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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 114
AIList Digest Wednesday, 5 Sep 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 114
Today's Topics:
LISP - LISP for the Eclipse 250 with RDOS,
Expert Systems - AGE Contact? & Programmed Assistants,
Speech Understanding - Word Recognition,
Philosophy - Now and Then,
Seminars - Bay Area Computer Science,
Conference - IJCAI-85 Call for Papers
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Date: 4 Sep 1984 9:00-EDT
From: cross@wpafb-afita
Subject: LISP for the Eclipse 250 with RDOS
I recently joined a group here doing low level pattern recognition work
applied to speech recognition and image processing. We have an Eclipse
250 running the RDOS operating system. We also have C (unix version 7
compatable). Does anyone out there know of a dialect of LISP that can be
used with this system? Any suggestions? Please respond to the address
listed below. Thanks in advance.
Steve Cross
cross@wpafb-afita
------------------------------
Date: 4 Sep 84 10:29 PDT
From: Feuerman.pasa@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: AGE: Who to contact?
I'm interested in looking into AGE, which is quoted as being a "Stanford
product." Does anyone have the name and phone number of who to contact
to obtain things, such as manuals, users guides, etc. Thanks in
advance.
--Ken <Feuerman.pasa@Xerox.ARPA>.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 84 15:59 BST
From: TONY HASEMER (on ALVEY at Teddington) <TONH%alvey@ucl-cs.arpa>
Subject: programmed assistants
In response to Bill Mann's list of desirable mechanised assistants,
one of our graduate students urgently wants to know: if he drops
everything else and writes a thesis-writing assistant, will he get
a PhD for it?
Tony Hasemer.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Sep 84 09:56 PDT
From: Feuerman.pasa@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Understanding speech vs. hearing words
The subject has come up about whether one need understand the semantics
of an utterance before one can recognize words, or even syllables.
While it seems a bit of research has been cited for both sides, I
thought it would be interesting to offer an experience of mine for
evidence:
I was travelling in Italy, and it was that time of the evening again,
time to find our daily ration of gelato (Italian ice cream)! Our search
brought us into a bar of sorts, with Paul Simon's (I think it was Paul
Simon) recording of "Slip Sliding Away" playing in the background. The
bartender was singing along, only it didn't quite come out right. What
he was singing was more like "Sleep Sliding Ayway" (all of the vowels
being rather exagerated). I regret that I had no way of knowing whether
he had seen the words written down before (which could account for some
of his mis-pronunciations), but it was pretty clear that he had no idea
of the meaning of what he was singing.
--Ken.
[It seems to me that the same sort of anecdote could be told of any
child; they frequently store and repeat phrases that are to them
merely nonsense (e.g., the alphabet, especially LMNOP). More to the
point, a good first step in learning any new oral language is to listen
to it, sans understanding, long enough to begin to identify syllables.
This greatly simplifies later word drills since the student can then
grasp the phonetic distinctions that the teacher considers important
(and obvious). The implication for speech understanding is that it is
indeed possible to identify syllables without understanding, but only
after some training and the development of fairly sophisticated
discriminant capabilities. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 84 15:53 BST
From: TONY HASEMER (on ALVEY at Teddington) <TONH%alvey@ucl-cs.arpa>
Subject: Now and Then
(Tony Hasemer challenges Norm Andrews' faith about cause and effect)
You say: "logical proof involves implication relationships between
discrete statements...causality assumes implication relationships
between discrete events".
Don't think me just another rude Brit, but:-
> in what sense is a statement not an event
A statement (as opposed to a record of a statement,
which is a real-world object) takes place in the
real world and therefore is an event in the real
world.
> what do you mean by "implication"
This is the nub of all questions about cause and
effect, and of course the word subsumes the very
process it tries to describe. One can say "cause
and effect", or "implication", or "logically
necessary", and mean ALMOST the same thing in each
case. They all refer to that same intangible feeling
of certainty that a certain argument is valid or that
event B was self-evidently caused by event A.
> what do you mean by "relationship"
Again, this is a word which presumes the existence
of the very link we're trying to identify.
May I suggest the following-
The deductive logical syllogism (the prototype for all
infallible arguments) is of the form
All swans are white.
This is a swan.
Therefore it is white.
Notice that the conclusion (3rd sentence) is only true iff the two
premises (sentences 2 and 3) are true. And if you can make any
descriptive statement beginning "All..." then you must be talking
about a closed system.
