Organization of the Text

Each chapter on technique ends with the short section called Where Do I Go from Here This includes suggestions for those who wish to investigate a topic further. It is not possible for a book of this nature to cover all issues of implementation for each technique. We assume that those who want to pursue a topic further will have access to library facilities and to the Internet, so no attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive reading list. Regular journal articles provide overviews of research in each area, so the section on applications toward the end of each chapter similarly provides examples of how each method is used rather than a comprehensive review. 

The chapters close with a few problems whose purpose is to encourage a deeper investigation of the chapter material, often with suggestions for computational exercises. 

In the final chapter, Nawwaf Kharma looks ahead to some of the methods that experimental scientists may be using in the coming years. While the main aim of the book is to provide an introduction to AI methods, Kharma delves more deeply into some challenging new areas, opening a window on how a computer scientist views the use of AI to solve practical problems. 

The CD that accompanies this text contains a full version of the EJS (Easy Java Simulations) software. Written by Francisco Esquembre (University of Murcia, Spain) and collaborators, this Java tool can be used to investigate many of the techniques described in this book. It is of particular value in providing a variety of plotting tools that can be invoked in a simple way. Sample programs and data are provided, details of which can be found on the ReadMe file on the CD. 

Finally, a word on terminology. Many AI methods learn by inspecting examples, which come in a variety of forms. They might comprise a set of infrared spectra of different samples, the abstracts from a large number of scientific articles, a set of solid materials defined by their composition and their emission spectrum at high temperature, or the results from a series of medical tests. In this text, we refer to these examples, no matter what their nature, as sample patterns.  

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The text contains 58 chapters, which are divided into 11 units. Organization of the text in this manner allows the student to move about the text when these general areas are covered in the curriculum. While pharmacologic agents are presented in specific units, a disease may be treated with more than one type of drug, which may require consulting one or more units. 

Synopsis of methods, results and conclusion of work described. Allows the reader to grasp quickly the essence of the work Shows the organization of the text (not required for short papers)... 

The goal of this text, as it has been through seven previous editions, is to provide students with the conceptual tools to understand and apply the relationship between the structures of organic compounds and their properties. Both the organization of the text and the presentation of individual topics were designed with this objective in mind. 

Through this scoring the degree of compliance of the subjects recall with the actual organization of the text, is evaluated. In other words, this index shows whether the plan followed by the writer when organizing his/her ideas to be expressed in the text is followed by the reader when trying to order the ideas expressed in his/her answers. On the basis of this criterion, three levels are established ... 

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