pomerol, and Elise TurnerSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

Workshop Program

All AAAI-/IAAI- invited presentations willbe held in Grand Ballroom C, first level, OmniRosen Hotel, unless otherwise noted.

Monday, July 19

: ‒ :

IAAI Invited Talk: What Does the Future Hold?Howard E. Shrobe, MITSalon , Omni Rosen Hotel

In , we began the IAAI conferences to high-light the successful application of AI technology.At that time, there was a serious question as towhether AI makes a difference. Ten years later,it’s clear that the war has been won; AI technol-ogy is pervasive routine. But the world of com-puting is about to change: there are more pro-cessors embedded in physical devices than thereare in computers; these pose new challenges andnew opportunities. Can AI technology helpmake these devices robust and survivable? CanAI technology radically change the way we inter-act with and conceive of computing devices? To-day’s computers are meant to resemble our desk-tops; but wouldn’t we really like them to resem-ble an administrative assistant? Can we get there?Shrobe thinks so. He’ll outline the research agen-da supporting this belief and sketch his vision ofthe applications we’ll see at IAAI in .

Tuesday, July 20

: ‒ :

Keynote Address: Why I Am OptimisticPatrick Henry Winston, Artificial Intelligence Labora-tory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

From the engineering perspective, artificial in-telligence is a grand success. Today, most big sys-tems are built with elements that are readilytraced to research done by the field’s practition-ers. From the scientific perspective, however,achievements have been small, and the goal ofunderstanding human intelligence, from a com-putational point of view, remains elusive. Nev-ertheless, to an optimist, the current state of AIseems analogous to that of biology in : onthe engineering side, antibiotics had been dis-covered, developed, and applauded; on the sci-ence side, many prominent biologists said thefield was dead, and little more of value could bedone. But then, along came Watson and Crick,and their discovery of DNA’s structure launcheda fifty-year period of fantastic progress.

Is AI ready for its own analog to the discov-ery of DNA? Have we been looking under thewrong lampposts? Is there a new paradigm thatwill revitalize the field? Or must we resign our-selves to years of slow progress? It is time torekindle the original enthusiasm that actuatedthe pioneers. We should squarely, bravely, andoptimistically confront the problems that blockour understanding of human intelligence andprevent our construction of programs with hu-man-level intelligence and beyond.

This time, however, we must exploit anabundance of neglected clues accumulating notonly in AI, but also in allied fields, such as sys-tems neuroscience and developmental psycholo-gy. These clues will help us to unlock the secretsof intelligence, and likely lead to the conclusionthat our sophisticated vision and language facul-ties are not mere I/O channels. Instead, our vi-sion and language faculties embody powerfulcomputational and engineering ideas that ac-count for much of our intelligence.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: Decrypting the Human GenomeJill P. Mesirov, Whitehead Institute/MIT Center forGenome Research

There has been a recent explosion in the need forcomputational support in molecular biology.This has been driven by new laboratory tech-nologies, which generate biological data at a morerapid pace than ever before. The exploitation ofthis large amount of data by biologists and med-ical scientists requires contributions from manyareas of computer science.

Mesirov will present a few key examples wherecomputing has made a major impact in today’sgenomic research, and also point out some inter-esting opportunities for the future. The exampleswill be drawn both from structural genomics (de-termining the actual sequence of the genome) aswell as functional genomics (decoding the se-quence to understand gene function).: ‒ :

Invited Talk: Making the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition More Responsive to the AI CommunityAlan C. Schultz, Naval Research Lab and David Miller, KISS Institute for Practical Robotics

The Chair of the Mobile Robot Competi-tion and Exhibition will describe this year’sevent, and in particular, how the event has beenevolving to better suit the needs of the AI com-munity, including a new, “AI-Hard” Challengetask, awards for top contestants, and an award

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for the best integration of multiple AI tech-niques. The Botball and Robot Building Labwill also be described.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: Thinking on our Feet: Wearable Comput-ing and Artificial IntelligenceSteven K. Feiner, Columbia University

As computers decrease in size and increase inpower, they are beginning to move off our desksand onto our bodies. Feiner will describe re-search in developing wearable user interfacesthat mix different displays and interaction de-vices, and discuss some of the ways that they canexploit AI techniques.: ‒ :

AAAI / IAAI Invited Talk: A Roadmap for Knowledge ManagementReid Smith, Schlumberger Limited

Enabling organizations to capture, share and usethe overall experience and know-how of theirpeople is seen as fundamental to competing inthe knowledge economy. As a result, there hasbeen a wave of enthusiasm and activity centeredon knowledge management (KM). To makeprogress in this area, an ensemble of interwoventechnology, process, and cultural issues must beaddressed. In this presentation, the focus will betechnology specifically, on ways in which AItechnology could be applied in KM systems.The approach will be development of a roadmapfor KM. It will begin with an assessment of thecurrent state of the practice, using examplesdrawn from a number of organizations. It willsketch the possible evolution of technology andpractice over a -year period.: ‒ :

Invited Panel: AI SpringOrganizer: Kristian J. Hammond, The Intelligent In-formation Laboratory, Northwestern Laboratory

Panelists: Lawrence Birnbaum, Northwestern Univer-sity; Robin Burke, University of California, Irvine;Kurt Fenstermacher, University of Chicago; HenryLieberman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; andEllen Spertus, Mills College

For better or worse, AI Winter is over and AISpring is upon us. As with most times of rebirth,it brings with it two things: a set of new oppor-tunities and the need to bury those that did notsurvive the cold. In this panel we’ll look at bothaspects of this new time in AI. We will look tothe future and see how we have emerged as aleaner tougher field hardened by the chilly timesof the past.

Wednesday, July

: ‒ :

Keynote Address: IT**: Information Technology Initiativefor the Twenty-First CenturyRuzena Bajcsy, Assistant Director of CISE, NationalScience Foundation

This presentation has two parts: The first partexplains what this initiative is all about. I willdescribe the history, how it evolved, what are thesupporting arguments and what are its goals.The second part presents the NSF specific planfor this Initiative. I shall elaborate on the scien-tific content of this program, pose some openquestions and outline the path of how we planto achieve the goals. I shall discuss the identityof computer science as a scientific discipline andthe consequences for funding. Finally, I shallspeculate about the future of our discipline andthe challenges stemming from it.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: AI and Space Exploration: Where No Machine Has Gone BeforeKenneth M. Ford, Institute for Human and MachineCognition, University of West Florida, and NASAAmes Research Center

Humans are quintessentially explorers and mak-ers of things. These traits, which identify us as aspecies and account for our survival, are reflect-ed with particular clarity in the mission andmethods of space exploration. This is an excitingtime to be a computer scientist at NASA—ourwork is at the crossroads of these two humantraits— we are making computational machinesto extend human reach further than ever before.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: Game Playing: The Next MovesSusan L. Epstein, Hunter College and The GraduateSchool of The City University of New York

As people do it, game playing addresses criticalAI issues: learning, planning, resource alloca-tion, and the integration of multiple streams ofknowledge. This talk highlights recent develop-ments in game playing, describes some cogni-tively-oriented work, and poses three new chal-lenge problems for the AI community.

Invited Talks

: ‒ :

AAAI / IAAI Invited Talk: Real-Time Applications of Computer Vision: Computer Assisted Neurosurgeryand Visual Monitoring of ActivitiesW. Eric L. Grimson, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Recent advances in computational power, cou-pled with constraints enforced by real-world ap-plications, have led to two real-time vision sys-tems: an image-guided neurosurgical system,now in daily use; and a monitoring system thatlearns common activity patterns by visual obser-vation over extended periods, and automaticallydetects unusual events.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: Quantum Computation & AILee Spector, Hampshire College

Recent research suggests that quantum mechan-ical computers will be able to outperform classi-cal computers in dramatic ways. Spector will in-troduce quantum computation to the non-physicist and will illustrate connections betweenquantum computation and AI. AI is alreadyhelping to explore the power of quantum com-putation, and quantum computation maysomeday provide a new foundation for AI.: ‒ :

Invited Panel: Intelligent Systems in Biopharmaceutical R&D: Challenges and ApproachesOrganizer: Chris Fields, PE Informatics

Panelists: Susan Burgess, Structural Bioinformatics,Inc., Craig Liddell, Paradigm Genetics, and Vijay Sik-ka, PatternRx, Inc,

The development of automated, high-through-put instrumentation and robotics has driven atransition in biopharmaceutical R&D towardbulk data acquisition followed by automatedanalysis and triage to identify molecular targetsof opportunity. This new strategy raises chal-lenges in AI domains including planning, intel-ligent control, multidimensional pattern recog-nition, and data fusion.

Thursday, July 22

: – : AM

Keynote Address: AI RisingNils J. Nilsson, Robotics Laboratory, Stanford University

Serious work toward artificial intelligence beganabout fifty years ago. In this talk Nilsson reviewswhat he thinks are the major milestones of ourfirst half-century and make some guesses aboutwhat might lie ahead. In the spirit of millennialappraisals, Nilsson will survey what he thinksare the most important things we have learnedabout AI in the last fifty years. Are these lessonssufficient to produce human-level artificial intel-ligence within the next fifty?: ‒ :

Invited Panel: Ontologies: Expert Systems All Over Again?Organizer: Christopher A. Welty, Vassar College andIBM

Panelists: David Fogel, Natural Selection, Inc.; MarkFox, University of Toronto; Nicola Guarino, LADSEB-CNR; Doug Lenat, Cycorp; Debbie McGuinness, Stan-ford Knowledge Systems Lab; and Mike Uschold, Boeing

An increasing number of organizations are en-gaged in building “ontologies” to capture andre-use knowledge critical to their enterprise.There are many similarities between engineeringand applying ontologies and the sort of knowl-edge engineering associated with building “ex-pert systems”—a technology that is widelyviewed as having been a failure. This panel willdirectly address the issue of whether “ontology”is merely a new name for an old thing, and cov-er some of the recent developments in engineer-ing systems based on knowledge.: ‒ :

Invited Talk: How Common Sense Might WorkKenneth D. Forbus, Northwestern University

This talk describes how a combination of ana-logical and first-principles reasoning, relyingheavily on qualitative representations, mightprovide a computational model of commonsense reasoning. Forbus discusses the psycholog-ical and computational support for this ap-proach, and illustrates how it can be used inbuilding new kinds of multimodal interfacesand educational software.

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AAAI–99 / IAAI–99Opening ReceptionJunior Ballroom, Omni Rosen Hotel

IAAI–99 Opening RemarksRamasamy Uthurusamy, IAAI- ConferenceChair

IAAI Invited TalkWhat Does the Future Hold?Howard E. Shrobe, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology

IAAI–99A New Basis for Spreadsheet Computing: In-terval Solver™ for Microsoft® ExcelEero Hyvönen and Stefano De Pascale

Last Minute Travel ApplicationAndré Hübner, Mario Lenz, Roman Borch, andMichael Posthoff

IAAI–99Ramp Activity Expert System for Schedulingand Co-ordination at an AirportGeun-Sik Jo, Kang-Hee Lee, Hwi-Yoon Lee, and Sang-Ho Hyun

HKIA SAS: A Constraint-Based Airport StandAllocation System Developed with SoftwareComponentsAndy Hon Wai Chun, Steve Ho Chuen Chan,Francis Ming Fai Tsang, and Dennis Wai Ming Yeung

IAAI–99Using Intelligent Agents in Military Sim-ulation or “Using Agents Intelligently”Gil Tidhar, Clint Heinze, Simon Goss,Graeme Murray, Dino Appla, and Ian Lloyd

Automated Instructor Assistant for ShipDamage ControlVadim V. Bulitko and David C. Wilkins

IAAI–99DLMS: Ten Years of AI for Vehicle AssemblyProcess PlanningNestor Rychtyckyj

Using Iterative Repair to Automate Planningand Scheduling of Shuttle Payload OperationsGregg Rabideau, Steve Chien, Jason Willis, and Tobias Mann

The Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence ConferenceAll IAAI- sessions will be held in Salon on the second level of the Omni RosenHotel. Monday’s schedule of deployed application papers is listed in the daily sched-ule on this page. The remainder of the papers will be presented in parallel with theAAAI- technical program on Tuesday, July and Wednesday, July . Please referto the daily schedule on the following pages for times.