Mathematics, for example, is a set of logical statements about
the closed domain of numbers. It is common, but on reflection rather
strange, to talk about "three oranges" when each orange is unique and
quite different from the rest. It is clear that we impose number
systems on the real world, and logical statements about the square
root of the number 3 don't tell us whether or not there is a real
thing called the square root of three oranges.
I'm saying that closed systems do not map onto the real world.
Mathematics doesn't, and nor does deductive logic (you could never
demonstrate, in practice, the truth of any statement about ALL of a
class of naturally-occurring objects).
On the contrary, the only logic which will in any sense "prove"
statements about the real world (such as that the sun will rise tomorrow)
is INDUCTIVE logic. Inductive logic and the principle of cause and
effect are virtually synonymous. Inductive logic is fuzzy (deductive
logic is two-valued), and bootstraps itself into the position of
saying: "this must be true because it would be (inductively) absurd to
suppose the contrary".
There is no real problem, no contradiction, between the principle
of cause and effect and deductive logic. There is merely a category
mistake. The persuasive power of deduction is very appealing, but
to try to justify an inductive argument (e.g. causality) by the
criteria of deductive arguments is like trying to describe the colour
red in a language which has no word for it. We just have to accept that
in dealing with the real world the elegant and convenient certainties
of the deductive system do not apply. The best logic we have is
inductive: if I kick object A and it then screams, I assume that it
screamed BECAUSE I kicked it.
If repeated kicking of object A always produces the concomitant
screams, I have two choices: either to accept the notion of causality,
or to envisage the real world as being composed of a vast series of
arbitrary possibilities, like billions of tossed pennies which only
by pure chance have so far happened always to come down heads. Personally,
I much prefer a fuzzy, uncertain logic to a chaos in which there is no
logic at all! Belief in causality, like belief in God, is an act of
faith: you can't hope to PROVE it. But whichever one chooses, it doesn't
really matter: stomachs still churn and cats still fight in the dark.
The very best solution to the problem of causality is to stop worrying
about it.
Tony.
------------------------------
Date: 04 Sep 84 1424 PDT
From: Yoni Malachi <YM@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Seminars - Abstracts for BATS
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
The next Bay Area Theory Seminar (aka BATS) will be at Stanford, this Friday,
7 September.
The talks (and lunch) will take place in Room 200-305. This is a room on the
third floor of History Corner, the NE corner of the Stanford Campus Quadrangle.
The schedule:
10:00am U. Vazirani (Berkeley):
"2-Processor Scheduling in Random NC"
11:00am R. Anderson (Stanford):
"A P-complete Problem and Approximations to It"
noon: Lunch
1:00pm E. Lawler (Berkeley):
"The Traveling Salesman Problem Made Easy"
2:00pm A. Schoenhage (Tuebingen, IBM San Jose):
"Efficient Diophantine Approximation"
*****************************************************************************
ABSTRACTS:
10:00am: U. Vazirani:
"2-Processor Scheduling in Random NC"
(joint work with D. Kozen and V. Vazirani)
The Two-Processor Scheduling Problem is a classical problem in Computational
Combinatorics, and several efficient algorithms have been designed for it.
However, these algorithms are inherently sequential in nature. We give a
randomizing poly-log time parallel algorithm (run on a polynomial number of
processors). Interestingly enough, our algorithm for this purely
combinatoric-looking problem draws on some powerful algebriac methods. The
Two-processor Scheduling problem can be stated as follows:
Given a set S of unit time jobs, and a partial order specifying precedence
constraints among them, find an optimal schedule for the jobs on two identical
processors.
11:00am: R. Anderson (Stanford):
"A P-complete Problem and Approximations to It"
The P-complete problem that we will consider is the High Degree
Subgraph Problem. This problem is: given a graph G=(V,E) and an integer k,
find the maximum induced subgraph of G that has all nodes of degree at least
k. After showing that this problem is P-complete, we will discuss two
approaches to finding approximate solutions to it in NC. We will give a
variant of the problem that is also P-complete that can be approximated to
within a factor of c in NC, for any c < 1/2, but cannot be approximated by a
factor of better than 1/2 unless P=NC. We will also give an algorithm that
finds a subgraph with moderately high minimum degree. This algorithm exhibits
an interesting relationship between its performance and the time it takes.
1:00pm: E. Lawler (Berkeley):
"The Traveling Salesman Problem Made Easy"
Despite the general pessimism resulting from both theory and
practice, the TSP is not necessarily a hard problem--there are many
interesting and useful special cases that can be solved efficiently.
