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AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 243
AIList Digest Monday, 3 Nov 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 243
Today's Topics:
Games - Chess,
Seminars - Aid To Database Design (UPenn) &
A Circumscriptive Theory of Plan Recognition (BBN),
Conferences - Sydney Expert Systems Conference &
European Conference on Object Oriented Programming
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 28 Oct 86 11:35:39 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ab@seismo.css.gov (ab)
Subject: Re: Places in Vancouver? Really Chess programs.
> I don't really understand why there are not any really good chess
> programs available for home computers. Fidelity has a machine
> with an official USCF rating of 2100 for 200 bucks. I am pretty
> sure that this has an 8 bit processor. Someone should be able to
> come up with a 68k program that is better than this!
Did you hear of the recent PSION-CHESS program for the Atari ST?
This is a completely new program developed by Richard Lang. It uses
heuristic search instead of the alpha-beta-procedure. This means that
the program can examine the game tree to arbitrary depth. It uses a highly
selective search to investigate the interesting lines of play. Moreover
its playing style is very aggressive. The search concentrates on lines
of play which are tactically sharp and which force the opponent to play
in a way which can be easily predicted. So not necessarily the best
move is played but the tactically sharpest with reasonable outcome.
This means that a depth of up to 20 plies can be forced and a gain of
material in let's say 8 plies is recognized.
The program can display up to 8 plies of its current expected moves.
There exist two ways of displaying the board: 3d and 2d. You can set the
board to an arbitrary position and there exist levels of play from
novice (1 sec) to expert (same time) and infinity. Also there are
problem modes for forced check mates. The program normally 'thinks'
while its opponent has to move, but with the feature 'handicap' this
can be disabled. A lot of other features are supported which could be
mentioned.
It seems to me that this program is identical to the Mephisto Munchen
with Amsterdam-modul since that one also uses the same strategy, the
same processor and is also by Richard Lang. If true that would mean
that PSION-CHESS alias Mephisto-Munchen is the recent world champion
of microcomputer chess (championship in Amsterdam fall 1985).
Has anyone further information on this program or on its strength?
I am particularly interested in the new programing approach realized
in this program. There exist some articles by Larry R. Harris about
heuristic search in chess, but these articles date back to 1975.
Are there other available programs which use the new approach?
Andreas Bormann
University of Dortmund [UniDo]
West Germany
Uucp: ab@unido.uucp
Path: {USA}!seismo!{mcvax}!unido!ab
{Europe}!{cernvax,diku,enea,ircam,mcvax,prlb2,tuvie,ukc}!unido!ab
Bitnet: ab@unido.bitnet (== ab@ddoinf6.bitnet)
[ Followups will be directed to net.games.chess only.]
[ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ]
[ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
[ Also I have no ambitions to sell PSION-CHESS or Mephisto computers.]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 86 23:06 EST
From: Tim Finin <Tim@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: Seminar - Aid To Database Design (UPenn)
Dissertation Defense
Aid To Database Design: An Inductive
Inference Approach
Sitaram Lanka
The conventional approach to the design of databases has the drawback that
to specify a database schema, it requires the user interested in designing a
schema to have the knowledge about both the domain and the data model. The
aim of this research is to propose a semi automated system which designs a
database schema in which the user need only have the knowledge of the
underlying domain. This is expressed in terms of the information retrieval
requirements that the database has to satisfy eventually. We have cast this
as a problem in inductive inference where the input is in the form of
Natural Language English queries. A database schema is inferred from this
and is expressed in the functional data model.
The synthesis of the database schema from the input queries is carried out
by an inference mechanism. The central idea in designing the inference
mechanism is the notion of compositionality and we have described it in
terms of attribute grammars due to Kunth. A method has been proposed to
detect any potentially false hypothesis that the inference mechanism may put
forth and we have proposed a scheme to refine them such that we will obtain
acceptable hypothesis. A prototype has been implemented on the Symbolics
Lisp machine.