Daily Technical Schedule(Tutorial and Workshop schedules are located on pages 5–9.)

Monday, July 19th

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Welcome and Opening RemarksPresentation of Outstanding PaperAwardJim Hendler and Devika Subramanian, AAAI-99Program Cochairs

Keynote AddressWhy I Am OptimisticPatrick H. Winston, Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology

Introduction by Jim Hendler

AAAI‒

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TuesdayTechnicalSessions

Invited TalkDecrypting the Human GenomeJill P. Mesirov, Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research

Introduction by David L. Waltz

Learning 1

Session Chair: David Aha

Selective Sampling for Nearest Neighbor ClassifiersMichael Lindenbaum, Shaul Markovitch andDmitry Rusakov

Efficient Exploration for Optimizing Immediate RewardDale Schuurmans and Lloyd Greenwald

Planning 1

Session Chair: Nicola Muscettola

Fast Planning through Greedy Action GraphsAlfonso Gerevini and Ivan Serina

Exploiting Symmetry in the Planning Graphvia Explanation-Guided SearchTerry Zimmerman and Subbarao Kambhampati

AI & the World Wide Web 1

Session Chair: Robert Holte

Navigational Plans for Data IntegrationMarc Friedman, Alon Levy and Todd Millstein

A Knowledge-Based Approach to OrganizingRetrieved DocumentsWanda Pratt, Marti A. Hearst, and Lawrence M. Fagan

GECCO-99

Session Chair: TBA

Speaker TBA

Invited TalkMaking the AAAI Mobile Robot Competitionand Exhibition More Responsive to the AICommunityAlan C. Schultz, Naval Research Lab and DavidMiller, KISS Institute for Practical Robotics

Model-Based Reasoning 1

Session Chair: Pandu Nayak

Qualifying the Expressivity/Efficiency Tradeoff: Reformation-Based DiagnosisHelmut Prendinger and Mitsuru Ishizuka

Model-Based Support for Mutable Parametric Design OptimizationRavi Kapadia and Gautam Biswas

Learning 2

Session Chair: Foster Provost

A Simple, Fast, and Effective Rule LearnerWilliam W. Cohen and Yoram Singer

Relational Learning of Pattern-Match Rulesfor Information ExtractionMary Elaine Califf and Raymond J. Mooney

Planning 2

Session Chair: Bart Selman

CPlan: A Constraint Programming Approach to PlanningPeter van Beek and Xinguang Chen

State-Space Planning by Integer OptimizationHenry Kautz and Joachim P. Walser


Session Chair: Mark Craven

Recognizing Structure in Web Pages UsingSimilarity QueriesWilliam W. Cohen

Regression Testing for Wrapper MaintenanceNicholas Kushmerick

IAAI-99Using Artificial Intelligence Planning to Generate Antenna Tracking PlansForest Fisher, Tara Estlin, Darren Mutz and SteveChien

CMUnited-98: A Team of Robotic SoccerAgentsManuela Veloso, Michael Bowling, Sorin Achim,Kwun Han and Peter Stone

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Invited TalkThinking on our Feet: Wearable Computingand Artificial IntelligenceSteven K. Feiner, Columbia University

Introduction by Jim Hendler

Model-Based Reasoning 2

Session Chair: Gautam Biswas

Towards Diagram Processing: A Diagrammatic Information SystemMichael Anderson

Influence-Based Model DecompositionChristopher J. Bailey-Kellogg and Feng Zhao

Learning 3

Session Chair: Dale Schuurmans

Estimating Generalization Error Using Out-of-Bag EstimatesTom Bylander and Dennis Hanzlik

Feature Selection for EnsemblesDavid W. Opitz

Planning 3

Session Chair: Steve Chien

Cooperative Plan Identification: ConstructingConcise and Effective Plan DescriptionsR. Michael Young

A Framework for Recognizing Multi-Agent Action from Visual EvidenceStephen S. Intille and Aaron F. Bobick


Session Chair: Nicholas Kushmerick

A Limitation of the Generalized Vickrey Auction in Electronic Commerce: Robustnessagainst False-Name BidsYuko Sakurai, Makoto Yokoo and Shigeo Matsub-ara

Hybrid Neural Plausibility Networks for News AgentsStefan Wermter, Christo Panchev and Garen Are-vian

IAAI-99In-Time Agent-Based Vehicle Routing with aStochastic Improvement HeuristicRobert Kohout and Kutluhan Erol

A Multi-Agent System for Meting out Influ-ence in an Intelligent EnvironmentM. V. Nagendra Prasad and Joseph F. McCarthy

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AAAI-99/IAAI-99 Invited TalkA Roadmap for Knowledge ManagementReid Smith, Schlumberger Limited

Search 1

Session Chair: Devika Subramanian

Using Probabilistic Knowledge and Simulationto Play PokerDarse Billings, Lourdes Peña, Jonathan Schaefferand Duane Szafron

AAAI-99 Outstanding PaperPROVERB: The Probabilistic CruciverbalistGreg A. Keim, Noam M. Shazeer, Michael L.Littman, Sushant Agarwal, Catherine M. Cheves,Joseph Fitzgerald, Jason Grosland, Fan Jiang, Shan-non Pollard, and Karl Weinmeister

Learning 4

Session Chair: Carla Brodley

Detecting Feature Interactions from Accuraciesof Random Feature SubsetsThomas R. Ioerger

Toward a Theoretical Understanding of Whyand When Decision Tree Pruning AlgorithmsFailTim Oates and David Jensen

Planning 4Session Chair: Henry Kautz

Control Knowledge in Planning: Benefits and TradeoffsYi-Cheng Huang, Bart Selman, and Henry Kautz

Using Planning Graphs for Solving HTNPlanning ProblemsAmnon Lotem, Dana S. Nau and James A. Hender

Cognitive Systems 1

Session Chair: Ken Forbus

Delivering Hints in a Dialogue-Based Intelligent Tutoring SystemYujian Zhou, Reva Freedman, Michael Glass, JoelA. Michael, Allen A. Rovick, and Martha W. Evens

Student-Sensitive Multimodal ExplanationGeneration for 3D Learning EnvironmentsBrent H. Daniel, William H. Bares, Charles B.Callaway and James C. Lester

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Invited PanelAI SpringOrganized by Kristian J. Hammond, The Intelligent Information Laboratory, Northwest-ern University

Panelists: Lawrence Birnbaum, Northwestern Uni-versity; Robin Burke, University of California,Irvine; Kurt Fenstermacher, University of Chicago;Henry Lieberman, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology; and Ellen Spertus, Mills College

Search 2

Session Chair: Eric Hansen

Transposition Table Driven Work Schedulingin Distributed SearchJohn W. Romein, Aske Plaat, Henri E. Bal, andJonathan Schaeffer

Value-Update Rules for Real-Time SearchSven Koenig and Boleslaw Szymanski

A Space-Time Tradeoff for Memory-BasedHeuristicsRobert C. Holte and István T. Hernádvölgyi

Learning 5Session Chair: Marek Drudzel

Monte Carlo Localization: Efficient PositionEstimation for Mobile RobotsDieter Fox, Wolfram Burgard, Frank Dellaert andSebastian Thrun

Exploiting the Architecture of Dynamic SystemsXavier Boyen and Daphne Koller

Simulation-Based Inference for Plan MonitoringNeal Lesh and James Allen

Planning 5

Session Chair: Martha Pollack

Total Order Planning Is More Efficient than We ThoughtVincent Vidal and Pierre Régnier

On the Utility of Plan-Space (Causal) EncodingsAmol D. Mali and Subbarao Kambhampati

Generating Qualitatively Different Plansthrough Metatheoretic BiasesKaren L. Myers and Thomas J. Lee

Cognitive Systems 2

Session Chair: Lee Spector

What Are Contentful Mental States? Dretske’sTheory of Mental Content Viewed in the Lightof Robot Learning and Planning AlgorithmsPaul Cohen and Mary Litch

Moving Right Along: A Computational Modelof Metaphoric Reasoning about EventsSrinivas Narayanan

Cognitive ClassificationJanet Aisbett and Greg Gibbon

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AAAI Classic Paper AwardJohn McDermott, ellora.com

AAAI Distinguished Service AwardBarbara Grosz, Harvard University

Presented by David L. Waltz, AAAI President

Keynote Address: IT**2: InformationTechnology Initiative for the Twenty-First CenturyRuzena Bajcsy, Assistant Director of CISE, National Science Foundation

Introduction by Devika Subramanian

Invited TalkAI and Space Exploration: Where No Machine Has Gone BeforeKenneth M. Ford, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, University of West Florida,and NASA Ames Research Center

Introduction by Patrick Hayes

Natural Language and Information Retrieval 1

Session Chair: Claire Cardie

Application-Embedded Retrieval from Distributed Free-Text CollectionsVladimir A. Kulyukin

Feature Selection in SVM Text CategorizationHirotoshi Taira and Masahiko Haruno

Hybrid Methods 1

Session Chair: TBA

Implicative and Conjunctive Fuzzy Rules—A Tool for Reasoning from Knowledge andExamplesLaurent Ughetto, Didier Dubois and Henri Prade

A Neural Network Model of DynamicallyFluctuating Perception of Necker Cube as well as Dot PatternsHiroaki Kudo, Tsuyoshi Yamamura, NoboruOhnishi, Shin Kobayashi and Noboru Sugie

Planning 6

Session Chair: Karen Myers

Anytime Coordination for Progressive Planning AgentsAbdel-Illah Mouaddib

Theory for Coordinating Concurrent Hierarchical Planning Agents using SummaryInformationBradley J. Clement and Edmund H. Durfee

Robotics 1

Session Chair: Maja Mataric

Continuous Categories for a Mobile RobotMichael T. Rosenstein and Paul R. Cohen

Integrated Natural Spoken Dialogue Systemof Jijo-2 Mobile Robot for Office ServicesToshihiro Matsui, Hideki Asoh, John S. Fry,Youichi Motomura, Futoshi Asano, Takio Kurita,Isao Hara, and Nobuyuki Otsu

IAAI-99Automated Capture of Rationale for the Detailed Design ProcessKaren L. Myers, Nina B. Zumel and Pablo Garcia

Nurse Scheduling Using Constraint LogicProgrammingSlim Abdennadher and Hans Schlenker

Invited TalkGame Playing: The Next MovesSusan L. Epstein, Hunter College and The Gradu-ate School of The City University of New York

Introduction by Jack Gelfand


Session Chair: Dayne Freitag

An Automatic Method for Generating Sense Tagged CorporaRada Mihalcea and Dan I. Moldovan

The Role of Lexicalization and Pruning for Base Noun Phrase GrammarsClaire Cardie and David Pierce

Hybrid Methods 2

Session Chair: TBA

What’s in a Fuzzy Set?Marco Piastra

Initializing RBF-Networks with Small Subsets of Training ExamplesMiroslav Kubat and Martin Cooperson, Jr.

