tjhorton@utai.UUCP (10/07/87)
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Cognitive Science Events, October 1987
Excerpts from Toronto Intelligence, Vol 1, Iss 2
(A Forum for Research and Study in Cognitive Science around UofT)
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October 6 (Tuesday)
Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Chuck Rich (MIT AI Lab)
"Bread, Frappe, and Cake: The Gourmet's Guide to Automated Deduction"
Galbraith 244, 2pm.
Cake is the knowledge representation and reasoning system developed as part of
the Programmer's Apprentice project. The kernel of the system, called Bread
(Basic REAsoning Device), is a truth-maintenance system with equality and
demons. Built on top of this is Frappe (FRAmes in a ProPositional Engine),
which implements a typed logic with special-purpose decision procedures. Only
the topmost layer of Cake, which implements the Plan Calculus, is specific to
reasoning about programs.
This talk will describe architecture and features, including a transcript of a
demonstration.
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October 6
Philosophy Colloquium
I. Pitowsky
"Quantum correlations and Quantum Logic"
University College 152, 4 pm
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October 6
Computer Science Colloquium
Charles Rackoff (Toronto)
"Cryptography: The State of the Art"
Sanford Fleming 1105, 11am
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October 7 (Wednesday)
Psychology Colloquium
Ken Bauers (Waterloo)
"Intention in a context of discovery"
Sid Smith 2135, 4pm
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October 7 (Wednesday)
Ebbinghaus Empire Seminar (Psychology)
Morris Moscovitch (Erindale)
"Confabulation in an amnesic patient: clues about memory organization"
Sidney Smith 517, 12:15 sharp
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October 8 (Thursday)
Toronto Intelligence
First Organizational Meeting
We will talk about the form and distribution of cognitive science interests
around UofT, and discuss possibilities for future issues of the journal.
Editorial representatives are needed for many departments. If you would like
to sit on the editorial committee, or if you'd like to know about writing for
the journal, or if you just want to know more about what's going on across the
university, be there!
Sidney Smith Hall 1072, 4:30-5:30pm
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October 9 (Friday)
Linguistics seminar
Yves Roberge (Toronto)
"Romance clitics and the theory of pro"
[ed: a theory-based (Chomskian) study of pronominal systems in European
langauges]
Robarts Library 6071, 3:30pm
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October 9
First meeting of robot vision discussion group, SandfordFleming 3207, 1-3pm
Topic: "Research directions in Robot Vision as they emerged in the recent
workshop on Spatial Reasoning and Multisensor Fusion (Oct. 4-7, 1987)"
The Robot Vision Discussion Group will focus on research issues associated with
the design of closed-loop robotic systems, i.e. robots that use information
gained by camera ``eyes'' to perform tasks such as navigation or part picking.
Emphasis will be on bringing together techniques from computational vision,
knowledge representation, planning, computational geometry, graph theory and
control.
Meetings Fridays 1-3pm, biweekly
Information: Evangelos Milios, ext 6114 (eem@utai)
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October 9
Erindale/McMaster Cognitive Seminar
Michael Mozer (Toronto)
"The perception of multiple objects: A parallel distributed processing
approach"
Erindale campus, South Building room 3129, 3pm
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October 13 (Tuesday)
Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Phil Agre (MIT AI Lab)
"Pengi: An Implementation of a Theory of Activity"
Galbraith 244, 2pm.
Abstract:
The complexity, uncertainty, and immediacy of the real world require a
central role for moment-to-moment improvisation. Investigation of everyday
routine reveals regularities in the interaction of very simple machinery with
its environment. We have used our theories to design a program, called Pengi,
that plays a video game called Pengo. Pengi engages in complex, apparently
planful activity without requiring explicit models of its world.
My presentation will focus on Pengi's novel account of representation.
Traditional accounts of representation have postulated a correspondence between
symbols in the machine (or the head) and objectively individuated objects in
the world. Pengi, by contrast, registers aspects of indexically and
functionally individuated entities in its surroundings. Pengi can use
generalized knowledge without using variables, so its machinery can be much
simpler than that of production systems or first-order theorem-provers.
Pengi's center is a connection network, and indexical-functional
representation offers a solution to some cases of the connectionists' binding
problem.
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October 14 (Wednesday)
Ebbinghaus Empire Seminars
Pierre Jolicoeur (Waterloo)
"Curve Tracing"
Sidney Smith Hall 517, 12:15 sharp
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October 20 (Tuesday)
CACS Luncheon Colloquium
(Dept of Education, Center for Applied Cognitive Science)
First meeting.
Speaker TBA. Call Yvonne at 923-6641 ext 2362 for information.
