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IRList Digest Volume 1 Number 15
IRList Digest Saturday, 19 Sep 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 15
Today's Topics:
EMAIL - Please Note! Changes at VPI&SU
- Funny Story
Discussion - Overlap with AIList
Announcement - NSF Inf. Science Program Staff Changes
- Expanded Inter-net Database Services
- ER Approach Advance Program
- Seminar: Recognition Algorithms
- CSLI Environment Discussions
- Posts in Scotland
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 85 18:36:27 edt
From: vpivx3::foxea@vpics1.VPI
Subject: address changes at VPI
This time for real! On October 20, the BITNET node tables will change
and addresses VPIVAX3 or VPICS1 will no longer work.
For those on BITNET, my preferred address is
fox@vtcs1
and alternates are
foxea@vtvax3
fox%vpi@csnet-relay.arpa
For those on Internet or connecting through it, the preferred address is
fox%vtcs1.bitnet@csnet-relay
and alternate is
foxea%vtvax3.bitnet@csnet-relay
Our CSNet connection is via the Phonenet service. Only here can the
IRList and IRList-Request addresses be used instead of fox. To
Internet users, you can hence send to
fox%vpi@csnet-relay (so I can still be reached in CSNet as fox@vpi)
Many thanks for your willingness to change! - Ed
------------------------------
From: fox (Ed Fox)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 12:40:56 edt
Subject: Electronic mail problems
A funny story! When IRList issues are about to be distributed, the
'send' command under VMS is invoked so PMDF can queue and post the
message to people on the distribution list. The alias for the
distribution list is 'irdis' and when the message is submitted,
our VAX-11/785 sits for sometimes 30 minutes checking and transforming
addresses.
Seeing 'irdis' in the To: field, one contributor sent a message to
irdis@vpi. The CSNET relay machine connected, our system tried to
check the recipient list, and began expanding 'irdis' whereupon
the relay timed out! This event occurred a number of times until
wise watchers at CSNET-CIC noticed something amiss. The contributor
was sent back the message with suggestion to use 'irlist@vpi' and I
ws told to alert other would-be contributors.
So, there is a happy ending and we have all learned about another
pitfall in working with network distribution lists!
Looking foward to many submissions to IRList%vpi@csnet-relay.arpa, Ed
------------------------------
From: Hibbert.pa%xerox.arpa@CSNET-RELAY
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 17:43:31 PDT
Subject: Re: IRList Digest V1 #14
In-Reply-To: "fox@vpi.CSNet's message of Thu, 10 Oct 85 12:55:00 EST"
Please stop excerpting stuff from AIList to IRList. I get that as well,
and it is not at all usefull to have to read stuff twice. If you
absolutely need to re-send that stuff, please segregate it into separate
digests, and label them as "containing no new content".
Thanks,
Chris
[Reply: Chris - I will stop direct extracting but will reprint
submissions sent from others to both AIList and IRList. I will also
reprint excerpts selected by IRList readers and sent to AIList.
Thanks for your suggestion - it will make life easier for me! - Ed]
------------------------------
From: Don <kraft@LSU>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 85 08:56:43 cdt
To: IRlist@VPI
>From LAWS@SRI-AI.CSNET Wed Oct 9 19:59:04 1985
Date: Tue 1 Oct 85 13:50:21-CDT
From: ICS.DEKEN@R20.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject: Information Science Program at NSF - Staffing Changes
Beth Adelson has been appointed to the position of Associate Program Director,
Information Science Program, effective August 15, 1985. Dr Adelson has been at
Yale University since 1983, as a Research Associate in the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr.
Adelson has published numerous articles in the areas of cognitive science and
artificial intelligence. Recent works include papers on software design <<IEEE
Transactions on Software Engineering>> and the acquisition of categories for
problem solving <<Cognitive Science>>.
Joseph Deken has been appointed to the position of Program Director,
Information Science Program, effective September 3, 1985. Dr. Deken was most
recently Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, with a
joint appointment in the Department of Business and the Department of Computer
Sciences, and taught from 1976 to 1980 at Princeton University. His Ph.D. in
mathematical statistics is from Stanford University. Dr. Deken is the author
of several books on computing, the most recent of which is <<Silico Sapiens:
The Fundamentals and Future of Robotics>>, which will be Published by Bantam
books in January 1986. His other writing includes <<Computer Images: State of
the Art>> (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1983), <<The Electronic Cottage>>
(William Morrow, 1981), and numerous articles on statistics and statistical
computing.
Program announcements and other information about the Information Science
and Technology programs at NSF are available from:
Division of Information Science and Technology
National Science Foundation
1800 G St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20550
Correspondence may be addressed to the attention of Dr. Adelson or
Dr. Deken as appropriate.
