Frank Klassner - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Frank Klassner

Research paper thumbnail of Demonstrating the Capabilities of MindStorms NXT for the AI Curriculum

We demonstrate the possibilities offered by the new NXT platform for CS artificial intelligence c... more We demonstrate the possibilities offered by the new NXT platform for CS artificial intelligence curricular develop- ment. The NXT provides a number of hardware improve- ments over the RCX, including a faster processor and more memory. We demonstrate the curricular materials devel- oped in the LMICSE archive, including autonomous mobile robot localization and SLAM.

Research paper thumbnail of Interfacing modeling suite Physics Of Eclipsing Binaries 2.0 with a Virtual Reality Platform

Research paper thumbnail of Do lego mindstorms robots have a future in CS education?

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2006

... General Terms Algorithms, Languages Keywords Robotics, Lego MindStorms, Curriculum Summary Le... more ... General Terms Algorithms, Languages Keywords Robotics, Lego MindStorms, Curriculum Summary Lego Mindstorms is an inexpensive robotics system consisting of a microprocessor brick, various sensors and motors, and numerous Lego pieces. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Integrated Signal Processing and Signal Understanding

Research paper thumbnail of Launching Into AI's October Sky with Robotics and Lisp

Research paper thumbnail of A case study of LEGO Mindstorms'™ suitability for artificial intelligence and robotics courses at the college level

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of Enhancing lisp instruction with RCXLisp and robotics

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Resources for Next Generation Introductory CS Courses

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 1999

The ongoing purpose of this working group is to collect, evaluate, and foster the development of ... more The ongoing purpose of this working group is to collect, evaluate, and foster the development of resources that might be used in next generation introductory CS courses. Such courses will integrate elements of object-oriented programming and design, program design patterns, concurrency, and event-driven programming. The product of the working group is a web repository that provides resources that might be used in such a course. The site will include sample syllabi, pedagogical patterns, programming and design patterns, course modules, projects, tools and techniques.The URL for the web site is: http://csis.pace.edu/ ~bergin/iticse99/

Research paper thumbnail of IPUS: An Architecture for Integrated Signal Processing and Signal Interpretation in Complex Environments

AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1993

Research paper thumbnail of LEGO MindStorms: Not Just for K-12 Anymore

We describe the possibility of using the Lego Mindstorms robots to support the ACM Computing Curr... more We describe the possibility of using the Lego Mindstorms robots to support the ACM Computing Curriculum 2001, using them in lab exercises and projects for classes from beginning courses in programming to advanced courses in operating systems, compilers, networks and artificial intelligence. We first describe the limitations of the robots, both hardware and software, and some third-party programming environments that overcome some of these limitations.

Research paper thumbnail of The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals

The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is a general blackboar... more The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is a general blackboard framework for structuring bidirectional interaction between front-end signal processing algorithms (SPAs) and signal understanding processes. To date, reported work on the architecture has focused on proof-of-concept demonstrations of how well a sound-understandingtestbed (SUT) basedon IPUS could use small libraries of sound models and small sets of SPAs to analyze acoustic scenarios. In this paper we evaluate how well the architecture scales up to more complex environments. We describe knowledge-representation and control-strategy issues involved in scaling up an IPUS-based SUT for use with a library of 40 sound models, and present empirical evaluation that shows (a) the IPUS data reprocessing paradigm can increase interpretation accuracy by 25 % – 50 % in complex scenarios, and (b) the benefit increases with increasing complexity of the environment.

Research paper thumbnail of The IPUS Blackboard Architecture as a Framework for Computational Auditory Scene Analysis

The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is designed for comple... more The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is designed for complex environments, which are characterized by variable signal to noise ratios, unpredictable source behaviors, and the simultaneous occurrence of objects whose signal signatures can distort each other. Because auditory scene analysis is replete with issues concerning the relationship between SPA-appropriateness and multi-sound interactions in complex environments, much of our experimental work with IPUS has focused on applying the architecture to this problem. In this paper we present our work-in-progress in scaling-up our IPUS sound understanding testbed to accommodate a library of 50 sounds covering a range of types (e.g. impulsive, harmonic, periodic, chirps) and to analyze scenarios with three or four sounds. Introduction In previous articles [4, 5, 6] we have discussed the Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture as a general framework for structuring bidi...

Research paper thumbnail of Presenting AI to Non PhD-Bound Students

this paper discusses (1) how to present AI as a field with practical value and concrete progress ... more this paper discusses (1) how to present AI as a field with practical value and concrete progress as well as research promise and (2) how to provide and encourage links between AI and computer science curricula.

