David N. L. Levy

Heuristic Programming in Artificial Intelligence 3

The first Soviet Computer Olympiad 2nd Computer Olympiad reports Go intellect wins two gold medals databases in Awari an architecture for a sophisticated mechanical bridge player design and implementation of a Chinese chess program reviving the game of checkers exploratory learning in the game of Go investigating Tsumego problems with RisiKo applying retrograde analysis to Nine Mens Morris experiments with the NegaC search - an alternative for Othello endgame search deep forks in strategic maps brute force in search of games of imperfect information artificial intelligence or stochastic relaxation - simulated annealing challenge the smart game board as a tool for game progammers.

Diabetic neuropathy – it’s been a long journey: Will we ever arrive?

Drug trials and innovations in clinical research methods are natural bedfellows. In the heyday of the aldose reductase theory of diabetic polyneuropathy around 30 years ago, there was real excitement as a succession of potentially clinically valuable aldose reductase inhibitors (ARI) passed into large-scale clinical trials, though rarely beyond. There was great hope for sorbinil, though side-effects terminated its clinical use; ponalrestat was safe, but ineffective over 18 months (Sundkvist, Armstrong, Bradbury, et al. 1992); zenarestat disappeared in the early 2000s with a hint of nephrotoxicity; epalrestat is available, but only in Japan. The therapeutic potential of ARIs and myriad other compounds was thrillingly and consistently demonstrated in robust experimental neurophysiological and biochemical models, and this galvanised clinical neurologists, neurophysiologists and diabetologists to search for equally robust, reproducible and noninvasive methods for quantifying peripheral nerve function for clinical and trial use. Dozens of candidate techniques emerged, some touted as ‘gold standard’ methods that we believed would eventually join standardised retinal photography and urinary albumin measurements in a microangiopathy screening triad that would, like them, have clinical predictive power. This, however, was always going to be a tall order because it was becoming clear that symptoms correlated poorly with instrumental methods, that neuropathy, as well as being diffuse, was also frustratingly patchy in the individual, and finally, that the most horrible and costly endpoint of neuropathy – the chronically ulcerated foot – did not seem to follow the same relatively predictable natural history as the other end-stage complications. In an attempt to improve predictability, uncountable clinical studies correlated one method with others, compared established techniques with new ones to measure specific modalities, and heroic attempts were made to link indistinct symptoms that patients often find very difficult to describe with the results of batteries of tests, some of them invasive. We thought that quantitative immunohistochemistry of small peripheral nerve fibres in skin biopsies might be an important measure, (Levy et al. 1992) and fifteen years later the same technique was being promoted with the same vague hope that it would be valuable in clinical trial work (Lauria & Lombardi 2007). Our group found that some patients had higher than expected nerve fibre densities, reminding us that positive symptoms, especially pain, are almost as much of a burden to patients as clinical deficits, at which nearly all our measurement methods are targeted. We have never been able to devise methods other than questionnaires that adequately reflect life-destroying symptoms, some of which are autonomically mediated. The banal conclusions of most of these

The 1991 World Microcomputer Chess Championship

Note that manufacturers who enter the unlimited category must pay

Heuristic programming in artificial intelligence: the second computer olympiad

4,000 U.S. irresp~tive of whether they enter 0,1,2 or 3 additional machines. Other manufacturers must pay

The Sex Algorithm in Computer Chess

1,000 per machine. Non-Amateurs in the software group must pay

RYBKA Disqualified and Banned from World Computer-Chess Championships

1,000 (only one machine allowed). Participants living in countries where the currency is not convertible, e.g., eastern Europe, do not pay any entry f~. Amateurs also have free entry. Date of entry: ______________ Signature: _______________ _