Intelligence Without Reason

Computers and Thought are the two categories that together define Artificial Intelligence as a discipline. It is generally accepted that work in Artificial Intelligence over the last thirty years has had a strong influence on aspects of computer architectures. In this paper we also make the converse claim; that the state of computer architecture has been a strong influence on our models of thought. The Von Neumann model of computation has lead Artificial Intelligence in particular directions. Intelligence in biological systems is completely different. Recent work in behavior-based Artificial Intelligenge has produced new models of intelligence that are much closer in spirit to biological systems. The non-Von Neumann computational models they use share many characteristics with biological computation.

Test Generation Guided Design for Testability

This thesis presents a new approach to building a design for testability (DFT) system. The system takes a digital circuit description, finds out the problems in testing it, and suggests circuit modifications to correct those problems. The key contributions of the thesis research are (1) setting design for testability in the context of test generation (TG), (2) using failures during FG to focus on testability problems, and (3) relating circuit modifications directly to the failures. A natural functionality set is used to represent the maximum functionalities that a component can have. The current implementation has only primitive domain knowledge and needs other work as well. However, armed with the knowledge of TG, it has already demonstrated its ability and produced some interesting results on a simple microprocessor.

Association Behavior of Biotinylated and Non-Biotinylated PolyEthylene Oxide-b-Poly(2-(Diethylamino)Ethyl Methacrylate)

Biotinylated and non-biotinylated copolymers of ethylene oxide (EO) and 2-(diethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DEAEMA) were synthesized by the atom transfer radical polymerization technique (ATRP). The chemical compositions of the copolymers as determined by NMR are represented by PEO₁₁₃PDEAEMA₇₀ and biotin-PEO₁₀₄PDEAEMA₉₃ respectively. The aggregation behavior of these polymers in aqueous solutions at different pHs and ionic strengths was studied using a combination of potentiometric titration, dynamic light scattering (DLS), static light scattering (SLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Both PEO-b-PDEAEMA and biotin-PEO-b-PDEAEMA diblock copolymers form micelles at high pH with hydrodynamic radii (Rh) of about 19 and 23 nm, respectively. At low pH, the copolymers are dispersed as unimers in solution with Rh of about 6-7 nm. However, at a physiological salt concentration (cs) of about 0.16M NaCl and a pH of 7-8, the copolymers form large loosely packed Guassian chains, which were not present at the low cs of 0.001M NaCl. The critical micelle concentrations (CMC) and the cytotoxicity of the copolymers were investigated to determine a suitable polymer concentration range for future biological applications. Both PEO-b-PDEAEMA and biotin-PEO-b-PDEAEMA diblock copolymers possess identical CMC values of about 0.0023 mg/g, while the cytotoxicity test indicated that the copolymers are not toxic up to 0.05mg/g (> 83% cell survival at this concentration).