Research paper thumbnail of Recent Extensions to BIG: A Resource-Bounded Information Gathering System

BIG (resource-Bounded Information Gathering) is a next generation information gathering agent whi... more BIG (resource-Bounded Information Gathering) is a next generation information gathering agent which integrates several areas of Artificial Intelligence research under a single umbrella. To date, reported work has presented the rationale, architecture, and implementation of the system. This has included planning, reasoning about resource trade-offs of different possible gathering and extraction approaches, information extraction from both structured as well as unstructured documents, and opportunistic refinement of the search process using the extracted information. In this paper, we present recent improvements made to BIG, which make it a more versatile and robust system. These include documentation classification to handle distraction, sophisticated information fusion techniques, and finally the logistics behind search precision versus coverage tradeoffs. We also present empirical evaluations which show the performance improvement due to these extensions. This material is based upo...

Research paper thumbnail of Big: A resource-bounded information gathering agent

Effective information gathering on the WWW is a com-plex task requiring planning, scheduling, tex... more Effective information gathering on the WWW is a com-plex task requiring planning, scheduling, text processing, and interpretation-style reasoning about extracted data to resolve inconsistencies and to refine hypotheses about the data. This paper describes the rationale, architecture, and implementa-tion of a next generation information gathering system – a system that integrates several areas of AI research under a sin-gle research umbrella. The goal of this system is to exploit the vast number of information sources available today on the NII including a growing number of digital libraries, indepen-dent news agencies, government agencies, as well as human experts providing a variety of services. The large number of information sources and their different levels of accessibility, reliability and associated costs present a complex information gathering coordination problem. Our solution is an informa-tion gathering agent, BIG, that plans to gather information to support a decision pr...

Research paper thumbnail of Fusing Multiple Reprocessings of Signal Data

In the analysis of signals from complex environments, often it is not possible to rely on a singl... more In the analysis of signals from complex environments, often it is not possible to rely on a single set of signal processing algorithms (SPAs) to produce a set of data correlates that permit meaningful interpretation. In such situations, what is needed is the structured fusion of data from multiple applications of SPAs (reprocessings) with di erent parameter values. We present the Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture as a framework for structuring interaction between the search forSPAs appropriate to the environment and the search for interpretation models to explain the SPAs ' output data correlates. In this paper we describe our use of IPUS to control the integration of output from multiple SPA applications in a system for acoustic signal interpretation of household sounds. 1.

Research paper thumbnail of A Next Generation Information Gathering Agent

The World Wide Web has become an invaluable information resource but the explosion of information... more The World Wide Web has become an invaluable information resource but the explosion of information available via the web has made web search a time consuming and complex process. Index-based search engines, such as AltaVista or Infoseek help, but they are not enough. This paper describes the rationale, architecture, and implementation of a next generation informatio n gathering system ‐ a system that integrates several areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research under a si ngle umbrella. Our solution to the information explosion is an information gathering agent, BIG, that plans to gather information to support a decision process, reasons about the resource trade-offs of d ifferent possible gathering approaches, extracts information from both unstructured and structured d ocuments, and uses the extracted information to refine its search and processing activities.

Research paper thumbnail of A Tool for Integrating Lisp and Robotics in AI Agents Courses

This paper presents the RCXLisp library, an extension to Common Lisp that allows students to inve... more This paper presents the RCXLisp library, an extension to Common Lisp that allows students to investigate a broad range of artificial intelligence and computer science topics using the LEGO MindStorms® platform. The library supports both remote control and on-board programming of MindStorms robots. It also supports targeted communication between multiple LEGO robots and command-center desktops. The package is the only one to be integrated into most popular Common Lisp programming environments. This paper also summarizes student experiences with the package over the years 2000-2003 in an Artificial Intelligence course.

Research paper thumbnail of A Four-Year Case Study on Integrating Virtual Reality Into Diverse Campus Curricula

ICERI2018 Proceedings, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Genetic Algorithms with Lego Mindstorms and Matlab

This paper presents a case study in combining Lego Mindstorms NXT with Matlab/Simulink to help st... more This paper presents a case study in combining Lego Mindstorms NXT with Matlab/Simulink to help students in an undergraduate Machine Learning course study genetic algorithm design and testing. The project uses the VU-LRT toolbox to enable students to access the hardware capabilities of the Mindstorms platform from within Matlab. The course’s enrollment was comprised of students from several majors with a variety of programming backgrounds. The course is part of an interdisciplinary cognitive science concentration. We report on the VU-LRT toolbox, the considerations imposed by the diversity of the student population on the design of the laboratory module and student evaluations of the laboratory module.