Scheduling

Session Chair: James Crawford

Scheduling Alternative ActivitiesJ. Christopher Beck and Mark S. Fox

Algorithm Performance and Problem Structure for Flow-Shop SchedulingJean-Paul Watson, Laura Barbulescu, Adele E. Howe and L. Darrell Whitley

Robotics 2

Session Chair: David Kortenkamp

An Integrated System for Multi-Rover Scientific ExplorationTara Estlin, Alexander Gray, Tobias Mann, Gregg Rabideau, Rebecca Castaño, Steve Chien,and Eric Mjolsness

Gesture-Based Interaction with a Pet RobotMilyn C. Moy

IAAI-99The Wasabi Personal Shopper: A Case-BasedRecommender System Robin Burke

HICAP: An Interactive Case-Based PlanningArchitecture and its Application to Noncombatant Evacuation OperationsHéctor Muñoz-Avila, David W. Aha, Len Breslow,and Dana Nau

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WednesdayTechnicalSessions

AAAI-99/IAAI-99 Invited TalkReal-Time Applications of Computer Vision:Computer Assisted Neurosurgery and VisualMonitoring of ActivitiesW. Eric L. Grimson, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Introduction by Devika Subramanian


Session Chair: Vibhu Mittal

Automatic Construction of Semantic Lexiconsfor Learning Natural Language InterfacesCynthia A. Thompson and Raymond J. Mooney

Learning Dictionaries for Information Extrac-tion by Multi-Level BootstrappingEllen Riloff and Rosie Jones

Hybrid Methods 3

Session Chair: TBA

ARGUS: An Automated Multi-Agent VisitorIdentification SystemRahul Sukthankar and Robert G. Stockton

An Evolvable Hardware Chip and Its Application as a Multi-Function ProstheticHand ControllerIsamu Kajitani, Tsutomu Hoshino, Nobuki Kaji-hara, Masaya Iwata and Tetsuya Higuchi

Agents 1

Session Chair: Moshe Tennenholtz

Verifying that Agents Implement a Communication LanguageMichael Wooldridge

Time-Quality Tradeoffs in Reallocative Negotiation with Combinatorial Contract TypesMartin Andersson and Tuomas Sandholm

Vision

Session Chair: Ian Horswill

Content-Based Retrieval from Medical ImageDatabases: A Synergy of Human Interaction,Machine Learning and Computer VisionC. Brodley, A. Kak, C. Shyu, J. Dy, L. Broderick,and A. M. Aisen

Using Vision to Improve Sound Source Separa-tionYukiko Nakagawa, Hiroshi G. Okuno, and Hiroa-ki Kitano

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Invited TalkQuantum Computation and AILee Spector, Hampshire College

Introduction by Matthew Evett


Session Chair: Ellen Riloff

Two Dimensional Generalization in Information ExtractionJoyce Yue Chai, Alan W. Biermann, and Curry I.Guinn

Combining Collaborative Filtering with Personal Agents for Better RecommendationsNathaniel Good, J. Ben Schafer, Joseph A. Konstan,Al Borchers, Badrul Sarwar, Jon Herlocker andJohn Riedl

Knowledge AcquisitionSession Chair: David Wilkins

Deriving Expectations to Guide KnowledgeBase CreationJihie Kim and Yolanda Gil

Representing Problem-Solving for KnowledgeRefinementSusan Craw and Robin Boswell

Agents 2

Session Chair: Michael Wooldridge

Combatting Maelstroms in Networks of Communicating AgentsJames E. Hanson and Jeffrey O. Kephart

Evolutionary Economic AgentsFergus Nolan, Jarek Wilkiewicz, Dipankar Dasgupta and Stan Franklin

Constraint Satisfaction Problems 1

Session Chair: TBA

Solving Crossword Puzzles as ProbabilisticConstraint SatisfactionNoam M. Shazeer, Michael L. Littman and GregA. Keim

A Constraint-Based Model for Cooperative Response Generation in Information DialoguesYan Qu and Steve Beale

IAAI-99The Use of Word Sense Disambiguation in anInformation Extraction SystemJoyce Yue Chai and Alan W. Biermann

IAAI-99 Closing RemarksRamasamy Uthurusamy, IAAI-99 Conference Chair

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Invited PanelIntelligent Systems in BiopharmaceuticalR&D: Challenges and ApproachesOrganized by Chris Fields, PE Informatics

Panelists: Susan Burgess, Structural Bioinformatics,Inc., Craig Liddell, Paradigm Genetics, and VijaySikka, PatternRx, Inc.


Session Chair: Susan McRoy

Selecting Text Spans for Document Summaries: Heuristics and MetricsVibhu Mittal, Mark Kantrowitz, Jade Goldstein,and Jaime Carbonell

Towards Multidocument Summarization byReformulation: Progress and ProspectsKathleen R. McKeown, Judith L. Klavans, VasileiosHatzivassiloglou, Regina Barzilay and Eleazar Es-kin

Knowledge Acquisition 2Session Chair: Bruce Porter

Does Prior Knowledge Facilitate the Development of Knowledge-Based Systems?Paul Cohen, Vinay Chaudhri, Adam Pease, andRobert Schrag

An Integrated Shell and Methodology forRapid Development of KB AgentsGheorghe Tecuci, Mihai Boicu, Kathryn Wright,Seok Won Lee, Dorin Marcu and Michael Bowman

Designing Scripts to Guide Users in ModifyingKnowledge-Based SystemsMarcelo Tallis and Yolanda Gil

Planning 7Session Chair: Leslie Kaelbling

Contingent Planning under Uncertainty viaStochastic SatisfiabilityStephen M. Majercik and Michael L. Littman

Conditional, Probabilistic Planning: A Unifying Algorithm and Effective SearchControl MechanismsNilufer Onder and Martha E. Pollack

On the Undecidability of Probabilistic Planning and Infinite-Horizon Partially Observable Markov Decision ProblemsOmid Madani, Steve Hanks, Anne Condon

Constraint Satisfaction Problems 2Session Chair: Peter Van Beek

On Integrating Constraint Propagation andLinear Programming for Combinatorial OptimizationJohn N. Hooker, Greger Ottosson, Erlendur S.Thorsteinsson and Hak-Jin Kim

Functional Elimination and 0/1/All ConstraintsYuanlin Zhang, Roland H.C. Yap and Joxan Jaffar

Encodings of Non-Binary Constraint Satisfaction ProblemsKostas Stergiou and Toby Walsh

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Keynote Address: AI RisingNils J. Nilsson, Robotics Laboratory, Stanford University

Introduction by Bruce Buchanan

Invited PanelOntologies: Expert Systems All Over Again?Organizer: Christopher A. Welty, Vassar Collegeand IBM

Panelists: David Fogel, Natural Selection, Inc.;Mark Fox, University of Toronto; Nicola Guarino,LADSEB-CNR; Doug Lenat, Cycorp; DebbieMcGuinness, Stanford Knowledge Systems Lab;and Mike Uschold, Boeing

Knowledge Representation 1Session Chair: Benjamin Grosof

Constraint-Based Integrity Checking in Abductive and Non-monotonic Extensions ofConstraint Logic ProgrammingAditya K. Ghose and Srinivas Padmanabhuni

A Semantic Decomposition of Defeasible LogicsM. J. Maher and G. Governatori

Agents 3

Session Chair: Tuomas Sandholm

Distributed Games: From Mechanisms to ProtocolsDov Monderer and Moshe Tennenholtz

Learning Quantitative Knowledge for Multiagent CoordinationDavid Jensen, Michael Atighetchi, Régis Vincent and Victor Lesser

Constraint Satisfaction Problems 3

Session Chair: Yves Lesperance

Hierarchical Constraint Satisfaction in Spatial DatabasesDimitris Papadias, Panos Kalnis and NikosMamoulis

A Generic Customizable Framework for In-verse Local ConsistencyGérard Verfaillie, David Martinez, and Christian Bessière

Invited TalkHow Common Sense Might WorkKenneth D. Forbus, Northwestern University

Introduction by Kristian J. Hammond

Knowledge Representation 2

Session Chair: Leora Morgenstern

Verbalization of High-Level Formal ProofsAmanda M. Holland-Minkley, Regina Barzilay,Robert L. Constable

A Policy Description LanguageJorge Lobo, Randeep Bhatia and Shamim Naqvi

Agents 4

Session Chair: David Jensen

Power, Dependence and Stability in Multiagent PlansSviatoslav Brainov and Tuomas Sandholm

Bargaining with DeadlinesTuomas Sandholm and Nir Vulkan

Satisfiability 1

Session Chair: Carla Gomes

Beyond NP: The QSAT Phase TransitionIan P. Gent and Toby Walsh

Morphing: Combining Structure and RandomnessIan P. Gent, Holger H. Hoos, Patrick Prosser andToby Walsh

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ThursdayTechnicalSessions


Session Chair: TBA

Sacre: A Constraint Satisfaction Problem Based Theorem ProverJean-Michel Richer and Jean-Jacques Chabrier

On Criteria for Formal Theory Building: Applying Logic and Automated ReasoningTools to the Social SciencesJaap Kamps

Tractable Reasoning 1

Session Chair: TBA

Querying Temporal Constraint Networks inPTIMEManolis Koubarakis and Spiros Skiadopoulos

Point-Based Approaches to Qualitative Temporal ReasoningJ. Delgrande, A. Gupta, and T. Van Allen

Satisfiability 2

Session Chair: Benjamin Wah

Initial Experiments in Stochastic SatisfiabilityMichael L. Littman

DISTANCE-SAT: Complexity and AlgorithmsOlivier Bailleux and Pierre Marquis

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Session Chair: Johann DeKleer

Partonomic Reasoning as Taxonomic Reasoning in MedicineUdo Hahn, Stefan Schulz and Martin Romacker

A New Method for Consequence Finding andCompilation in Restricted LanguagesAlvaro del Val

Tractable Reasoning 2

Session Chair: James Delgrande

Polarity Guided Tractable ReasoningZbigniew Stachniak

A Sequential Reversible Belief RevisionMethod Based on PolynomialsSalem Benferhat, Didier Dubois, and Odile Papini

Satisfiability 3

Session Chair: Toby Walsh

On the Run-Time Behaviour of Stochastic Local Search Algorithms for SATHolger H. Hoos

Trap Escaping Strategies in Discrete Lagrangian Methods for Solving Hard Satisfiability and Maximum Satisfiability ProblemsZhe Wu and Benjamin W. Wah

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ACM, the Association for Computing Machin-ery, is an international scientific and education-al organization dedicated to advancing the arts,sciences, and applications of information tech-nology. With a worldwide membership of,, ACM functions as a locus for comput-ing professionals and students working in thevarious fields of Information Technology.

ACM publishes and distributes books, mag-azines, and peer reviewed journals targeted toparticular computing fields, as well as themonthly magazine Communications of the ACM,the most cited publication in computing.

ACM has Special Interest Groups that fo-cus on different computing disciplines includ-ing artificial intelligence. Stop by our booth formore information or visit ACM on the web athttp://www.acm.org/.

Booth #

ActivMedia Robotics- Concord StreetPeterborough, NH Tel: () -Email: [email protected]: www.activrobots.comNew Pioneer mobile robots lead the price-per-formance revolution with best payload, surfacetraversibility and power available in a lab-sizedplatform. New -degree sonar and onboardcomputer options, our wide selection of inte-grated accessories let you focus on your researchgoals instead of writing drivers and solderingwires: pan-tilt-zoom camera, vision, surveil-lance, stereocam, laser, gripper, and more...,plus integrated user I/O bus for custom addi-tions. Saphira software provides navigation andmap-building libraries, transparent to C / C++.Ethernet messaging systems, including Ayllusoftware, jump-start multi-agent projects.Come see our monster Pioneer -AT climb!Multi-agent Ayllu demos, too!

Booth #

Franz, Inc. University AvenueBerkeley, CA Tel: --CLOS-NOW or () -Email: [email protected] Inc. produces Allegro CL ., a dynamicobject-oriented development environment basedin Common Lisp and CLOS. Ideal for complex,mission-critical projects requiring flexibility, scal-ability and speed; Allegro CL enables developersto reduce development time by creating, design-ing and evolving applications simultaneously; in-crease productivity with built-in automatic mem-ory management; substantial cost savings

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m ExhibitionThe exhibition will be held in Exhibit Hall Aon the second level of the Orange County Con-vention Center, Tuesday, July and Wednes-day, July . The Convention Center is locatedadjacent to the Omni Rosen Hotel. Admittanceis restricted to badged conference attendees.Vendor-issued guest passes must be redeemed atthe Exhibitor Registration Desk, in front of theGrand Ballroom, on the first level of the OmniRosen Hotel. Further information regarding ac-cess to the Exhibition can be obtained from theExhibitor Registration Desk. Guest tickets tothe AI Festival can be purchased for $. perperson ($. for children) at onsite registra-tion.

