[mod.ai] AIList Digest V4 #4

AIList-REQUEST@SRI-AI.ARPA (AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws) (01/12/86)

AIList Digest            Sunday, 12 Jan 1986        Volume 4 : Issue 4

Today's Topics:
  Seminars - Organization of Semantic Knowledge Systems (MIT) &
    LISP architectures (NASA Ames) &
    Computational Networks in Silicon and Biology (PARC),
  Course - Values, Technology, and Society (SU) &
    Highly Parallel Architectures for AI (UPenn),
  Conference - 3rd Symposium on Logic Programming

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Date: Sun,  5 Jan 86 03:44:31 EST
From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" <SASW@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - Categorical Organization of Semantic Knowledge Systems (MIT)

Monday  2, December  4: 00-6:00pm  Room: E25-117

  HARVARD UNIVERSITY-MIT DIVISION OF HEALTH SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

   "The Categorical Organization of Semantic Knowledge Systems"

                 Elizabeth K. Warrington
                 Professor of Neurology
                 The National Hospitals for Nervous Diseases
                 Queen Square, London

Patients with cerebral lesions provide an important source of evidence
about the organization of semantic systems.  Striking instances of the
selective preservation and selective impairment in the comprehension
of particular categories of verbal and visual stimuli have long been
reported in the neurological literature and more recently such
dissociations have been investigated and assessed using experimental
methods.  The issue of modality specificity will be discussed and it
will be argued that there are at least partially independent systems
that subserve verbal and visual semantics.  Evidence for both broad
category specific impairments, such as knowledge of concrete and
abstract concepts, and more fine grain category impairments such as
knowledge of animate and inanimate objects  will be reviewed.  It will
be argued that there  are modality specific semantic systems and that
these are categorised in their organization.

Host: Lucia Vaina

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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 86 07:58:25 pst
From: eugene@AMES-NAS.ARPA (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Seminar - LISP architectures (NASA Ames)


National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Ames Research Center
          SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT

        Computational Research Branch

SPEAKER: Raymond S. Lim
         Computational Research Branch

TOPIC: LISP Machine Architectures of MIT CADR, Symbolics 3600, & TI Explorer

ABSTRACT: Common LISP is becoming a standard, and MULTI-LISP is
contemplating for parallel LISP Processing.  A modern LISP machine is a
conventional virtual memory, Von Neuman machine with addded hardware to
support runtime data type checking and incremental garbage collection.  This
presentation will discuss the architecture issue of LISP machine, starting
from the MIT CADR.

DATE: 23 Jan 1986       TIME: 9:30-11:00        BLDG: 233       ROOM: 172

POINT OF CONTACT: Becky Getz            PHONE NUMBER: (415)-694-5197

VISITORS ARE WELCOME: Register and obtain vehicle pass at Ames Visitor
Reception Building (N-253) or the Security Station near Gate 18.  See map
below.  Do not use the Navy Main Gate.

Non-citizens (except Permanent Residents) must have prior approval from the
Director's Office one week in advance.  Submit requests to the point of
contact indicated above.  Non-citizens must register at the Visitor
Reception Building.  Permanent Residents are required to show Alien
Registration Card at the time of registration.

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Date: 10 Jan 86 14:27:59 PST (Friday)
From: Kluger.osbunorth@Xerox.ARPA
Reply-to: Kluger.osbunorth@Xerox.ARPA
Subject: Seminar - Computational Networks in Silicon and Biology (PARC)


          Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Forum


                Thursday, January 16, 1986
                4:00 pm, PARC Auditorium


                      J.J. Hopfield

                Divisions of Chemistry and Biology
                        Caltech
                          and
                AT&T Bell Laboratories

                      will speak on

       Computational Networks in Silicon and Biology


The brain as a piece of computer hardware violates most of the sensible
design criteria for good computers, yet manages to be extremely
effective. We investigate the kinds of behavior which circuits built in
a neuronal fashion--emphasizing large connectivity, large size, analog
response, and self-timed--naturally have.

The collective properties of such systems lead naturally to the
behaviors needed for associative memory, or pattern recognition, error
decoding, visual information processing and many complex optimization
problems.

At the same time, the circuits are relatively robust (fail soft), like
their biological relatives. Such circuits may be of use as high density
associative memories and as signal processors. The effectiveness of
biological computation may in part result from the use of the collective
decision capabilities of neural networks.


This Forum is OPEN. All are invited.

Host: Larry Kluger (Information Systems Division, 496-6575)

Refreshments will be served at 3:45 pm

Visitors: Welcome! The PARC Auditorium is located at 3333 Coyote Hill
Road. The street is between Page Mill Road (west of Foothill) and
Hillview Avenue, in the Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto. Enter the
building through the *auditorium's* entrance, at the upper level of the
building.

