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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 090
AIList Digest Saturday, 14 Jul 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 90
Today's Topics:
Conferences - Revised AAAI84 Program,
Application - Virtual Laboratories,
Cognition - Evolution of Conciousness,
AI Tools - Lisp for Honeywell 6060 DPS-8,
Administrivia - Advertising,
AI Tools - LISP in AZTEC C & YAPS Information,
AI Books - Charniak,
Business - Softwar,
Intelligence - Shoe-Tying Challenge,
Cognition - "Chunking" in Chess,
Conference - Term Rewriting Techniques and Applications
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Date: 13 Jul 84 0127 EDT
From: Dave Touretzky <Dave.Touretzky@CMU-CS-A.ARPA>
Subject: revised AAAI84 program
I have received a revised version of the AAAI-84 conference program from
Ron Brachman. It can be found in the following places:
AAAI84.SCH[C410DT50] on CMU-CS-A
<TOURETZKY>AAAI84.SCH on CMU-CS-C
[g]/usr/dst/aaai84.sch on CMU-CS-GP
------------------------------
Date: Fri 13 Jul 84 09:44:29-EDT
From: Wang Zeep <G.ZEEP%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: (virtual) Laboratories
I am writing a program which simulates various classical thermodynamic
systems. The ultimate goal is to have a system which helps (in some
way!) a student to understand classical thermodynamics. Obviously, a
simulator bears as much resemblance to such a thing as a chemical stockroom
does to a laboratory.
What is the purpose of a laboratory course? What should the purpose of
a virtual laboratory be? How can I best reach the goal of teaching students
about thermo?
Comments specific to laboratories, simulations and/or thermodynamics will
be greatly appreciated. You may wish to cc: me or the list to make sure
I get them.
wz
(G.ZEEP%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC)
------------------------------
Date: Fri 13 Jul 84 09:54:36-PDT
From: Wilkins <WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: evolution of conciousness
Can anyone suggest references on the above general topic?
(Probably best to reply to me instead of the whole list.)
David
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jul 1984 10:08-EDT
From: Patrick Harrison <harrison@NRL-AIC>
Subject: Lisp for Honeywell 6060 DPS-8
Am looking for information on current versions of LISP (FranzLisp,
MacLisp) running in a Honeywell 6060, DPS-8 environment. Would also
like to implement OPS5 on same. Address:
Dr. Patrick Harrison
Computer Science Department
U.S. Naval Academy
Annapolis, Maryland 21402.
Responses to above address or <harrison@nrl-aic>
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 13-Jul-84 17:02:15-BST
From: MIKE HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) <Uschold%edxa@ucl-cs.arpa>
Subject: Advertising
The IBM LISP announcement looked very much like an advertisement. Is this
sort of thing appropriate for this list? In theory, no. In practice, it
may not be so easy to tell who is behind such announcements and for what
reasons. We frequently use this medium to tell each other what sort of
resources are available. The IBM bit certainly falls into this category
as well. I don't see that a problem exists, but one can certainly imagine
companies trying to slip something into this sort of medium surreptitiously.
It seems to me it should be discouraged.
Mike Uschold
[I usually answer such concerns privately in my AIList-Request capacity,
but I'm will to let the list membership express opinions if they wish.
The message in question was sent by one of the system developers (not
by any advertising arm of IBM) to someone at Rutgers. No conflict there.
The recipient posted it to the Rutgers bboard, where I read it. Not only
did I forward it to AIList, but so did another reader at SRI (I gave him
credit when I redistributed the message). Further, at the request of a
CMU reader, I have written to the original author asking for more details
that I can post to the list.
While the message and any subsequent discussion are to IBM's advantage
(assuming they have a quality product), the company has hardly been
using this digest as an advertising channel. The potential for minor
abuse may be present, but there is no danger of corporate America
flooding the taxpayer-supported net with junk mail. I'm inclined
to allow legitimate news items, lab reports, and other subtle forms
of PR until such time as undesirable trends emerge. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 84 11:52:49-PDT (Sun)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!jcw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: LISP IN AZTEC C
Article-I.D.: cvl.1155
I have the sources for a very neat little version of LISP called
'X-LISP'. Although I have an IBM-PC, the program is completely written
in C and has been implemeted on many machines including a Z-80 running
CP/M-80. It also is an experiment in object-oriented programming, so
it has some interesting facets not normally found in LISPs, as well
a fair number of the standard LISP functions. It was written by:
David Betz
114 Davenport Ave.
Manchester, NH 03103
(603) 625-4691
If there is enough interest, and I get the author's approval, I will
post the sources. Write me if you are interested, or talk to the
author.