Exhibit HoursTuesday, July : AM–: PM

Wednesday, July : AM–: PM

AI Festival: :–: PM

Exhibitors

■ AAAI Press■ ACM■ ActivMedia Robotics■ Franz, Inc.■ Institute for Human & Machine Cognition■ KISS Institute for Practical Robotics■ Kluwer Academic Publishers■ The MIT Press■ Morgan Kaufmann Publishers■ NASA Ames Research Center■ PC AI Magazine■ Prentice Hall■ Real World Interface, A Division of IS

Robotics Inc.■ Springer-Verlag■ Stottler Henke Associates (SHAI)

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AAAI Press Burgess DriveMenlo Park, CA Tel: () -Fax: () -Email: [email protected] Catalog: www.aaai.org/Press/press.html

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ACM Broadway, th FloorNew York, NY Tel: () -Fax: () -Web: www.acm.org

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Kluwer Academic Publishers Philip DriveNorwell, MA Tel: () -Fax: () -Email: [email protected] Catalog: www.wkap.nl

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The MIT PressFive Cambridge CenterCambridge, MA Tel: () -Fax: () -Email: [email protected]: mitpress.mit.eduThe MIT Press publishes trade and academicbooks in the areas of artificial intelligence, arti-ficial life, machine learning, computer-humaninteraction, computer science and distributes aselection of titles published by the AAAI Press,including annual conference proceedings.

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Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Pine Street, Sixth FloorSan Francisco, CA Tel: () - or () -Email: [email protected]: www.mkp.comMorgan Kaufmann publishes distinguishedbooks for artificial intelligence researchers andstudents, including graduate and undergraduatelevel texts, collected volumes, and conferenceproceedings. We believe strongly in seeking outthe most authoritative, expert authors. Many ofour books are considered to be the definitiveworks in their fields and often represent the wis-dom gained from years of research, develop-ment, and teaching, such as Nils J. Nilsson’s,Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis, John R.Koza et. al, Genetic Programming III: Darwini-an Invention and Problem Solving, and Peter J.Bentley’s, Evolutionary Design By Computer.

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NASA Ames Research CenterContact: Michael GoldmanCaelum Research CorporationNASA/Ames Research CenterMail Stop -Moffett Field, CA Tel: () -

NASA’s bold missions in space exploration andaeronautics for the st Century will be enabledby the world-class research in computer scienceand artificial intelligence currently underway atAmes Research Center, NASA’s Center of Excel-lence in Information Technology, located in the

through ability to debug and patch softwarewhile system is running; and eliminate developerdowntime, with incremental compilation that al-lows you to compile and load new code at run-time. Allegro CL is COM/OLE and CORBAenabled. Available on Unix, Linux and Windows.

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Institute for Human & Machine Cognition University ParkwayPensacola, Florida Tel: () -Fax: () -www.coginst.uwf.eduThe Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study ofHuman & Machine Cognition (IHMC) wasfounded by the Florida legislature in as aninterdisciplinary research unit. Since that time,IHMC has grown into a well-respected researchinstitute with over researchers investigating abroad range of topics related to understandingcognition in both humans and machines with aparticular emphasis on building cognitive pros-theses to leverage and amplify human intellec-tual capacities. Current research areas include:computational and philosophical foundationsof AI, haptic displays to mitigate spatial disori-entation, nonalphanumeric pilot displays, com-puter-mediated communication and collabora-tion, computer mediated learning systems, per-formance support systems, pedagogically-moti-vated browsers, human/machine interfaces,neural networks, software agent mobility andsecurity, spatial and temporal reasoning, diag-nostic systems, the nature and modeling of ex-pertise, situated cognition, pattern recognition,and other related areas. IHMC researchers re-ceive funding from a wide range of federal,state, and private sources.

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KISS Institute for Practical Robotics Midsummer DriveReston, VA -Tel: () -Fax: () -www.kipr.org/dpmKISS Institute for Practical Robotics is the na-tion’s leading supplier of high quality educa-tional intelligent robotics products and pro-grams. KISS Institute has programs for K-, re-search robots for universities and professionaldevelopment classes for everyone else. Stop byour booth and see how robotics education haschanged since you were in school and don’t missour “How Many Robots Can You Get in a Pick-le Jar” interactive display!

Exhibitors

heart of California’s Silicon Valley. NASA isseeking ways to put an unprecedented level ofintelligence into the vehicles we send out to ex-plore the universe for us; to expand human ca-pabilities through research in human-centeredcomputing; to make the development of newand more complex software faster, less expensiveand more reliable; and to develop intelligent,self monitoring, and adaptive systems to en-hance aerospace safety and efficiency.

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PC AI MagazinePost Office Box Phoenix, AZ Tel: () -Fax: () -Email: [email protected]: www.pcai.com/pcai/PC AI Magazine provides the information neces-sary to help managers, programmers, executives,and other professionals understand the quicklyunfolding realm of artificial intelligence (AI) andintelligent applications (IA). PC AI addresses theentire range of personal computers including theMac, IBM, PC, NeXT, Apollo, and more. PC AIis an application-oriented magazine designed togive readers useful “hands-on” information. PCAI features developments in expert systems, neu-ral networks, object oriented development, andall other areas of artificial intelligence. Feature ar-ticles, product reviews, real-world applicationstories, and a Buyer’s Guide present a wide rangeof topics in each issue.

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Prentice HallOne Lake StreetUpper Saddle River, NJ Tel: () -Fax: () -

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Real World InterfaceA Division of IS Robotics, Inc. Fitzgerald DrivePost Office Box Jaffrey, NH Tel: () -Fax: () -Web: www.rwii.comEmail: [email protected]’s innovative engineers, software developersand production staff, led by robotics pioneer andvisionary Grinnell More, employ cutting-edgetechnology to design and build a growing familyof versatile, rugged, fully-integrated mobile robotsystems. The revolutionary Mobility™ Robot

Integration Software and rFLEX™ Robot Con-trol System underline RWI’s commitment to de-veloping flexible, highly capable hardware, soft-ware, development tools and interfaces to sup-port advanced robotics research and commercialand military robotics applications.

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Springer-Verlag Fifth AvenueNew York, NY Tel: --SPRINGERFax: () -Email: [email protected]: www.springer-ny.comSpringer-Verlag is an international publisher ofbooks, journals, and the renowned series “Lec-ture Notes in Artificial Intelligence.” Stop bythe booth for a sample journal and for a %discount on all books, including titles in fuzzylogic, agents, neural networks, evolutionarycomputing, and a variety of general interest top-ics. Featured titles include Hayzelden/Bigham’sSoftware Agents for Future Communication Sys-tems; Klusch’s Intelligent Information Agents;Muller/Singh/Rao’s Intelligent Agents V (ATAL); Williams/Clearwater’s Ultimate Zero andOne: Computing at the Quantum Frontier;Jensen’s Introduction to Bayesian Networks; Jen-nings/Wooldridge’s Agent Technology; and Zo-bel’s Writing for Computer Science.

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Stottler Henke Associates (SHAI) South Amphlett Blvd., Suite San Mateo, Ca () - FAX () -www.shai.comSHAI is actively hiring AI software project man-agers, engineers, and programmers; business de-velopment interest is appreciated. We have beenleaders in AI research and intelligent solutionsdevelopment since our inception in . Weare results-oriented problem solvers with practi-cal experience gained in over AI projects forboth commercial and government clients. Wehave developed and fielded hundreds of opera-tional systems in daily use in domains as variedas space station planning and scheduling, intel-ligent tutoring systems, and retail sales predic-tions. Key to our continuing success and growthis our extensive knowledge and experience withAI and software development techniques, ourstrong commitment toward development of op-erational systems, and our ability to remain onthe cutting edge of new technology.

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Intelligent SystemsDemonstrationsThe Intelligent Systems Demonstrations will beheld in Exhibit Hall A on the second level ofthe Orange County Convention Center, andwill be open to registered conference attendeesduring exhibit hours. The Intelligent SystemsDemonstration program returns to AAAI- af-ter its inauguration last year. This programshowcases state of the art AI implementations,with the system builders on hand to presenttheir work and answer audience questions. Au-dience interaction with the systems is encour-aged wherever possible.

The program includes a wide variety of in-telligent systems representing the diversity of AIresearch. Some of this year’s demonstrations in-clude: game-playing systems, ranging fromcomputer soccer to human crossword puzzles tocompetitive D video games; several systemsthat understand spoken language, including aconversational planning assistant and a school-room reading tutor; several demonstrations ofsystems for knowledge base development anduse; and several demonstrations of agent-basedsystems, including various forms of agent be-havior for such applications as simulation,email, e-commerce, and agent development. Alldemonstrations will be available during the AIFestival on Wednesday evening, and individualdemonstrations are tentatively scheduled as fol-lows.

Demonstrations Schedule

Tuesday, July

■ : AM: DIPLOMAT: Compiling PrioritizedDefault Rules into Ordinary Logic Pro-grams, for E-Commerce Applications

■ : AM: Demonstration of Rational Com-municative Behavior in Coordinated De-fense

■ : PM: Authoring New Material in aReading Tutor that Listens

■ : PM: TRIPS: The Rochester InteractivePlanning System

■ : PM: GeNIe: A Development Environ-ment for Graphical Decision-TheoreticModels and SMILE: Structural Modeling,Inference, and Learning Engine

■ : PM: Sensible Agents: Demonstration ofDynamic Configuration of Agent Organiza-tions for Responsive Planning Operations

■ : PM: Worldwide Aeronautical Route

Planner■ : PM: ISAAC: ISI Soccer Automated As-

sistant Coach■ : PM: A Natural-Language Speech Inter-

face Constructed Entirely as a Set of Exe-cutable Specifications

■ : PM: eMediator: A Next GenerationElectronic Commerce Server

■ : PM: Solving Crosswords with Proverb■ : PM: The Disciple Integrated Shell for

Rapid Development of Knowledge-BasedAgents

Wednesday, July

■ : AM: eCommitter: A Leveled Commit-ment Contract Optimizer

■ : AM: MailCat: An Intelligent Assistantfor Organizing E-Mail

■ : PM: HPKB Integrated Knowledge En-vironment (HIKE)

■ : PM: Intelligent Agents in ComputerGames

■ : PM: Knowledge Base Discovery Tool■ : PM: A System for the Semantic Interpre-

tation of Unrestricted Domains UsingWordNet

■ : PM–: PM: : AI Festival: All demosavailable.

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Authoring New Material in a Reading Tutor that ListensJack Mostow and Gregory AistProject LISTEN Forbes Ave., LTICarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh, Pennsylvania [email protected] LISTEN’s Reading Tutor helps childrenlearn to read by providing assisted practice inreading connected text. A key goal is to provideassistance for reading any text entered by stu-dents or adults. Previous mechanisms for au-thoring interactive reading experiences requiretrained designers. The Reading Tutor is de-signed to let teachers, parents, and even childrenadd stories, using their recorded voices to helpgenerate expert assistance for future readers.This live demonstration shows how the ReadingTutor helps users enter and narrate stories, andthen helps children read them. We will followthe authoring steps described in the paper andshown in the video: () Type in a short storyconsisting of a few sentences composed on thespot by the audience; () Narrate the story,preferably using a volunteer reader unaffiliatedwith our project; () Read the story in studentmode to illustrate the Reading Tutor’s respons-

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es. Finally we will address audience questionsabout Reading Tutor behavior by real-timedemonstration.