------------------------------
From: Henry Nussbacher <HJNCU%CUNYVM.BITNET%wiscvm.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY>
Return-path: HJNCU%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 09:13 EDT
Subject: Announcement of expanded inter-net Database services
This is to announce that some new services have been added to the
inter-network server running at Bitnic. Certain selected Arpanet
digests are now being loaded into a Spires database and are therefore
searchable from anywhere as long as you can send RFC822 mail.
If you are interested in using this service, send a piece of mail to:
DATABASE%BITNIC.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
or
DATABASE%BITNIC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
and have as the first 3 lines of your file (case does not matter):
help
help arpanet
help design
The server will send back to you 3 help files describing how to use the
internet server, how to search Arpanet digests and how the whole thing
was designed. Read over the section on "Signup" carefully before making
further use of the Database server.
Presently, the following 5 Arpanet forums are being loaded into the
Database:
Name Retention Period
============= ================
Ai-List 2 months
Info-Ibmpc 2 months
Info-Mac 2 months
Info-Graphics 3 months
Info-Nets 3 months
The retention period is set for a short duration in order to see if
Bitnic can handle the volume of data that needs to be stored in Spires.
This service was initialized on October 4th, 1985 so currently there
are just a few items available in the Database.
Example of search command:
FIND TEXT UNIX (IN INFO-IBMPC TABLE
would find all entries in Info-Ibmpc that contain the word UNIX.
An entry is just the section within a "digested" digest that makes
reference to the word UNIX. For further details read over the
help files.
Henry Nussbacher (Hank@Bitnic.Bitnet)
Bitnet Development and Operations Center
------------------------------
From: Ed Fox <fox@vpi>
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 85 13:46 EST
Subject: ER Approach Advance Program
The 4th International Conference
Entity-Relationship Approach
October 28-30, 1985 Chicago, Illinois
Major Theme: The Use of ER Concept in Knowledge Representation
Here are some highlights ...
Tuesday, Oct. 29
9-10am keynote address, Roger C. Shank
10:30-12 session IA. Knowledge Representation
1:30-3 sesion IIB. Query and Manipulation Lanaguages I
3:30-5:30 IIIC. Panel - Knowledge Engineering and its Implications
7:30-10 Evening. Micro Databases: How Far Do They Go
Wedn., Oct. 30
8:15-10 invited addresses
Eugene Lowenthal, Future Directions on Knowledge-Based Management
Donald Walker, Knowledge Resource Tools for Information Access
10:30-12:30 session IVA. Expert Systems
1:30-3:30 session VA. Query and Manipulation Languages II
For further information contact Prof. Kathi Davis (815) 753-0378
------------------------------
From: Peter de Jong <DEJONG%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC>
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1985 09:45 EDT
To: Cog-Sci%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC
Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar
Monday 7, October 4:00pm Room: NE43- 8th floor playroom
VISION SEMINAR
Recognition Algorithms for the Connection Machine
Anita Flynn
MIT
Many problems in early vision appear to be inherently local and
exploitble on parallel computer architectures. This talk describes a
problem in late vision, that of recognizing an unknown object and
matching it to a data base model given only sparse sensory data
points. The algorithm presently used on a sequential machine is first
explined, and then various algorithms for parallel computation are
explored. Tradeoffs in space-time efficiency are discussed in terms
of implementation on a Connection Machine. The parallel version is
shown to run three to four orders of magnitude faster than the
sequential one.
------------------------------
From: Ken Laws <Laws%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY>
Date: Thu 10 Oct 85 22:44:52-PDT
Subject: Summary of the CSLI Environments Meetings
Date: Wed 9 Oct 85 16:51:08-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Tel: 497-3479
[Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter (10.49) by Laws@SRI-AI.]
ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING
Monday, October 14, noon, Ventura Trailer Classroom
David Levy (Xerox PARC and CSLI) will continue to describe his work
on a theoretical foundation for document preparation environments.
Specifically, he will describe in some detail the theory of marking
itself, and its relevance to various computer systems. We will
discuss some points that came up in questions, such as the relation of
``indirect marking'' to different kinds of tools, the contrast between
a psychological theory (how people think when they use a system) and
an ontological account (of the basic objects, actions, and
relationships that are available for them to work with), and the
problems of multiple levels of representation (e.g., a macro command
stands for a sequence of ``characters'' which in turn represent
various ``figures'', etc.).
See the summary of the meeting on October 7 (later in this
newsletter) for more information.
