AIList-REQUEST@SRI-AI.ARPA (AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws) (10/15/85)
AIList Digest Tuesday, 15 Oct 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 147 Today's Topics: Reviews - Canadian Artificial Intelligence 4 and 5 & Spatial Data Handling and Graphics Interface Conferences, Seminars - Intelligent Electronic Mail (MIT) & Connectionist Learning (GTE) & Connectionist Learning (SU) & Probabilistic Interpretation of Certainty Factors (SU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Oct 1985 10:59-CST From: leff%smu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA Subject: Canadian Artificial Intelligence 4 Summary of Canadian Artificial Intelligence 4, June 1985 Should CSCSI/SCEIO Attempt to Influence National Policy (discusses whether their organization should work to influence national policy on AI within the Canadian government.) AI Research Spending and politics Discusses Canadian research spending and talent shortage. The Canadian AI group has been active in opposition to Star Wars. Discussion of an episode of Magnum P. I. which featured an AI researcher who developed some formula that would tip the balance in favor of whoever had it. The formula was "3 bracket prompt semicolon." The Canadian National Research Council is starting an inventory of Canadian robotics research Announcement of Babbage and Lovelace's BASIC package to expand other BASIC programs to do natural language parsing. Runs on an IBM PC with 64 to 96 K. French Article on AI and Cognitive Science at the University of Montreal Canadian Companies Applied AI Systems, Kanata Ontario doing consulting, marketing of software, custom software. Review of LOGICware which sells MPROLOG. Book reviews of "The Comercial Application of Expert System Technology" "Artificial Intelligence: Bibliographic Summaries of the Select Literature Volume I", "L'Intelligence Artificielle: promesses et Realities" Humorous Article: A Brief Review of Ignorance Engineering Simon Fraser University AI tech report list ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1985 11:44-CST From: leff%smu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA Subject: Canadian Artificial Intelligence 5 Summary of Canadian Artificial Intelligence 5, September 1985 "Canada Prominent in IJCAI Awards" Reports on AIers prominent at IJCAI: Levesque (Computers and Thought), Best Paper to Fagin and Halpern and Professor Randy Goebel who stumped the band in a taping of Mr. Carson's televison show, The Tonight Show. "NSERC Proposes Major Increase in Research Funding" NSERC is the Canadian science funding organization Michel Pilot has started his own AI consulting service Coast Mountain Intelligence specializes in Resource Applications. They completed an expert system on the choice of statistical packages for geophysical data. They are working on expert systems for forest management and interpretation of snow profiles for avalanche predictions Xerox Announces Low Cost Workstations Workshop Report: Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding Workshop Report: Workshop on the Foundations of Adaptive Information Processing Canada Conquers Los Angeles: mentions Canadians prominent at IJCAI-85 Directory of Candian AI businesses Reviews of: Human Foundations of Advanced Computing Technology: The Guide to the Select Literature from the Report Store Readings in Knowledge Representation Introduction to Artificial Intelligence by Eugene Charniak and Drew McDermott Artificial Intelligence Applications for Business Management Artificial Intelligence Applications for Manufacturing Obituaries for Jeffrey Robert Sampson, Daniel Louis Shalom Berlin Donald Grant Kuehner and David Julian Meredith Davies Tech Report Lists from University of Calgary, University of Montreal, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1985 12:32-CST From: leff%smu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA Subject: AI at conferences International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling at the University of Zurich, August 1984 Order from Symposium Secretariat, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190 CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland. Price 30 dollars Data Structures for a Knowledge-Based Geographic Information System D. J. Perquet Symbolic Feature Analysis and Expert Systems B. Palmer Autonap -- An Expert System for Automatic Map Name Placement H. Freemand, J. Ahn Knowledge Based Control of Search and Learning in a Large Scale GIS T. R. Smith M. Pazner ____________________________________________________________________________ Graphics Interface 85, 11th Conference of Candian Man-Computer Society Montreal May 27-31 Robotics and CAD/CAM Section Non-rigid Motion A. R. Dill and M. D. Levine McGill University Electronic Assembly by Robots C. Michaud, A. S. Malowany, M. D. Levine McGill University Lo Cost Geometric Modelling System for CAM W. G. Ngai and Y. K . Chan Chinese Univeristy of Hong Kong Panel- Computer Graphics in Environmental Design Artificial Intelligence Generative Design in Architecture Using an Expert System E. Chang University of Victoria Knowledge Engineering Application in Image Processing K. Mikame, N. Sueda, A. Hoshi, S. Ohoniden Toshiba, Japan Visual Perception L. Scholl Laura Scholl and Associates USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 13:49 EDT From: Kahin@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Intelligent Electronic Mail (MIT) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] Massachusetts Institute of Technology Communications Forum Making Electronic Mail More Intelligent October 31, 1985 Thomas Malone, MIT Kenneth Mayers, Digital Equipment Corporation Electronic messaging has become a familiar feature of the office environment and a key element in office automation strategy for many organizations. As these systems spread, many issues must be dealt with, such as accomodating evolving user requirements, responding to rapid expansion, controlling junk mail, and incorporating alternative technologies. One of the central challenges is how to enhance messaging features so that users are not swamped by information overload. This forum will present the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, one of the pioneering users of electronic mail, and will describe some recent innovative research at MIT which uses artificial intelligence technology to improve the user's ability to sort incoming messages by relevance and urgency and to route outgoing communications to the most appropriate people within the organizations. 