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Neuron Digest Volume 13 Number 32
Neuron Digest Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 Volume 13 : Issue 32
Today's Topics:
Alife Digest Resources
biomoo
New Book and Videotape on Genetic Programming
CogSci Summer School
NIPS*94 Mosaic hompage now available
NN and Multimedia
Re: Neuron Digest V13 #30 (Postscript to ASCII conversion )
Send submissions, questions, address maintenance, and requests for old
issues to "neuron-request@psych.upenn.edu". The ftp archives are
available from psych.upenn.edu (130.91.68.31) in pub/Neuron-Digest or by
sending a message to "archive-server@psych.upenn.edu".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Alife Digest Resources
From: alife@BIOLOGY.UCLA.EDU
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 20:08:12 -0700
[[ Editor's Note: From a related mailing list.... Some ND readers may
find these resources interesting and useful. -PM ]]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Artificial Life Distribution List ~
~ ~
~ All submissions for distribution to: alife@cognet.ucla.edu ~
~ All list subscriber additions, deletions, or administrative details to: ~
~ alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu ~
~ All software, tech reports to Alife depository through ~
~ anonymous ftp at ftp.cognet.ucla.edu in ~ftp/pub/alife (128.97.50.19) ~
~ ~
~ List maintainers: Greg Werner ~
~ Artificial Life Research Group, UCLA ~
~ ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANNOUNCING:
ARTIFICIAL LIFE ONLINE
The Artificial Life Online WWW-Server and BBS Service
Sponsored by
MIT Press
and
The Santa Fe Institute
alife.santafe.edu
The Artificial Life Online/BBS is intended to be a central
information collection and distribution site on the Internet
for any and all aspects of the Artificial Life endeavor. The
system is sponsored by MIT Press and the Santa Fe Institute.
The Alife Online service combines the functionalities of a
WWW server, a Gopher server, an FTP site, an interactive
bulletin-board-system, and Usenet News. Directions for accessing
Alife Online and the ALBBS in these different modes are included
below.
A special feature is a collection of 40 or so local newsgroups
dedicated to a wide variety of topics in Artificial Life.
Many of the files and resources here are available to everybody
via Gopher and WWW. However, to access the full range of BBS
services, it is necessary to come in using telnet and to create a
local account. This will allow you to participate in the local Alife
newsgroup discussions, and to set up personal information files
such as a plan, project, HTML personal home page, etc.
To access Alife Online via World-Wide-Web (WWW):
Use the URL http://alife.santafe.edu/
For best results we suggest using a client capable of
handling color graphics and forms, such as Mosaic.
A character-based (ASCII) client called "lynx" is also
available -- but will not support graphics.
To access the Alife Online BBS (ALBBS) via telnet:
telnet to "alife.santafe.edu" and login as "bbs". You
will find yourself in a specially constructed UNIX
shell within which either BBS menu commands or UNIX
commands can be used to browse around in the system.
To set up a local account, telnet to "alife.santafe.edu"
login as "bbs," and run the "account" program. These
accounts will initially be provided free of charge, but
we will eventually have to charge a nominal fee in order
to cover operating expenses (on the order of $15-$25 per
year). Subscribers to the Artificial Life Journal from
MIT Press will have this fee waived.
Once you have an account on alife.santafe.edu, you can
telnet to "alife.santafe.edu" and login as yourself.
You do not have to create an account to use the ALBBS via
telnet - you can simply login as "bbs" and browse through
the system using the BBS commands.
To access the www features in the context of a character
based client, telnet to alife.santafe.edu and login to the
BBS as "lynx".
To access Artificial Life Online using Gopher:
Connect to alife.santafe.edu (standard gopher port 70).
To access Artificial Life Online via FTP:
ftp to alife.santafe.edu, login as "anonymous" and
type your login@homesite as the password.
Everything interesting is in the "pub" directory.
Feedback:
Please let us know if you have any suggestions or
questions about the Alife Online/BBS system.
Send Email to:
feedback@alife.santafe.edu
------------------------------
Subject: biomoo
From: Kimball Collins <kpc@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 22:13:27 -0700
[[ Editor's Note: From the Cognitive Neuroscience Mailing List. This may
appeal to some of the ND readers with greater wetware interest. Are
there ANN MOOs? -PM ]]
I meant to include this in the digest too, but it's probably worth
sending out anyway, since biomoo isn't too well known yet and the
neuroscience activities on it are probably of interest.
Biomoo is a MOO for biologists to meet on (or in). I just tried it to
see if there are any cogneuro/psychobiology types there. There is a
neuroscience journal club. Perhaps with enough of us joining there
will be a thriving community of cogneuro types as well.
To try it, do your computer's equivalent of
telnet bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il 8888
and don't be shy!
More information about biomoo follows the page break below.
Response time is excellent from here. Players are friendly; within a
minute of joining, somebody asked if I needed help and told me a few
things about biomoo.
Biomoo describes itself like this:
> BioMOO is a 'text-based virtual reality' for biologists, in which the users
> can move about from place to place manipulating their environment and
> communicating with other users.
>
> BioMOO is not a game, but a serious application of a technology that has been
> largely devoted to gaming. People here meet to cooperate, learn, teach,
> explore, create.
They mean that. MOOs are not only places where you participate in
many-to-many communication; they are also places where you can create
programmatic models of things that can be manipulated by other
characters.
For example, there is a section of DNA in biomoo that you can do
things to, such as looking at a particular gene. Perhaps eventually
brain models will be put there to be viewed, rotated, zoomed,
annotated, indexed, and referenced.
For those who are curious and still reading, MOO history goes vaguely
like this. This is just my impression and is perhaps wrong!
o JRR Tolkien writes a wonderful book about a fictional place
o Nerds play D&D games partly based on book
o Hackers write "adventure" game for computers based on games
o adventure leads to MUDs and MOOs, which are multiplayer and
persistent (players can change the game state and that state
can stay from login to login)
o MOOs evolve to be used for non-game applications as a
creative, if typing-intensive, way to communicate
And finally, in case you are wondering where the cognitive
neuroscience is in this history:
o Biologist hackers write biomoo for serious purposes
o A neuroscience journal club forms on it
o I write this post about it
My opinion (based on less than one hour of experience with it): far
too much typing, and currently a low S/N ratio, but many salutary
possibilities for scientific collaboration. Eventually there will be
graphics and sound, and connections to the web, all of which will
reduce typing for those who aren't using vt100's.
I have a dream that all references in scientific papers can be clicked
on and followed to their sources. That's what the web was designed
for; MOO-style communication will, I hope, augment the web by
providing sundry and various many-to-many ways of discussing papers,
playing with data, manipulating models, meeting people interested in
similar research topics, etc.
Despite the reliance on typing, I like the biomoo idea a lot and hope
that cogneuro-ers try it out and keep it alive.
P.S. There will be an article in Science about it soon, so
participation will probably shoot up after that. If you try it before
it is published, it will probably be quieter.
- --
kpc@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov. AI, multidisciplinary neuroethology, info filtering.
On a superhighway, existing roads are destroyed, it is easy to monitor traffic,
you can't make your on-ramp, politics controls development; and they arrest you
if you go too fast, travel in your own direction, or use unapproved technology.
------------------------------
Subject: New Book and Videotape on Genetic Programming
From: John Koza <koza@CS.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 11:04:09 -0700
Genetic Programming II and the associated videotape
are now available from the MIT Press.
GENETIC PROGRAMMING II:
AUTOMATIC DISCOVERY OF REUSABLE
SUBPROGRAMS
by John R. Koza
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
It is often argued that the process of solving complex
problems can be automated by first decomposing the
problem into subproblems, then solving the presumably
simpler subproblems, and then assembling the solutions to
the subproblems into an overall solution to the original
problem. The overall effort required to solve a problem can
potentially be reduced to the extent that the decomposition
process uncovers subproblems that are diPesproportionately
easy to solve and to the extent that regularities in the
problem environment permit multiple use of the solutions
to the subproblems. Sadly, conventional techniques of
machine learning and artificial intelligence provide no
effective means for automatically executing this alluring
three-step problem-solving process on a computer.
GENETIC PROGRAMMING II describes a way to
automatically implement this three-step problem-solving
process by means the recently developed technique of
automatically defined functions in the context of genetic
programming. Automatically defined functions enable
genetic programming to define useful and reusable
subroutines dynamically during a run. This new technique
is illustrated by solving, or approximately solving, example
problems from the fields of Boolean function learning,
symbolic regression, control, pattern recognition, robotics,
classification, and molecular biology. In each example, the
problem is automatically decomposed into subproblems;
the subproblems are automatically solved; and the solutions
to the subproblems are automatically assembled into a
solution to the original problem. Leverage accrues because
genetic programming with automatically defined functions
repeatedly uses the solutions to the subproblems in the
assembly of the solution to the overall problem. Moreover,
genetic programming with automatically defined functionsn
produces solutions that are simpler and smaller than the
solutions obtained without automatically defined functions.
