Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Neuron Digest Volume 02 Number 13
NEURON Digest Wed Jun 3 14:30:51 CDT 1987 - Volume 2 / Issue 13
Today's Topics:
Neuroeng. Program Announcement
Conference - Matrix of Biology Workshop
June Meeting, Society for Philosophy & Psychology
Computer and Cognitive Science Abstracts (1 of 2)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 87 17:10:56 cdt
From: @EAR.BERKELEY.EDU:TKG%EAR.BERKELEY.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Subj: Neuroeng. Program Announcement
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
WASHINGTON D. C. 20550
Engineering Directorate
NEUROENGINEERING
GUIDELINES FOR THE SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
A new program in neuroengineering has been established in
the Engineering directorate to support the study, modelling, and,
applications, of concepts based upon fundamental neural systems.
This includes the electrical, chemical, biological, and
behavioral properties of individual neural elements, but more
importantly the collective responses which emerge as a result of
highly interconnected networks of such neural elements. Cross-
disciplinary research involving the engineering applications of
such fundamental biological and behavioral concepts as models of
learning processes are of interest. Of particular relevance are
new experimental implementations of associative memory and other
distributed systems which provide new perspectives for massively
parallel processes and their engineering applications.
Other aspects which would be encompassed by this program
include implementations incorporating the capacity for
generalization, familiarity recognition, categorization, error
correction, and temporal sequence retention. This includes the
investigation of the sensitivity of such collective properties
on the details of the modelling or the failure of individual
neural elements.
The program will emphasize innovative and new approaches
which could form the basis for a variety of interesting
applications. This could, for instance, encompass recent optical
and electrical circuit implementation work. It is expected that
such a program would stimulate applications of neural-based
concepts to such diverse areas as artificial intelligence,
pattern recognition, speech synthesis, signal extraction from
noise - specifically deconvolution, and a variety of minimization
problems.
In addition to support of one- or two- investigator research
proposals, cross-disciplinary group research proposals of up to
$500,000 per year will be considered. The review process for the
one- or two- investigator proposals will incorporate written peer
reviews followed by a panel review. The cross-disciplinary group
proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts chosen from the
relevant disciplines. Internal coordination of relevant programs
for final funding decisions would be important in maintaining
maximum cross-disciplinary input. Coordination with other federal
agencies will be considered.
- 1 -
Who May Submit:
U. S. academic institutions with engineering research and
education programs are invited to submit proposals. Eligibility
of applicants for NSF support is discussed in the NSF document:
Grants for Research and Education in Science and Engineering (NSF
83-57 rev. 1/87). Proposals with Co-Principal investigators from
different but related disciplines are encouraged e.g. applied
physics, computer science, neurophysiology, cognitive sciences,
and psychologists. Collaboration among investigators from either
the same or different institutions is encouraged.
Schedule:
Unsolicited research proposals with single or dual principal
investigators may be submitted at any time.
Cross-disciplinary group research proposals should be
submitted no later than June 1, 1987.
Proposal Format
The proposal should be prepared following the guidelines
contained in the NSF document: Grants for Research and Education
in Science and Engineering (NSF 83-57, rev. 1/87).
Evaluation of Proposals
In addition to the Evaluation Criteria cited in Grants for
Research and Education in Science and Engineering (NSF 83-57),
proposals will be evaluated for their potential to achieve the
stated objectives of this program. The cross-disciplinary group
research proposals will be evaluated on their intrinsic
scientific merit, and on their potential to foster the
development of the academic infrastructure necessary to produce
the future generation of researchers and engineers in this
emerging field.
GENERAL GRANT CONDITIONS
Grants are administered in accordance with the terms and
conditions of NSF Form Letter 200, Grant General Conditions,
copies of which may be requested at no cost from:
National Science Foundation
Forms and Publications, Room 232
1800 G Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20550
- 2 -
More comprehensive information is contained in the NSF
Grant Policy Manual (NSF 77-47, Revised April 1983), available
through a subscription offered by the Superintendent of
Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. 20402.
See also the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number
47.041, Engineering Grants.
The Foundation provides awards for research and related
activities in the sciences and engineering. The awardee is
wholly responsible for the conduct of such activities and
preparation of the results for publication. The Foundation,
therefore, does not assume responsibility for research results
and their interpretation.
TITLE TO EQUIPMENT
Title to equipment purchased, acquired or fabricated with
NSF grant funds by a college or university or other non-profit
organization normally will vest in the grantee institution.
PUBLICATION AND PATENT POLICY
Timely publication of results will be required.
