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C00001 00001
C00002 00002	%report[f88,jmc]		Report on NSF grant
C00005 00003	\title{\bf Final Report on NSF Grant DCR 84-14393}
C00010 ENDMK
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%report[f88,jmc]		Report on NSF grant

McCarthy's work on NSF Grant xxx is represented by the following
papers:

{\bf McCarthy, John (1986)}:
``Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge''
{\it Artificial Intelligence}, April 1986
%  circum.tex[f83,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Review of {\it Artificial Intelligence --- The Very Idea} by John
Haugeland'' to appear in {\it SIAM News}.
% haugel[f86,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Generality in Artificial Intelligence'', {\it Communications of the ACM}.
Vol. 30, No. 12, pp. 1030-1035
% genera[w86,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Mathematical Logic in Artificial Intelligence'', in
 {\it Daedalus}, vol. 117, No. 1, American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Winter 1988.
% logic.2[w87,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1988)}:
``Artificial Intelligence'', for {\it Collier's Encyclopedia}.
% artifi.3[w88,jmc]

Of these the first and third are the most substantial scientifically,
the others being more expository.

In 1988 McCarthy received the Kyoto Award of the Inamori
Foundation for his work in artificial intelligence, especially in
formalizing common sense knowledge and reasoning, the area in
which he has received SF support.  The award included a gold
medal and a cash prize of about \$360,000.

Further work is planned in developing nonmonotonic inference as discussed
in ``Applications $\ldots$'' and in developing the formalization of
contexts as indicated in ``Generality $\ldots$''.
\title{\bf Final Report on NSF Grant DCR 84-14393}

The main theme of McCarthy's work on NSF Grant DCR 84-14393
{\it  Basic Research in Artificial Intelligence}  is the
development of the concept of circumscription and of its applications to
formalizing the nonmonotonic aspects of commonsense knowledge and
reasoning.

The key technical advance in the theory of circumscription is the introduction
of {\it formula circumscription}, which minimizes the extent of some particular
predicate while the extents of some other predicates are {\it varied}. This
generalization is crucial for most applications of circumscription. A
further extension, {\it prioritized} circumscription, is needed for more
advanced applications.  Another idea that was found useful by many
researchers is expressing defaults by means of {\it abnormality predicates}.

Applications of circumscription studied by McCarthy include: the semantics of
inheritance hierarchies with exceptions; the unique names hypothesis; reasoning
about action and change. Some of these uses of circumscription were formally
justified in an interactive theorem prover.

This work is represented by the following papers:

{\bf McCarthy, John (1986)}:
``Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge''
{\it Artificial Intelligence}, April 1986
%  circum.tex[f83,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Review of {\it Artificial Intelligence --- The Very Idea} by John
Haugeland'' to appear in {\it SIAM News}.
% haugel[f86,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Generality in Artificial Intelligence'', {\it Communications of the ACM}.
Vol. 30, No. 12, pp. 1030-1035
% genera[w86,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Mathematical Logic in Artificial Intelligence'', in
 {\it Daedalus}, vol. 117, No. 1, American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Winter 1988.
% logic.2[w87,jmc]

{\bf McCarthy, John (1988)}:
``Artificial Intelligence'', for {\it Collier's Encyclopedia}.
% artifi.3[w88,jmc]

Of these the first and third are the most substantial scientifically,
the others being more expository.

In 1988 McCarthy received the Kyoto Award of the Inamori
Foundation for his work in artificial intelligence, especially in
formalizing common sense knowledge and reasoning, the area in
which he has received NSF support.  The award included a gold
medal and a cash prize of about \$360,000.

Further work is planned in developing nonmonotonic inference as discussed
in  {\it Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge}
and in developing the formalization of
contexts as indicated in {\it Generality in Artificial Intelligence}.