CONTENTS...
1. Introduction
2. Background on Genetic Algorithms, LISP, and Genetic
Programming
3. Hierarchical Problem-Solving
4. Introduction to Automatically Defined Functions P The
Two-Boxes Problem
5. Problems that Straddle the Breakeven Point for
Computational Effort
6. Boolean Parity Functions
7. Determining the Architecture of the Program
8. The Lawnmower Problem
9. The Bumblebee Problem
10. The Increasing Benefits of ADFs as Problems are
Scaled Up
11. Finding an Impulse Response Function
12. Artificial Ant on the San Mateo Trail
13. Obstacle-Avoiding Robot
14. The Minesweeper Problem
15. Automatic Discovery of Detectors for Letter
Recognition
16. Flushes and Four-of-a-Kinds in a Pinochle Deck
17. Introduction to Molecular Biology
18. Prediction of Transmembrane Domains in Proteins
19. Prediction of Omega Loops in Proteins
20. Lookahead Version of the Transmembrane Problem
21. Evolution of the Architecture of the Overall Program
22. Evolution of Primitive Functions
23. Evolutionary Selection of Terminals
24. Evolution of Closure
25. Simultaneous Evolution of Architecture, Primitive
Functions, Terminals, Sufficiency, and Closure
26. The Role of Representation and the Lens Effect
27. Conclusion
Appendix A: List of Special Symbols
Appendix B: List of Special Functions
Bibliography
Appendix C: List of Type Fonts
Appendix D: Default Parameters for Controlling Runs of
Genetic Programming
Appendix E: Computer Implementation of Automatically
Defined Functions
Appendix F: Annotated Bibliography of Genetic
Programming
Appendix G: Electronic Newsletter, Public Repository, and
FTP Site
Hardcover. 746 pages. ISBN 0-262-11189-6.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Genetic Programming II Videotape:
The Next Generation
by John R. Koza
This videotape provides an explanation of automatically
defined functions, the hierarchical approach to problem
solving by means of genetic programming with
automatically defined functions, and a visualization of
computer runs for many of the problems discussed in
Genetic Programming II. These problems include symbolic
regression, the parity problem, the lawnmower problem, the
bumblebee problem, the artificial ant, the impulse response
problem, the minesweeper problem. the letter recognition
problem, the transmembrane problem, and the omega loop
problem.
VHS videotape. 62-Minutes. Available in VHS NTSC,
PAL, and SECAM formats.
NTSC ISBN 0-262-61099-X. PAL ISBN 0-262-61100-7.
SECAM ISBN 0-262-61101-5.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following order form can be used to order copies of
Genetic Programming I or II, videotapes I or II, and
Kinnear's recent book.
Order Form
Send to
The MIT Press
55 Hayward Street
Cambridge, MA 02142 USA
You may order by phone 1-800-356-0343 (toll-free);
or by phone to 617-625-8569;
or by Fax to 617-625-6660;
or by-e-mail to mitpress-orders@mit.edu
Please send the following:
___copies of book Genetic Programming: On the
Programming of Computers by Means of Natural
Selection by John R. Koza (KOZGII) @$55.00
___copies of book Genetic Programming II:
Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs by
John R. Koza (KOZGH2) @$45.00
___copies of book Advances in Genetic
Programming by K. E. Kinnear (KINDH) @$45.00
___copies of videoGenetic Programming: the Movie
in VHS NTSC Format (KOZGVV) @$34.95
___copies of videoGenetic Programming:the Movie
in VHS PAL Format (KOZGPV) @$44.95 each
___copies of videoGenetic Programming:the Movie
in VHS SECAM Format (KOZGSV) @$44.95
___copies of video Genetic Programming II
Videotape: The Next Generation in VHS NTSC
Format (KOZGV2) @$34.95
___copies of video Genetic Programming II
Videotape: The Next Generation in VHS PAL
Format (KOZGP2) @$44.95
___copies of video Genetic Programming II
Videotape: The Next Generation in VHS SECAM
Format (KOZGS2) @$44.95
Shipping and handling: Add $3.00 per item.
Outside U.S. and Canada: add $6.00 per item for
surface shipment or $22.00 per item for air
Total for items ordered ________
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Canadian customers add 7% GST ________
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- -----------------------------------
For orders in the UK, Eire, Continental Europe, please
contact the London office of the MIT Press at:
The MIT Press
14 Bloomsbury Square
London WC1A 2LP
England
Tel (071) 404 0712
Fax (071) 404 0610
e-mail 100315.1423@compuserve.com
For order in Australia, please contact:
Astam Books
57-61 John Street
Leichhardt, NSW 2040 Australia
Tel (02) 566 4400
Fax (02) 566 4411
Please note that prices may be higher outside the US.