Patent rights to inventions during the project will be
governed by NSF policy as expressed in Section 650 of Title 45 of
the Code of Federal Regulations and in accordance with Public Law
96-517. This law, commonly called the Bayh-Dole Act, provides
small business firms and nonprofit organizations (including
universities) with the principal patent rights to any inventions
made during federally-supported research.
Universities and other institutions who propose to
collaborate should reach an agreement as to the disposition of
patent rights from the project prior to submitting their proposal
to NSF. Specific inquiries about patent policies may be directed
to:
Office of the General Counsel
National Science Foundation
Washington, D.C. 20550
Telephone: (202) 357-9447
WHERE AND HOW TO SUBMIT
PROPOSALS
Ten copies of the formal proposal should be submitted to:
National Science Foundation
Data Support Services Section, Room 220
1800 G Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20550
- 3 -
One copy of the proposal must be signed by the principal
investigator/project director and an official authorized to
commit the institution in business and government affairs.
INQUIRIES
General inquiries concerning support for research projects
in this program may be directed to:
Emerging Engineering Technologies Division
Directorate for Engineering
1800 G Street, N.W., Room 1134
Washington, D. C. 20550
(202) 357-7955
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR
PARTICIPATION IN RESEARCH
The Foundation welcomes proposals on behalf of all qualified
engineers and scientists. NSF strongly encourages women,
minorities, and the handicapped to participate fully in the
program described in the announcement, both as investigators and
as students.
NSF has TDD (Telephone Device for the Deaf) capability which
enables individuals with hearing impairment to communicate with
the Division of Personnel and Management for information relating
to NSF programs, employment, or general information. The number
is (202) 357-7492.
In accordance with Federal statutes and regulations and NSF
policies, no person on grounds of race, color, age, sex, national
origin, or handicap shall be excluded from participation in,
denied the benefits of, or be the subject to discrimination under any
program or activity receiving financial assistance from the National
Science Foundation.
T. Ken Gustafson (above address or tgustafs@note.nsf.gov)
------------------------------
Date: Thu 23 Apr 87 17:34:04-EDT
From: "Patrick H. Winston" <PHW%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Conference - Matrix of Biology Workshop
[Extracted from AIList Digest - MTG]
**************** OPPORTUNITY FOR PARTICIPATION ****************
WORKSHOP
ON THE MATRIX OF
BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DATA BANK MANAGEMENT, COMPUTER ANALYSIS OF
MACROMOLECULES --- APPLIED TO CELLULAR BIOLOGY TO DEVELOP AN APPROACH TO
GENERALIZATIONS AND OTHER THEORETICAL INSIGHTS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE.
We have today a unique opportunity to merge research at the forefront of
Artificial Intelligence with efforts to provide a new conceptual
framework for the laws, models, empirical generalizations and physical
foundations of the modern biological sciences.
The Matrix of Biological Knowledge is an attempt to use advanced
computer methods to organize the immense and growing body of
experimental data in the biological sciences, in the expectation that
there are a significant number of as yet undiscovered ordering
relations, new laws and predictive relations embedded in the mass of
existing information. Workshop participants will attempt to define the
interrelations of the matrix of biological knowledge, and to demonstrate
its feasibility by applying the modern tools of computer science to a
small set of case studies. This is an outgrowth of a report from the
Natl. Academy of Sciences, "Models for Biomedical Research: a New
Perspective," produced in response to a request by the Natl. Institutes
of Health (NIH). A brief summary and description appears in "An
Omnifarious Data Bank for Biology?," SCIENCE 228(4706), 21 June 1985.
The workshop is intended to introduce a number of young scientists to
the matrix concept and to explore with these investigators the
possibilities of new theoretical developments and conceptual frameworks.
The workshop will run July 13 - August 14 at St. Johns College in Santa
Fe, in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico (AAAI
attendees may miss the first week). Participants will be supported with
housing, meals and travel as necessary. Thirty participants (graduate
students, post-doctoral fellows, and working scientists) are expected to
be selected by application from throughout the United States.
Eight groups will be directed by senior scientists:
"Artificial Intelligence," Patrick Winston, A.I. Laboratory, MIT;
"Management of Large Scale Data Bases," Robert Goldstein, U. Brit. Columbia;
"Computers Applied to Macromolecules," Peter Kollman, U. Cal. San Francisco;
"The Organization of Biological Knowledge," Harold Morowitz, Yale University;
"Cell-Cell Interactions," Hans Bode, U. of Calif., Irvine;
"Toxicology," Robert Rubin, Johns Hopkins University;
"Information Flow from DNA to Cells," Richard Dickerson, UCLA,
Harvey Hershman, UCLA, and Temple Smith, Harvard University;
"Peptides and Signalling Molecules," Christian Burks, Los Alamos Natl. Lab.,
and Derek LeRoith, NIH.
