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AIList Digest Volume 3 Issue 046
AIList Digest Tuesday, 16 Apr 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 46
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - AIList is Back,
Requests - Hopfield's Neuron Modeling & La Jolla Machine Translation &
IBM PC LISPs & Distributed Problem Solving & Models of Negotiation &
Knowledge Exploration & Exert Legal Systems,
Seminars - Linguistic Plans (BBNG) &
Representing Objects (UPenn) &
The Bodily Basis of Meaning (UCB) &
Scientific Problem Solving (Rutgers) &
The Model Theory of Shared Information (CSLI)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon 15 Apr 85 22:54:35-PST
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: AIList is Back
Did you hear the one about the bum on the park bench? He was a top man
in the computer field, but he took a two-week vacation and fell behind.
Twenty new readers have signed up for direct distribution of the list
since April 2, including several at new sites. There were about 80
messages in the AIList mailbox (after I read the bboards and forwarded
a few items), as well as 40 messages each in the AIList-Request
mailbox and my own mailbox. [My accumulated physical mail consisted of
only a dozen items, nearly all junk.] Could someone unplug the
network while I catch up?
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: Mon 8 Apr 85 19:58:10-EST
From: MCCOWN@RADC-TOPS20.ARPA
Subject: Query on Hopfield's work
Does anyone know of any TR's (or any info at all!) on John Hopfield's
work at CIT on neuron modelling and memory? Please send any pointers to
MCCOWN@RADC-TOPS20. Thanks.
Michael McCown
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 85 08:10:13 pst
From: Curtis L. Goodhart <goodhart%cod@Nosc>
Subject: Computer Translation of Natural Languages
Does anyone know of a company or R&D group in La Jolla, California that
is working on computer translation of natural languages?
Curt Goodhart (goodhart@nosc on the arpanet)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 85 08:17 CDT
From: Eric_Tannenbaum <erict@ti-eg>
Subject: How about them Lisp compilers....?
To Anyone out there...
I was wondering if anyone knows of a Lisp compiler for the IBM PC and
how I could get one (including the price) as I am interested in some
home AI projects. Also, could you tell me how good and/or bad they are.
If there aren't any Lisp compilers out there in AI land, how about letting
me know about what popular Lisp interpreters there are for the IBM PC
(and price, too?). Since I'm new to the Lisp PC market place, I'll appreciate
any and all comments. Thanks!
Please reply to:
CSNET address: erict @ ti-eg
ARPANET address: erict % ti-eg@csnet.relay
Again, thanks for the info.
Eric Tannenbaum
------------------------------
Date: 11 Apr 1985 14:50-EST
From: gasser%usc-cse.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: DPS at Clarkson U
A notice in March COMPUTER (pg 139) about an 8 university AI
consortium funded by the Air Force mentions research in
"distributed problem solving at Clarkson University." Can
anyone (at Clarkson or elsewhere) tell me what's going on
there in the realm of DPS?
-- Les Gasser
Asst. Professor
Computer Science Dept. SAL-200
USC
Los Angeles, CA. 90089-0782
ARPANET: gasser%usc-cse@csnet-relay
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 3 Apr 1985 07:54:01-PST
From: cashman%how.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
Subject: Formal models of negotiation
I would appreciate pointers to any work which has been done on formal models
of negotiation between people. I am familiar with David Lowe's work on the
representation of debate, Reid's and Davis' contract net protocol, and
Flores' and Ludlow's paper "Doing and Speaking in the Office." Anything
else?
-- Paul Cashman
Cashman%what.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: 4 Apr 1985 1030-EST
From: Amsel-Sdsc@CECOM-1.ARPA
Subject: Knowledge Exploration
KNOWLEDGE EXPLORATION
DOD Computer Scientist conducting a study of information flow
which will culminate in an analysis of the Knowledge - Information
processing involved in a large hi-tech research and development
environment. Request assistance and dicussion on any of the
following topics:
1. Definition of knowledge.
2. What constitutes knowledge? (How to identify it)
3. Relationship of data, information and knowledge.
4. How does one collect or engineer knowledge? (Collection
mechanism)
5. Mathematical representation of knowledge. (Formula with
rationale)
6. Software and Hardware relationships to knowledge.
7. How to represent knowledge? (ex: What form or which
computer language)
8. Difference between knowledge engineer and knowledge
scientist.
