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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 023
AIList Digest Thursday, 21 Jul 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Reply from Cognitive Systems
Lisp Portability
UTILISP
Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics
Re: CSCSI-84 Call for Papers
AI Definitions (3)
HP Computer Colloquium 7/21
Next AFLB talk(s)
Special Seminar--C. Beeri
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 83 18:18:54 EDT
From: Steven Shwartz <Shwartz@YALE.ARPA>
Subject: Reply from Cognitive Systems
The following is a response to the recent letter to the editor of
Psychology Today that was circulated on AI-List concerning a natural
language system developed by Cognitive Systems Inc. for an oil
company. It states that "[the Cognitive Systems program] is friendly
as long as you play by its rules and tell it what it expects to hear."
The system in question was not designed nor touted to be a general
natural language system. It was designed to understand and respond to
queries about oil wells and topographical maps, and within its
specified domain, it performs extremely well. This system has been
demonstrated at several conferences, most recently the Applied Natural
Language Conference in Santa Monica (February, 1983), where numerous
members of the academic community tested the system and were favorably
impressed.
It should be noted that the individual who wrote the letter was not
employed by either Cognitive Systems or the division of the oil
company which commissioned this program. In fact, he was a programmer
of the query language that the natural language front end was designed
to replace.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 19 Jul 83 15:24:00-EDT
From: Chip Maguire <Maguire@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA>
Subject: Lisp Portability
[In response to Chris Ryland's message to Editor-People. -- KIL]
Once again T is Touted as "... the most efficient and portable
Lisp to appear on the market." As one of the people associated with
the development of PSL (Portable Standard LISP) at the University of
Utah, I feel that I must point out that PSL has been ported to the
Apollo, VAX/UNIX, DECSystem-20/TOPS-20, HP9836/???, Wicat/!?!?!?, and
versions are currently being implemented for the CRAY and 370
families.
The predecessor system "Standard LISP" along with the REDUCE symbolic
algebra system ran on the following machines (as October 1979):
Amdahl: 470V/6; CDC: 640, 6600, 7600, Cyber 76; Burroughs: B6700,
B7700; DEC: PDP-10, DECsystem-10, DECsystem-20; CEMA: ES 1040;
Fujitsu: FACOM M-190; Hitachi: MITAC M-160, M-180; Honneywell: 66/60;
Honeywell-Bull: 1642; IBM: 360/44, 360/67, 360/75, 360/91, 370/155,
370/158, 370/165, 370/168, 3033, 370/195; ITEL: AS-6; Siemens: 4004;
Telefunken: TR 440; and UNIVAC: 1108, 1110.
Then experiments began to port the system without having to deal
with a hand-coded LISP system which was slightly or grossly different
for each machine. This lead to a series of P-coded implementations
(for the 20, PDP-11, Z80, and Cray). This then lead via the Portable
LISP Compiler (Hearn and Griss) to the current compiler-based PSL
system.
So lets hear more about the good ideas in T and fewer nebulous
comments like: "more efficient and portable".
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 1983 13:02:23-EDT
From: Ichiro.Ogata at CMU-CS-G
Subject: UTILISP
[Reprinted from the CMU BBoard.]
I came from Univ. of Tokyo, and brought the MT that contains
UTILISP ( lisp-machine-lisp like lisp), PROLOG-KR (discribed in
UTILISP) and AMUSE (Structured Editor).
It works on IBM 370's (and its compatible machines). If this
interests you, Please contact me.
Ichiro Ogata io@cmu-cs-g
[and, for AIList, ...]
Yes, we are pleased to deliver UTILISP for all the people. UTILISP is
written in Asembler, and contains a Compiler. If you want more
information, please contact our colleges. Their address is
Tokyo-To Bunkyo-Ku Hongo
7chome 3-1
Tokyo-Daigaku Kogaku-Bu Keisukogaku-Ka
Wada labolatory
Ichiro Ogata..
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 83 8:59:19-PDT (Tue)
From: ihnp4!houxm!hocda!machaids!pxs @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics
Article-I.D.: machaids.408
(7/17/83):
The 12th Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics for high
ability high school students is now in session until August 19 in
Amherst, MA. The Summer Studies has initiated a program in cognitive
sciences and is actively seeking foundation and industry support.
(Observers and guest lecturers are invited.) For more information,
please write David Kelly, Box SS, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
01002, or call (413) 549-4600 x357 (messages on x371).
Submitted to USENET for David Kelly by Peter Squires, HCSSiM, '77,
...ihnp4!machaids!pxs
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 83 18:43:10 EDT (Tue)
From: Craig Stanfill <craig.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay>
Subject: Re: CSCSI-84 Call for Papers
Authors are requested to prepare Full papers, of
no more than 4000 words in length, or Short papers
of no more than 2000 words in length. A full page
of clear diagrams counts as 1000 words ...
In other words, a picture is worth a thousand words? (ick)
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 83 18:13:40 EDT
From: Sri <Sridharan@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Defining AI ?
[Reprinted from the Rutgers BBoard.]
I found the following sample entries in a dictionary and thought that
they were good definitions, esp. for a popular dictionary. Your
reactions are welcome.
