Bionics evolved in the 1960s as a framework to pursue the development of artificial systems based on the study of biological systems. Numerous disciplines and technologies, including artificial intelligence and learningdevices, information processing, systems architecture and control, perception, sensory mechanisms, and bioenergetics, contributed to bionics research. This volume is based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop within the Special Programme on Sensory Systems for Robotic Control, held in Il Ciocco, Italy, in June 1989. A consensus emerged at the workshop, and is reflected in the...

Fusion or integration of information from multiple sensors allows a computer to achieve the optimum interpretation of a visual scene. This NATO workshop volume presents current research in the field by the leading research groups in Europe and North America.

Cognitive science is a multidisciplinary science concerned with understanding and utilizing models of cognition. It has spawned a great dealof research on applications such as expert systems and intelligent tutoring systems, and has interacted closely with psychological research. However, it is generally accepted that it is difficult to apply cognitive-scientific models to medical training and practice. This book is based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held in Italy in 1991, the purpose of which was to examine the impact ofmodels of cognition on medical training and practice and to...

In the last decade there have been rapid developments in the field of computer-based learning environments. A whole new generation of computer-based learning environments has appeared, requiring new approaches to design and development. One main feature of current systems is that they distinguish different knowledge bases that are assumed to be necessary to support learning processes. Current computer-based learning environments often require explicit representations of large bodies of knowledge, including knowledge of instruction. This book focuses on instructional models as explicit,...

This book is the outgrowth of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop, held in Milton Keynes (United Kingdom) in the summer of 1990. The workshop brought together about 30 world leaders in the use of advanced technologies in the teaching of mathematics and science. Many of these participants commented that the workshop was one of the more productive and exciting workshops that they had attended. It was not uncommon to see participants engaged in informal discussion far into the evenings and early mornings, long after formal sessions had ended. It is my hope that this book captures the substance and...

The objective of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Learning electricity and electronics with advanced educational technology" was to bring together researchers coming from different domains. Electricity education is a domain where a lot of research has already been made. The first meeting on electricity teaching was organized in 1984 by R. Duit, W. Jung and C. von Rhoneck in Ludwigsburg (Germany). Since then, research has been going on and we can consider that the workshop was the successor of this first meeting. Our goal was not to organize a workshop grouping only people producing...

This volume contains the text of papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Emergent Computing Methods in Engineering Design, held in Nafplio, Greece, August 25-27, 1994. The workshop convened together some thirty or so researchers from Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Taiwan, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States of America, to address issues related to the application of such emergent computing methods as genetic algorithms, neural networks and simulated annealing in problems of engineering design. The volume is essentially organized into three parts,...

People engage in discourse every day - from writing letters and presenting papers to simple discussions. Yet discourse is a complex and fascinating phenomenon that is not well understood. This volume stems from a multidisciplinary workshop in which eminent scholars in linguistics, sociology and computational linguistics presented various aspects of discourse. The topics treated range from multi-party conversational interactions to deconstructing text from various perspectives, considering topic-focus development and discourse structure, and an empirical study of discourse segmentation. The...

Not long ago, projections of how office technologies would revolutionize the production of documents in a high-tech future carriedmany promises. The paper less office and the seamless and problem-free sharing of texts and other work materials among co-workers werejust around the corner, we were told. To anyone who has been involved in putting together a volume of the present kind, such forecasts will be met with considerable skepticism, if not outright distrust. The diskette, the email, the fax, the net, and all the other forms of communication that are now around are powerful assets, but...

The chapters of this book summarize the lectures delivered du ring the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Computational Methods in Mechanisms, that took place in the Sts. Constantin and Elena Resort, near Varna, on the Bulgarian Coast of the Black Sea, June 16-28, 1997. The purpose of the ASI was to bring together leading researchers in the area of mechanical systems at large, with special emphasis in the computational issues around their analysis, synthesis, and optimization, during two weeks of lectures and discussion. A total of 89 participants from 23 count ries played an active role...