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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 152
AIList Digest Sunday, 11 Nov 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 152
Today's Topics:
Msc. - Band Name,
Machine Translation - Aymara as Interlingua,
Linguistics - Sastric Sanskrit & Language Degeneration,
Knowledge Representation - Problem Solving Representations,
Seminars - Rule-Based Debugging System & PROLOG Data Dependency Analysis,
Conference - IJCAI-85
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 10 Nov 84 18:53:18 PST (Saturday)
From: Mark Sabiers <Sabiers.es@XEROX.ARPA>
Reply-to: Sabiers.es@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: The names of bands
The enclosed message came through net.music (uucp) and Info-Music
(ARPA). Thought it was appropriate to this list.
Mark
Subject: Artificial Intelligence
Date: 8 Nov 84 04:46:12 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
From: "N.BRISTOL" <bristol@hou2h.uucp.ARPA>
Has anyone heard of a band called
Artificial Intelligence? I heard a
tune on the radio and I would like to know more
about the band.
RSVP by mail or the net, I don't care.
Gil Bristol
AT&T Consumer Products
Neptune, NJ
hou2h!bristol
------------------------------
Date: Fri Nov 9 1984 13:22:59
From: Yigal Arens <arens%usc-cse.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Strange new languages
As if we didn't have enough trouble with Sastric Sanskrit, last Wednesday's
LA Times contains a story about wonderful advances in machine translation
using an Indian language (Aymara) which "according to some historians [was
constructed by] wise men from scratch, by logical, premeditated design, as
early as 4,000 years ago." How "some historians" know this remains a
mystery, all the more so since according to the article there are hardly any
written records of the langauge.
Anyway, a Bolivian mathematician, Ivan Guzman de Rojas, has devised a system
for machine translation using this language as a "bridge".
"Sitting at a computer terminal, Guzman de Rojas demonstrates by
typing a tricky Spanish sentence: `La mujer que vino ayer tomo
vino.' Less than a second after he pushes a button, five
translations flash on the screen and roll off a printer. The
English reads: `the woman who came yesterday drank wine.'
"The system is remarkable, according to US and Canadian experts, not
only for its speed and versatility, but its ability to sort out
ambiguities. Other systems, they say, cannot distinguish between
uses of the word `vino' - which can mean `came' or `wine' - without
an awkward modification of the computer logic."
The article is full of inaccuracies concerning machine translation.
It claims that Wang has recently given Guzman de Rojas $50,000 plus a
$100,000 computer "to refine his system."
Anybody know more about this?
Yigal Arens
USC
------------------------------
Date: 8 Nov 1984 11:59-PST (Thursday)
From: Rick Briggs <briggs@RIACS.ARPA>
Subject: Sastric Sanskrit & Language Degeneration
By "has begun", I meant since the mid-nineteenth century.
Since the time frame I have been writing in is measured by millenia,
one century qualifies for "has begun".
Anyway, I wonder what Bill Poser means by saying:
"But that does not mean that the *language* degenerates--only that
its use degenerates." If a language is abused to a large extent by
its speakers, has it not degenerated? What seems to be implied
here is that there is some abstract "language" prototype which
exists independent of use. If this is so, violations to this prototype
are degeneration. This is exactly the point of view of Panini etc.
The Indian and Greek cultures considered language to be a primary
component of culture(in the Indian case, language IS culture: the word
Aryan originally meant one who spoke Aryan language(i.e. Sanskrit)).
To illustrate what I mean by degeneration, consider a group of
primitives who begin to use language. They begin with primitive
grunts to signify essential notions such as "food". Later, they find
that the machinery of the language does not allow the expression of
concepts. Thus the langauge evolves and evolves. The ultimate
evolution is reached when a language can express all notions in the
realms of the physical, emotional, conceptual, and spiritual in
a concise unambiguous way. Sastric Sanskrit may indeed be that
language(or close to it). Now the less lofty of the population
find no need to use such words as "none other than", "agreeing with
no other", "activity conducive towards existence" etc. (these are words
in Sastric Sanskrit). So they cease to use the complex machinery
and revert to simple formatrions to express what they need to.
If there is no prescription, or encouragement in the educational
process to stick to the higher form of the language, the more popular
masses(consider television) will produce a pressure on the less numerous
scholarly class, and the language will begin to revert backwards.
This is exactly what happened to Sanskrit. The "Prakrits" and "Apabrahmshas"
eventually turned Sanskrit into Hindi, Bengali etc., which do not
have the sophisticated machinery Sastric Sanskrit had. In other words,
where one word in the Sastra signified a concept, an entire sentence
is now needed in the degenerated form of the language. I believe this
is also the pattern which Proto-Indo-European followed, and which
English is following now.