Jay Weber
..!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!jcw
..!seismo!rochester!jay
jay@rochester.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jul 84 10:56:12 EDT (Thu)
From: Liz Allen <liz@umcp-cs.arpa>
Subject: YAPS information
As the person who wrote YAPS, I thought I should speak up.
We don't have a lot of good examples of production rule systems in
YAPS. The main examples we have are a monkey and bananas example
and a little odd-even determiner (the latter is taken from a similar
example from OPS 5). These two examples are on our distribution tape
(which includes YAPS and some other hacks written here at Maryland.
There is no YAPS primer of any sort; the only documentation is
a user's manual. I have gotten good feedback, by and large,
from people using YAPS.
YAPS only runs under 4.1 right now since we are not yet running
Berkeley 4.2; we should be upgrading this summer.
For more information about YAPS or obtaining our distribution, send
mail to me.
-Liz Allen
Univ of Maryland, College Park MD
Arpanet: liz@maryland
Usenet: ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 84 9:11:00-PDT (Sun)
From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hp-dcd!hpfclk!fritz @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: AI Reference Books
Article-I.D.: hpfclk.75500004
I have been reading "Artificial Intelligence Programming" by Charniak et al,
and have found it to be a very good intro to Lisp. The second half of the
book goes into some detail on useful AI techniques, such as discrimination
nets, rule-based inference engines, etc.
Gary Fritz
ihnp4!hpfcla!hpfclk!fritz
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jul 84 13:46:09-PDT (Mon)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Softwar
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2870
>From: LIN%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP Tue Jun 26 04:04:00 1984
>I'm a bit confused. How could this particular program make itself
>vanish without some external reference to a date?
>... Maybe the whole thing was a bluff?
The package in question was SAS, a large data manipulation and
stats package, running on a fair-sized machine (not a micro). The
program repeatedly checks the system date during execution. The
date-protection business doesn't make it impossible to run the
program after the contract expiration date, just inconvenient. It
is more an automatic billing system than anything else. And yes,
the idea is widely used in the mainframe world, where changing the system
date in a multitasking system would play hell with accounting
systems, payroll.....
D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-4146
USENET: {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jul 84 09:21:15 PDT (Thursday)
From: Pettit.PA@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Re: Shoe-Tying Challenge
Re: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!jaw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa's shoe-tying algorithm
challenge
That sounds very much like a game we used to play in English class in
grade school, called Dressing Martians. One person in the class would
pretend to be a Martian, who knew English but had no cultural knowledge
of clothing. Another person would be chosen to be the instructor, and
would have to go in a corner and turn his or her back to the rest of the
class. The instructor would give the Martian directions in how to put
on a jacket, but could not use words like sleeve or button. The Martian
would follow the instructions to the letter, but do his or her best to
put the jacket on wrong. This yielded some pretty comical contortions.
The game would continue with a new Martian and a new instructor, until
someone managed to be so precise that the Martian couldn't screw it up.
I think the game was meant to teach us how to communicate with precision
more than it was to impress us with the underlying knowledge base for
language. Real life is full of situations, like giving directions to
one's house over the phone, which are easy to mess up if you don't keep
clear the difference between what you know and what the listener knows,
no matter how expert you both are with the language. Clear
communication requires keeping this difference in mind and including
every necessary piece of information in the best order for enabling the
listener to build up a model which matches your own.
By the way, what would you regard as "passing" your proposed robot
benchmark, to be able to tie the shoe right or to be able to tie it
wrong as consistently and creatively as the professor did? The latter
would probably be harder: you not only have to know enough about shoes
and laces to be able to tell the right way from the wrong way (both
tasks require that), but you also have to be able to examine all the
possible interpretations of an instruction and pick one that will be
sure to make the result wrong.
-- Teri Pettit
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jul 84 20:34:34-PDT (Tue)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!unc!ulysses!allegra!princeton!
eosp1!robison @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Mind and Brain; "chunking" in chess
Article-I.D.: eosp1.992
The idea that chess grandmasters analyse faster by "chunking"
(thinking in terms of groups of moves) is only applicable to
partial analysis of some positions. There are many forcing
and non-forcing tactical sequences which a chessplayer, having
thought them out once, need not rethink. Simple examples are:
- Routine endgames, such as K+P vs K, where the winning
procedure is known from a set of positions
- A queen sacrifice on KN8 to force a smothered mate by
a knight on KB7, of a king on KR1.