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Demonstration of Rational Communicative Behavior in Coordinated DefenseSanguk Noh and Piotr J. GmytrasiewiczDepartment of Computer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Texas at ArlingtonArlington, TX , Box {noh,piotr}@cse.uta.eduThe primary goal of our demonstration is toshow results we obtained on communicationamong artificial and human agents interactingin a simulated air defense domain. Since thecommunication bandwidth is usually limited ina battlefield environment, it is more valuable fora defending agent to be selective as to what mes-sages should be sent to other agents. For artifi-cial agents, we advocate a decision-theoreticmessage selection mechanism, which maximizesthe expected utility of the communicative acts.Thus, the agents compute the expected utilityof alternative communicative behaviors, and ex-ecute the one with the highest value. Ourdemonstration consists of our RMM and hu-man agents interacting in three different air de-fense scenarios in cases when communication is,and is not, available. We will show how com-munication can benefit the agents in coordina-tion tasks, and compare performance of RMMand human agents.

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Diplomat: Compiling Prioritized De-fault Rules into Ordinary Logic Pro-grams, for E-Commerce ApplicationsBenjamin GrosofIBM T.J. Watson Research [email protected]/people/g/grosofDIPLOMAT is a Java library that embodies a newapproach to the implementation of prioritizeddefault rules: to compile them into ordinarylogic programs (LP’s) cf. pure Prolog. We applythe approach to a newly generalized version ofcourteous LP’s, a semantically attractive andcomputationally tractable form of prioritizeddefault rules. Compilation enables courteousLP’s functionality to be added modularly to or-dinary LP rule engines, via a pre-processor, withtractable computational overhead. We give inthe demo storyboard an automated example e-commerce application scenario: inferencing in a-rule courteous LP that represents personal-ized pricing and promotions on a bookstore’s

Web storefront.

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The Disciple Integrated Shell forRapid Development of Knowledge-Based AgentsM. Boicu, K. Wright, D. Marcu, S. W. Lee, M. Bowmanand G. TecuciLearning Agents LaboratoryComputer Science DepartmentGeorge Mason UniversityFairfax, VA

The Disciple learning agent shell illustrates anew class of tools for rapid development ofknowledge-based agents, by domain experts,with limited assistance from knowledge engi-neers. It consists of a learning and knowledgeacquisition engine as well as an inference engineand supports building an agent with a knowl-edge base consisting of an ontology and a set ofproblem-solving rules. The development of anagent relies on importing ontologies from exist-ing repositories of knowledge, and on teachingthe agent how to perform its tasks, in a way thatresembles how an expert would teach a humanapprentice when solving problems in coopera-tion. We demonstrate the development of a cri-tiquer for military courses of action, and a plan-ner for working around damages to bridges,both developed in the HPKB program, withsupport from AFOSR and DARPA. The Disci-ple shell shows a practical integration of knowl-edge representation, knowledge acquisition,learning and problem-solving.

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eMediator: A Next Generation Electronic Commerce ServereCommitter: A Leveled CommitmentContract OptimizerTuomas SandholmWashington UniversityDepartment of Computer ScienceOne Brookings DriveSt. Louis, MO [email protected] is a next generation electronic com-merce server that demonstrates some ways inwhich AI, algorithmic support, game theoreticincentive engineering, and GUI design canjointly improve the efficiency of ecommerce.This demonstration focuses on the auctioncomponent of Mediator, called eAuctionHouse.It is a configurable auction house that supportsa large variety of parameterizable auction types.It supports novel generalized combinatorial auc-tions that lead to more efficient outcomes thantraditional auctions because bidders can express

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complementarities. The server uses new algo-rithms for determining the winners in such set-tings. It also allows bidding via graphicallydrawn price-quantity graphs. It has an expertsystem for helping the user decide which auc-tion type to use. Finally, it supports mobile soft-ware agents that bid optimally on the user’s be-half based on game theoretic analyses. This putsnovice participants on a level playing field withexpert bidders for ecommerce.

In automated negotiation systems consistingof self-interested agents, contracts have tradi-tionally been binding. Leveled commitmentcontracts—-i.e. contracts where each party candecommit by paying a predetermined penalty—-were recently shown to improve Pareto effi-ciency even if agents rationally decommit inNash equilibrium using inflated thresholds onhow good their outside offers must be beforethey decommit. eCommitter is a prototype ser-vice offered on the web for helping human andcomputational agents use leveled commitmentcontracts efficiently. For any given contractprice and decommitting penalties, it solves theNash equilibrium thresholds that the agentsshould use for decommitting, and it derives thedecommitting probabilities. Furthermore, it isable to optimize the contract price and decom-mitment penalties themselves given probabilitydistributions of outside offers. This analysistakes into account the fact that rational agentswill decommit manipulatively.

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GeNIe: A Development Environment forGraphical Decision-Theoretic Mod-els and SMILE: Structural Modeling,Inference, and Learning EngineMarek DruzdzelDecision Systems LaboratorySchool of Information SciencesUniversity of PittsburghPittsburgh, PA [email protected] (Structural Modeling, Inference, andLearning Engine) is a fully portable library ofC++ classes implementing graphical decision-theoretic methods, such as Bayesian networksand influence diagrams, directly amenable to in-clusion in intelligent systems. Its Windows userinterface, GeNIe is a versatile and user-friendlydevelopment environment for graphical deci-sion-theoretic models. Both modules, devel-oped at the Decision Systems Laboratory, Uni-versity of Pittsburgh, have been made availableto the community in July (the download

site is http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~genie) andhave over , users worldwide (as of February).

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HIKE (HPKB Integrated KnowledgeEnvironment)–A Query Interfaceand Integrated Knowledge Environ-ment for HPKB (High Performance Knowledge Bases)Barbara H. Starr, Science Applications InternationalCorporation; Vinay K. Chaudhri, Artificial Intelli-gence Center SRI International; Boris Katz, Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelli-gence Laboratory; Benjamin Good, Science Applica-tions International CorporationThe HPKB Integrated Knowledge Environ-ment (HIKE) demonstration will be demonstrat-ed by Barbara Starr from Science ApplicationsInternational (SAIC). This demonstration illus-trates a web based interface to the knowledgebased systems and theorem provers involved inDARPA’s High Performance Knowledge Bases(HPKB) program. In particular, it illustrateshow a query is constructed, formalized and thensubmitted to a theorem prover, SNARK (SRI’sNew Automated Reasoning Kit), from SAIC’sweb based GUI interface HIKE. The answer isobtained from the theorem prover and dis-played as an HTML page. The same query is thensubmitted in natural language form from theMIT Infolab’s START (Syntactic Analysis withReverse Transformations) system, converted toan interim formalization and then submitted toSNARK. The proof and answer are then dis-played.

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Intelligent Agents in Computer GamesMike van Lent, John Laird, Josh Buckman, Joe Hart-ford, Steve Houchard, Kurt Steinkraus, Russ Tedrake,Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of MichiganAs computer games become more complex andconsumers demand more sophisticated agents,game developers are required to place a greateremphasis on the artificial intelligence aspects oftheir games. Research in areas such as agent ar-chitectures, knowledge representation, goal-di-rected behavior and knowledge reusability areall relevant to improving the intelligent agentsin games. The Soar/Games project at the Uni-versity of Michigan Artificial Intelligence Labhas developed an interface between Soar and thecommercial games Quake II and Descent .Our presentation will demonstrate the applica-tion of artificial intelligence research to intelli-


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gent agents in computer games in two ways.First, a poster presentation will describe the ar-chitecture used to implement the agents andhighlight each area of research in that architec-ture. Second, the audience will play each com-puter game against opponents that utilize AItechniques. In addition to understanding howthe research concepts are used, the audience willalso evaluate the effectiveness of the concepts byplaying the games.

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ISAAC: ISI Soccer Automated Assistant CoachTaylor Raines, Milind Tambe, and Stacy Marsella, In-formation Sciences Institute, University of SouthernCaliforniaISAAC is a web-based agent created for analyz-ing and improving synthetic teams. The agent isbuilt in a bottom-up fashion using little specif-ic domain knowledge. In lieu of extensive do-main knowledge, data mining and inductivelearning techniques are used in an attempt toisolate the key issues determining the successesand failures of these teams. This approach hasbeen applied to the RoboCup domain, with acurrent focus on analyzing shots on goal.ISAAC reviews traces of synthetic soccer gamesand analyzes the actions and contexts whichcause shots on goal to succeed or fail. The agentthen extracts prototypical cases of this analysisfor the user to peruse graphically. ISAAC alsoallows the user to view perturbations of thesecontexts to see which changes would prove mostbeneficial. Users are also encouraged to uploadtheir own team’s traces for ISAAC to analyze.

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Knowledge Base Discovery ToolErik Eilerts, Kathleen Lossau, and Christopher YorkAustin Info Systems, Inc. Camp Craft RoadAustin, TX () -{eilerts, lossau, yorkc}@ausinfo.comThe Knowledge Base Discovery Tool (KBDT) isa suite of tools and components to improve theindexing of and search for documents. KBDTextracts and displays content from documentsand builds knowledge indexes based on mean-ing, rather than keywords. KBDT uses the in-dexes to perform more intelligent searches. It al-so includes visualization technology to displayrelevant results using multi-media, rather thanplain text. This prototype demonstration focus-es on two tools that use the components tosearch, extract, and display requested informa-tion. The tools are the Knowledge Base Editor

and the Intelligent Information Retrieval En-gine.

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MailCat: An Intelligent Assistant for Organizing E-MailRichard B. Segal and Jeffrey O. KephartIBM Thomas J. Watson Research CenterYorktown Heights, NY [email protected], [email protected] most mail reader applications allow usersto file messages into folders, in practice this tasktends to be tedious. For each message, the usermust first decide which folder is most appropri-ate. Then, the user must inform the mail readerof that choice by selecting the appropriate icon ormenu item from among what is typically a set ofseveral dozen choices. The combined effort ofchoosing a folder and conveying that choice tothe application often discourages users from fil-ing their mail, resulting in unmanageable inbox-es that contain hundreds or even thousands ofunfiled messages. MailCat encourages users tofile their mail by simplifying the task. Using anadaptive classifier, it predicts the three foldersthat are most likely to be appropriate for a givenmessage, and provides shortcut buttons that per-mit the user to file it into a predicted folder ef-fortlessly. For typical users, MailCat’s predictionsare accurate over % or % of the time, re-sulting in a substantial reduction in the time andcognitive burden required to file messages.

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A Natural-Language Speech InterfaceConstructed Entirely as a Set of Executable SpecificationsR. A. Frost, Department of Computer Science, Uni-versity of Windsor, CanadaThe demonstration shows a text-based natural-language interface to a database system accessi-ble through the web, and also a speech-basedversion of the same interface accessible throughtelnet. The interfaces are not sophisticated froma natural-language processing point of view, butare interesting in that they have been construct-ed entirely as executable specifications. The exe-cutable specifications are completely declarativeand highly modular. Use of this approach facil-itates interface construction, modification andre-use. The speech-interface is being re-engi-neered using IBM’s off-the-shelf Via Voice Goldtechnology and the Java speech APIs. This willenable applications to be accessed throughspeech interfaces running on standard laptops,and will also permit on-the-fly modification ofthe speech. This re-engineering will be complete

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for the AAAI demonstration. Syntax specifica-tion files resulting in higher recognition accura-cy, and more sophisticated interfaces.

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Sensible Agents: Demonstration ofDynamic Configuration of Agent Organizations for Responsive Planning OperationsK. S. Barber, A. Goel, D. Han, J. Kim, T. H. Liu, C. E.Martin, and R. McKayThe Laboratory for Intelligent Processes and SystemsDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering,ENS University of Texas at AustinAustin, [email protected] Sensible Agent Testbed allows users to per-form controlled and repeatable experiments onthe performance of Sensible Agents in a dis-tributed simulation environment. The testbeduses CORBA® and IDL™ to connect modulesrunning in C++, ModSim, Java and Lisp onWindowsNT and Linux platforms. The usercan perform initialization, monitoring, and log-ging of the environment or individual SensibleAgent performance as the simulation progresses.Several different scenarios are presented todemonstrate the capabilities of Sensible Agentsin a Naval Radar Frequency Management do-main. Sensible Agents can use Dynamic Adap-tive Autonomy (DAA) to adapt the structure oftheir problem-solving organizations in order tohandle the complex and dynamic nature of thisdomain. Users can view this adaptation andmonitor related system and agent performancevariables as the simulation runs. This technolo-gy has the potential to provide advanced multi-agent capabilities to legacy planners with a min-imal recoding effort.

