High-level functional (or behavioral) simulation models are difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to develop. We report on a method for automatically generating the program code for a high-level functional simulation model. The high-level model is produced directly from the program code for the circuit components' functional models and a netlist description of their connectivity. A prototype has been implemented in LISP for the SIMMER functional simulator.

The goal of the commodity expert project was to develop a prototype program that would act as an intelligent assistant to a commodity market analyst. Since expert analysis must deal with very large, yet incomplete, data bases of unreliable facts about a complex world, the project would stringently test the applicability of Artificial Intelligence techniques. After a significant effort however, I am forced to the conclusion that an intelligent, real-world system of the kind envisioned is currently out of reach. Some of the difficulties were due to the size and complexity of the domain. As its true scale became evident, the available resources progressively appeared less adequate. The representation and reasoning problems that arose were persistently difficult and fundamental work is needed before the tools will be sufficient to engineer truly intelligent assistants. Despite these difficulties, perhaps even because of them, much can be learned from the project. To assist future applications projects, I explain in this report some of the reasons for the negative result, and also describe some positive ideas that were gained along the way. In doing so, I hope to convey the respect I have developed for the complexity of real-world domains, and the difficulty of describing the ways experts deal them.

A mechanical design "compiler" has been developed which, given an appropriate schematic, specifications, and utility function for a mechanical design, returns catalog numbers for an optimal implementation. The compiler has been successfully tested on a variety of mechanical and hydraulic power transmission designs and a few temperature sensing designs. Times required have been at worst proportional to the logarithm of the number of possible combinations of catalog numbers.

This report describes MM, a computer program that can model a variety of mechanical and fluid systems. Given a system's structure and qualitative behavior, MM searches for models using an energy-based modeling framework. MM uses general facts about physical systems to relate behavioral and model properties. These facts enable a more focussed search for models than would be obtained by mere comparison of desired and predicted behaviors. When these facts do not apply, MM uses behavior-constrained qualitative simulation to verify candidate models efficiently. MM can also design experiments to distinguish among multiple candidate models.

My work is broadly concerned with the question "How can designs bessynthesized computationally?" The project deals primarily with mechanical devices and focuses on pre-parametric design: design at the level of detail of a blackboard sketch rather than at the level of detail of an engineering drawing. I explore the project ideas in the domain of single-input single-output dynamic systems, like pressure gauges, accelerometers, and pneumatic cylinders. The problem solution consists of two steps: 1) generate a schematic description of the device in terms of idealized functional elements, and then 2) from the schematic description generate a physical description.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1985. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [131]-137.

Search engines are the most popular tools for finding answers to questions, but unfortunately they do not always provide complete direct answers. Answers often need to be extracted by the user, from the web pages returned by the search engine. This research addresses this problem, and shows how an automated theorem prover, combined with existing ontologies and the web, is able to reason about world knowledge and return direct answers to users' questions. The use of an automated theorem prover also allows more complex questions to be asked. Automated theorem provers that exhibit these capabilities are called World Knowledge Reasoning systems. This research discusses one such system, the CNL-WKR system. The CNL-WKR system uses the ACE controlled natural language as its user-input language. It then calls upon external sources on the web, as well as internal ontological sources, during the theorem proving process, in order to find answers. The system uses the automated theorem prover, SPASS-XDB. The result is a system that is capable of answering complex questions about the world.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-210).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-121).

Thesis (Doctoral)--Universität Osnabrücks, 2006. / Includes abstract and bibliographical references (p. 216-231).