A brief description of background and desire to participate, together
with two letters of recommendation, should be sent to
Santa Fe Institute, attn. Ginger Richardson
P.O. Box 9020
Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87504 - 9020
(phone (505) 984-8800)
(Applicants should first review the NAS report or the SCIENCE article,
above, available in most science libraries.)
The workshop has been previously announced in other forums and the
formal application deadline is 1 May 1987. Applicants who will have
difficulty meeting that deadline should telephone Ginger Richardson and
notify her of their intent to submit an application, as few if any
positions will be available after that date. Applicants are strongly
encouraged to apply expeditiously so that an early decision about
participation may be reached.
Some representative connections between Artificial Intelligence and
the Matrix Workshop follow, but the list is suggestive only.
NATURAL LANGUAGE: What constraints on form and content must be met for
a scientific Abstract to be machine-readable? It is generally a single
paragraph in a very restricted form of declarative prose. If tolerable
constraints could be found they would probably be widely adopted.
KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION: How much of what knowledge must be captured,
and how, to enable scientific reasoning? Is a single unified
representation scheme possible or must each sub-field have a specialized
representation to support a specialized vocabulary and ontology? ``In
the Knowledge lies the Power.'' How can we organize this tremendous
amount of knowledge to extract the power everyone believes is there?
ANALOGICAL MAPPING: How can we notice when analogous biological
functions are implemented by analogous structures? Can we discover and
validate analogical animal models of human systems? Can we explain an
unknown response in an organism by analogy to a better-understood
system? Given an experimental system, description or outcome, could we
index and retrieve analogous situations and/or literature references?
MACHINE LEARNING: How can we re-structure the large existing databases
to automate induction from data? Can we use more knowledge-intensive
forms of learning in this knowledge-intensive domain? Can existing
learning paradigms be extended to cope with the noisy data that any real
application must face?
RULE-BASED EXPERT SYSTEMS: How much of the expert scientist's knowledge
can be formalized explicitly as rules? Could we produce an expert
system which, given a problem or request for information, could infer
which database contained the answer? Could expert knowledge, say of
toxicology, be used to produce a Toxicology Advisor which knew how to
access databases to find answers to questions not covered by its rules?
Could we create expert systems which continually scanned new additions
to databases to update their rules, or at least flag areas where the new
addition conflicts with or supplants an existing rules?
TRUTH MAINTENANCE: Suppose an Abstract always contained an explicit
statement of the proposition(s) argued for or against by the paper.
Could this be entered into a dependency network, with the paper as
justification? Could we then query the TMS to determine, for some
proposition, whether it is generally believed, disbelieved, or
controversial; and pick out the relevant literature citations? If a new
paper supports or contradicts a result from a neighboring field, can
this be detected reliably?
QUALITATIVE PROCESS THEORY: Can an organism be modeled as a cooperating
system of processes? Can we organize this so as to find similar process
systems shared by different organisms? Can we reliably predict the
effects of perturbing an organism's processes, e.g. in the study of
toxicology or medicine?
SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND DISCOVERY: We have the opportunity to
structure a large, continuously-updated body of real-world scientific
knowledge. What form of Knowledge Base would best facilitate
discovering the unexpected regularities in the data? Could a program
(possibly using a dependency network of experimental results) suggest
crucial experiments and reason about implications of possible outcomes?
SCHEMA COMPLETION: Can an experiment be understood in terms of a
setting which instantiates an ``experiment schema''? Can we use this to
group results that are ``schematically close'', even if they occur in
different biological models or in related but distinct sub-fields? Can
we fill in the default assumptions underlying a description of the
experiment and results?
DISCOURSE/STORY UNDERSTANDING: Could a scientific article be analyzed
as a narrative describing an experimental setting, a group of
observations, and some conclusions? Given a new story (experiment),
could we retrieve closely related or similar stories we've heard before?
Could a highly abridged summary of the story be produced? Could several
stories be automatically merged, and an overall summary produced?
This list is obviously indicative, not exhaustive.
