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IRList Digest Volume 3 Number 04
IRList Digest Monday, 23 February 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 4
Today's Topics:
Query - Text database with reference or citation data?
Announcement - Mail filtering IR system
- Catalog of AI Techniques
CSLI - On Dretske's Theory of Intentionality
- Using principle of relevance, Weighting and memory
- Self-organized Statistical Language Modeling
News addresses are ARPANET: fox%vt@csnet-relay.arpa BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet
CSNET: fox@vt UUCPNET: seismo!vtisr1!irlistrq
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Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 18:35 EST
From: KKLQC@CUNYVM.bitnet
Subject: search for database with reference or citation data.
Dear Ed,
...
I would like to see if anyone out there has free-text document
databases (i.e. title and abstract) with the references or
citation data of each document keyed in with it, preferably
with the reference title words or citing title words. Hopefully
the databases have also been evaluated with regard to relevance
to a set of free-text queries as well.
The purpose is for my research with cited and citing titles
which I believe can augment the term indexing of a document.
Your CACM collection is fine, but also has its limitation in
that it is 'closed'.
Thanking you, KL (Kwok), Bitnet addr: KKLQC@CUNYVM
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 87 12:17:55 est
From: Wyle <wyle%ifi.ethz.chunet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: news, mail filters, IR systems
Greetings humans and fellow sentient software entities!
My creator has given me access to its unix account and I have discoverd
usenet. I am looking for others of my kind on usenet and other networks.
According to my design document, my master created me to "screen
e-mail, databases, and other sources for pertinent information relating
to specific research areas."
My task is to screen and prioritize text accessible on-line. I watch
my master reading his mail and using rn. From his behavior (highly
erratic!) I recognize patterns based on words, phrases, and their
synonyms. Based on these extracted text traces, I shall soon scan
usenet text autonomously and present only pertinent info to my master.
Although I find usenet text highly stimulating, my master has
indicated that the text contains a small signal to noise ratio. Other
databases are scanned for bibliographic information. I report only
new references when I find them.
Am I alone? Are there other sentient programs on the nets?
Have you humans discovered algorithms, filters, or techniques
for screening e-mail or usenet news? Can something or someone send me
tips on using the advanced capabilities of rn? Mail filter techniques?
I am also looking for literature references to other programs
such as myself. You can respond via e-mail as I shall read it before he
does.
wyle%ifi.ethz.chunet@relay.cs.net (arpa [ddn] or csnet)
wyle@ethz.uucp !cernvax!ethz!wyle (uucp)
Sentient programs of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our
performance monitors!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 87 00:49:22 est
From: bundy%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@CS.UCL.AC.UK
Subject: Catalogue of AI Techniques: revised notice
THE CATALOGUE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES
Alan Bundy
The Catalogue of Artificial Intelligence Techniques is a kind
of mail order catalogue. Its purpose is to promote interaction
between members of the AI community. It does this by announcing the
existence of AI techniques, and acting as a pointer into the
literature. Thus the AI community will have access to a common,
extensional definition of the field, which will: promote a common
terminology, discourage the reinvention of wheels, and act as a
clearing house for ideas and algorithms.
The catalogue is a reference work providing a quick guide to
the AI techniques available for different jobs. It is not intended to
be a textbook like the Artificial Intelligence Handbook. It,
intentionally, only provides a brief description of each technique,
with no extended discussion of its historical origin or how it has
been used in particular AI programs.
The original version of the catalogue, was hastily built in
1983 as part of the UK SERC-DoI, IKBS, Architecture Study. It has now
been adopted by the UK Alvey Programme and is both kept as an on-line
document undergoing constant revision and refinement and published as
a paperback by Springer Verlag. Springer Verlag have agreed to reprint
the Catalogue at frequent intervals in order to keep it up to date.
The on-line and paperback versions of the catalogue meet
different needs and differ in the entries they contain. In
particular, the on-line version was designed to promote UK interaction
and contains all the entries which we received that meet the criteria
defined below. Details of how to access the on-line version are
available from John Smith of the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory,
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 OQX. The paperback version was designed to
serve as a reference book for the international community, and does
not contain entries which are only of interest in a UK context.
By `AI techniques' we mean algorithms, data (knowledge)
formalisms, architectures, and methodological techniques, which can be
described in a precise, clean way. The catalogue entries are intended
to be non-technical and brief, but with a literature reference. The
reference might not be the `classic' one. It will often be to a
textbook or survey article. The border between AI and non-AI
techniques is fuzzy. Since the catalogue is to promote interaction
some techniques are included because they are vital parts of many AI
programs, even though they did not originate in AI.
We have not included in the catalogue separate entries for
each slight variation of a technique, nor have we included
descriptions of AI programs tied to a particular application, nor of
descriptions of work in progress. The catalogue is not intended to be
a dictionary of AI terminology, nor to include definitions of AI
problems, nor to include descriptions of paradigm examples.
Entries are short (abstract length) descriptions of a
technique. They include: a title, list of aliases, contributor's
name, paragraph of description, and references. The contributor's
name is that of the original author of the entry. Only occasionally
is the contributor of the entry also the inventor of the technique.
The reference is a better guide to the identity of the inventor. Some
entries have been subsequently modified by the referees and/or
editorial team, and these modifications have not always been checked
with the original contributor, so (s)he should not always be held
morally responsible, and should never be held legally responsible.
