Research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Slovenia started in 1972 at the Computer Science Department of the Jozef Stefan Institute (JSI) in Ljubljana, and later also at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science (FRI), University of Ljubljana. At JSI, the AI Group was formally founded in 1979 and reorganised into the AI Laboratory in 1985. In 1995, the Department of Intelligent Systems was established by merging Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Language and Speech Technology Laboratory. At FRI, the AI Laboratory was founded in 1981. Both research groups (at JSI and FRI) were lead by Professor Ivan Bratko and closely cooperated.
Both groups were successful and grew in terms of achievements, employed and newly trained researchers, international collaborations and projects. This required further reorganisations. In 2004, the former JSI Department of Intelligent Systems and Computer Technologies Laboratory were reorganised into two new departments: Department of Knowledge Technologies (head: Nada Lavrač) and Department of Intelligent Systems (head: Matjaž Gams). At FRI, in addition to the former Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (head: Ivan Bratko), two new laboratories were formed: Laboratory for Cognitive Modeling in 2001 (head: Igor Kononenko) and Bioinformatics Laboratory in 2010 (head: Blaž Zupan).
In addition to the work done at JSI and FRI, AI research is also carried out at some other institutions, most notably the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maribor.
According to SICRIS (SlovenIan Current Research Information System), there are now more than 30 research groups in Slovenia whose research is related to AI.
Slovenian AI researchers and practitioners are associated in SLAIS (SLovenian Artificial Intelligence Society). SLAIS was founded in 1992 and is a member society of ECCAI (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence). Currently, SLAIS has about 120 members.
Initially, AI research in Slovenia was concerned with heuristic search, including knowledge-based approaches to computer chess. The emphasis then gradually shifted and expanded to the areas of machine learning, knowledge representation, computer-aided multi-attribute decision making, qualitative reasoning and modelling, and combinatorial optimisation. This provided a solid basis for later application projects. In 1982, the development and implementation of AI tools started and soon resulted in practical applications in a number of domains including: financial, management, project/enterprise assessment, metallurgy, geology, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, medicine and health-care. Most of these applications were based on Assistant Professional, an inductive learning system, and DEX, a computer-aided decision making system. Later, several other systems were devolped including GINESYS, RETIS, LINUS, m-FOIL. These systems implement various approaches to machine learning: attribute-based learning, regression tree learning and inductive logic programming.
In the 1990's, the Slovenian AI research further expanded and diversified, addressing the main research areas:
A notable aspect of much of this research is its application to problems in many areas, including: mechanical engineering, telecommunication, management, economy, ecology, biology, medicine, health care, agriculture, digital libraries, cultural heritage, e-government, e-business and e-learning.
Also, a considerable part of the Slovenian AI research takes place in the international context and involves numerous collaborations with international organisations and projects. First official Slovenian collaborations occured in the context of European ESPRIT projects: ESPRIT II (1990) and ESPRIT III (1993). Some other early projects include ILPNET and Multext-East (1995-1998). In 2000, the JSI Department of Intelligent Systems succeeded with the proposal of Sol-EU-Net, a European 5th Framework Programme project, which JSI coordinated 2000-2003. Since then, the Slovenian activity in projects financed by the European Union has increased considerably, so that Slovenian research organisations have become regular partners in European 6th (2002-2006) and 7th (2007-2013) Framework Programmes.
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Slovenian AI researchers have authored and edited numerous scientific books:
The Slovenian AI research has also produced a number software programs, spanning from research prototypes to application programs and general software tools:
Year | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
1986 | Asistent 86 | Learning of decision trees |
1986 | PROLIB | Library of Prolog predicates |
1986 | EXPRO | Expert system shell |
1987 | Assistant Professional | Learning of decision trees |
1987 | GINESYS | Machine learning |
1989 | REFLOG | Reflective Prolog |
1989 | DEX | Multi-attribute decision modelling |
1994 | LINUS (LAI) | Constrained inductive logic programming |
1991 | RETIS | Induction of regression trees |
1991 | mFOIL | Inductive logic programming |
1992 | MARKUS | Inductive logic programming |
1993 | LAGRANGE | Equation discovery |
1993 | GOLDHORN | Equation discovery |
1994 | GPDD | Evolutionary algorithm |
1994 | GOLDING, CIOP | Multistrategy learning |
1994 | DYSYS | Behavioural cloning |
1995 | FORS | First order regression system |
1996 | Ptah | Bacterial resistance analysis |
1996 | EMA | Intelligent employment agent |
1997 | HINT | Hierarchy induction tool |
1997 | LAGRAMGE | Equation discovery |
2000 | Govorec | "Speaker", Slovene speech synthesis |
2000 | DEXi | Multi-attribute decision modelling |
2000 | PADLES | Discovery of partial differential equations |
2001 | ShinA | Shopping assistant |
2003 | RSD | Relational subgroup discovery |
2003 | GenePath | Intelligent assistant to genetic analysis |
2004 | Orange | Data mining suite |
2004 | CIPER | Constrained induction of polynomial equation for regression |
2004 | Text-Garden | Text-Mining Software Tools |
2005 | OntoGen | Ontology editor |
2005 | Document Atlas | Visualization of text corpora |
2005 | proDEX | Qualitative multi-attribute modelling |
2005 | SearchPoint | Search and organise web documents |
2007 | SEGS | Search for enriched gene sets) |
2009 | Enrycher | Service oriented text enrichmen |
2009 | AnswerArt | Contextualized question answering |
2009 | dictyExpress | Gene expression analysis |
The following AI related international meetings were organised in Slovenia: