nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu (NL-KR Moderator Chris Welty) (02/22/89)
NL-KR Digest (2/21/89 19:34:05) Volume 6 Number 3
Today's Topics:
BBN AI Seminar -- Jim Schmolze
BBN AI/Education seminar: Sayeki & Ueno
SUNY Buffalo Cognitive Science Colloquium
CSLI Calendar, Feb. 16
Submissions: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu OR nl-kr@turing.cs.rpi.edu
Requests, policy: nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu OR
nl-kr-request@turing.cs.rpi.edu
%% My priority will be to get the backlog of announcements out first,
%% then the questions and discussions. This digest is composed of
%% announcements that are still timely. I will post the announcements
%% that are late (in case they are of interest anyway) in the next issue.
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Date: Tue 21 Feb 89 14:44:41-EST
>From: Marc Vilain <MVILAIN@G.BBN.COM>
Subject: BBN AI Seminar -- Jim Schmolze
To: ai-folks@G.BBN.COM
BBN Science Development Program
AI Seminar Series Lecture
GUARANTEEING SERIALIZABLE RESULTS IN PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
THAT EXECUTE MANY RULES IN PARALLEL
Jim Schmolze
Department of Computer Science
Tufts University
(schmolze%cs.tufts.edu@RELAY.CS.NET)
BBN Labs
10 Moulton Street
2nd floor large conference room
10:30 am, Tuesday February 28
To speed up production systems, researchers have studied how to execute many
rules simultaneously. Unfortunately, such systems can yield results that are
impossible for a serial system to produce, leading to erroneous behaviors.
I will present a fast algorithm that prevents all non-serializable effects for
multi-rule execution systems. My framework is taken from [IS85] and
improves upon their solution. I also offer two additional strategies for
increasing concurrency while retaining the serialization guarantee. The
practical advantages of these strategies is considerable, as shown by my
estimates for a large production system, the Manhattan Mapper [LC83].
[IS85] T. Ishida and S.J. Stolfo.
"Towards the parallel execution of rules in production system programs."
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Processing, 1985.
[LC83] L. Lerner and J. Cheng.
"The Manhattan Mapper expert production system".
Technical report, Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University, May 1983.
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Date: Thu 16 Feb 89 11:23:36-EST
>From: Marc Vilain <MVILAIN@G.BBN.COM>
Subject: BBN AI/Education seminar: Sayeki & Ueno
To: ai-folks@G.BBN.COM
BBN Science Development Program
AI Seminar Series Lecture
MENTAL MODELS AS THEATER
YUTAKA SAYEKI, NAOKI UENO,
University of Tokyo National Institute
of Educational Research
BBN Labs
10 Moulton Street
2nd floor large conference room
10:30 am, Tuesday February 21
This talk will focus on the understanding physics problems, taking a
model of the theater and combining it with kobito theory in which point
of view has a critical role in understanding objects and environments.
In Theater, as Peckham (1965) describes, we have an enormously rich
variety of metaphors for new features for computer interfaces that can
aid in understanding: Actors, Directors, Stage Conductors, Audience,
Critics, Stage, Stage-Setting, Background, Foreground, Scenes, Play, ,
Casts, Casting, Script, Scripting, Rehearsal, Dramatist , Improvising,
Ad-lib, Show, and so on. In kobito theory as elaborated by Sayeki,
"point of view" and active participation in different modes of
activities (such as "throwing in, " "acting out," and "feeling about")
is considered to be crucial for exercising roles of actors, viewers
(audience and directors) in order to get deep understanding. The
following features are found in the notions elaborated by Peckham, Ueno,
and Sayeki:
(1) Every "view" must be a view from a particular vantage point in situ
playing a particular Role, that can be shifted, moved, exchanged, or
replaced. The important point here is is that we actively choose and try
out taking a variety of vantage points, in order to delineate the
critical "invariant structure" (cf. Gibson) of the scene. Shifting
vantage points can yield "insight" into a solution as Peckham described,
too. We need "tools" and "stages" for searching and trying-out possible
vantage points.
(2) We learn more from observing the continuous changes of scenes, or
movements of objects along with our own movements and actions upon the
objects, rather than fixed "representations" or "snapshots" of objects .
(Here again, we take a Gibsonian view, rather than the
"representationalist's view" of cognitive science.)
(3) We learn and think by acting, participating, and changing in a broad
domain of activity, rather than simply watching or manipulating objects
in your hands or on your "desktop," without moving your original
position. An important point here is that we occasionally change the
domain of activity, such as working at the desk, travelling by car,
train, and airplane, attending conferences, working at home at night,
and so on. Current interface technology assumes an "armchair viewer" at
the fixed position.
(4) "Representation" is NOT a thought by itself; it is a medium of
thoughts. "Representation" should be "social" from the beginning and be
used "socially." It must be deeply rooted in cultural, "shared"
knowledge, as well as triggered by the materialized "form" or appearance
of the object to be represented.
