books

plenty of examples to clarify the text.

Further chapters then deal with performance issues, hybrid systems, prototyping and, refreshingly in a book of this kind, the user inter- face. A final chapter covers a 'real' knowledge engineering problem, Rubik's Cube, though rather oddly it does this without using the techni- ques described earlier. Perhaps this is meant as an example that even with all the formal techniques re- quired there are still times when the problem requires a more ad hoc approach!

The book contains over 350 pages; 218 for the basic text, 110 for the program listings, and 25 pages giving a comprehensive, and very useful, glossary, predicate index and subject index. The complete- ness of the indexing implies that this is expected to be used as a 'recipe

book' for developers. The program listings are also optionally available on floppy disc, a useful addition for anyone planning on experimenting with the techniques outlined in the text.

The programs have been de- veloped on PC-based systems under both Arity and LPA Prologs, though with an eye to portability, which is useful. The chapter on the user interface includes a simple object orientated windowing and menu package; this is not portable, but some details on providing alternative implementations is given.

I found this a useful and clearly written book ideal for the program- mer who has learnt Prolog and now wants to know how to use it in the real world. At times I would have wanted more explanation of a tech- nique before the author launches

Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence J A Campbell and J Cuena Ellis Horwood Ltd, UK (1989) Vol 1: £29.95, ISBN 0-7458-0659-7, 162pp Vol 2: £34.95, ISBN 0-7458-0660-0,

To be honest, my heart sank when I first saw the title of this two volume set. It suggested a familiar form: a very diverse collection of papers on aspects of AI, unable to be given a more informative title. However, there were some surprises inside. This is indeed a collection of pap- ers, but given at an unusual confer- ence. In September 1987 the Bas- que Government sponsored the Second World Basque Congress at San Srbastian in northern Spain. This Congress consisted of thirty- four separate conferences on a va- riety of scientific subjects. The pur- pose of the AI conference was to survey work in AI that was of interest to those concerned with industry or education in the Basque country. The organizers chose to have a number of survey papers, aimed at those knowledgeable ab- out computers but not about AI, and a number of research papers that would illustrate some research concerns without demanding pre- vious knowledge of the current state of play. There are brief intro-

208pp

ductions by the Secretary General of the Congress and by the Presi- dent of the Basque Government; the editors' own introduction claims that these two volumes give a 'post- introductory view of AI which should also be an effective bridge between the levels of basic AI and proceedings of IJCAL, AAAI and single-topic AI research confer- ences'.

This reviewer is not convinced that this claim is entirely justified-- how could it be, in just 370 pages? AI is now so diverse and technical that any work of such a size must be more exiguous than eclectic. How- ever, there are some good general survey papers and interesting re- search papers in this collection. The first volume opens with a short survey by Luc Steels on the trend towards deep knowledge in expert systems, followed by three on aspects of explanation, analogy and architectures for AI, each neces- sarily rather selective. The remain- ing six papers in volume 1 are in pairs, about AI methods in decision

into coding examples to enable it to be more readily implemented in alternative ways and situations, but the code is clear and can be fol- lowed for more details if required. Whether the expert system shells coded in the book would have further use 'as-is' is debatable, but all the important techniques are covered allowing developers to pro- duce systems to their own require- ments. This book could well do for Prolog programmers what Ker- nighan and Plauger's book Software Tools did for Fortran tool developers--provide a comprehen- sive introduction and toolkit for the development of useful programs in the real world.

R lles Nag Ltd

Oxford, UK

support and in design--both blos- soming topics, these--and the ever- popular expert systems. Volume 2 has contributions on machine trans- lation, natural language processing, databases and computer-aided in- struction.

It seems to me that none of the contributions will now serve to bridge that gap between textbooks and current research. After all, AI has moved on appreciably since 1987. There are no papers here on connectionist topics, and not that much about logics and formaliza- tions. However, these two volumes can be valued for two other reasons. The first is that the topics which do appear are ones which, by and large, can be pursued without a huge investment in hardware and software. The second is that twenty of the twenty-three papers are European and give an interesting view of the diversity of work being done in the Old World, in a subject which often seems to outsiders to be dominated by the New. However, at a cost of more than £60 for the two volumes, I cannot imagine that many individuals will want to buy them.

Peter Ross University of Edinburgh

UK

Vol 3 No 2 June 1990 123