9. Methods of controlling knowledge.
10. Who should have access to knowledge within an
organization?
11. Relationship of networking to knowledge.
12. Fifth generation concept of knowledge.
13. General comments on knowledge.
Charles E. Woodall
(SNAIL MAIL)
BOQ Box 122
Ft. Monmouth, NJ 07703
Office: (201)544-3294
Home: (201)389-3598
(ARPA/MILNet)
[woodall]:AMSEL-SDSC at CECOM-1.ARP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 85 16:53:47 EST
From: John Kastner <kastner.yktvmv%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Expert Legal Systems
Does anyone know of a CS Department in which there is current work on,
or a serious interest in, expert systems applied to the practice of
law? An acquaintance of mine, currently at the University of East
Asia, Macau, would like to do his Doctorate in this field. He is an
Associate Professor of Management Science with a strong background in
law.
Maurice Karnaugh
ARPAnet: KARNO.YKTVMZ.IBM-SJ@CSnet-Relay
------------------------------
Date: 5 Apr 1985 13:30-EST
From: Brad Goodman <BGOODMAN at BBNG>
Subject: Seminar - Linguistic Plans (BBNG)
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.]
BBN Laboratories
Artificial Intelligence Seminar Series
Speaker: Diane Litman
University of Rochester
Title: "Discourse and Plan Recognition - A Model of
Subdialogues in Conversation"
Date: Tuesday, April 16, 1985
10:30 a.m.
Location: 3rd Floor Large Conference Room
10 Moulton Street
Cambridge, MA
One promising approach to analyzing dialogues has involved
modelling the goals of the speakers. In other words, participants
in a conversation are viewed as accomplishing goals via plans
containing the utterances of the conversation as actions in the plan.
In general, these models work well as long as the topic follows
the plan structure closely, but they have difficulty accounting for
such interrupting subdialogues as clarifications and corrections.
To address this problem, a plan-based natural language system
incorporating both task and discourse knowledge has been developed. In
particular, a new model of plan recognition is used to construct a
hierarchy of task plans and meta-plans via the process of constraint
satisfaction. The plan recognition model has also been extended using
results from work in discourse analysis. Such an approach accounts for
interrupting subdialogues and various surface linguistic phenomena while
maintaining the advantages of the plan-based methodology.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 85 11:01 EST
From: Tim Finin <Tim%upenn.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Seminar - Representing Objects (UPenn)
REPRESENTING, REASONING ABOUT AND MANIPULATING OBJECTS BY A COMPUTER
John E. Hopcroft (Cornell)
Thursday, April 16; 216 Moore School, University of Pennsylvania
The areas of CAD/CAM and robotics require computer representations of
physical objects. These representations must support automatic design
tools, analysis packages, high level reasoning and object manipulation.