Once again, Sastric Sanskrit is a natural language. But what
exactly is a natural language? Is it existence of native speakers
(as Bill Poser suggests), or is it something about the nature of te
language itself? Whether consciously or not, Linguists and NLP
people think of natural languages as necessarily being ambiguous
and very different from the predicate calculus. What the existence of
the Sastra indicates is that the definition of natural language
should be changed. I would say that a natural language is one which
1) is used
2) which has the ability to express naturally, all the various aspects
of the natural world.
Thus, if Esperanto were used in a culture, it would be a natural
language. Mathematics cannot naturally express poetic notions, it
is defined over only a small aspect of the natural world. Sastric
Sanskrit(so I have been told by Sanskrit experts) had(and may still
have) native speakers. It is also capable of expressing anything any
other natural language can express. You can write philosophy or
poetry in the Sastra. I challenge anybody to find a sentence in
any language which cannot be expressed using the machinery of
Sastric Sanskrit.
I think the real point is that the Sastra is a bridge
between the natural and artificial and challenges common notions
of what the boundary is. One conclusion I would make is that
it is possible for a child to be raised speaking totally
unambiguously from birth and never suffer from lack of expression
or cumbersomeness. As an interlingua, Sastra would be great
because it can codify with exactitude and make inferences naturally,
and yet poetic notions can be coded and not lost on the target
language.
Rick
------------------------------
Date: Fri 9 Nov 84 07:41:30-CST
From: Aaron Temin <CS.Temin@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: convenient problem solving representations
There was a conference on knowledge representation and languages at the
Applied Physics Lab of Johns Hopkins from Oct 29-31. One of the main
issues was that current programming languages force one to use
primitives that map well to a machine, but badly to most problem
domains. Thus there are two problems: What primitives are appropriate
for a given problem domain and how can one map those into an executable
module on a given machine?
Jean Sammet from IBM contended that many problem-domain specific
languages already exist, but obviously there aren't enough or everyone
would be pretty content by now. What is seems we need are guidelines to
help with these questions.
These are questions for all computer scientists, but especially those of
us in AI who have spent time developing new knowledge representations
rather than implementing old ones.
-Aaron
------------------------------
Date: 8 November 1984 1227-EST
From: Staci Quackenbush@CMU-CS-A
Subject: Seminar - Rule-Based Debugging System
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Name: Bernd Bruegge
Date: November 12, 1984
Time: 3:30 - 4:30
Place: WeH 5409
Title: "PATH RULES: Debugging as a Rule-Based Activity
Debugging has often been considered an ad hoc technique with no underlying
model for the user. In this talk we show how debugging can be viewed as a
rule based activity. Rule based systems have been used extensively in the
area of artifical intelligence. We demonstrate that they can be quite useful
in the area of debugging.
We have designed and implemented a language called PATH RULES. Several
examples of PATH RULES on the implementer as well as on the user level are
given: We show how rules can be used in the design of the command language,
the implementation of debugging mechanisms (breakpoints, tracing, etc),
screen layout, dialog control and multiple process debugging problems.
PATH RULES have been used in the implementation of the Interim Spice
Debugger KRAUT. KRAUT is a remote, source oriented debugger for Pascal
running under the Accent Operating system and is currently being modified
for Ada.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 84 09:32:17 pst
From: (Julia D. Snyder [csam]) julia@lbl-csam
Subject: Seminar - PROLOG Static Data Dependency Analysis
[Forwarded from the LBL distribution by Laws@SRI-AI.]
High Performance Execution of PROLOG Programs
Based on a Static Data Dependency Analysis
by
Jung-Herng Chang*
(UCB Aquarius Group)
Room: Bldg. 50B Rm. 4205
Date: November 12, 1984
Time: 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Outline
What is PROLOG ? Why is it an important symbolic manipulation
language? The Performance of executing PROLOG programs has been
improved by going from interpreters to compilers, and then to
special hardware (e.g. the PLM Machine at UCB). What is the next
step to improve performance? This talk begins with an introduction
to PROLOG, followed by a discussion of more advanced topics in PROLOG.
A methodology for a static data dependency analysis for PROLOG is
introduced, as well as its applications to the PLM Machine and a
parallel execution environment.
*The speaker is also affiliated with ACAL LBL.
------------------------------
Date: Fri 9 Nov 84 08:49:27-PST
From: name AAAI-OFFICE <AAAI@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: IJCAI-85 Call
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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