Copyright (c) 2009 Illinois Wesleyan University All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj Recent documents in Honors Projects en-us Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:09:25 PST 3600 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/17 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/17 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:19 PDT In this project a novel approach was taken for performing a natural language task. The task requires a neural network to predict the grammatical category of the next word in a stream of sentences. There are two main reasons why this task is interesting. In natural language processing, it is sometimes very difficult to determine the grammatical category of a word in a sentence when that word could belong to different grammatical categories depending on the context. For example, the word "run" can either be a noun or a verb in a certain sentence. The ability to correctly determine the category of the word can help a computer process natural language. In addition, the approach taken here to solve this task can lead to insights about the way the human brain learns and/or understands language. A Genetic Algorithm, which is conceptually based on simple principles known from Genetics, was developed and utilized to evolve neural networks that were used to perform the task. Genetic Algorithms have been used with remarkable success to solve complex problems in a number of fields but not for this type of problem. In addition, networks were trained via a classic learning algorithm, called back-propagation, to perform the same task. Since a Genetic Algorithm has not been used for this type of task, an implicit goal of this project was to show that it can be used. One of the other main questions addressed is whether learning (as in the case of training a neural network via back-propagation) and a search for an optimal solution (as in the case of the use of a Genetic Algorithm to evolve neural networks) differ and if so, how. Also, the underlying properties of the two different types of networks (depending on the approach taken to obtain them) were compared. Finally, issues about the computational complexity of the Genetic Algorithm were studied and discussed. These issues included the relationship between the input size (for ex. 10000 sentences) and the perfonnance of the network developed via the Genetic Algorithm approach, as well as the way the network must change as the input changes in size and the task changes in complexity (i.e. as the grammar and lexicon change) while the optimal parameters (of the Genetic Algorithm) are used. Alexander E. Dimov '02 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/16 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/16 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:18 PDT Welcome to version 1.0 of the Course Scheduling software. Course Scheduling is designed to meet needs of anyone who is tying to create a course schedule.This software is a product that compiles, links, and runs in C++; although it has C extension. It has been specifically designed to work In C++ exclusively. I had mixed a little of C++ functions with C structure programming to complete this package and make it more efficient. It is versatile, quick, and efficient.This instruction manual is brief, due to fact that the software is well documented. It only covers the basic functions and features; creating data, editing data, sorting and searching data.To get started, you need to be a little familiar with DOS. If you are not familiar with DOS, please turn to page 1. Saa Gobir '91 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/15 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/15 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:15 PDT The nature of this research project is to make a very strong contribution toward the final goal of completely automating the Financial Aid Office at Illinois Wesleyan University over the next five years. Amy N. Baird '94 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/13 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/13 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:14 PDT To most students, the Financial Aid office is a small room in the basement of Holmes Hall where they are occasionally sent to sign over a paper or two. It has something to do with money, and every so often, these students get something in the mail that tells them just how much it's going to cost them to continue their education here at Illinois Wesleyan. They know that papers are filled out, usually by their parents, and then in a couple of months, a figure jumps out of nowhere and becomes "Your Financial Aid Package." Lauri Nichols '96 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/14 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/14 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:14 PDT Last fall, I again resumed work on the budget projection model that encompassed five spreadsheets. Four of these sheets generated a set of statistical averages for each class. Each one consisted of 101 columns containing data for the four-to five-hundred students(rows) in each class. In addition, a fifth sheet used these averages to generate a highly accurate prediction for expenditures in the upcoming year. However, there were two main areas of improvement that became readily apparent: importing data and the sheets themselves. Jeffery L. Olson '96 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/12 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/12 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:13 PDT The Illinois Wesleyan Intelligence Network on Knowledge (I.W.I.N.K.) is a project to design and implement an artificial"person'" named Shelley. Robotics, networking, and artificial intelligence will be the main topics ofthe preliminary work. For my research honors project I designed the three-dimensional coordinate system in which the robotic arms move and interact with objects. The anns we have constructed are based on an arrangement of six servos, each of which rotate approximately 