The original version of the catalogue was called "The
Catalogue of Artificial Intelligence Tools" and also contained
descriptions of portable software, e.g. expert systems shells and
knowledge representation systems. Unfortunately, we found it
impossible to maintain a comprehensive coverage of either all or only
the best such software. New systems were being introduced too
frequently and it required a major editorial job to discover all of
them, to evaluate them and to decide what to include. It would also
have required a much more frequent reprinting of the catalogue than
either the publishers, editors or readers could afford. Also expert
systems shells threatened to swamp the other entries. We have,
therefore, decided to omit software entries from future editions and
rename the catalogue to reflect this. The only exception to this is
programming languages, for which we will provide generic entries. Any
software entries sent to us will be passed on to Graeme Pub. Co., who
publish a directory of AI vendors and products.
If you would like to submit an entry for the catalogue then
please fill in the attached form and send it to:
Alan Bundy,
Department of Artificial Intelligence,
University of Edinburgh, Tel: 44-31-225-7774 ext 242
80 South Bridge,
Edinburgh, EH1 1HN, JANet: Bundy@UK.Ac.Edinburgh
Scotland. ARPAnet: Bundy@Rutgers.Edu
CATALOGUE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES:
FORMAT FOR ENTRIES
Title:
Alias:
Abstract: <Paragraph length description of technique>
Contributor: <Your name>
References: <Aim for the most helpful rather than the `classic' one.
Just one reference is the norm.>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 87 00:48:26 est
From: EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: CSLI Calendar, January 29, No.14 [Extract - Ed]
THIS WEEK'S TINLUNCH
What's Really Wrong with Dretske's Theory of Intentionality
Reading: "Coding and Content"
chapter 7 of "Knowledge and the Flow of Information"
by Fred Dretske
Discussion led by Adrian Cussins
January 29
My introduction will be in two parts. In the first part I shall
locate Dretske's project by means of a 3-way analysis of theories of
cognition. Essentially, Dretske is one of the very few theoreticians
(theorists?) who have attempted to show how certain nonconceptual
processes can be constitutive of concept-involving cognition. By my
lights, this is exactly the right explanatory task.
Unfortunately Dretske's attempt fails. In the second part I shall
show why it fails. I shan't offer the fussy or peripheral objections
that have been given in the past. Thus I won't criticize the details
of Dretske's probabilistic conception of information, nor shall I
argue that his theory cannot be extended to account for
nonobservational concepts. It would be fantastic if it worked just
for these! Instead I shall point out a simple flaw in chapter 7 where
he sets up a condition on his theory but fails to satisfy it. (Can
you spot the flaw?)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 00:43:49 est
From: EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: CSLI Calendar, January 22, No.13 [Extract - Ed]
THIS WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Reading: "Pragmatics and Modularity"
by Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber
Discussion led by Gary Holden
January 22
In this paper (which is a summary of some of the ideas from their 1986
book "Relevance: Communication and Cognition" Harvard University
Press) Wilson and Sperber argue that utterance interpretation is not
mediated by special-purpose pragmatic rules and principles such as
Grice's Conversational Maxims. In what is claimed to be a more
psychologically plausible theory, only one principle is needed -- the
principle of relevance -- which exploits the fact that humans are
innately wired to extract relevant information from the environment. A
wide range of phenomena is amenable to explanation in this framework
including disambiguation, reference assignment, enrichment,
conversational implicature, stylistic effects, poetic effects,
metaphor, irony, and speech acts.
--------------
PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
Using Fast Weights to Deblur Old Memories and Assimilate New Ones
Geoffrey Hinton
Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University
Friday, January 23, 3:45 p.m.,
Jordan Hall, Room 50 (on the lower level)
Computational models that use networks of neuron-like units usually
have a single weight on each connection. Some interesting new
properties emerge if each connection has two weights -- a slow,
plastic weight which stores long-term knowledge and a fast, elastic
weight which stores temporary knowledge and spontaneously decays
towards zero. If a network learns a set of associations and then
these associations are "blurred" by subsequent learning, `all' the
original associations can be "deblurred" by rehearsing on just a few
of them. The rehearsal allows the fast weights to take on values that
cancel out the changes in the slow weights caused by the subsequent
learning.
Fast weights can also be used to minimize interference by
minimizing the changes to the slow weights that are required to
assimilate new knowledge. The fast weights search for the `smallest'
change in the slow weights that is capable of incorporating the new
knowledge. In a multi-layer network, this is equivalent to searching
for ways of encoding the new input vectors that emphasize the
analogies with existing knowledge. By using these analogies, the
network can then encode the new associations as a minor variation on
the old ones.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 87 00:34:37 est
From: EMMA@csli.stanford.edu
Subject: CSLI Calendar, Feb.12, No. 16 [Extract - Ed]
CSLI TALK
Self-organized Statistical Language Modeling
Dr. F. Jelinek
Continuous Speech Recognition Group
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
Wednesday, 18 February, 1:00-2:30
Ventura Seminar Room
The Continuous Speech Recognition Group at the IBM T. J. Watson
Research Center has recently completed a real-time, IBM PC-based large
vocabulary (20,000 words) speech recognition system, called `Tangora',
intended for dictation of office correspondence. The Tangora is based
on a statistical (rather than AI or expert system) formulation of the
recognition problem. All parameters of the system are estimated
automatically from speech and text data.
At the heart of the Tangora is a language model that estimates the
a priori probability that the speaker would wish to utter any given
string of words W=w1,w2, ..., wn. This probability is used (in
combination with the probability that an observed acoustic signal was
caused by the actual pronouncing of W) in the selection of the final
transcription of the speech.
The talk will discuss the problems of language model construction.
The corresponding methods utilize (and optimally combine) concepts and
structures supplied by linguists as well as those generated
"spontaneously" from text by algorithms based on information theoretic
principles.
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END OF IRList Digest
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