IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics

A review of pattern recognition applied to medical diagnosis and consulting is presented. Papers (127-references) are evaluated with respect to a new medical system model incorporating concepts of consulting and decision making, the latter based on a Bayesean approach incorporating problem knowledge. This model introduces the consultant as an essential component of the decision system. The model i... View full abstract»

Transform image data compression consists of dividing the image into a number of nonoverlapping subimage regions and quantizing and coding the transform of the data from each subimage. Karhunen-Loÿve, Hadamard, and Fourier transforms are most commonly used in transform image compression. This paper presents a new discrete linear transform for image compression which we use in conjunction with dif... View full abstract»

A suboptimum method of linear feature selection in multiclass problem is presented. The set of features is selected in sequential manner based on an upper bound on the probability of error. The proposed method is applied to a problem of classifying Japanese vowels. Computer simulation results are presented and discussed. View full abstract»

This paper describes a layer structured system suitable for pattern recognition which operates similar to the afferent nervous system of vertebrates. The ``system theory of homogeneous layers'' has been developed to describe signal transmission and signal processing between neuronal layers. Feature extraction in the sense of spatial filtering is performed by such a layered system with a few hierar... View full abstract»

The advent of increased government involvement in occupational health maintenance with compensation for affected individuals is requiring new approaches to medical decision making. One aspect of this involvement will perhaps include the automatic mass diagnostic screening of medical films for the detection of a specffic abnormality with an occupational etiology. The results of two complementary ap... View full abstract»

This paper presents a first implementation of a computer-aided design concept intended to confront issues normally faced by designers of complex engineering systems. Computer graphics play no essential role in this concept. Rather, the concept is aimed at organizing the analysis and search activities of a designer as he attempts to find values for the independent design parameters at his disposal ... View full abstract»

An engineering approach to the solution of multicomponeint inspection and repair problems is introduced. This approach utilizes the practical fact that in realistic situations failure and wear processes in individual components are mutually independent. A stochastic model comprising a number of independent Markov chains is developed and operating and maintenance costs are expressed in terms of the... View full abstract»

An important problem which frequently arises is the problem of measuring the degree to which a collection of objects has the empirical properties of its elements. Examples of this are found in the question of whether a network of switches is on or off, the degree to which a group of factories pollutes the air, and even the probability of success defined on an empirical frequency distribution. Whil... View full abstract»

A major requirement for structural modeling is that the necessary data be acquired and organized into a form from which a structural model can be developed. A reachability matrix is one such form. It is very useful when the contextual relation being modeled is transitive and multilevel. A significant step in the development of a reachability matrix consists of the ordering of elements of the syste... View full abstract»

A procedure is described for developing an interconnection matrix that specifies a cascade connection of two known digraphs to form a digraph. The solution of this form of the interconnection problem can be applied to complete the process of description of a binary relation initiated by the process of partitioning on elements described in a companion paper [3]. It is assumed that the contextual re... View full abstract»

Almost all of the published work on the philosophical question of the limitation of mechanical intelligence has argued in favor of one or the other of the polarities of possible positions, those of the True Believer and the Infidel. It is, however, possible to take a position between these two extremes, a position we call Agnostic. We believe agnosticism concerning the possibility of artificial in... View full abstract»

The term ``tacit knowing'' has been much used to denote certain aspects of human knowledge that are only partly verbalizable. The claim which it presupposes, that ``we know more than we can tell,'' has sometimes been taken to imply that mechanistic approaches to the understanding or simulation of human thought are in principle foredoomed to failure. This correspondence argues that a general-purpos... View full abstract»

This correspondence addresses itself to the question of why computers have had so little practical success in taking over information processing tasks traditionally performed by people. This question is examined in different fields of psychology, education, and linguistics. The major reason why computers have not made more progress is that twe have not had a satisfactory psychological theory of co... View full abstract»

The concept of ``equivalence,'' as it relates to comparing man and automaton, is explored and the notions of response equivalence and process equivalecne are contrasted. Some areas of psychological research are reviewed from the perspective of whether or not they concentrate on response or process identification. Finally, some questions concerning the description of biological automata are raised. View full abstract»

Artificial intelligence functions in terms of abstract symbols and human intelligence functions in terms of paradigmatic symbols. A paradigmatic symbol is a particular object, or the mental representation thereof, capable of evoking a whole, yet flexible, field of objects. It is not an object qua object, but object qua agent of elicitation. Thinking in terms of paradigmatic symbols needs no addion... View full abstract»

A formal dynamic model which represents the assumptions in Hardin's paper, ``The Tragedy of the Commons,'' exhibits his conclusions explicitly. The calculus serves as an adequate language for the model, but its conclusions are exhibited graphically with the aid of a simulation language and computation. Technological solutions to the ``tragedy'' necessarily fail; coercive solutions admit a range of... View full abstract»

The modified method of generalized portraits is compared with the original method. Particular attention is paid to the existence of solutions for the two methods and the shape of the resultin decision surfaces in the training space. One finds that solutions always exist in the original method, regarless of the placement of the training vectors. The indecision region is a hyperplane, which may, in ... View full abstract»

The problem of optimal stopping has long bee of intrest to various scientific disciplines. Most notably, the approacbes taken have been based on sequential decision theory and modeling techniqes. Aiming at optimization algorithms, we propose in this paper to combine the present approaches and study the cut-off rule problem, using asymptotic convergence behavior of sequences. A unifying framework f... View full abstract»

Two heuristic methods for locating the global optimum of a multimodal performance index surface are described. One method is based on a modified random creep procedure which first locates a local minimum and then searches the parameter space with vector steps whose mean length gradually increases. The second is a modification of the Kiefer-Wolfowitz stochastic approximation procedure, in which a r... View full abstract»

Consider an item that belongs to one of two classes, θ = 0 or θ = 1, with equal probability. Suppose also that there are two measurement experiments E1 and E2 that can be performed, and suppose that the outcomes are independent (given θ). Let Eí denote an independent performance of experiment EI. Let Pe(E) denot... View full abstract»

In a competitive economy many a firm finds itself caught in the middle of a cost-price squeeze. One approach to this problem is to reduce costs as much as possible. Another approach is to obtain the best prices for its products. This paper is concerned with the competitive aspects of bidding or pricing policies. The best course of action for a person in competition depends on what he expects his c... View full abstract»