Ming Li

Paul Vitanyi

With this book, the authors are trying to present in a unified treatment an introduction to the central ideas and their applications of the Kolmogorov Complexity, the theory dealing with the quantity of information in individual objects. This book is appropriate for either a one- or two-semester introductory course in departments of computer science, mathematics, physics, probability theory and statistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy. Although the mathematical theory of Kolmogorov complexity contains sophisticated mathematics, the amount of math one needs to know to apply the notions in widely divergent areas, is very little. The authors' purpose is to develop the theory in detail and outline a wide range of illustrative applications. This book is an attempt to grasp the mass of fragmented knowledge of this fascinating theory. Chapter 1 is a compilation of material on the diverse notations and disciplines we draw upon in order to make the book self-contained. The mathematical theory of Kolmogorov complexity is treated in chapters 2-4; the applications are treated in chapters 4-8.

An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications

Briefly, we review the basic elements of computability theory and prob ability theory that are required. Finally, in order to place the subject in the appropriate historical and conceptual context we trace the main roots of Kolmogorov complexity. This way the stage is set for Chapters 2 and 3, where we introduce the notion of optimal effective descriptions of objects. The length of such a description (or the number of bits of information in it) is its Kolmogorov complexity. We treat all aspects of the elementary mathematical theory of Kolmogorov complexity. This body of knowledge may be called algo rithmic complexity theory. The theory of Martin-Lof tests for random ness of finite objects and infinite sequences is inextricably intertwined with the theory of Kolmogorov complexity and is completely treated. We also investigate the statistical properties of finite strings with high Kolmogorov complexity. Both of these topics are eminently useful in the applications part of the book. We also investigate the recursion theoretic properties of Kolmogorov complexity (relations with Godel's incompleteness result), and the Kolmogorov complexity version of infor mation theory, which we may call "algorithmic information theory" or "absolute information theory. " The treatment of algorithmic probability theory in Chapter 4 presup poses Sections 1. 6, 1. 11. 2, and Chapter 3 (at least Sections 3. 1 through 3. 4).

J. G. Carbonell

Joerg H. Siekmann

This volume presents the proceedings of the Second European Conference on Computational Learning Theory (EuroCOLT '95), held in Barcelona, Spain in March 1995. The book contains full versions of the 28 papers accepted for presentation at the conference as well as three invited papers. All relevant topics in fundamental studies of computational aspects of artificial and natural learning systems and machine learning are covered; in particular artificial and biological neural networks, genetic and evolutionary algorithms, robotics, pattern recognition, inductive logic programming, decision theory, Bayesian/MDL estimation, statistical physics, and cryptography are addressed.

Paul Vitanyi

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