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Solving Crosswords with ProverbMichael L. Littman, Greg A. Keim, and Noam M.Shazeer, Department of Computer Science, DukeUniversityWe attacked the problem of solving crosswordpuzzles by computer: Given a set of clues and acrossword grid, try to maximize the number ofwords correctly filled in. Proverb, the proba-bilistic cruciverbalist, separates the problem in-to two, more familiar subproblems: candidategeneration and grid filling. In candidate genera-tion, each clue is treated as a type of query to aninformation retrieval system, and relevant wordsof the correct length are returned along withconfidence scores. In grid filling, the candidate

words are fit into the puzzle grid to maximize anoverall confidence score using a combination ofideas from belief network inference and con-straint satisfaction. For our demonstration, wewill have an interactive version of the candidategeneration process available via the web, andwill also give people an opportunity to go head-to-head against Proverb in solving completepuzzles.

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A System for the Semantic Interpretation of Unrestricted Domains Using WordNetFernando Gomez and Carlos SegamiSchool of Computer ScienceUniversity of Central FloridaOrlando, Fl

In this demonstration, we show an algorithmfor the semantic interpretation of unrestricteddomains. The algorithm presents a solution forthe following semantic interpretation problems:determination of the meaning of the verb, iden-tification of thematic roles and adjuncts, and at-tachments of prepositions. The algorithm usesWordNet as its lexical knowledge-base. Predi-cates have been defined for WordNet verb class-es, linking selectional restrictions to the Word-Net ontology and to syntactic relations. In thedemonstration, we will show how the algorithmworks by illustrating it with some sentences,and then, we will let the audience try sentencesin the system.

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TRIPS: The Rochester InteractivePlanning SystemGeorge Ferguson and James AllenDept. of Computer ScienceUniversity of RochesterRochester, NY, {ferguson,james}@cs.rochester.eduThis demonstration showcases TRIPS, TheRochester Interactive Planning System, an intel-ligent, collaborative, conversational planningassistant. TRIPS collaborates with its user usingboth spoken dialogue and graphical displays tosolve problems in a transportation logistics do-main. The system understands the interactionas a dialogue between it and the human. The di-alogue provides the context for interpreting hu-man utterances and actions, and provides thestructure for deciding what to do in response. Avariety of AI technologies, including planning,scheduling, and simulation, are integrated byTRIPS to produce solutions in response to hu-man guidance. With the human in the loop,they and the system together can solve harder


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problems faster than either could solve alone. Inour demonstrations, users are encouraged to sitdown and try the system, with only rudimenta-ry guidance from us.

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Worldwide Aeronautical Route PlannerCharles B. McVey, David P. Clements, and Andrew J.Parkes, University of Oregon CIRLWe consider the common problem of calculat-ing routes from a starting point to a destinationthrough a given space. This process typically in-volves discretizing the navigational space intoindividual waypoints linked together throughtransitions, then searching for a solution thatfits desired criteria. Our work in this area focus-es on the rapid determination of minimal fuelroutes for aircraft to fly between any source anddestination points on the earth. The WorldwideAeronautical Route Planner (WARP) is our pro-totype demonstration of optimal real-time (un-der one minute per route) flight planning tech-nology. WARP uses high-fidelity aircraft flightmodels, official flight operation procedures, ac-tual time-dependent worldwide weather data,and a multi-pass variant of A* which retainscompleteness and optimality properties. WARPtypically discovers the minimal-fuel flight planin under thirty seconds, with fuel savings of oneto eight percent compared to great circle (mini-mum distance) routes.

Eighth Annual AAAIMobile Robot Competi-tion and ExhibitionThe Robot Competition and Exhibition will beheld in Exhibit Hall A on the second level ofthe Orange County Convention Center, andwill be open to registered conference attendeesduring exhibit hours. This series of eventsbrings together teams from universities and oth-er research laboratories to compete, and also todemonstrate cutting edge research in roboticsand artificial intelligence.

The Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibi-tion serves AI-robotics researchers, and the larg-er AI community by promoting innovative re-search through events that appeal to media andsponsors, while conducting these events in aformat that facilitates comparison of approach-es and integration of multiple AI methodolo-gies. Our goals are to foster the sharing of re-search and technology, allow research groups toshowcase their achievements, encourage stu-dents to enter robotics and artificial intelligencefields at both the undergraduate and graduatelevels, and increase awareness of the field. Thisyear, the Competition and Exhibition is com-prised of three separate events and a workshop:

Contest

The contest allows teams to show off their bestattempts at solving common tasks in a compet-itive environment. Teams compete for placeawards as well as for technical innovationawards, which reward particularly interestingsolutions to problems. There will be two contestevents this year, “Hors d’Oeuvers Anyone?” and“Scavenger Hunt.” In each of these events, afirst, second and third place award will be givenfor performance, as well as technical innovationawards that will highlight research achieve-ments.

Hors d’Oeuvres Anyone? Robot Interaction EventThis event will take place during the AI Festivalon Wednesday evening in the exhibit hall. Theobjective of this competition is to act as servicerobots, serving hors d’oeuvres to attendees atthe reception. Each contestant is encouraged toexplicitly and unambiguously demonstrate in-teraction with the spectators. In keeping withthe IJCAI panel on “The Next Big Thing,”more natural modes of communication are nec-

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essary for society’s acceptance of robots. Fur-thermore, this helps distinguish the AAAI com-petition from other competitions.

Robots will be allowed to touch attendees!Specifically, in their attempt to serve food, arobot may “nudge” a person in order to getthrough a crowd and serve food to other groupsof people. In addition to emphasizing interac-tion with attendees, manipulation is encour-aged, either by refilling serving trays au-tonomously, or in physically handing out thefood or flyers to the attendees.

Scavenger HuntEach contestant will be given a list of items tofind. These items will depend on a variety ofsensors, including auditory, range finding, andvision. The environment will not be engineeredfor the event, except that the density of peoplewill be relatively low. For instance, crowdingaround a robot will not be allowed. There willbe no penned area as in previous competitions.Furniture and other structures will be naturaland may not be marked or altered for the sakeof the robots. The objects will be located with-in a fixed radius from the starting point. The ex-act radius will be determined at the competitionbut expect it to be on the order of - yards.Robots must clearly report the location of thescavenger hunt items found. This report may bein the form of a natural language utterance, amap of the environment showing the locationof items, or if the item can be manipulated, bypicking up the object and returning it to thestarting point.

Contestants may enter a team of robots andwill be more favorably judged if they demon-strate some form of cooperation.

Challenge

In addition to the contest and exhibit, we areadding a new aspect this year—the Robot Chal-lenge. In this event, a particularly challengingtask is defined, which is well beyond current ca-pabilities, will require multiple years to solve,and should encourage larger teams and collabo-rative efforts. The challenge task is defined by along-term committee of researchers. Currentlythe task is for a robot to be dropped off at thefront door of the conference venue, register it-self as a student volunteer, perform various tasksas assigned, and talk at a session. The challengewill require integration of many areas of artifi-cial intelligence as well as robotics. Teams willbe in the main conference areas attempting tosolve parts of this problem.

Awards for the challenge will be given fortechnical innovations in various AI technologyareas, but no place awards will be given. In par-ticular, awards for integration of AI techniqueswill be awarded.

Awards

This year, in addition to certificates, we willhave awards of mobile robots for several cate-gories. In each of the two competition events, arobot will be awarded to the first and secondplace teams’ home institutions. In addition, anaward will be given for the best integrationacross multiple AI techniques, the Ben WegbreitAward for Integrative Technologies. Teams fromboth the contest and the challenge are eligiblefor this award. The awards consist of ATRV-Mi-ni and Megallen mobile robots (Real World In-terface), and Pioneer mobile robots (ActivMe-dia).

Exhibition

The exhibition gives researchers an opportunityto demonstrate state-of-the-art research in a lessstructured environment. Exhibits are scheduledthroughout normal exhibit hall hours. In addi-tion to live exhibits, a video proceedings will beshown.

Robot Event Judges & Chairs

■ General ChairAlan C. Schultz, Naval Research Laboratory

■ Competition CochairLisa Meeden, Swarthmore College

■ Challenge CochairTucker Balch, Carnegie Mellon University

■ Exhibition CochairsKaren Zita Haigh, Honeywell TechnologyCenter and Marc Böhlen, Carnegie MellonUniversity

■ Steering Committee ChairDavid Kortenkamp, Metrica Trac Labs

Mobile Robot Competition WorkshopOrganizer: Alan C. Schultz

Thursday, July 229:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Salon 1, Omni Rosen Hotel

Robot Programs

Robot Competition and Exhibition Teams

Exhibitor

Carnegie Mellon UniversityRobot: BabycakesTeam Leader: Ercan AcarTeam Members: Michael Rosenblat and Morgan Sim-mons

Exhibitor

Carnegie Mellon UniversityRobot: MinnowTeam Leader: Tucker BalchTeam Members: Sorin Achim, Jim Bruce, Anna Reali,and Manuela VelosoMinnow is the prototype for a class of inexpen-sive yet high performance robots based on theTeamBots control system (formerly called Jav-aBots). The mechanical platform is based on acommercially available radio-controlled tank.The primary sensor is a color camera, with allvision processing (Hz) and control onboard.Onboard processing is provided by a Pentium-based PC- main board running Linux andJava. Information on the TeamBots system isavailable at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~trb/Team-Bots/.

Challenge Competitor

Carnegie Mellon University Robotics InstituteRobot: OfficeBoy Advisor: Illah R. NourbakhshTeam Leader: Rahul BhargavaTeam Members: Dan Robinson and Chris QuirkOfficeBoy is the playful instantiation ofresearch we have conducted in creating a highlyinteractive, learning robotic assistant. The robottakes natural language as its input from un-trained human users and parses the commandsusing case frames. If the resulting goals areachievable given the state of the robots knowl-edge base, it will then invoke a planner and ex-ecute the resulting plan. If, however, further in-formation is required, OfficeBoy will requestthat information from nearby humans.

OfficeBoy is unusual in that it will interactwith humans opportunistically throughout exe-cution of its tasks, requesting and often receivinghelp from humans who have never interactedwith a robot before. It navigates by virtue of atopological map using a simple, radial ring ofsonar sensors. During AAAI-, OfficeBoy willdemonstrate its ability to satisfy a portion of therequirements for the Robotics Grand Challenge.

Exhibitor

Carnegie Mellon University Robotics InstituteRobot: Robot ImprovSponsor: Illah R. NourbakhshTeam Leader: Allison BruceTeam Members: Brian Magerko and Sam ListopadRobot Improv is the result of ongoing researchon mobile robots displaying believable dramat-ic behavior. The goal is to develop a robot ar-chitecture that allows the robot pair to performall of the acting exercises taught in an Introduc-tory Acting course. A further goal is that therobots, though non-human in appearance andmotion, should exhibit believable, human-likebehavior within the context of a dramatic situa-tion. Finally, the robots behavior will be in partdecided by an internally defined, dynamic emo-tional model.

We have designed a robot architecture usinga class hierarchy, including abstract classes forthe play, for each actor (including an emotionalmodel), for the venue and, finally, for the avail-able actions.

During the actual performance, there is a se-rial process in which each robot, in turn, choos-es and performs its next line in the play. Thereare no conventional scripts that the robots arefollowing. Based on their own goals, their emo-tional state, the perceived position and emo-tional state of the other agent and the results ofplanning episodes, the robots wholly improviseevery play. Every play is unique, with the out-come varying dramatically at times.

The robots are Nomad Scout robots, with allsoftware running under Java ..

