Information Processing Research.

The research areas and their main objectives are: 1) Distributed processing: Develop techniques and systems for effective use of numerous separate computers interconnected by high-bandwidth, local area networks. This effort involves developing a methodology for efficient utilization of distributed (loosely connected) personal computers; 2) Image Understanding: Apply knowledge effectively in assisting he image interpretation process; 3) Machine Intelligence: Explore ways to utilize knowledge in obtaining intelligent action by computers. Long range goals of this effort include the discovery of principles that enable intelligent action and the construction of computer systems that can perform tasks requiring intelligence; 4) Programming Technology: Develop new techniques and methods for generating better software; 5) Distributed Sensor Nets: Construct a demonstration system of physically and logically distributed computers interacting through a communication network to identify, track, and display the situation of multiple objects in a laboratory environment; 6) Graceful Interaction: Design, construct, and evaluate user interface systems that both appear cooperative and supportive to their users and can provide interfaces to a wide variety of application systems; and 7) VLSI Systems Integration (VLSI): Focus on research into VLSI systems and computation, with some effort in design tools to assure that we maintain a minimal set of tools necessary to carry out our design tasks. (KR)