The BOXES algorithm of Michie and Chambers (1968) has proved to be an effective and flexible method for learning to control dynamic systems. The algorithm, in its original form has been used a benchmark for many experiments in control tasks such as pole balancing. Recent work in our laboratory has shown that the BOXES algorithm can be improved to yield very good learning rates. We describe expe...

It is hoped that the area entitled "Recent Progress in Japan" will provide the audience with a better understanding of computer technology in Japan. The primary objective is to overview the present status and the future prospects of both semiconductor and computer technologies from viewpoints of recent activities in the field of research and development, and to present some main research effort...

The least median of squares (LMS) regression method (Rousseeuw 1984) is highly robust to outliers in the data. It can be computed by means of PROGRESS (from Program for RObust reGRESSion) described in (Rousseeuw and Leroy 1987). After ten years we have developed a new version of PROGRESS, which also computes the least trimmed squares (LTS) method. We will discuss the various new features of PRO...

Carotenoids are substantially hydrophobic antioxidants. Hydrophobicity is this context is rather a disadvantage, because their utilization in medicine as antioxidants or in food chemistry as colorants would require some water dispersibility for their effective uptake or use in many other ways. In the past 15 years several attempts were made to synthetize partially hydrophilic carotenoids. This ...