In positions that have a mixture of tactical threats and positional
considerations, "chunking" will not save the grandmaster much time.
Every move that s/he analyzes must be considered for the precise
answers that are available in the specific game.
I think that grandmasters benefit more from what might look like
intuition, but is more often a matter of experience. In the
study of how chess players think by (Andries?) de Groot, all players
up through the master level tended to start analyzing an
unfamiliar middle-game position by checking its material balance.
Grandmasters generally began by making a comment such as, "this
position seems to have come out of a Catalan Opening..."
The implication is that Grandmasters are familiar with many
types of positions, and know from experience what sorts of methods
will lead to wins for each type of position. This experience acts
as a powerful filter, allowing the grandmaster to concentrate upon
far fewer possibilities in each position for deep analysis.
- Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
allegra!eosp1!robison
decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 1984 1142-PDT
From: JOUANNAUD at SRI-CSL.ARPA
Subject: RTA-85
CALL FOR PAPERS
Rewriting Techniques and Applications
May 20-22, 1985 Dijon, Burgundy, France
Topics:
This First International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications
is planned in response to the growing interest in the theory and applications
of term rewriting techniques.
Papers will be solicited concerning issues in Term Rewriting Theory as well as
in applications of term rewriting in the following areas (the list must be
understood as non-exhaustive, additions are welcome):
Equational Deduction,
Automated Theorem Proving,
Computer Algebra,
Rewrite Rule Based Expert Systems,
Unification and Matching Algorithms,
Functional and Logic Programming,
Algebraic and Operational Semantics,
Data Type Implementation and Validation,
Program Specification, Program Transformation, Program Generation and Program
Proof Techniques.
Submission:
Each submission should include 11 copies of a one page abstract and 4 copies of
a full paper of no more than 15 double spaced pages. Submissions are to be
sent to one of the Co-Chairmen:
For Europe: Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, RTA-85,
Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy,
Campus Scientifique, BP 239,
54506 Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy Cedex, France.
For the rest: David Musser, RTA-85,
General Electric Laboratories,
Research and Development Center,
Schenectady, NY 12345, USA.
Paper selection will be done by circulating abstracts to all members of the
program committee, with each full paper assigned to several committee
members having appropriate expertise.
In addition to selected papers, a few invited lectures will be given by
well-known researchers who have made major contributions to the field:
R. Book, Santa Barbara, USA: Thue Systems,
B. Buchberger, Linz, Austria: History and Basic Features of the
Critical-Pair/Completion Approach,
N. Dershowitz, Urbana-Champaign, USA: Termination Issues in Term Rewriting
Systems,
G. Huet, INRIA, France: Systemes Equationnels pour la Logique Intuitionniste et
le Lambda-Calcul.,
A last lecture prepared by the Program Committee will emphasize the most
important applications of Term Rewriting.
Program Committee:
J. Bergstra, Amsterdam, Netherlands
J. Goguen, SRI-International, USA
J. Guttag, MIT, USA
J.P. Jouannaud, Nancy, France
P. Lescanne, Nancy, France
D. Musser,General Electric Labs, USA
P. Padawitz, Passau, West Germany
D. Plaisted, Urbana-Champaign, USA
R. Sethi, Bell Labs, USA
D. Turner,Kent, Great-Britain.
Schedule:
Paper submission deadline by December 10, 1984. Acceptance/Rejection
Notification by March 1st. Camera ready Copies by April 15.
Proceedings will be distributed at the Conference and edited later on
in @i[Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag] (To be confirmed).
Social Events:
A serious visit to famous French Wine Cellars will take place on Tuesday
afternoon, May 21.
Local Arrangements:
Jean-Marc Pallo, Laboratoire d'Informatique, BP 138, 21004 Dijon Cedex, France.
Pre-Registration:
To receive further Information, you are kindly requested to return the
following filled form to the Chairman for Europe (by mail, or electronic mail
to Jouannaud@@SRI-CSL on arpanet):
Name: Organization: Net Address:
Mailing Address:
I plan: To attend RTA-85 To attend maybe To submit a paper
Preliminary Title of the paper:
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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