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AIList Digest Volume 3 Issue 138
AIList Digest Wednesday, 9 Oct 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 138
Today's Topics:
Update - G. Spencer-Brown Seminar,
Seminars - Robot Legged Locomotion (GMR) &
What is a Plan? (SRI) &
Animating Human Figures (UPenn) &
Inheritance and Data Models (UPenn),
Conferences - 4th Int. Conf. on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach &
Symposium on Logic in Computer Science
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Date: Mon, 7 Oct 85 11:17:52 PDT
From: Charlie Crummer <crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: G. Spencer-Brown Seminar
Was this some kind if joke? I could not find any company called UNI-OPS
nor a Walter Zintz at (415)945-0048. The Miyako Hotel has no
seminar on The Laws of Form, only a management association meeting.
Has someone erased the distinction between G. S.-B.'s existence and
non-existence?
--Charlie
From: william@aids-unix (william bricken)
No hoax, although a possible unfortunate typo: the phone number of
UNI-OPS is (415)945-0448.
The seminar was cancelled at the last minute by SB himself (according
to Zintz). Totally in character. Thus the existential dilemma.
Zintz is working on re-establishing it, and is compiling a mailing
list of those interested in the Laws of Form.
I have developed an automated theorem prover using SB's stuff, and
am encouraged by its applications to LISP program representation,
optimization, and verification.
William Bricken
Advanced Information & Decision Systems
201 San Antonio Circle, #286
Mountain View, CA 94040
(415) 941-3912
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 85 10:00 EST
From: "S. Holland" <holland%gmr.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - Robot Legged Locomotion (GMR)
General Motors Research Laboratories
Warren, Michigan
ROBOTS THAT RUN
BALANCE AND DYNAMICS IN LEGGED LOCOMOTION
Dr. Marc H. Raibert
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Monday, October 21, 1985
Balance and dynamics are key ingredients in legged locomotion. To study
active balance and dynamics we have built a series of machines that balance
themselves as they run. Initial experiments focused on machines that
hopped on one leg, but later work generalized the approach for two- and
four-legged machines. A very simple set of algorithms provides control for
hopping on one leg, running on two legs like a human, and trotting on four
legs. We have begun to use these results from legged machines to improve
understanding of running in animals.
Marc Raibert received a B.S.E.E. from Northeastern University in 1973, and
a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. Since 1980
Professor Raibert has been on the faculty of Carnegie-Mellon University,
where he is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and a member of the
Robotics Institute. He is currently exploring the principles of legged
locomotion.
-Steve Holland
------------------------------
Date: Tue 8 Oct 85 13:57:58-PDT
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Seminar - What is a Plan? (SRI)
WHAT IS A PLAN?
Lucy Suchman
Intelligent Systems Lab, Xerox PARC
11:00 AM, WEDNESDAY, October 9
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Researchers in AI have equivocated between using the term "plan" to
refer to efficient representations of action, and to the actual data and
control structures that produce behavior. But while these two uses of
the term have been conflated, they have significantly different
methodological implications. On the first use, the study of plans, as
internal representations of actions and situations, is an important
companion to the study of situated actions, but essentially derivative.
On the second use, plans as the actual mechanisms that produce behavior
are foundational to a theory of situated actions.
In this talk I will argue in support of the first use of "plans," to
refer simply to efficient representations of actions. Situated actions,
on this view, are the phenomena to be modelled, whereas the function of
plans in the generation of situated actions is taken to be an open
question. The interesting problem for a theory of situated action is to
find the mechanisms that bring efficient representations and particular
environments into productive interaction. The assumption in classical
planning research has been that this process consists in filling in the
details of the plan to some operational level. In contrast with this
assumption, I will present evidence in support of the view that situated
action turns on local interactions between the actor and contingencies
of his or her environment that, while they are made accountable to a
plan, remain essentially outside of the plan's scope.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 85 12:12 EDT
From: Tim Finin <Tim%upenn.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - Animating Human Figures (UPenn)
ANIMATING HUMAN FIGURES IN A TASK-ORIENTED ENVIRONMENT: AN EVOLVING
CONFLUENCE OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH
Norman I. Badler
Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
Tuesday, October 8, 1985 Room 216 Moore
A system called TEMPUS is outlined which is intended to graphically simulate
the activities of several simulated human agents in a three-dimensional
environment. TEMPUS is a task simulation facility for the design and
evaluation of complex working environments. The primary components of the
TEMPUS system include human body specification by size or statistical
population, 3-D environment design, a human movement simulator and task
animator, a user-friendly interactive system, real-time motion playback, and
full 3-D color graphics of bodies, environments, and task animations. Research
efforts in human dynamics control and natural language specification of
movements will also be described. Recent efforts to link computer graphics and
artificial intelligence will be discussed, especially as they relate to future
plans of NASA and the Space Station.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 85 12:12 EDT
From: Tim Finin <Tim%upenn.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - Inheritance and Data Models (UPenn)
INHERITANCE, DATA MODELS AND DATA TYPES
Peter Buneman
Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
Thursday, October 10, 1985, 216 Moore
The notion of type inheritance (subsumption, ISA hierarchies) has long been
recognised as central to the development of programming languages, databases
and semantic networks. Recent work on the semantics of programming languages
has shown that inheritance can be cleanly combined with functional programming
and can itself serve as a model for computation.