Selected entries from the Dictionary of Information Technology by
Dennis Longley and Michael Shain, John Wiley, 1982.
Artificial Intelligence
Research and study into methods for the development of
systems that can demonstrate some of those attributes
associated with human intelligence, e.g. the ability to
recognize a variety of patterns from various viewpoints, the
ability to form hypotheses from a llimited set of
information, the ability to select relevant information from
a large set and draw conclusions from it etc. See Expert
Systems, Pattern Recognition, Robotics.
Expert Systems
In data bases, systems containing a database and associated
software that enable a user to conduct an apparently
intelligent dialog with the system in a user oriented
language. See Artificial Intelligence.
Pattern Recognition
In computing, the automatic recognition of shapes, patterns
and curves. The human optical and brain system is much
superior to the most advanced computer system in matching
images to those stored in memory. This area is subject to
intensive research effort because of its importance in the
fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, and its
potential areas of application, e.g. reading handwritten
script. See Artificial Intelligence, Robotics.
Robotics
An area of artificial intelligence concerned with robots.
Robot
A device that can accept input signals and/or sense
environmental conditions, process the data so obtained and
activate a mechanical device to perform a desired action
relating to the perceived environmental conditions or input
signal.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 83 09:43:02 EDT
From: Michael <Berman@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: AI Definitions
[Reprinted from the Rutgers BBoard.]
Speaking as an AI "outsider" the definitions seemed pretty good to me,
except for robotics. I'm not sure I would classify it as a field of
AI, but rather as one that uses techniques from AI as well as other
areas of computer science and engineering. Comments?
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 83 09:43:10 EDT
From: KELLY@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: re: Defining AI?
[Reprinted from the Rutgers BBoard.]
Those definitions all look pretty good to me, except for the
content-free entry under EXPERT SYSTEMS. That is certainly a common
view among implementers of a certain mold (i.e. those coming from an
quasi-N.L. approach, e.g. LUNAR), but I wouldn't say that this is
where the FOCUS of *our* expert systems research has been. What ever
happened to the reason for calling such beasts "Expert" systems in the
first place? It certainly wasn't because they were sterling
conversationalists!!
Anyway 4 out of 5 is pretty good.
Sorry to flame on friendly ears.
VK
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 83 20:37:04 PDT (Monday)
From: Kluger.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Reply-to: Kluger.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: HP Computer Colloquium 7/21
Guy M. Lohman
Research Staff Member
IBM Research Laboratory
San Jose, CA
R* Project
The R* project was formed to address the problems of distributed
databases, with the objective of designing and building an
experimental prototype database management system which would handle
replicated and partitioned data for both query and modification. The
R* prototype supports a confederation of voluntarily cooperating,
homogeneous, relational database management systems, each with its own
data, sharing data across a communication network.
Two seemingly conflicting goals of distributed databases have been
resolved efficiently in R*: single-site image and site autonomy. To
make the system easy to use, R* presents a single-site image: a
user's request for data need not be aware of or specify either the
location or the access path for retrieving that data, requiring close
coordination among sites. On the other hand, to make local data
available even when other sites or communication lines fail, each R*
database site must be highly autonomous.
The talk will discuss how these goals were compatibly achieved in the
design and implementation of R* without sacrificing system
performance.
Thursday, July 21, 1983 4:00 pm
Stanford Park Labs
Hewlett Packard
5M Conference room
1501 Page Mill Road
*** Be sure to arrive at the building's lobby ON TIME, so that you may
be escorted to the conference room.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 19 Jul 83 22:41:51-PDT
From: Andrei Broder <Broder@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Next AFLB talk(s)
[Reprinted from SU-BBoard.]
N E X T A F L B T A L K (S)
Despite the heat of summer AFLB is still alive!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
7/21/83 - Michael Luby (Berkeley):
"Monte Carlo Algorithms to Approximate Solutions for NP-hard
Enumeration and Reliability Problems"
****** Time and place: July 21, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) *****
If you'd like an abstract, you should be on the AFLB mailing list. -
Andrei
------------------------------
Date: Tue 19 Jul 83 15:42:54-PDT
From: Sharon Bergman <SHARON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Special Seminar--C. Beeri
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Thursday - July 21 - 2 P.M.
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460) - Room 352
CONCURRENCY CONTROL THEORY FOR NESTED TRANSACTIONS
C. Beeri
Nested transactions occur in many situations, including explicit
nesting in application programs and implicit nesting in computing
systems. E.g., database systems are usually implemented as multilevel
systems where operations of a high level language are translated in
several stages into programs using low level operations. This creates
a nested transaction structure. The same applies to systems that
support atomic data types, or concurrent access to search structures.
Synchronization of concurrent transactions can be performed at one or
more levels. The existing theory does not provide a framework for
reasoning about concurrency in systems that support nesting.
In the talk, a general nested transaction model will be described.
The model can accomodate most of the nested transaction systems
currently known. Tools for proving the serilizability of
computations, hence the correctness of the algorithms generating
them, wil be presented. In particular, it will be shown that the
p r a c t i c a l theory of CPSR logs can be easily generalized
so that previously known results (e.g., correctness of 2PL) can
be used. Examples will be presented.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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