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 87 22:31:54 GMT
From: harnad@mind
Subject: June Meeting, Society for Philosophy & Psychology
*** Society for Philosophy and Psychology - 1987 Program ***
University of California, San Diego -- June 21 - 23 1987
For information:
Program Chairman: William Bechtel (Philosophy, Georgia State
University) phlpwb@GSUMV1.BITNET
Secretary/Treasurer: Patricia Kitcher (Philosophy, UCSD) ir205@sdcc6%sdcsvax
SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 1987
9:00 - 11:00 A.M. SYMPOSIUM: DEPRESSION, COGNITION, AND RATIONALITY
Chair: Evalyn Segal, Psychology, San Diego State University
Speakers: George Graham, Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Christopher Peterson, Psychology, University of Michigan
Lynn Rehm, Psychology, University of Houston
Commentator: Richard Garrett, Philosophy, Bentley College
1:00 - 3:15 P.M CONCURRENT CONTRIBUTED PAPERS SESSIONS I AND II
SESSION I: Behavior and Belief
Chair: James Pate, Psychology, Georgia State Unviersity
Speaker: Ruth Garrett Millikan, Philosophy, University of Connecticut
"What is Behavior? or Why Narrow Psychology/Ethology is
Impossible"
Commentator: John Biro, Philosophy, University of Oklahoma
Speaker: David Martel Johnson, Philosophy, York University
"'Brutes Believe Not': Why Non-Human Animals Have No Beliefs"
Commentator: Carolyn Ristau, Psychology, Vassar
SESSION II: Computational Theories of Mind
Chair: Owen Flanagan, Philosophy, Wellesley
Speaker: David Kirsh, Artificial Intelligence, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
"The Concept of Computation in Connectionist Systems"
Commentator: Brian Cantwell Smith, Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Zerox PARC
Speaker: Joseph Levine, Philosophy, North Carolina State University
"Demonstrative Thought"
Commentator: La Verne Shelton, Educational Testing Service, Princeton
3:30-5:00 P.M. INVITED LECTURE
Chair: Professor Alex Rosenberg, Department of Philosophy, University of
California--Riverside
Speaker: Howard Poizner, Salk Institute, San Diego
"Brain Function for Language: Perspectives from Another
Modality"
7:00-10:00 P.M. SYMPOSIUM: SIMILARITY, ANALOGY, AND LEARNING
Chair: Paul Thagard, Cognitive Science, Princeton
Speakers: Dedre Gentner, Psychology, University of Illinois
Doug Medin, Psychology, University of Illinois
Keith Holyoak, Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
Commentator: Eva Kittay, Philosophy, SUNY, Stony Brook
MONDAY, JUNE 22, 1987
9:00-11:30 A.M. SYMPOSIUM: CONNECTIONISM AND IMAGE SCHEMATIC STRUCTURES
Chair: Patricia Churchland, Philosophy, University of California, San
Diego
Speakers: David Rumelhart, Psychology, University of California, San Diego
George Lakoff, Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
Mark Johnson, Philosophy, Southern Illinois University
Terrence Sejnowski, Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University
12:30-2:45 P.M. CONCURRENT CONTRIBUTED PAPERS SESSIONS III, IV, AND V
Session III: Logic and Reasoning
Chair: Ralph Kennedy, Philosophy, Wake Forest
Speaker: David Sanford, Philosophy, Duke University
"Circumstantial Validity"
Commentator: John Rust, Psychology, London School of Education
Speaker: Howard Margolis, Committee on Public Policy, University of
Chicago
"Habits of Mind"
Commentator: Stuart Silvers, Philosophy, Tilburg University
Session IV: Mentalistic Explanations
Chair: George Wood, School of Law, Harvard University
Speaker: Joseph Thomas Tolliver, Philosophy, University of Maryland
"Knowledge Without Truth"
Commentator: Kent Bach, Philosophy, San Fransciso State University
Speaker: Louise M. Antony, Philosophy, North Carolina State University
"Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force"
Commentator: Ken Presting, Philosophy, San Francisco State University
Session V: Subjective Experience
Chair: Hilary Kornblith, Philosophy, Vermont
Speaker: James S. Kelly, Philosophy, Miami University
"On Quining Qualia"
Commentator: Henry Jacoby, Philosophy, East Carolina University
Speaker: Richard J. Hall, Philosophy, Michigan State University
"Is An Inverted Pain-Pleasure Spectrum Possible?"