For example, there is an efficient procedure for finding an optimal
solution for the bottleneck TSP in the case that the distance matrix
is "graded." This result will be used to show how to solve a problem
of great practical importance to paperhangers: how to cut sheets from
a long roll of paper so as to minimize intersheet wastage.
Material for this talk is drawn from a chapter, by P. Gilmore,
E.L. Lawler, and D.B. Shmoys, of a forthcoming book, The Traveling
Salesman Problem, edited by Lawler, J.K. Lenstra, A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan,
and D.B. Shmoys to be published by J. Wiley in mid-1985.
2:00pm: A. Schoenhage (Tuebingen, IBM San Jose):
"Efficient Diophantine Approximation"
Abstract: Given (a_1,...,a_n) in R^d (with d < n) and epsilon > 0, how to find
a nontrivial x = (x_1,...,x_n) in Z^n of minimal Euclidean norm nu such that
|x_1 a_1 + ... + x_n a_n| < epsilon holds. A weak version of this classical
task (where epsilon and nu may be multiplied by 2^(cn) ) can be solved in time
O(n^2 (d*n/(n-d) * log(1/epsilon))^(2+o(1))).
The main tool is an improved basis reduction algorithm for integer lattices.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 4 Sep 84 09:27:09-PDT
From: name AAAI-OFFICE <AAAI@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: IJCAI-85 Call for Papers
IJCAI-85
CALL FOR PAPERS
The IJCAI conferences are the main forum for the presentation of Artificial
Intelligence research to an international audience. The goal of the IJCAI-85
is to promote scientific interchange, within and between all subfields of AI,
among researchers from all over the world. The conference is sponsored by the
International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), Inc., and
co-sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
IJCAI-85 will be held at the University of California, Los Angeles from
August 18 through August 24, 1985.
* Tutorials: August 18-19; Technical Sessions: August 20-24
TOPICS OF INTEREST
Authors are invited to submit papers of substantial, original, and previously
unreported research in any aspect of AI, including:
* AI architectures and languages
* AI and education (including intelligent CAI)
* Automated reasoning (including theorem proving, automatic programming,plan-
ning, search, problem solving, commensense, and qualitative reasoning)
* Cognitive modelling
* Expert systems
* Knowledge representation
* Learning and knowledge acquisition
* Logic programming
* Natural language (including speech)
* Perception (including visual, auditory, tactile)
* Philosophical foundations
* Robotics
* Social, economic and legal implications
REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION
Authors should submit 4 complete copies of their paper. (Hard copy only, no
electronic submissions.)
* LONG PAPERS: 5500 words maximum, up to 7 proceedings pages
* SHORT PAPERS: 2200 words maximum, up to 3 proceedings pages
Each paper will be stringently reviewed by experts in the topic area specified.
Acceptance will be based on originality and significance of the reported
research, as well as the quality of its presentation. Applications clearly
demonstrating the power of established techniques, as well as thoughtful
critiques of previously published material will be considered, provided that
they point the way to new research and are substantive scientific contributions
in their own right.
Short papers are a forum for the presentation of succinct, crisp results.
They are not a safety net for long paper rejections.
In order to ensure appropriate refereeing, authors are requested to
specify in which of the above topic areas the paper belongs, as well
as a set of no more than 5 keywords for further classification within
that topic area. Because of time constraints, papers requiring major
revisions cannot be accepted.
DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION
The following information must be included with each paper:
* Author's name, address, telephone number and net address
(if applicable);
* Topic area (plus a set of no more than 5 keywords for
further classification within the topic area.);
* An abstract of 100-200 words;
* Paper length (in words).
The time table is as follows:
* Submission deadline: 7 January 1985 (papers received after
January 7th will be returned unopened)
* Notification of Acceptance: 16 March 1985
* Camera Ready copy due: 16 April 1985
Contact Points
Submissions should be sent to the Program Chair:
Aravind Joshi
Dept of Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
General inquiries should be directed to the General Chair:
Alan Mackworth
Dept of Computer Science
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5
Inquiries about program demonstrations (including videotape system
demonstrations) and other local arrangements should be sent to
the Local Arrangements Chair:
Steve Crocker
The Aerospace Corporation
P.O. Box 92957
Los Angeles, CA 90009 USA
Inquiries about tutorials, exhibits, and registration should be
sent to the AAAI Office:
Claudia Mazzetti
American Association for Artificial Intelligence
445 Burgess Drive
Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA
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End of AIList Digest
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