SUMMARY OF ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING
September 30, 1985
At the first meeting of the environments group we set out the
general directions for our discussions. We identified some major
dimensions along which to compare and examine environments and made an
initial list of examples that might be presented. This list is very
sketchy---the random result of what happened to come up in
conversation. We are eager for further details and suggestions
(either systems for general consideration, or about which specific
people would like to talk):
Programming environments: Interlisp, Smalltalk, Cedar, [all 3 Xerox],
(Linton) [Berkeley/Stanford], Gandalf [CMU], Mentor [INRIA],
ZetaLisp [Symbolics], Kee [Intellicorp], HPRL, HPLisp [last 2
Hewlett-Packard]
Grammar development environments: LFG [CSLI], HPSG [HP], BLT [CSLI],
Specification environments: Aleph [CSLI], (Balzer)[ISI]
Language development environments: MUIR [CSLI]
Document preparation environments: (Levy) [CSLI], Notecards [Xerox]
Data access and manipulation environments:
Mathematical and logical deduction environments: MACSYMA [MIT], FOL
[Stanford]
There is a variety of application areas not as central to CSLI
concerns, but in which environments are built. These include VLSI
design, CAD/CAM, image manipulation, mail systems, etc. In addition,
most operating systems take on the functions of an environment, either
for use outside of applications programs or as a base within them.
So-called ``intelligent agents'' are one attempt to provide a uniform
environment for a particular user interacting with multiple systems.
For each kind of environment there are specific problems dealing
with the particular structures being worked with (programs, proofs,
grammars, formatted documents, etc.). There is also a framework of
common problems having to do with the basic structure of items being
manipulated (text, trees, databases, etc.), their representation on a
screen or hardcopy, interfaces for operating through that
representation, storage on one or more devices, consistency between
aspects (e.g., source and compiled code, specifications and proofs),
change over time (versions, releases, etc.), coordination of access
among a group, etc.
Our plan is to address the basic conceptual issues by looking at
one particular environment or group of related environments in each
session.
SUMMARY OF ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING
October 7, 1985
David Levy gave an overview of his work on a theoretical basis for
document preparation environments. He demonstrated the problems with
existing ``marking environments'' which combine conflicting approaches
to text layout, drawing, and window placement. The failure to
generalize the common elements in all of these leads to greater
complexity and to blind spots that create difficulty in maintaining,
documenting, and using such systems. Many of the relevant issues
apply to older marking technologies, but the computer has two novel
properties that demand a clear and explicit theory. First, marking is
indirect---the linkage between human physical action and what appears
on the screen (or paper) is mediated by linguistic or quasi-linguistic
commands. Second, there is a clear distinction between the surface
presentation (what you see) and the internal representation (its
underlying structure). The computer, unlike earlier forms, lets you
manipulate the underlying structure directly, with possibly complex
and distributed consequences to the surface presentation.
He then showed how we might begin to develop a theory of marking
with a coherent ontological basis. For example, we need to look at
something as mundane as the ``carriage return'' as having distinct and
sometimes confused aspects: it is a character (in the standard
representation), it denotes an area of non-marked space on a page, it
indicates a possible place to split a line in normal formatting, etc.
By carefully delineating the concepts involved in these different
aspects, we can produce systems that are simpler, easier to
understand, and more amenable to generalization.
------------------------------
From: Derek Sleeman <SLEEMAN%sumex-aim.arpa@CSNET-RELAY>
Date: Sat 12 Oct 85 14:10:29-PDT
Subject: Faculty & research openings
To: ai-ed%sumex-aim.arpa@CSNET-RELAY
COME TO BONNIE SCOTLAND FOR A WHILE......!!!
Univerity of ABERDEEN (Scotland)
DEPARTMENT of COMPUTING SCIENCE
A major new initiative results in the following posts:
1 Senior Lecturer/Reader
3 or 4 Lecturers
4 or 5 Research Fellowships/Research Assistants/Programmers
Majority of appointments to be made in the area of AI/Knowledge
Engineering/Cognitive Science. Candidates from other areas are invited
to apply.
Further the department is anxious to receive applications for
Visitors (at all levels) and postgraduate students - primarily in these
areas. We expect to be able to provide financial support for both
visitors and postgraduate students.
The initial closing date is in October - but interested persons are
encouraged to apply at any stage as it is not anticipated that all
the advertized posts will be filled immediately. Interested persons
are encouraged to get in touch with Derek Sleeman (SLEEMAN@SUMEX,
+1 415 497 3257) who can also provided a set of further particulars.
(Sleeman will be head of Computing Science at Aberdeen from summer '86.)
Completed applications should be returned to the Personnel Officer,
University Office, The University, Old Aberdeen, Scotland AB9 1FX.
------------------------------
END OF IRList Digest
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