Takenobu Takizawa

Review: Computer Shogi through 2000

Since the first computer shogi program was developed by the first author in 1974, more than a quarter century has passed. During that time, shogi programming has attracted both researchers and commercial programmers and playing strength has improved steadily. Currently, the best programs have a level that is comparable to that of a strong amateur player (about 4-dan), but the level of experts is still beyond the horizon. The basic structure of strong shogi programs is similar to chess programs. However, the differences between chess and shogi have led to the development of some shogi-specific methods. In this paper we will give an overview of the computer shogi history, summarise the most successful techniques and give some ideas for the future directions of research in computer shogi.

A study of membership functions in fuzzy reasoning and its application to educational evaluation

The authors discuss membership functions in fuzzy reasoning, and also explain how to apply them to educational evaluation. In this paper, authors evaluate a students work (drawing) by fuzzy reasoning and obtain quite effective results.

Decision Analysis of Fuzzy Partition Tree Applying AIC and Fuzzy Decision

We often use fuzzy graph to analyze inexact information such as sociogram structure ([1] and [2]). Concerning the hierarchical cluster analysis of a fuzzy graph ([3], [4] and [5] ), the number of clusters may have to be decided in the actual cluster analysis. In other word, we woud like to decide the optimal level with a partition tree. Concerning this problem, while AIC method in statistical analysis has been designed by us ([6] and [10]), we will now propose a fuzzy decision method which is based on the evaluation function paying attention to the size and number of clusters at each level.

An application of fuzzy number to educational evaluation method

It is known that approximate reasoning can be applied to educational evaluation. Especially, evaluation of works in calligraphy and drawing can be obtained more effectively using the approximate reasoning evaluation method than using the weighted mean evaluation method, and the authors use an example to explain why grading by approximate reasoning is more appropriate for grading creative work than grading by weighted mean. In this paper, the authors also propose a method of applying fuzzy numbers to educational evaluation in order to make approximate reasoning more generally applicable and also discuss the properties of the results.