In all other areas of the world or in case of difficulty, please
contact:
The MIT Press International Department
55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA
Tel 617 253 2887
Fax 617 253 1709
e-mail curtin@mit.edu
------------------------------
Subject: CogSci Summer School
From: Boicho Kokinov <KOKINOV@BGEARN.BITNET>
Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 16:05:57 -0700
The Summer School features introductory and advanced courses in Cognitive
Science, participant symposia, discussions, and student sessions.
Participants will include university teachers and researchers, graduate
and senior undergraduate students.
International Advisory Board
Elizabeth BATES (University of California at San Diego, USA)
Amedeo CAPPELLI (CNR, Pisa, Italy)
Cristiano CASTELFRANCHI (CNR, Roma, Italy)
Daniel DENNETT (Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA)
Ennio De RENZI (University of Modena, Italy)
Charles DE WEERT (University of Nijmegen, Holland )
Christian FREKSA (Hamburg University, Germany)
Dedre GENTNER (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA)
Christopher HABEL (Hamburg University, Germany)
Joachim HOHNSBEIN (Dortmund University, Germany)
Douglas HOFSTADTER (Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA)
Keith HOLYOAK (University of California at Los Angeles, USA)
Mark KEANE (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland)
Alan LESGOLD (University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA)
Willem LEVELT (Max-Plank Institute of Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Holland)
David RUMELHART (Stanford University, California, USA)
Richard SHIFFRIN (Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA)
Paul SMOLENSKY (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA)
Chris THORNTON (University of Sussex, Brighton, England)
Carlo UMILTA' (University of Padova, Italy)
Local Organizers
New Bulgarian University
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Bulgarian Cognitive Science Society
Local Organizing Committee
Boicho Kokinov - School Director
Lilia Gurova, Vesselin Zaimov, Vassil Nikolov, Lora Likova,
Marina Yoveva, Pasha Nikolova
Courses
Qualitative Spatial Reasoning
Christian Freksa (Hamburg University, Germany)
Computer Models of Analogy-Making
Bob French (Indiana University, USA)
Social Cognition
Rosaria Conte (CNR, Roma, Italy)
Multi-Agent Systems
Iain Craig (University of Warwick, England)
Cognitive Aspects of Language Processing
Amedeo Cappelli (CNR, Pisa, Italy)
Catastrophic Forgetting in Connectionist Networks
Bob French (Indiana University, USA)
Dynamic Networks for Cognitive Modeling
Peter Braspenning (University of Limburg, Holland)
Models of Brain Functions
Andre Holley (CNRS, Lyon, France)
Foundations of Cognitive Science
Encho Gerganov, Naum Yakimov, Boicho Kokinov, Viktor Grilihes (New
Bulgarian University, Bulgaria)
Participant Symposia
Participants are invited to submit papers which will be presented (30 min)
at the participant symposia. Authors should send full papers (8 single
spaced pages) in thriplicate or electronically (postcript, RTF, or
plain ASCII) by July 30. Selected papers will be published in the
School's Proceedings after the School itself. Only papers presented
at the School will be eligible for publishing.
Panel Discussions
Integration of Methods and Approaches in Cognitive Science
Trends in Cognitive Science Research
Student Session
At the student session proposals for M.Sc. Theses and Ph.D. Theses will be
discussed as well as public defence of such theses (if presented).
Fees (including participation, board and lodging)
Advance Registration (payment in full, postmarked on or before June 15): $650
Late Registration (postmarked after June 15): $750
The fees should be transferred to the New Bulgarian University (for the
Cognitive Science Summer School) at the Economic Bank (65 Maria Luisa Str.,
Sofia) - bank account 911422735300-8 or paid at registration.
A very limited number of grants for partial support of participants from East
European countries is available.
Important dates:
Send Application Form: now
Deadline for Advance Registration: June 15
Deadline for Paper Submission: July 15
Inquiries, Applications, and Paper Submission to be send to:
Boicho Kokinov
Cognitive Science Department
New Bulgarian University
54, G.M.Dimitrov blvd.
Sofia 1125, Bulgaria
fax: (+3592) 73-14-95
e-mail: cogsci94@adm.nbu.bg or kokinov@bgearn.bitnet
Parallel Events
The International Conference in Artificial Intelligence - AIMSA'94 -
will be held in Sofia in the period September 21-24.