------------------------------

Date: 03 Jan 86  1404 PST
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Course - Values, Technology, and Society (SU)

         [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]


The following course will be given by John McCarthy in Winter 1986 in
the Values, Technology and Society program.  As will be noticed from
the description, it will emphasize opportunities rather than problems.
It will meet 14:15-15:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays
in room 202 History corner (bldg 200).


Technological Possibilities for enhancing man

        This course surveys the technological possibilities for increasing
human capability and real wealth.  It is oriented toward what people will
want rather than around what we might think is good for them.  Some of the
improvements discussed are in the direction of (1) making housework
trivial (2) making government responsive (3) increasing the ability of one
person to build an object like a car, airplane or house to suit him
without organizing others (4) allowing groups to live as they prefer less
hindered by general social laws and customs.  We will emphasize computer
and information technology and ask what will be genuinely useful about
computers in the home and not just faddish or flashy.  To what extent are
futurists and science fiction writers given to systematic error?  Can we
envisage advances as important as electricity, telephones, running water,
inside toilets?

        The second topic concerns the social factors that determine the
rate of scientific and technological progress.  Why was scientific
advance a rare event until Galileo?  Why didn't non-Western cultures
break through into the era of organized scientific and technological
progress and why did it take Western culture so long?  Why isn't the
rate of progress faster today?  As examples, we shall inquire into
the obstacles that made cellular telephone systems and electronic
funds transfer take so long.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 8 Jan 86 16:33 EST
From: Tim Finin <Tim%upenn.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Course - Highly Parallel Architectures for AI (UPenn)

From: Lokendra Shastri <Shastri@UPenn> on Wed  8 Jan 1986 at 15:44, 45 lines


                            COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT

     CIS704  Highly parallel architectures for Artificial Intelligence

PREREQUISITES: This is an advanced course in artificial intelligence. It
will be assumed that the participants are familiar with basic issues in AI.

DESCRIPTION: There is a growing interest in highly interconnected networks
of very simple processing elements. These networks are referred to as
Connectionist Networks and are playing an increasingly important role in
artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

This course is intended to discuss the motivation behind pursuing
"connectionism" and to survey the state of current research in this area. We
will review connectionist models of language understanding, parsing,
knowledge representation, limited inference, and learning, and compare the
connectionist approach to traditional AI approaches.

TEXTS: None. A reading list will be provided.

ASSIGNMENTS: Students will be expected to prepare a presentation of (or lead
a discussion on) a paper on the reading list. There will be two or three
assignments and a term paper.

PLACE: TB 309.  M, W 4:30-6:00

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Date: Mon, 6 Jan 86 20:33:58 MST
From: keller@utah-cs.arpa (Bob Keller)
Subject: Conference - 3rd Symposium on Logic Programming

               [Forwarded from the Prolog Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.]


                                    '86 SLP
                                Call for Papers
                     Third Symposium on Logic Programming

                    Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society

                             September 21-25, 1986

                               Westin Hotel Utah
                              Salt Lake City, UT

The conference solicits papers  on all areas  of logic programming,  including,
but not confined to:

        Applications of logic programming
        Computer architectures for logic programming
        Databases and logic programming
        Logic programming and other language forms
        New language features
        Logic programming systems and implementation
        Parallel logic programming models
        Performance
        Theory

Please submit full papers, indicating accomplishments of substance and novelty,
and including appropriate citations of related work.  The suggested page  limit
is 25 double-spaced pages.  Send eight copies of your manuscript no later  than
15 March 1986 to:

                        Robert M. Keller
                        SLP '86 Program Chairperson
                        Department of Computer Science
                        University of Utah
                        Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Acceptances will be mailed by 30 April 1986.  Camera-ready copy will be due  by
30 June 1986.

Conference Chairperson                  Exhibits Chairperson
Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah      Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.

Tutorials Chairperson                   Local Arrangements Chairperson
George Luger, University of New Mexico  Thomas C. Henderson, University of Utah

                          Program Committee

Francois Bancilhon, MCC                 William Kornfeld, Quintus Systems
John Conery, University of Oregon       Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah
Al Despain, U.C. Berkeley               George Luger, University of New Mexico
Herve Gallaire, ECRC, Munich            Rikio Onai, ICOT/NTT, Tokyo
Seif Haridi, SICS, Sweden               Ross Overbeek, Argonne National  Lab.
Lynette Hirschman, SDC, Paoli           Mark Stickel, SRI International
Peter Kogge, IBM, Owego                 Sten Ake Tarnlund, Uppsala University

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End of AIList Digest
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