Research paper thumbnail of Demonstrating the Capabilities of MindStorms NXT for the AI Curriculum

We demonstrate the possibilities offered by the new NXT platform for CS artificial intelligence c... more We demonstrate the possibilities offered by the new NXT platform for CS artificial intelligence curricular develop- ment. The NXT provides a number of hardware improve- ments over the RCX, including a faster processor and more memory. We demonstrate the curricular materials devel- oped in the LMICSE archive, including autonomous mobile robot localization and SLAM.

Research paper thumbnail of Interfacing modeling suite Physics Of Eclipsing Binaries 2.0 with a Virtual Reality Platform

Research paper thumbnail of Do lego mindstorms robots have a future in CS education?

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2006

... General Terms Algorithms, Languages Keywords Robotics, Lego MindStorms, Curriculum Summary Le... more ... General Terms Algorithms, Languages Keywords Robotics, Lego MindStorms, Curriculum Summary Lego Mindstorms is an inexpensive robotics system consisting of a microprocessor brick, various sensors and motors, and numerous Lego pieces. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Integrated Signal Processing and Signal Understanding

Research paper thumbnail of Launching Into AI's October Sky with Robotics and Lisp

Research paper thumbnail of A case study of LEGO Mindstorms'™ suitability for artificial intelligence and robotics courses at the college level

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of Enhancing lisp instruction with RCXLisp and robotics

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of Resources for Next Generation Introductory CS Courses

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 1999

The ongoing purpose of this working group is to collect, evaluate, and foster the development of ... more The ongoing purpose of this working group is to collect, evaluate, and foster the development of resources that might be used in next generation introductory CS courses. Such courses will integrate elements of object-oriented programming and design, program design patterns, concurrency, and event-driven programming. The product of the working group is a web repository that provides resources that might be used in such a course. The site will include sample syllabi, pedagogical patterns, programming and design patterns, course modules, projects, tools and techniques.The URL for the web site is: http://csis.pace.edu/ ~bergin/iticse99/

Research paper thumbnail of IPUS: An Architecture for Integrated Signal Processing and Signal Interpretation in Complex Environments

AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1993

Research paper thumbnail of LEGO MindStorms: Not Just for K-12 Anymore

We describe the possibility of using the Lego Mindstorms robots to support the ACM Computing Curr... more We describe the possibility of using the Lego Mindstorms robots to support the ACM Computing Curriculum 2001, using them in lab exercises and projects for classes from beginning courses in programming to advanced courses in operating systems, compilers, networks and artificial intelligence. We first describe the limitations of the robots, both hardware and software, and some third-party programming environments that overcome some of these limitations.

Research paper thumbnail of The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals

The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is a general blackboar... more The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is a general blackboard framework for structuring bidirectional interaction between front-end signal processing algorithms (SPAs) and signal understanding processes. To date, reported work on the architecture has focused on proof-of-concept demonstrations of how well a sound-understandingtestbed (SUT) basedon IPUS could use small libraries of sound models and small sets of SPAs to analyze acoustic scenarios. In this paper we evaluate how well the architecture scales up to more complex environments. We describe knowledge-representation and control-strategy issues involved in scaling up an IPUS-based SUT for use with a library of 40 sound models, and present empirical evaluation that shows (a) the IPUS data reprocessing paradigm can increase interpretation accuracy by 25 % – 50 % in complex scenarios, and (b) the benefit increases with increasing complexity of the environment.

Research paper thumbnail of The IPUS Blackboard Architecture as a Framework for Computational Auditory Scene Analysis

The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is designed for comple... more The Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture is designed for complex environments, which are characterized by variable signal to noise ratios, unpredictable source behaviors, and the simultaneous occurrence of objects whose signal signatures can distort each other. Because auditory scene analysis is replete with issues concerning the relationship between SPA-appropriateness and multi-sound interactions in complex environments, much of our experimental work with IPUS has focused on applying the architecture to this problem. In this paper we present our work-in-progress in scaling-up our IPUS sound understanding testbed to accommodate a library of 50 sounds covering a range of types (e.g. impulsive, harmonic, periodic, chirps) and to analyze scenarios with three or four sounds. Introduction In previous articles [4, 5, 6] we have discussed the Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture as a general framework for structuring bidi...

Research paper thumbnail of Presenting AI to Non PhD-Bound Students

this paper discusses (1) how to present AI as a field with practical value and concrete progress ... more this paper discusses (1) how to present AI as a field with practical value and concrete progress as well as research promise and (2) how to provide and encourage links between AI and computer science curricula.

