We describe the Information Manifold (IM), a system for browsing and querying of multiple networked information sources. As a first contribution, the system demonstrates the viability of knowledge representation technology for retrieval and organization of information from disparate (structured and unstructured) information sources. Such an organization allows the user to pose high-level querie...

While the Internet Softbots project (Etzioni & Weld 1994) investigated the use of planning algorithms to control software agents (Weld 1996), until recently the area has seen little activity. However, the excitement surrounding the Semantic Web, has led to renewed interest in software agents, web service composition, and related topics. With the development of DAML-S (Burstein et al. 2002; Anko...

We applied inductive classi cation techniques to data collected in a Boeing plant with the goal of uncovering possible aws in the manufacturing process. This application led us to explore two aspects of classical decision-tree induction: (1) Preprocessing and postprocessing and (2) brute-force induction. For preprocessing and postprocessing, much of our e ort was focused on the pre-processing o...

We applied inductive classification techniques to data collected in a Boeing plant with the goal of uncovering possible flaws in the manufacturing process. This application led us to explore two aspects of classical decisiontree induction: ( 1) Preprocessing and postprocessing and (2) brute-force induction. For preprocessing and postprocessing, much of our effort was focused on the pre-processi...

We applied inductive classi cation techniques to data collected in a Boeing plant with the goal of uncovering possible aws in the manufacturing process. This application led us to explore two aspects of classical decision-tree induction: Preand Post-processing: much of our e ort was focused on the pre-processing of raw data to make it suitable for induction and the post-processing of learned ru...

With the amount of information available rapidly outstripping the ability of individuals to use it, we wish to explore how a software agent can learn a description of an information resource (such as a database on the internet) in order turn it into a well-understood tool at the agent’s disposal. An agent who could do this would have access to all the information it could find without having to...

Whatever knowledge a database contains, one of the essential questions in its design and usability is how its users will interact with it. If these users are human agents, the most ordinary way to query a database would be in the natural language (Gazdar, 1999; Popescu, Etzioni, & Kautz, 2003; Sabourin, 1994). Natural language question answering (NL Q/A), wherein questions are posed in a plain ...

For the past two hundred to three hundred years, science has played a major role in the development of western culture. Societies have capitulated to the demands of "progress" and have disregarded the costs as expedients to the industrial revolution (Etzioni, 1968, p. 208). Unfortunately, the costs have mounted quietly, and perhaps because the awareness has been so long delayed, there is a stro...

In traditional economics the decision-making process for individuals currently has effectively no role for ethics, as individuals are self-interested. The key concepts in economics which determine the role of ethics in the decision-making process are utility, rationality and methodological individualism and hence how these can be and are formulated and combined determines different roles for et...