Summer School on Information Technologies - will be held in Sofia in
the period September 16-20.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Summer School in Cognitive Science
Sofia, September 12-24, 1994
Application Form
Name:
First Name:
Status: faculty / graduate student / undergraduate student / other
Affiliation:
Country:
Mailing address:
e-mail address:
fax:
I intend to submit a paper: (title)
------------------------------
Subject: NIPS*94 Mosaic hompage now available
From: David Redish <David_Redish@GS17.SP.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 07:41:50 -0400
There is now a homepage for NIPS*94 at the following url:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs/project/cnbc/nips/NIPS.html
Included in this homepage are:
- the call for papers (html and ascii versions)
- the call for workshops (html and ascii versions)
- style files for papers
When they become available, the following will also be added:
- NIPS*94 program
- NIPS*94 abstracts
- NIPS*94 workshops
- hotel and other local Denver information
- ------------------------------------------------------------
A short description of NIPS*94 follows:
Neural Information Processing Systems
-Natural and Synthetic-
Monday, November 28 - Saturday, December 3, 1994
Denver, Colorado
This is the eighth meeting of an interdisciplinary conference
which brings together neuroscientists, engineers, computer
scientists, cognitive scientists, physicists, and mathematicians
interested in all aspects of neural processing and
computation. The conference will include invited talks, and oral
and poster presentations of refereed papers. There will be no
parallel sessions. There will also be one day of tutorial
presentations (Nov 28) preceding the regular session, and two
days of focused workshops will follow at a nearby ski area (Dec
2-3).
- ------------------------------------------------------------
David Redish
Carnegie Mellon University
------------------------------
Subject: NN and Multimedia
From: Dagmar Mack <WI-DAMA@wi.wiso.uni-dortmund.de>
Organization: Universitaet Dortmund - WISO - WI
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 07:35:04 +0100
HI everybody,
my name is Dagmar Mack and I am new on the list.
The first question I have got hasn't quite so much to do with NN. I
want to know if there is still a list for MULTIMEDIA people. We
intend to combine NNs and multimedia-applications.
So if anybody knows anything about such a list, please let me know!
Yours
Dagmar
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Universitaet Dortmund Telefon 0049 (0)231 7553112
Fakultaet WiSo Telefax 0049 (0)231 7553158
Lehrstuhl Wirtschaftsinformatik Street: Vogelpothsweg 87
Dipl. Wirt.-Ing. Dagmar Mack D-44227 Dortmund
D-44221 Dortmund
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Neuron Digest V13 #30 (Postscript to ASCII conversion )
From: zsolt@hercules.elte.hu (Zsolt Bagoly)
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 09:33:35 -0200
|
| Return-Path: <marvit@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
In article "Neuron Digest V13 #30 (questions, jobs, and stuff)"
<neuron-request@CATTELL.PSYCH.UPENN.EDU> writes:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|...
| Subject: Request for TeX files
| From: jmorgan@math.uci.edu
| Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 20:04:38 -0700
|
| [[ Editor's Note: This is a difficult problem with the new muslti-mudeia
| servers and Internet browsing systems. If anyone has a general solution,
| please let us know. Otherwise, I suggest trying to contact the authors
| directly. Is there some type of Postscript to ASCII conversion possible? -PM]]
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, there's a program called pst:
(c) Copyright 1993 by Panagiotis Tsirigotis All rights reserved.
The file named COPYRIGHT specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
NAME
pst - extract the text of a postscript file
SYNOPSIS
pst [-l] [-v] [-d] [-n] [-a algorithm] file
DESCRIPTION
This program extracts the text contained in the specified postscript
file. Such files are typically produced by other programs. pst needs to
identify how the file was produced in order to successfully extract the
text from it. It currently understands files generated by the following
programs:
dvips
ditroff through psdit
WordPerfect
idraw
The package name is pstext-1.0.5.tar.gz (e.g. anonymous ftp from
liasun3.epfl.ch:///pub/ps/pstext-1.0.5.tar.gz). I've tried the ghostscript
ps2ascii.ps file too, but the pst works better for me.
Zsolt
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Zsolt Bagoly Dept. of Atomic Physics, Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary|
|TEL: (+36)-1-2667-902 OR (+36)-1-2670-820/ext. 433 FAX: (+36)-1-2660-206 |
|E-MAIL: zsolt@hercules.elte.hu OR bagoly@ludens.elte.hu |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
... Ceterum censeo windowsinem esse delendam!
------------------------------
End of Neuron Digest [Volume 13 Issue 32]
*****************************************
