Genetic algorithms and genetic programming are "on the threshold of solving problems that humans have found difficult (in a few selected areas)." Last year, Juille used GAs on the "14-sort" problem to do better than a long string of human mathematicians. Recently, David Andre and Forrest Bennett used GP to work on the "GKL" problem, achieving a 0.148% improvement -- similar to the advances by each of 5 mathematicians over a 20 year period. The GP used 64 Power PCs to try 6M solutions. . [John Koza , genetic-programming, 6/25/96. Bill Park.]

The Genetic Programming Notebook is a recently updated website for genetic programming, genetic algorithms, AI, alife, and robotics. It offers tutorials, software, links, group descriptions, a bibliography, FAQ, conference and journal calls, etc. , with mirrors at , , , , and . Versions exist in Japanese and Spanish. [Jaime Fernandez , c.ai.neural-nets, 4/24/96. Ken Barker.]

Nova Genetica, "being a compendium of useful information regarding the industrious application of that technique most excellent, the Genetic Algorithm," is also newly revised. . [Darin R. Molnar , comp.ai.neural-nets, 5/20/96. Ken Barker.]

Research notes on optimization problems can be found on . Approaches include NN and GA. [Jackson J.C. Teng , c.ai.genetic, 6/28/96.]

The Data Mine, , solicits contributions of data-mining links and bibliographic entries. A related site is the Knowledge Discovery Mine, . [Andy Pryke , comp.ai, 5/2/96. David Joslin.]

The Neuro-Fuzzy page has information about DANIELA neuro-fuzzy controllers. . [Marcello Chiaberge , comp.ai.fuzzy, 7/11/96.]

Resources in expert systems (esp. the G2 real-time expert system), fuzzy control, NN, scheduling, and other AI for manufacturing have been collected on . [Charles Tonkinson , c.ai.fuzzy, 5/11/96.]

The Rule Extraction page lists research groups deriving rules from neural networks. . [Robert Andrews , annrules, 7/19/96. Bill Park.]

Several issues of the long-running INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS REPORT newsletter have been posted to , as ISR Newsletter Online. [D. Blanchard , comp.ai, 6/4/96. David Joslin.]

LogicAL is a page of links for logic, philosophy, and artificial life and evolutionary systems. . [S. Kritikos , net-hap, 6/19/96.]

A report on the ALife V conference is available at . [Hugo de Garis , genetic-programming, 7/10/96. Bill Park.]

The Alife Online site, , has recently been upgraded. [Simon Fraser , comp.ai.alife, 5/10/96. Ken Barker.]

IJCAI-97 will host the 1st World Cup Robot Soccer Competition (RoboCup-97). See or contact . IJCAI-97 will also host the 3rd World Open Computer Go Championship, . [Hiroshi G. Okuno, genetic-programming, 7/10/96. Bill Park.]

Matt Ginsberg has been working on a system that bids bridge hands. An early version used Monte Carlo trials to search double dummy deals. His newer version applies partition search without the double dummy requirement, for improved bids in difficult situations. If you'd like progress reports, contact . The reports will also be posted to rec.games.bridge. [comp.ai, 6/7/96. David Joslin.] (The technique may be applicable to other games of imperfect information.)

-- Ken