Commentator: Terry Horgan, Philosophy, Memphis State
3:00-5:30 P.M. SYMPOSIUM: CONCEPTUAL AND SEMANTIC CHANGE IN CHILDHOOD AND
SCIENCE
Chair: Adele Abrahamsen, Language Research Center, Georgia State and
Emory University
Speakers: Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Medical Research Council Cognitive
Development Unit
Alison Gopnik, Psychology, Scarborough College, University of
Toronto
Susan Carey, Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Philip Kitcher, Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
8:00-9:00 P.M. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
Chair: Alvin Goldman, Philosophy, Arizona
Speaker: Stevan Harnad, SPP President, Behavioral & Brain Sciences
"Uncomplemented Categories, Or, What is It Like To Be a Bachelor?"
Reception afterward given by Chancellor and Mrs. Richard C. Atkinson at
University House, UCSD
TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1987
8:30-11:00 A.M. SYMPOSIUM: SEMANTICS
Chair: Richard Jeffrey, Philosophy, Princeton
Speakers: Mark Johnston, Philosophy, Princeton
Barbara Hall Partee, Linguistics, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst
Norbert Hornstein, Linguistic, University of Maryland
Commentator: Stephen Schiffer, Philosophy, University of Arizona
11:15 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. INVITED LECTURE
Chair: Professor Fred Dretske, Philosophy, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Speaker: Larry R. Squire, Research Career Scientist, Veterans
Administration Medical Center, San Diego, and Psychiatry,
University of California, San Diego
"Memory and Brain: Neural Systems and Behavior"
1:30-3:45 P.M. CONCURRENT CONTRIBUTED PAPER SESSIONS VI AND VII
SESSION VI: CONCEPTS
Chair: Bernard Kobes, Philosophy, Arizona State University
Speaker: Kenneth R. Livingston and Janet Andrews, Psychology, Vassar
College
"Reflections on the Relationship Between Philosophy and
Psychology in the Study of Concepts?: Is there Madness in our
Methods?"
Commentator: Robert McCauley, Philosophy, Emory University
Speaker: Andrew Woodfield, Philosophy, Bristol
"A Two-Tiered Model of Concept Formation"
Commentaror: Paul Boghossian, Philosophy, Michigan
SESSION VII: INTENTIONALITY
Chair: Douglas G. Winblad, Philosophy, Georgia State University
Speaker: Ron Amundson, Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Hilo
"Doctor Dennett and Doctor Pangloss"
Commentator: Justin Leiber, Philosophy, University of Houston
Speaker: Robert Van Gulick, Philosophy, Syracuse
"Consciousness, Intrinsic Intentionality, and Self-Understanding
Machines
Commentator: Nick Georgalis, Philosophy, East Carolina University
4:00-5:30 P.M. INVITED LECTURE: CONSCIOUSNESS
Chair: William G. Lycan, Philosophy, University of North Carolina
Speakers: Daniel Dennett, Philosophy, Tufts University
Kathleen Akins, Philosophy, Tufts University
BEACH PARTY
--
Stevan Harnad (609) - 921 7771
{bellcore, psuvax1, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mind@princeton.csnet harnad@mind.Princeton.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 10 May 87 16:07:45 MDT
From: yorick%nmsu.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Computer and Cognitive Science Abstracts (1 of 2)
[Extracted from AIList Digest V5 #120 - MTG]
ABSTRACTS OF
MEMORANDA IN COMPUTER AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Computing Research Laboratory
New Mexico State University
Box 30001
Las, Cruces, NM 88003.
Cohen, M. (1985), Design of a New Medium for Volume Holographic
Information Processing, MCCS-85-17.
An optical analog of the neural networks involved in sensory
processing consists of a dispersive medium with gain in a narrow
band of wavenumbers, cubic saturation, and a memory nonlinearity
that may imprint multiplexed volume holographic gratings. Coupled
mode equations are derived for the time evolution of a wave
scattered off these gratings; eigenmodes of the coupling
matrix $$kappa$$ saturate preferentially, implementing stable
reconstruction of a stored memory from partial input and
associative reconstruction of a set of stored memories. Multiple
scattering in the volume reconstructs cycles of associations that
compete for saturation. Input of a new pattern switches all
the energy into the cycle containing a representative of that
pattern; the system thus acts as an abstract categorizer with
multiple basins of stability. The advantages that an imprintable
medium with gain biased near the critical point has over either
the holographic or the adaptive matrix associative paradigms
are (1) images may be input as non-coherent distributions which
nucleate long range critical modes within the medium, and (2) the
interaction matrix $$kappa$$ of critical modes is full, thus implementing
the sort of `full connectivity' needed for associative reconstruction
in a physical medium that is only locally connected, such as a
nonlinear crystal.
------------------------------
End of NEURON-Digest
********************