185 degrees. The program takes in data about the location of an object in three-dimensional coordinates and moves each of the six motors in the ann to arrive at that point.Included in this work is a look at robotic arm developments through history, from Leonardo da Vinci through the Industrial Revolution, and beyond. Also discussed are the various joint and arm designs developed during these years of research and some robotics projects which employ these different designs. Next, we will investigate the various methods of control developed by other robotic arm research projects and apply one particular method to control Shelley, as briefly outlined above. Finally, we will highlight problems we faced during the implementation of this program, the solutions to these problems, and various ideas about future research possibilities. Craig A. Materick '97 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/11 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/11 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:10 PDT The SHELLEY RESEARCH GROUP (part of the Illinois Wesleyan Intelligence Network on Knowledge -IWINK) has been in existence for several years, and has benefited immensely from various student contributors who have added such components as robotic arm control, cross platform networking, an artificially intelligent tic-tac-toe player, and an interactive teaching tool demonstrating the functionality of artificial neural networks. What is lacking, however, amidst these undergraduate contributions to the SHELLEY Project, is an effective means of integrating existing components into a single cohesive functional unit, let alone any easy means of making further contributions within a simple unified context. The focus of this research has been to design an all-encompassing structure for incorporating the different components of SHELLEY (both existing and future). Because we must operate under the assumption that we cannot predict what future contributions will be made to SHELLEY, nor how these components will be used, this integrated environment must be both flexible and expandable in such a way as to not confine future projects. The approach to artificial intelligence that the SHELLEY RESEARCH GROUP has taken relies heavily upon interaction with the surrounding environment. For this reason, many of the existing components are devices for receiving input from SHELLEY'S surroundings (such as vision cameras) or acting upon the surroundings (such as robotic arms). Thus, we can assume that future contributions will fall under two primary categories: additional devices (either cognitive, modules, such as neural networks, or interactive devices, such as cameras or arms), or intelligent agents (such as tic-tac-toe players, or navigation systems) that will use these devices. The environment must then be flexible in two manners -allowing for the addition of further devices, and providing a task management mechanism for accessing these devices. The solution is to use a modern operating system model where the devices that SHELLEY uses to interact with her environment correspond to computer hardware devices and their drivers, the intelligent agents are analogous to processes that run on the system and use the devices, and the administrator, which coordinates these agents and their usage of devices, can be compared to the kernel of the modern operating system. Andrew B. Ritger '99 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/10 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/10 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:09 PDT One of the growing fields in computer science is that of Artificial Intelligence or AI. Many theories have evolved to make a computer intelligent and so far no one has succeeded (Dreyfus 1992). One of the methods used by the Shelley Project in the past has been to use a back propagation neural network that is the backbone of the GNU Neural Network Visualizer (GNNV). GNNV uses a neural network to try to identify known objects, like faces, in the field of view. A different method, that is the focus of this research, is to identify objects in the image. These objects could be squares, circles or even blobs. Neural networks can work through changes in environment without changing the code provided appropriate training. However it is tough to know what the neural network is actually learning. One advantage this research has over neural networks is that as the programmer you know exactly what it knows. Instead, the problems are of the form, "How do I tell it what a circle is?" or "How do I have it determine what is noise that should be ignored?" The goal of this project is to create a program capable of taking in an image from a digital camera and identifying the tic-tactoe game. This is inspired from past work done for the Shelley Project which included playing tic-tac-toe (without the vision component) and the Shelley Integrated Environment (SIB). Various problems arose during implementation. The majority of these were system and API related. For others like the perspective correction and game detection, stepping away from the computer with pencil and paper in hand was invaluable. Through it all the goal of playing a game of tic-tac-toe against Shelley has finally become a reality. Michael Zalokar '00 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/9 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/9 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:08 PDT Dmitry Mogilevsky '03 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/8 http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cs_honproj/8 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:11:07 PDT P-FASTUS is an Information Extraction system developed in SICStus Prolog based on the implementation of FASTUS. It is program that extracts prespecified information such as the name of the companny, location and the position being advertised from" Job PostingIs'' in text files. The system is composed of different levels of processing phases that are implemented using finite-state transducers. Rajen Subba '03