Research paper thumbnail of Recent Extensions to BIG: A Resource-Bounded Information Gathering System

BIG (resource-Bounded Information Gathering) is a next generation information gathering agent whi... more BIG (resource-Bounded Information Gathering) is a next generation information gathering agent which integrates several areas of Artificial Intelligence research under a single umbrella. To date, reported work has presented the rationale, architecture, and implementation of the system. This has included planning, reasoning about resource trade-offs of different possible gathering and extraction approaches, information extraction from both structured as well as unstructured documents, and opportunistic refinement of the search process using the extracted information. In this paper, we present recent improvements made to BIG, which make it a more versatile and robust system. These include documentation classification to handle distraction, sophisticated information fusion techniques, and finally the logistics behind search precision versus coverage tradeoffs. We also present empirical evaluations which show the performance improvement due to these extensions. This material is based upo...

Research paper thumbnail of Big: A resource-bounded information gathering agent

Effective information gathering on the WWW is a com-plex task requiring planning, scheduling, tex... more Effective information gathering on the WWW is a com-plex task requiring planning, scheduling, text processing, and interpretation-style reasoning about extracted data to resolve inconsistencies and to refine hypotheses about the data. This paper describes the rationale, architecture, and implementa-tion of a next generation information gathering system – a system that integrates several areas of AI research under a sin-gle research umbrella. The goal of this system is to exploit the vast number of information sources available today on the NII including a growing number of digital libraries, indepen-dent news agencies, government agencies, as well as human experts providing a variety of services. The large number of information sources and their different levels of accessibility, reliability and associated costs present a complex information gathering coordination problem. Our solution is an informa-tion gathering agent, BIG, that plans to gather information to support a decision pr...

Research paper thumbnail of Fusing Multiple Reprocessings of Signal Data

In the analysis of signals from complex environments, often it is not possible to rely on a singl... more In the analysis of signals from complex environments, often it is not possible to rely on a single set of signal processing algorithms (SPAs) to produce a set of data correlates that permit meaningful interpretation. In such situations, what is needed is the structured fusion of data from multiple applications of SPAs (reprocessings) with di erent parameter values. We present the Integrated Processing and Understanding of Signals (IPUS) architecture as a framework for structuring interaction between the search forSPAs appropriate to the environment and the search for interpretation models to explain the SPAs ' output data correlates. In this paper we describe our use of IPUS to control the integration of output from multiple SPA applications in a system for acoustic signal interpretation of household sounds. 1.

Research paper thumbnail of A Next Generation Information Gathering Agent

The World Wide Web has become an invaluable information resource but the explosion of information... more The World Wide Web has become an invaluable information resource but the explosion of information available via the web has made web search a time consuming and complex process. Index-based search engines, such as AltaVista or Infoseek help, but they are not enough. This paper describes the rationale, architecture, and implementation of a next generation informatio n gathering system ‐ a system that integrates several areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research under a si ngle umbrella. Our solution to the information explosion is an information gathering agent, BIG, that plans to gather information to support a decision process, reasons about the resource trade-offs of d ifferent possible gathering approaches, extracts information from both unstructured and structured d ocuments, and uses the extracted information to refine its search and processing activities.

Research paper thumbnail of A Tool for Integrating Lisp and Robotics in AI Agents Courses

This paper presents the RCXLisp library, an extension to Common Lisp that allows students to inve... more This paper presents the RCXLisp library, an extension to Common Lisp that allows students to investigate a broad range of artificial intelligence and computer science topics using the LEGO MindStorms® platform. The library supports both remote control and on-board programming of MindStorms robots. It also supports targeted communication between multiple LEGO robots and command-center desktops. The package is the only one to be integrated into most popular Common Lisp programming environments. This paper also summarizes student experiences with the package over the years 2000-2003 in an Artificial Intelligence course.

Research paper thumbnail of A Four-Year Case Study on Integrating Virtual Reality Into Diverse Campus Curricula

ICERI2018 Proceedings, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Genetic Algorithms with Lego Mindstorms and Matlab

This paper presents a case study in combining Lego Mindstorms NXT with Matlab/Simulink to help st... more This paper presents a case study in combining Lego Mindstorms NXT with Matlab/Simulink to help students in an undergraduate Machine Learning course study genetic algorithm design and testing. The project uses the VU-LRT toolbox to enable students to access the hardware capabilities of the Mindstorms platform from within Matlab. The course’s enrollment was comprised of students from several majors with a variety of programming backgrounds. The course is part of an interdisciplinary cognitive science concentration. We report on the VU-LRT toolbox, the considerations imposed by the diversity of the student population on the design of the laboratory module and student evaluations of the laboratory module.