- •Unit I Laser
- •Vocabulary Study
- •V. Underline the suffixes and translate the following adjectives into Russian.
- •A. Text Study
- •Text a laser
- •B. Text Study
- •Text b direct current and alternating current
- •Grammar Study
- •Unit II
- •Vocabulary Study
- •A. Text Study
- •Text a world wide web
- •B. Text Study
- •Text b modem
- •C. Text Study
- •Grammar Study
- •Причастия (The Participles)
- •2. Обстоятельством.
- •Независимый причастный оборот
- •Unit III What is sound?
- •Vocabulary Study
- •A. Text Study
- •Text a what is sound?
- •B. Text Study
- •Text b gsm
- •C. Text Study
- •Text c what is gps?
- •Grammar Study
- •1. Формы инфинитива
- •Субъектный инфинитивный оборот (Complex Subject)
- •Объектный инфинитивный оборот (Complex Object)
- •Инфинитивный оборот с предлогом for
- •Appendix. Supplementary Texts Major computer applications
- •Peripherals
- •A. Expert systems
- •Operating systems Types of Computer Operation
- •Computer structure
- •Computers and algorithms
- •The objectives of software engineering
- •Program structure
- •Program design
- •What will the word processor of the future be like?
- •The nature and objectives of fifth generation computers
- •The fifth generation development programmes
- •Japan: the icot programme
- •Intelligent knowledge based systems
- •Intelligent user interfaces
- •Applications of fifth generation computers
- •Conclusion
- •VII. Programs and programming languages
- •Code. Developed in 1965 at Dartmouth College in the United States for use by students who require a simple language to begin programming.
- •Computer networks
- •Unit III
- •Contents
The nature and objectives of fifth generation computers
Fifth generation computers aim to be able to solve highly complex problems, ones which require reasoning, intelligence and expertise when solved by people. They are intended to be able to cope with large subsets of natural languages, and draw on very large knowledge bases. In spite of their complexity, fifth generation computers are being designed to be used by people who are not necessarily computer experts.
In order to achieve these very ambitious aims, fifth generation computers will not have a single processor, or a small number of tightly coupled processors as computers do today. They are being designed to contain a large number of processors, grouped into three major subsystems: a knowledge base system, an inference mechanism and an intelligent user interface.
The knowledge base system has a very large store of knowledge, structured in one of the ways described above, with a set of processors which access and update the knowledge. It is likely that knowledge bases will evolve from current work in relational databases. Operations on knowledge bases require the manipulation of large numbers of individual elements: this manipulaton will be done in parallel by the arrays of knowledge processing elements.
The inference mechanism draws reasoned conclusions from the knowledge base. Much of its processing will be drawing logical inferences of the:
if <condition> then <action>
variety. Accordingly, the processing power of a fifth generation computer is expressed in logical inferences per second (lips). The target is in the range 50 to 1000 million lips (compared with a current performance of 10 to 100 thousand lips). Most of this improved performance is planned to be achieved via highly parallel architectures, such as the dataflow and graph reduction architectures discussed below.
The intelligent user interface is the point of contact between a fifth generation computer and its user. Many of these will be based on communication in a large subset of a natural language. Others will make extensive use of advanced graphics, including image processing. The intention is to build a user interface which is close to the natural way of thinking of the user, rather than close to the way of working of the computer, as is the case with contemporary user interfaces. The intelligent interface will contain its own set of processing elements - image processing systems may have an array of processors, one per pixel of the display.
The fifth generation development programmes
There are five major programmes under way to develop fifth generation computers: the Japanese Icot programme, the MCC and Darpa projects in the USA, the Esprit initiative in the EЕС and the Alvey programme in Britain. There is a certain measure of collaboration between the programmes, but the research results in each project are intended to be implemented within the region. Most research and development is being carried out by consortia of corporations and universities.