Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a well studied paradigm for programming autonomous robots, where the robot sequentially chooses actions to achieve long term goals efficiently. Unfortunately, ...

It is proposed that the 3-D representation of an object is based primarily on a stick-figure configuration, where each stick represents one or more axes in the object's generalized cylinder representation. The loosely ...

This paper introduces a model of spatial cognition to describe the states of partial knowledge that people have about the spatial structure of a large-scale environment. Spatial knowledge has several different ...

When moving through an environment, people unconsciously build up a mental image, or cognitive map, of that environment. When later planning a trip or giving directions to someone else, they can mentally walk through the ...

This paper presents algorithms for computing constraints on the position of an object due to the presence of obstacles. This problem arises in applications which require choosing how to arrange or move objects among ...

The inferior temporal cortex (IT) of monkeys is thought to play an essential role in visual object recognition. Inferotemporal neurons are known to respond to complex visual stimuli, including patterns like faces, ...

Time and space are sufficiently similar to warrant in certain cases a common representation in AI problem-solving systems. What is represented is often the constraints that hold between objects, and a concern is the ...

We model an enclosed system of bacteria, whose motility-induced phase separation is coupled to slow population dynamics. Without noise, the system shows both static phase separation and a limit cycle, in which a rising ...

In this report, I discuss the use of vision to support concrete, everyday activity. I will argue that a variety of interesting tasks can be solved using simple and inexpensive vision systems. I will provide a number ...

This project aims to prototype formal specification in Larch. The motivation for looking at formal specifications stems from an appreciation of the problem outlined above, frustration with current methods, and a desire to ...

This paper presents an implementation mechanism, specification language, and proof techniques for problems involving the arbitration of concurrent requests to shared resources. This mechanism is the serializer which ...

Context conditions - also called static semantics - are the constraints on computer programs that cannot be reasonably expressed by a context-free grammar, but that can be statically checked without considering the execution ...

This thesis examines Markov reward models, a formalism based on continuous time Markov chains, and it's usage in the generation and analysis of service levels. The particular solution technique we employ in this thesis is ...

In a distributed system where many processors are connected by a networ and communicate using message passing, many users can be allowed to access the same facilities. A public utility is usually an expensive or limited ...

In a distributed system where many processors are connected by a network and communicate using message passing, many users can be allowed to access the same facilities. A public utility is usually an expensive or limited ...

Network alignment refers to the problem of finding a bijective mapping across vertices of two or more graphs to maximize the number of overlapping edges and/or to minimize the number of mismatched interactions across ...

It has been argued that much of evolution takes place in the absence of fitness gradients. Such periods of evolution can be analysed by examining the mutational network formed by sequences of equal fitness, that is, the ...

Compact operators are linear operators on Banach spaces that maps bounded set to relatively compact sets. In the case of Hilbert space H it is an extension of the concept of matrix acting on a finite dimensional vector ...

We study random walks on the groups $\Bbb F^d_p \rtimes$ SL$_d$($\Bbb F_p$). We estimate the spectral gap in terms of the spectral gap of the projection to the linear part SL$_d$($\Bbb F_p$). This problem is motivated by ...

Spectral methods have become increasingly popular in designing fast algorithms for modern highdimensional datasets. This thesis looks at several problems in which spectral methods play a central role. In some cases, we ...