4:00 - 6:00 Bartos Theater for the Moving Image The Wiesner Building (Center for Arts and Media Technology) (Building E15 Lower Level) 20 Ames Street Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts For further information call 617-253-3144. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Oct 85 11:31:01 EDT From: Bernard Silver <SILVER@MIT-MC.ARPA> Subject: Seminar - Connectionist Learning (GTE) GTE LABORATORIES INC MACHINE LEARNING SEMINAR TITLE: Learning by Statistical Cooperation in Connectionist Networks SPEAKER: Prof. Andrew G. Barto University of Massachusetts at Amherst TIME: 2pm, Wednesday, October 23 PLACE: GTE Laboratories Inc 40 Sylvan Rd Waltham MA 02254 Since the usual approaches to cooperative computation in networks of neuron-like computating elements do not assume that network components have any ``preferences," they do not make substantive contact with game theoretic concepts, despite their use of some of the same terminology. In the approach I describe, however, each network component, or adaptive element, is a self-interested agent that prefers some inputs over others and ``works" toward obtaining the most highly preferred inputs. I describe some of our work with an adaptive element that is robust enough to learn to cooperate with other elements like itself in order to further its self-interests. It is argued that some of the long-standing problems concerning adaptation and learning by networks might be solvable by this form of cooperativity, and computer simulation experiments are described that show how networks of self-interested components that are sufficiently robust can solve rather difficult learning problems. A secondary aim of this talk is to suggest that beyond what I explicitly illustrate, there is a wealth of ideas from game theory and allied disciplines such as mathematical economics that can be of use in thinking about cooperative computation in both nervous systems and man-made systems. For more information contact Bernard Silver (617) 466-2663 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Oct 85 05:45:36 pdt From: gluck@SU-PSYCH (Mark Gluck) Subject: Seminar - Connectionist Learning (SU) THE COMPUTATION, COGNITION, & NEUROSCIENCE JOURNAL CLUB AND SPORADIC SEMINAR SERIES presents: "From Classical Conditioning to Cognitive Computations" Richard S. Sutton GTE Fundamental Research Laboratory Date: Mon, Oct. 28 Time: 12:00-1:15 Place: Room 100, Jordan Hall One attractive aspect of connectionist models is their ability to make contact with a wide range of fields from neuroscience to cognitive science and AI. In this talk I will review the status of the "connectionist connection" between such fields and present some of my own work as an example of a case in which pursuing it has been fruitful. I will present a sequence of three closely-related connectionist learning models. The first was presented by Sutton and Barto in 1981 as a real-time model of classical conditioning consistent with many behavioral phenomena including blocking, conditioned inhibition, the ISI dependency, higher-order conditioning, and serial-compound effects. The second model is the result of changes made to the first in trying to use it in an AI learning problem. Remarkably, the modified model is not only very effective on the AI problem, but is also a better match to the classical conditioning data than the first model. I am currently working on a third model that is able to reproduce the animal learning phenomena of latent learning and sensory preconditioning. The AI goal for this model is to build a system that can learn about and then reason about its environment. The model shows promise of being simultaneously very successful as all of 1) a model of classical conditioning, 2) an aid to AI machine learning systems, and 3) a model of simple forms of inference and planning. ***************************************************************************** The CCNJCS^3 was formed in response to a growing interest among members of the Psychology, Computer Science, and Neuroscience departments at Stanford in learning about recent advances in the study of computational approaches to modelling the relationship between cognition and neuroscience. In addition to organizing seminars, we also arrange journal club meetings in which graduate students and post-docs meet to read and discuss current research articles dealing with: The neural substrates of learning and memory, computational models of neuronal processes, and the neural bases of cognitive behavior. For more information, contact Mark Gluck (gluck%su-psych@sumex-aim). ------------------------------ Date: Mon 14 Oct 85 07:52:23-PDT From: Ana Haunga <HAUNGA@SU-SCORE.ARPA> Subject: Seminar - Probabilistic Interpretation of Certainty Factors (SU) SIGLUNCH will be held at the Chemistry Gazebo at 12:05-1:00 p.m. Probabilistic Interpretations for MYCIN's Certainty Factors David Heckerman I will show that the original definition of certainty factors (CF's) is inconsistent with the "defining desiderata" of the CF combination functions. I will then show that if this inconsistency is removed by redefining CF's in terms of the desiderata then CF's have probabilistic interpretations. In other words, I will show that certainty factors are nothing more than transformed probabilistic quantities. The construction of the interpretation provides insights into the assumptions made when propagating CF's through an inference net. For example, it can be shown that all evidence which bears directly on a hypothesis must be conditionally independent on the hypothesis and its negation. After presenting the interpretations, I will discuss several ramifications of the correspondence between CF's and probabilities. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************