Exhibitor

Georgia Institute of TechnologyRobot: Learning Tasks from DemonstrationTeam Advisor: Christopher AtkesonTeam Leader: Darrin BentivegnaHumans can begin to learn a task by observingthe task being performed. This can provide ajump-start to becoming proficient at the task.Can robots also learn to do a task by observingsomeone or something perform the task? Thisresearch explores ways for agents to use ob-served data to reduce the learning time neededto perform a task. A variety of domains andcomputer learning methods are being consid-ered.

A virtual air-hockey player has been createdthat learns to play by observing a human play-er. The human plays against the cyber-player us-ing the mouse to control the paddle. After thehuman has played for a while, the data can be

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given to the cyber-player. The cyber-player willanalyze the data and use it to learn how to play.When the cyber player uses the data from a par-ticular human player, the cyber-player will ex-hibit some characteristics of that player.

Another domain that will be demonstrated ina D environment and also on hardware is theLabyrinth game, a game where a player controlsthe movement of a marble by tilting the plat-form using two knobs. The object of the game isto move the marble through a maze that con-tains holes into which the marble can fall. An ac-tual Labyrinth game has been equipped with ser-vomotors, allowing a computer to operate thegame like a human player. Sensors are installedon the playing board so its attitude can be mea-sured. A computer vision system allows thecomputer to observe the movement of the ball.

Competitor

Kansas State UniversityRobot: WillieTeam Advisor: David A. GustafsonTeam Leader: Frank BlechaTeam Members: Tim Beese, Jonathan Cameron, andDamon KuntzThe robot, Willie, is a Nomad mobilerobot, a commercial system designed and builtby Nomadic Technologies Inc. (MountainView, CA). The Nomad consists of a base unit,capable of translation and steering motions, anda moveable turret, also capable of rotation, onwhich all sensors are mounted. An array of six-teen ultrasonic range sensors are mounted alongthe turret’s circumference. There are three CCDcameras mounted on top of the robot’s turret;one is color, the other two are monochrome. Amicrophone is available for sensing sound. Allprocessing is carried out on an Intel-based Pen-tium MHz single board computer, which isequipped with megabytes of main memory,and a wireless Ethernet interface.

This year’s team is using a model-based ap-proach to object recognition, while using a sub-sumption navigation scheme to guide the robotaround obstacles and through the environment.The code is object-oriented and is written inC++.

Exhibitor

Naval Research LaboratoryRobot: CoyoteTeam Advisor: Alan C. SchultzTeam Leader: William AdamsTeam Members: Dennis Perzanowski and ColleenMcCarthyWe will exhibit our research in two areas: a nat-ural interface for interacting with the robot, and

an integrated system for navigating in previous-ly unknown environments.

The natural interface combines natural lan-guage and gestures which complement eachother in daily communication. Our interface al-so allows the processing of fragmentary com-mands by using “context predicates” to trackverbal predicates and goals. A discourse compo-nent determines to what extent each goal wasachieved and the robot can continue to work to-ward unaccomplished goals without explicit re-statement by the user.

We will also exhibit our integrated system forexploration, map building, localization, pathplanning and navigation. Built around a com-mon representation, this integrated system in-cludes our own components and componentsfrom the wider robotics community. Maps areadaptive to changes in real time, allowing robustnavigation in dynamic environments. As a re-sult, the robot can enter an unknown environ-ment, map it while remaining confident of itsposition, and robustly plan and navigate withinthe environment in real time. The interface tothis integrated system is a wireless Palm Pilot,which can control the robot at several levels ofabstraction. Coyote, a Nomad robot, willbe used to demonstrate these two systems.

Exhibitor

Probotics, Inc.Robot: CyeTeam Advisor: Tucker BalchTeam Leader: Henry ThorneTeam Members: Raymond Russell and Joseph PappCye is an easy robot to set up and use that offersstate of the art ded-reckoning and a powerfuland extendible GUI. You simply plug Cye’scharger in and place it against a wall, plug Cye’sradio pod in and plug it into a COM port onyour PC, load the software and your off andrunning.

The Map-N-Zap software that comes withCye shows a plan view of Cye in his grey world.You can simply click on Cye and pull himaround. As he moves he maps free space towhite and obstacles to black. You can edit themap directly using drawing tools as well as addobjects to the map. Using these objects you canthen set up where you want Cye to go when us-ing the Zap programming tool. Zap is simply adrag and drop list of tasks for Cye.

Cye is extremely extendible. The softwarecomes with an OCX that you can load into yourVB or VC++ programming environment andaccess the entire low level command set for Cyeright from your own program. There are properties, methods, and events. Cye has a

Robot Teams

central mounting post on which accessories canbe mounted like the available Wagon and Vacu-um Attachment. In front of the post hole thereis an RJ connector providing power, an input,an output, and the radio link.

Exhibitor

Quest NSF REURobots: Silver Bullet and BujoldTeam Advisor: Robin R. MurphyTeam Leader: Jenn CasperTeam Members: Michelle Ausmus, Magda Bugajska,Tanya Ellis, Tonia Johnson, Nia Kelley, and JodiKieferThe members of the Quest team represent fouruniversities and three majors working on a two-year NSF Research Experience for Undergradu-ates site grant at the University of South Floridaentitled “Multiple Autonomous Mobile Robotsfor Search and Rescue.” The women willdemonstrate advances in the hardware and soft-ware for Silver Bullet and Bujold for use in Ur-ban Search and Rescue.

Silver Bullet and Bujold are a “marsupial”team, where the custom-built Silver Bullet actu-ally carries a miniature chemical inspectionrobot, Bujold, to a site. Silver Bullet is based ona children’s battery powered jeep and has vision,sonars, thermal sensing, inclinometers, GPS,microphones, and radio ethernet. She is fullyautonomous with an onboard K MHz pro-cessor and two Matrox Meteor framegrabbers.Bujold is a Inuktun tracked rover with a cameraand microphone. She is tethered to Silver Bulletand can be controlled either by Silver Bullet di-rectly or through teleoperation. The team re-cently won a $, Robotic Industries Associ-ation scholarship for their work in automatingcontrol of the team.

Exhibitor

Real World Interface/IS RoboticsRobot: ATRV, Urban Robot (“Urbie”)Team Members: Grinnell More, Laura Woodbury,and Todd Pack

Exhibitor

Science Applications InternationalCorporation (SAIC)Robot: SubotTeam Members: Jennifer Herron and John Spofford

Competitor

Swarthmore CollegeRobot: SwatbotTeam Leader: Bruce A. Maxwell

Competitor

University of ArkansasRobot: Mobile Robotics Research GroupTeam Leader: Douglas Blank

Competitor

University of North DakotaRobot: Rusty the BEAR IITeam Advisor: Henry HexmoorTeam Leader: Michael TrosenTeam Members: Michael Trosen, Matt LaFary, TimThompson, Craig Eshenko, and David GieseWe are using a Pioneer Dx robot with full vi-sion and speech recognition as a continuance ofour first-place entry in AAAI-. This year’sRusty uses a blend of behaviors included withthe Pioneer Operating system and our ownenhanced behaviors for successful navigationand serving.

Exhibitor

University of North DakotaRobot: RoboNannyTeam Leader: Henry Hexmoor

Competitor and Exhibitor

University of South FloridaRobots: Butler and LeguinTeam Advisor: Robin R. MurphyTeam Leader: Mark Micire and Brian SjobergTeam Members: Jenn Casper, Mark Eichenberg,Aaron Gage, Jeff Hyams, Brian Minten, Mark Powell,and Min ShinThe USF entry in the Hors d’Oeuvres Anyone?event will demonstrate () dynamic allocation ofsensors as the robots engage in a complex scriptof behaviors, () robust object and face detec-tion using the SCT color space and sensor fu-sion, () cooperation between two robots whereone robot transports refills, and () colorful in-teractions with the audience. The two plat-forms, Butler and Leguin, are Nomad robots with heterogeneous sensing capabilities.Butler will use vision and thermal sensing tomake eye contact with people and Leguin, andto identify VIP’s. She will also use her laser todetermine when the tray is almost empty andradio Leguin for a refill. Leguin will navigate toButler using a shared common map, recognizeButler, and interact with her, then return to therefill station. The robots will exhibit Florida“personalities” (a Borg shark and a Puffer fish),and will interact with the audience throughmulti-media designed by the USF Art depart-ment, including inflatable sculptures. Portionsof this entry were made possible through grantsfrom NSF and ONR.

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Competitor

University of SouthernCalifornia Robotics LabRobots: Cartman, Stan, Kyle, &KennyTeam Advisor: Maja J. MataricTeam Leader: Barry WergerTeam Members: Brian Gerkey, DaniGoldberg, Monica Nicolescu, PaoloPirjanian, Stergios Roumeliotis, Ste-fan Weber, and Barry WergerShowcasing the USC RoboticsLab emphasis on truly distributedcontrol for multiple agents, therobots on our team will competesimultaneously and cooperativelywith no explicit centralized coor-dination. In order to illustraterobot-robot and robot-human in-teractions, our contestants are en-dowed with personalities (befit-ting their names: Cartman, Stan,Kyle, and Kenny) that evolve overtime via emotional responses totheir individual and collective ex-periences (don’t be too surprisedif you elicit a vocal response fromour robots). Specifically, robot-human interactions are facilitatedby a gesture-based visual interfacewhich allows the robots to com-plete their tasks with human help.During the competition, therobots will also rely on other sen-sor modalities, but with a clear fo-cus on lightweight vision andlaser ranging.

Exhibitor

Utah State UniversityRobot: Web-Based Robot Simula-torTeam Leader: Dan Stormont

Robot Teams / Exhibit M

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RegistrationConference registration will take place outside the Grand Ballroom, on the first level of the Om-ni Rosen Hotel, beginning Sunday, July . Registration hours are:

Sunday, July : AM – : PM

Monday, July : AM – : PM

Tuesday, July : AM – : PM

Wednesday, July : AM – : PM

Thursday, July : AM – : PM

Only checks drawn on US banks, VISA, MasterCard, American Express, government purchase or-ders, traveler’s checks, and US currency will be accepted. We cannot accept foreign currency orchecks drawn on foreign banks.

Registration Fees

The AAAI-/IAAI- technical program registration fee includes admission to all technical papersessions, invited talks and panels, the Exhibition Program, the Intelligent Systems Demos, theRobot Competition and Exhibition, the Student Abstract Poster Session, the Tutorial Forum (in-cluding SP and MP), the Workshop Program (by invitation only), the opening reception, the AIFestival, and the AAAI-/IAAI- Conference Proceedings. Tutorial Forum attendees may registerfor up to four consecutive tutorials, and will receive the corresponding syllabi. Students must pre-sent proof of full-time student status to qualify for student rate. Onsite technical program fees are:

Regular Member $Regular Nonmember $Student Member $Student Nonmember $

Workshop Program

Workshop registration is limited to those active participants determined by the organizer prior tothe conference. All workshop participants must register for the AAAI- technical program, or inthe case of the jointly sponsored workshop (W), must register for either AAAI- or GECCO-. Registration onsite for a workshop is possible with the prior permission of the correspondingworkshop organizer.

Robot Building Lab

The robot building lab registration includes admission to the robot building lab and the exhibi-tion program. Fees are $. for members or nonmembers, and $. for students. Attendanceis limited and preregistration is required.

Exhibition

Admission to the exhibition hall programs is included in all other types of registration. For indi-viduals interested in admittance to the exhibit hall only, an exhibits only registration is available inonsite registration. The fee is $. for a two-day pass, or $. for a two-day pass plus the AIFestival on Wednesday evening. Exhibit hall programs include vendor exhibits, the Intelligent Sys-tems Demonstrations, and the Robot Competition and Exhibition. High-school students are wel-come and will be admitted without fee upon presentation of a valid high-school student ID. Chil-dren under will also be admitted without fee, but must be accompanied by an adult conferenceregistrant. Please note: The AI Festival, which will be held in the exhibit hall, is included in thetechnical registration fee only. All other attendees must pay an additional fee.