This talk will discuss potential applications, problems that must be
overcome and important directions in developing the engineering science
base needed to support the design, simulation, testing and debugging of
sophisticated objects. An example of a major problem is that the actual
construction of a computer representation of a physical object such as
a crankshaft is a major undertaking. Thus interactive physical object
editors will play an important role. The use of automatic surface
generation in constructing solid models will be illustrated.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 85 16:31:59 pst
From: chertok%ucbcogsci@Berkeley (Paula Chertok)
Subject: Seminar - The Bodily Basis of Meaning (UCB)
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Cognitive Science Seminar -- IDS 237B
TIME: Tuesday, April 16, 11 - 12:30
PLACE: 240 Bechtel Engineering Center
(followed by)
DISCUSSION: 12:30 - 1:30 in 200 Building T-4
SPEAKER: Mark Johnson, Philosophy Department, Southern
Illinois University
TITLE: ``The Bodily Basis of Meaning and Imagination''
The idea that human rationality is an abstract, disembodied,
formal structure is deeply rooted in the Western Philosophical
tradition and is manifested most recently in model-theoretic and
Davidsonian semantics. According to this view, meaning is an
abstract relation between symbolic representations (either words
or mental representations) and objective (mind-independent) real-
ity. Meaning is thus a matter of objective senses and has nothing
to do with how human beings understand their experience. And
rationality is a rule-governed manipulation of the symbols that
express meaning. In this whole picture nothing is said about the
role of bodily experience, either in the emergence of meaning or
in our reasoning about our world.
But it is a fact that we humans do have bodies, and it would
be rather strange if this fact didn't have some important bearing
on what we experience as meaningful and how we make sense of our
world in a rational fashion. I suggest that there are recurrent
preconceptual structures in our bodily interactions with our
environment that are the basis for human meaning. These are
structures of our perceptual activity and bodily movements that
are metaphorically extended to structure more abstract, non-
physical domains. So I am claiming that our more `abstract' rea-
soning is grounded in a concrete reasoning via metaphorical con-
nections. My argument is based on an analysis of the experience
and meaning of balance.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Apr 85 14:44:13 EST
From: Smadar <KEDAR-CABELLI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - Scientific Problem Solving (Rutgers)
[Forwarded from the Rutgers bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
III Seminar
Title: Problem Solving in a Qualitative Scientific Domain
Speaker: Don Ploger
Time: Tuesday, April 16, 1985, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Place: Hill Center, room 423
Don Ploger is a Ph.D. candidate in the psychology department.
He will describe his ongoing dissertation research. An abstract
follows:
A research scientist is typically able to solve problems and
explain phenomenon in his area of expertise. The primary purpose of
this study is to develop a methodology for studying this performance
in a qualitative scientific domain. The domain chosen is intermediary
metabolism, an important area of biochemistry. Reasoning in this
domain involves large amounts of knowledge which is richly structured,
but is not mathematical. It therefore differs sharply from the
scientific domains that have been previously studied in cognitive
psychology.
In the study, expert biochemists and first-year medical
students thought aloud as they solved a problem, and then gave an
explanation for the phenomenon. Analysis of the resulting verbal
protocols employed representations of the domain knowledge that are
consistent with textbooks in the field. Two particular
representations are considered in detail: biochemical mechanisms,
which are explicitly represented in texts, and level of knowledge,
which are usually implicit.
Examples of the analysis will be presented for three subjects:
an expert, a successful novice, and an unsuccessful novice.
Particular attention will be given to the difference between problem
solving and explanation among subjects.
The purpose of the study is to make explicit important
features of human performance, and it differs in many respects from
work in AI. However, the general approach is compatible with certain
recent trends in the development of expert systems. The study
provides a view of how humans use a "first principles" approach.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 10 Apr 85 17:26:31-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - The Model Theory of Shared Information (CSLI)
[Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.]
LOGIC SEMINAR
``On the Model Theory of Shared Information''
Jon Barwise, CSLI
April 16, at 4:15, Room 381 T (Math Corner)
The traditional model-theoretic approach to the problem of shared
understanding (public information, common knowledge, mutual belief)
has been through an iterated hierarchy of attitude reports (c knows
that b knows ... that c knows that P), mirroring the iterated
hierarchy in set theory and higher-order model theory. In this talk I
want to show that Aczel's work on non-wellfounded sets gives us a new
tool for a ``direct'' model-theoretic approach through situations. I
will go on to state some approximation theorems that show to what
extent the hierarchy approach does and does not add up, in the limit,
to the direct approach. The results raise a number of interesting
model-theoretic questions that only arise in the context of
non-wellfounded sets.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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