OISE building, room 2-212, 12 noon
The Center for Applied Cognitive Science regularly holds luncheon colloquia
on the first and third Tuesday of every month. Call Denese Coulbeck to be put
on the mailing list (923-6641 ext 2591).
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October 20
Computer Science Colloquium
Alain Fournier (Toronto)
"Modeling Natural Phenomena in Computer Graphics"
Sanford Fleming 1105, 11am
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October 21 (Wednesday)
Ebbinghaus Empire Seminar (Psychology)
Derek Besner (Waterloo)
"Mental mechanisms in oral reading"
Sidney Smith 517, 12:15 sharp
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October 23 (Friday)
Erindale/McMaster Cognitive Seminar
Lee Brooks (McMaster)
"Retrieval factors in developing medical expertise"
McMaster, room 204 of ?, 3pm
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October 27 (Tuesday)
Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Alan Mackworth, UBC
(probably Galbraith 244, 2pm)
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October 28 (Wednesday)
Ebbinghaus Empire Seminar (Psychology)
Michael Mozer (Toronto, comp-sci/psychology)
"A connectionist model of selective attention in visual perception"
Sidney Smith Hall 517, 12:15 sharp
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October 29 (Thursday)
"Artificial Intelligence: Fulfilling the Dream" begins on TV Ontario.
The four 30-minute episodes in this part-time learning series are tentatively
entitled:
1. "In search of the Thinking Machine"
2. "Cloning the Experts"
3. "Making the Quantum Leap"
4. "Fulfilling the Vision"
Expect to see Zenon Pylyshyn mugging it in a TVOntario ad, recently shot in
our own Artificial Intelligence lab in the Sandford Fleming building.
Viewers have the choice of watching on Thursdays at 8pm starting October 29,
Saturdays at 12:30pm starting October 31, or Sundays at 2pm starting November 1.
Pylyshyn gets significant exposure in the series itself. Other local heroes
will also be making appearances: Hector Levesque, John Tsotsos, and Graeme
Hirst.
You'll also see Marvin Minsky (MIT), Allen Newell and Herbert Simon
(Carnegie-Mellon), John McCarthy (Standford), Ed Feigenbaum (Stanford), Randy
Davis (MIT), Terry Winograd (Stanford), Roger Schank (Yale), Ellen Hildreth
(MIT), Alan Mackworth (UBC), Robert Woodham (UBC), Takeo Kanade
(Carnegie-Mellon), and Flakey the robot. A special treat is Marvin Minsky
plugging his pet "society of mind" theory.
The series begins with a look at the question of what intelligence is, and
somehow implies that A.I. pays close attention to research on that question.
The script doesn't dig deeply into the field, but then it apparently doesn't
have to in order to catch the essence of how far A.I. has gotten.
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Also for October, but as yet unscheduled:
Philosophy Colloquium
N. Smith
(probably about rationality in science)
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November 4 (Wednesday)
Psychology Colloquium
Richard Nisbett (Michigan)
"Teaching Reasoning"
Sid Smith 2135, 4pm
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November 6,7,8 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
North Eastern Linguistics Society (NELS)
18th Annual Conference
Northrop Frye Hall, Victoria University, starting Friday November 6th at 8am.
The focus of the conference will be theoretical linguistics (syntax).
Approximately 30 papers, selected from a field of about 150 submissions will
be presented over the three days. The conference comes to Toronto after being
held at M.I.T. in 1986, and at McGill in 1985.
A special parasession, supplemental to the conference, will deal with "The
Geometry of Phonological Representations." John Anderson (Edinburgh),
G.N. Clements (Cornell), and Jonathon Kaye (Montreal) are invited speakers
for the parasession.
To receive an information package, get details, or register, call 978-4029
between 1 and 4 pm.
Conference fees are $20 (student) or $25 (other) before October 15, $25/$30
thereafter.
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November 10 (Tuesday)
Artificial Intelligence Seminar
John Holland, Michigan
(probably Galbraith 244, 2pm)
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November 10
Computer Science Colloquium
Wolfgang Haken (Mathematics, University of Illinois)
"An Algorithm to Recognize the 3-Dimensional Sphere"
Sanford Fleming 1105, 11am
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November 13 (Friday)
Andy Kulka (Toronto)
"The a priori elements in psychology"
Erindale campus, South Building room 3129, 3pm
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Notes on AI seminars:
GB244 has the entrance at the front, next to the speaker, so please try to
arrive early. When there is no Computer Science Colloquium on the same day,
the seminar may change to SF1105 at 11am. Contact Armin Haken, ext 6277, to
check on such changes.
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Paper subscriptions to Toronto Intelligence, event announcements, contact:
tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu
Next submission deadline, OCTOBER 30.