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AAAI–99 / IAAI–99 CD-ROM

Each registrant for the AAAI-/IAAI- tech-nical program will receive a ticket with the reg-istration materials for one copy of the confer-ence CD-ROM. During registration hours onSunday, July , Monday, July and until: AM on Tuesday, July , CD-ROM tick-ets can be redeemed at the AAAI Press desk, lo-cated in AAAI onsite registration on the firstlevel of the Omni Rosen Hotel. After : AM

on Tuesday, the AAAI-/IAAI- CD ticketsmay be redeemed at the AAAI Press booth#, located in the Exhibition Hall A of theOrange County Convention Center, during ex-hibit hours.

Extra CDs may be purchased at onsite regis-tration or by mail from the AAAI Press. Thurs-day, July , will be the last day to purchase ex-tra copies of the CD-ROM on site.

AAAI–99 T-Shirts

AAAI- t-shirts will be for sale during registra-tion hours at the registration desk, on the firstlevel of the Omni Rosen Hotel. Supplies arelimited. Price: $. each onsite.

Admission

Each conference attendee will receive a namebadge upon registration. This badge is requiredfor admittance to the technical, tutorial, exhib-it, IAAI and workshop programs. Workshop at-tendees will also be checked off a master regis-tration list at individual rooms. Tutorial atten-dees must present syllabi tickets to receive syl-labi. Smoking, drinking and eating are not al-lowed in any of the technical, tutorial, work-shop, IAAI, or exhibit sessions.

Baggage Holding

There is no baggage holding area at the OrangeCounty Convention Center. Please check yourluggage with the bellman at your hotel after youhave checked out. Neither the AAAI, the Or-ange County Convention Center, the OmniRosen Hotel, the Days Inn Convention Cen-ter/Sea World, nor the Red Roof Inn accept li-ability for the loss or theft of any suitcase, brief-case, or other personal belongings brought tothe site of AAAI-/IAAI-.

Banking

The closest bank and automated teller machine(ATM) are located at NationsBank. The ATMnetworks available are Discover, MasterCard,Visa, Cirrus, Honor and Plus. NationsBank canalso exchange all major foreign currencies.

NationsBank, Sand Lake RoadOrlando, FL Telephone: () -Monday–Thursday: : AM–: PM

Friday: : AM – : PM

Closed Saturdays and SundaysThere are also automated teller machines(ATMs) located in the lobby of the OmniRosen Hotel and the -, which is adjacent tothe hotel.

Business Centers

Business Centers are available at the followinglocations:Xerox Business Center

Level One, Omni Rosen HotelHours: Monday – Friday: : AM – : PM;Saturday: : AM – : noon

Kinko’s Business CenterLevel Two, Outside Hall C, Orange Coun-ty Convention CenterHours: : AM–: PM daily

Services include fax, copies, laser printing, andother general office services. The Omni Rosenoffers shipping by Airborne Express, DHL,Federal Express and UPS.

Career Information

A bulletin board for job opportunities in theartificial intelligence industry will be madeavailable in the registration area, outside theGrand Ballroom, on the first level of the OmniRosen Hotel. Attendees are welcome to postjob descriptions of openings at their companyor institution.

Child Care Services

For information about child care services, youmay contact Anny’s Nanny’s at --.(This information is provided for your conve-nience and does not represent an endorsementof this agency by AAAI. Responsibility for allchild care arrangements must be assumed bythe parents.)

General Information

Coffee Breaks

Coffee will be served in the Grand Terrace, lev-el two, Omni Rosen Hotel from :–:AM and :–: PM each day. Coffee breaks atthe Orange County Convention Center arescheduled for Tuesday, July from : –: AM and : – : PM and Wednesday, Ju-ly from :–: AM.

Copy Services

Copy services are available at:Kinko’s – South Orlando South Orange Blossom TrailOrlando, FL Telephone: --Fax: --Hours: hours per day

Copy service is also available at the Xerox Busi-ness Center in the Omni Rosen Hotel and atthe Kinko’s Business Center in the OrangeCounty Convention Center for smaller printjobs.

Dining

Orlando dining information is available in theOrlando Visitors Guide Booklet, which hasbeen included with your registration materials.The following restaurants will be open in theOmni Rosen Hotel during the conference: CaféGauguin, Reds Market and Deli, and the Ever-glades Restaurant. Concessions will be open, di-rectly across from Exhibit Hall A, on the sec-ond level of the Orange County ConventionCenter from, Sunday, July – Thursday, July.

Handicapped Facilities

The Orange County Convention Center, theOmni Rosen Hotel, the Days Inn ConventionCenter/Sea World, and the Red Roof Inn are allequipped with handicapped facilities.

Housing

For information regarding hotel reservations,please contact the hotels directly. For studenthousing, please contact the Days Inn Conven-tion Center/Sea World at --- or theRed Roof Inn at --.

Information Desk

An information desk/message desk will bestaffed during registration hours, Sundaythrough Thursday, July –. It is located nearthe registration area, on the first level of theOmni Rosen Hotel. Messages will be posted onthe message boards adjacent to the desk. Thetelephone number for leaving messages only is() -, extension . Paging atten-dees is not possible.

Internet

AAAI, in cooperation with Microsoft, will beproviding internet access in Exhibition Hall Aof the Orange County Convention Center. Theinternet room will be open Sunday and Monday: AM – : PM; Tuesday : AM – : PM;Wednesday, : AM – : PM; and Thursday: – : PM. As a courtesy, please limit youraccess time to - minutes if others are waitingto use the service.

List of Attendees

A list of preregistered attendees of the confer-ence will be available for review at the AAAIDesk in the registration area on the first level ofthe Omni Rosen Hotel. Attendee lists will notbe distributed.

Message Center

See Information Desk

Parking

The Omni Rosen Hotel provides a complimen-tary covered parking garage.

Press

All members of the media are requested to reg-ister in the Press Room, on the second level ofthe Omni Rosen Hotel, Salon . Press badgeswill only be issued to individuals with approvedcredentials. The Press Room will be open dur-ing the following hours.

Monday, July : AM–: PM

Tuesday, July : AM–: PM

Wednesday, July : AM–: PM

Thursday, July : AM–: PM

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An AAAI- volunteer will be on duty duringpress room hours to assist the members of thepress and media.

Printed Materials

Display tables for the distribution of promo-tional and informational materials of interest toconference attendees will be located in the reg-istration area on the first level of the OmniRosen Hotel.

Proceedings

Each registrant for the AAAI-/IAAI- tech-nical program will receive a ticket with the reg-istration materials for one copy of the confer-ence Proceedings. During registration hours onSunday, July , Monday, July and until :AM on Tuesday, July , Proceedings tickets canbe redeemed at the AAAI Press Proceedings desk,located in AAAI onsite registration on the firstlevel of the Omni Rosen Hotel. After : AM

on Tuesday, the AAAI-/IAAI- Proceedingsticket may be redeemed at the MIT Press booth#, located in the Exhibition Hall A of theOrange County Convention Center, during ex-hibit hours.

Extra Proceedings (book only—not the CD)may be purchased at the conference site at theabove locations. Thursday, July , will be thelast day to purchase extra copies of the Proceed-ings on site.

The AAAI-/IAAI- Proceedings (bookonly—not the CD) can also be redeemed bymailing the ticket with your name, shipping ad-dress and e-mail to:

ExhibitsThe MIT Press Cambridge CenterCambridge, MA

Postage must be prepaid with a check or Mas-terCard/Visa and expiration date. USA: $.;for orders outside USA: $. surface or$. for airmail.

Proceedings Shipping

Proceedings may be shipped through the XeroxBusiness Center, level one, Omni Rosen Hotelvia Airborne Express, DHL, Federal Expressand UPS. The hours of operation are Monday –Friday: : AM – : PM, Saturday: : AM –: noon.

Recording

No audio or video recording is allowed in theTutorial Forum. Audiotapes of the plenary ses-sions, invited talks and panels, and the IAAIsessions will be for sale on the first level of theOmni Rosen Hotel. A representative from Au-dio Archives will be available to take your orderduring registration hours, beginning on Tues-day, July . Order forms are included withregistration materials. Tapes may also be or-dered by mail from:

Audio Archives International, Inc. Foothill Blvd., Suite La Crescenta, CA Telephone: --Fax: --

Speaker Ready Room

The Speaker Ready Room will be located in Sa-lon on the second level of the Omni RosenHotel. This room has audio-visual equipmentto assist speakers with their preparations. It isimportant that speakers visit this room to orga-nize their materials. The room will be openfrom : AM–: PM Sunday, July –Thurs-day, July .

Invited speakers are asked to come to Salon one day prior to their speech. Representativesfrom AV Headquarters will be available from: AM–: PM, Sunday, July –Thursday, Ju-ly to confirm your audiovisual needs, and as-sist with the preparation of your materials, ifnecessary.

Transportation

The following information provided is the bestavailable at press time. Please confirm fareswhen making reservations.

Airlines and Rental CarsThe American Association for Artificial Intelli-gence has selected American Airlines and DeltaAirlines as the official co-carriers and Avis RentA Car as the official car rental agency for AAAI-/IAAI-. If you need to change your airlineor car rental reservations, please call Conven-tions in America, our official travel agency at-- and ask for Group #. E-mail:[email protected]

General Information

TaxiTaxis are available at Orlando International Air-port. Approximate fare from the airport todowntown Orlando is $.

BusGreyhound Bus—For information on fares andscheduling, call --.

City Transit SystemI-Ride trackless trolley service provides trans-portation along International Drive from theBelz Factory Outlet to Sea World. I-Ride oper-ates seven days a week from a.m. to midnight,every minutes. The fare is $. per person pertrip, and free for children and under. An un-limited pass is available in one, three, five andseven day increments. For information call --. In addition, Lynx is a citywide bustransit service for the greater metropolitan Or-lando area. The fare is $. per person per trip;hours vary. For information call --.

Tutorial Syllabi

Extra copies of AAAI- tutorial syllabi will beavailable for purchase in AAAI onsite registra-tion in the Omni Rosen Hotel, beginning Tues-day, July . Supplies are limited. Cost is $.per syllabus. Preregistration tutorial syllabi tick-ets may be redeemed in the tutorial rooms.

Volunteer Room

The volunteer room is located in Salon onthe second level of the Omni Rosen Hotel.Hours are : AM–: PM, Sunday, July–Wednesday, July and : AM–: PM,Thursday, July . Extra volunteer instructionsand schedules will be available. All volunteersshould check in with Josette Mausisa, AAAIRegistrar, in the registration area prior to theirshifts. The volunteer meeting will be held Sat-urday, July at : PM in Salon of the Om-ni Rosen Hotel.

Disclaimer

In offering American Airlines, Anny’s Nanny’s,Avis Rent A Car, Conventions in America, theDays Inn Convention Center/Sea World, DeltaAirlines, GES, Omni Rosen Hotel, the OrangeCounty Convention Center, the Red Roof Inn,and all other service providers (hereinafter re-ferred to as “Supplier(s)” for the National Con-ference on Artificial Intelligence and the Inno-vative Applications Conference), AAAI acts on-ly in the capacity of agent for the Suppliers,which are the providers of the service. BecauseAAAI has no control over the personnel, equip-ment, or operations of providers of accommo-dations or other services included as part of theAAAI- / IAAI- program, AAAI assumes noresponsibility for and will not be liable for anypersonal delay, inconveniences or other damagesuffered by conference participants which mayarise by reason of () any wrongful or negligentacts or omissions on the part of any Supplier orits employees, () any defect in or failure of anyvehicle, equipment or instrumentality owned,operated or otherwise used by any Supplier, or() any wrongful or negligent acts or omissionson the part of any other party not under thecontrol, direct or otherwise, of AAAI.

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Facilities Map

Orange County Convention CenterAAAI–99 Exhibition ProgramExhibit Hall A1

Omni Rosen Hotel