In the presentation, we will explain a number of misunderstandings of
physics problems as either (1) miscasting of actors, or (2) mis-staging
of the environment. Thus it would be possible to "cure" some of the
"conceptual bugs" by re-casting or re-staging the situations. We shall
illustrate these points by the use of 3D Logo.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 89 10:16:46 EST
>From: rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport)
To: nl-kr@turing.cs.rpi.edu,
Subject: SUNY Buffalo Cognitive Science Colloquium
UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
GRADUATE GROUP IN SEMIOTICS
and
GRADUATE RESEARCH INITIATIVE IN COGNITIVE AND LINGUISTIC SCIENCES
PRESENT
JAMES H. FETZER
Deparment of Philosophy
University of Minnesota at Duluth
SEMIOTIC SYSTEMS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Monday, February 27, 1989
4:00 P.M.
684 Baldy Hall, Amherst Campus
There will be an evening discussion at 8:00 P.M. at Erwin Segal's house,
101 Carriage Circle, Williamsville. Contact Paul Garvin, Department of
Linguistics, 636-2177, or Bill Rapaport, Department of Computer Science,
636-3193, for further information.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 89 08:15:26 PST
>From: hyde@csli.Stanford.EDU (Dawn Hyde)
To: emma@csli.Stanford.EDU
Subject: csli calendar, Feb. 16, 4:16
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
_____________________________________________________________________________
16 February 1989 Stanford Vol. 4, No. 16
_____________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, 16 February 1989
12 noon TINLunch
Cordura Hall Defeasible Reasoning and Nonmonotonic
Conference Room (and worse) Inference Relations:
A Little Philosophy; A Little AI; A Little Logic
David Israel
(israel@ai.sri.com)
Abstract below
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Cordura Hall Overview of the German Research Center for AI
Conference Room Gerhard Barth
German Research Center for AI
Abstract below
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
____________
THIS WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Defeasible Reasoning and Nonmonotonic
(and worse) Inference Relations:
A Little Philosophy; A Little AI; A Little Logic
David Israel
16 February
Starting about a decade ago, researchers in Artificial Intelligence
began to formalize certain oddly behaved, in particular nonmonotonic,
inference patterns. Some of these, e.g., Reiter's logic for default
reasoning, modeled features of actually existing computational
systems; others, such as circumscription, were presented as capturing
important features of actual, human common-sense reasoning. In both
kinds of case, the phenomenon under consideration has something to do
with what philosophers have called `defeasible reasoning.'
The latter will be very briefly characterized. We shall then move
on to recent attempts by logicians Dov Gabbay, on the one hand, and
David Makinson, on the other, to give abstract axiomatic accounts of a
variety of these nonmonotonic inference relations. These will be
described and some important results mentioned. A few questions will
be raised about what such inference relations have to do with
defeasible reasoning. `Many' fewer answers will be suggested.
____________
THIS WEEK'S SEMINAR
Overview of the German Research Center for AI
Gerhard Barth
German Research Center for AI
16 February
The German Research Center for AI was founded just recently. In this
talk, an overview of its structure, organization, and short-term
research program will be presented. One of the research projects that
has already been started is concerned with knowledge-based
presentation of information. Some specific issues of this project
will be discussed in the second half of the talk.
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
A Typology of Possible Morphophonological Change
Bill J. Darden
University of Chicago
Friday, 17 February, 3:15
Cordura Hall Conference Room
Morphonological rules, being phonologically unmotivated, can be seen as
creating formal and semiotic problems. They have to be learned and
they create unmotivated allomorphy. They also may serve as auxiliary
signs themselves. Changes can generally be classified as those that
solve the problems or those that enhance the sign value of the
alternation. These changes indicate the close ties of
morpho-phonology to morphology. Other changes indicate close ties
with phonology. There are phonologically motivated adjustments in
morphonological rules, and morphologically motivated adjustments
in phonological rules (which may result in the elimination
of the rules). Ultimately, however, the phonologically motivated
changes can be interpreted as morphologically motivated, and the
morphological influence on phonological rules can be limited to the
morphological aspect (the input).
_____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
Semiotics
David Wellbery
German Studies
Friday, 17 February, 3:15
Room 60:61G
David Wellbery will explain why symbolic systems should consider the
humanities as a part of its major. There has been much work on
symbols, symbolism, meaning, interpretation, and much more in the
humanities (principally semiotics, literary theory, and symbolic
anthropology), which researchers and students in symbolic systems
could use and might miss otherwise. On the other hand, as in every
case of collaboration, these humanities disciplines also stand to gain
great benefit from ideas within technical symbolic systems. In this
vein, Professor Wellbery hopes to hold an informal discussion in which
he will present some ideas about semiotics and attempt to justify
collaboration.
___________
THE HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS INTEREST GROUP
The Diachronic Typology of Possessives
Dr. Vjacheslav V. Ivanov
Professor of History of Culture, Moscow University
Thursday, 23 February, 5:30
Ventura Hall Seminar Room
Refreshments will be served at 5:00.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
Turing's Oracle
Solomon Feferman
Department of Mathematics
Friday, 24 February, 3:15
Room 60:62N
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
Cross-Linguistic Properties
of Anaphoric Systems
Peter Sells
Department of Linguistics
Friday, 24 February, 3:30
Cordura Hall Conference Room
____________
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End of NL-KR Digest
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