Using a definition of partial functions that are well behaved with respect to
inheritance, I have been investigating a new characterization of the relational
and functional data models. In particular, I want to show the connections of
relational database theory with type inheritance and show how both the
relational and functional data models may be better integrated with typed
programming languages.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 85 17:30:00 cdt
From: Peter Chen <chen%lsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: 4th Int. Conf. on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach
Title of the Conference:
4th International Conference on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach
(See advertisement in Communications of the ACM, Sept. 1985
or the IEEE Computer Magazine, Sept. 1985)
Major Theme:
The use of entity/relationship concept in knowledge representation
Sponsor:
IEEE Computer Society
Date:
October 28-30, 1985
Location:
Hyatt Regency Hotel at O'Hare airport, Chicago
(312) 696-1234, $74 Single, $84 Double
Keynote Address:
Roger Schank, Yale
Invited Addresses:
Donald Walker, Bell Comm. Research
Eugene Lowenthal, MCC
Tutorial Sessions (on the first day -- Monday):
1. ER Modeling: A tool for analysis
2. AI and Expert systems
3. The Analyst's Round Table
4. Database Design
Paper Sessions (on the next two days):
Knowledge representation, database design methods,
Query and manipulation languages, Entity-Relationship analysis,
expert systems, modeling techniques, integrity theory, etc.
Panel Sessions:
1. Mapping Specifications to Formalisms:
Leader: John Sowa, IBM
Panelist: Sharon S. Salveter, Boston Univ.
Roger Schank, Yale
Peter Freeman, UC-Irvine
Peter Chen, Louisiana State Univ.
2. Knowledge engineering and Its Implications
Leader: Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
Panelists: Amil Nigan, IBM
Earl Sacerdoti, Tecknowledge
3. Microcomputer DBMS Derby
Leader: Rod Zimmerman, Standard Oil of California
4. Practical Applications of ER Approach
Leader: Martin Modell, Merrill Lynch
Panelists: Suresh Gadgil, " "
Tom Meurer, ETA International
Harold Piskiel, Goldman Sachs
Elizabeth White
For more information, contact the registration chairperson:
Prof. Kathi Davis
Computer Science Department
Northern Illinois University
Dekalb, IL 60115
(815) 753-0378
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1985 21:12 EDT
From: MEYER@MIT-XX.ARPA
Subject: Symposium on Logic in Computer Science
Announcement and Call for Papers
Symposium on
Logic in Computer Science
Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 16-18, 1986
THE CONFERENCE will cover a wide range of theoretical and
practical issues in Computer Science that relate to logic in
a broad sense, including algebraic and topological
approaches. To date, many of these areas have been dealt
with in separate conferences and workshops. It is the hope
of the Organizing Committee that bringing them together will
help stimulate further research.
Some suggested, although not exclusive topics of interest
are: abstract data types, computer theorem proving and
verification, concurrency, constructive proofs as programs,
data base theory, foundations of logic programming,
logic-based programming languages, logic in complexity
theory, logics of programs, knowledge and belief, semantics
of programs, software specifications, type theory, etc.
Organizing Committee
J. Barwise E. Engeler A. Meyer
W. Bledsoe J. Goguen R. Parikh
A. Chandra (Chair) D. Kozen G. Plotkin
E. Dijkstra Z. Manna D. Scott
The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society,
Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations of
Computing, and in cooperation with ACM SIGACT and ASL
(request pending).
PAPER SUBMISSION. Authors should send 17 copies of a
detailed abstract (not a full paper) by Dec. 23, 1985 to the
program committee chairman:
Albert R. Meyer - LICS Program
MIT Lab. for Computer Science
545 Technology Square, NE43-315
Cambridge, MA 02139.
(617) 253-6024, ARPANET: MEYER at MIT-XX
The abstract must provide sufficient detail to allow the
program committee to assess the merits of the paper and
should include appropriate references and comparisons with
related work. The abstract should be at most ten
double-spaced typed pages. The time between the paper due
date and the program committee meeting is short, so late
papers run a high risk of not being considered. In
circumstances where adequate reproduction facilities are not
available to the author, a single copy of the abstract will
be accepted.
The program committee consists of R. Boyer, W. Damm, S. German,
D. Gries, M. Hennessy, G. Huet, D. Kozen, A. Meyer, J. Mitchell,
R. Parikh, J. Reynolds, J. Robinson, D. Scott, M. Vardi, and
R. Waldinger.
Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by Jan.
24, 1986. Copies of accepted papers, typed on special forms
for inclusion in the symposium proceedings, will be due
March 31, 1986.
The general chairman is A. K. Chandra, IBM Thomas J. Watson
Research Center, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598,
tele: (914) 945-1752, CSNET: ASHOK.YKTVMV at IBM. The local
arrangements chairman is A. J. Kfoury, Dept. of Computer
Science, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, tele: (617)
353-8911, CSNET: KFOURY at BOSTONU.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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