Committee
Dr. P. Buneman
Dr. T. Finin (chairman)
Dr. R. Gerritsen Supervisor
Dr. A.K. Joshi Supervisor
Dr. R.S. Nikhil
Dr. B. Webber
Date: October 31, 1986
Time: 2:30 pm
Location: Room 23
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 86 20:47:49 EST
From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" <SASW%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - A Circumscriptive Theory of Plan Recognition (BBN)
From: Brad Goodman <BGOODMAN at BBNG.ARPA>
BBN Laboratories
Science Development Program
AI/Education Seminar
Speaker: Henry Kautz
Dept. of Computer Science, University of Rochester
(Henry@Rochester.Arpa)
Title: A CIRCUMSCRIPTIVE THEORY OF PLAN RECOGNITION
Date: 10:30a.m., Thursday, November 20th
Location: 3rd floor large conference room,
BBN Laboratories Inc., 10 Moulton St., Cambridge
Abstract
A plan library specifies the abstraction and decomposition relations
between actions. A typical first-order representation of such a library
does not, by itself, provide grounds for recognizing an agent's plans, given
observations of the agent's actions. Several additional assumptions are
needed: that the abstraction hierarchy is complete; that the
decomposition hierarchy is complete; and that the agent's actions are, if
possible, all part of the same plan. These assumptions are developed
through the construction of a certain class of minimal models of the plan
library. Circumscription provides a general non-constructive method for
specifying a class of minimal models. For the specific case at hand,
however, we can mechanically generate a set of first-order axioms which
precisely capture the assumptions. The result is a "competence theory" of
plan recognition, which correctly handles such difficult matters as
disjunctive observations and multiple plans. The theory may be partially
implemented by efficient (but limited) algorithms.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 86 17:43:23 EST
From: Jason Catlett <munnari!basser.oz!jason@seismo.CSS.GOV>
Subject: Call for Papers, Sydney Expert Systems Conference
>From moncskermit!munnari!seismo!ut-sally!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor
>From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: mod.conferences
Subject: Call-For-Papers: Sydney Expert Systems Conference
Location: Sydney, Australia
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Third Australian Conference on Applications of Expert Systems
Sydney, 13-15 May
The Sydney Expert Systems Group has organised two successful
conferences on this theme, including keynote addresses from
internationally-recognised authorities
Bruce Buchanan (Stanford University), Donald Michie (Turing Institute),
Neil Pundit (Digital Equipment Corporation, USA), Donald
Waterman (Rand Corporation) and Patrick Winston (M.I.T.).
The 1987 conference will continue this tradition, with addresses from
distinguished overseas speakers and Australian experts.
Papers are invited on any aspect of expert systems technology, including
- examples of expert systems that have been developed for
particular applications
- design and evaluation of tools for building expert systems
- knowldege engineering methodology
- specialised hardware for expert systems
Contributions that discuss the authors' experiences/successes/
lessons learned in building expert systems will be
particularly welcome. Papers of any size will be considered but
a length of 15-30 pages is recommended. All accepted papers will
be published in the Proceedings.
Authors should note the following dates:
Deadline for papers: 30th January 1987
Notification of acceptance: 13th March 1987
Deadline for camera-ready copy: 10th April 1987
Presentation of paper: 13-15th May 1987
Papers should be sent to the Program Chairman,
Dr J. R. Quinlan
School of Computing Sciences
NSW Institute of Technology
Broadway NSW 2007
Australia
Requests for registration forms should be sent to "ES Conference
Registrations, c/o Dr John Debenham" at the above address.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1986 10:50 EST
From: HENRY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: European Conference on Object Oriented Programming
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 86 18:25:23 -0100 (MET)
From: pierre Cointe <mcvax!cmirh!pc at seismo.CSS.GOV>
To: henry at ai.ai.mit.edu
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
Call for Papers
Paris, France: June 15-17 1987
Following the AFCET group's three previous Working Sessions
on Object Oriented Languages next encounter will take place
at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris) on June 15th, 16th &
17th 1987. With regard to the success of the previous workshops
and to the increasing interest on the subject, the next meeting
will be an international conference organized by AFCET.
The program committee is:
G. Attardi, DELPHI, Italy
J. Bezivin, LIB (UBO & ENSTbr), France
P. Cointe, CMI & LITP, France
S. Cook, London University, England
J.M. Hullot, INRIA, France
B. Kristensen, Aalborg University Center, Denmark
H. Lieberman, MIT, USA
L. Steels, Brussels University, Belgium
H. Stoyan, Konstanz University, West German
B. Stroustrup, AT&T Bell Labs, USA
J. Vaucher, Montreal University, Canada
A. Yonezawa, Tokyo Institut of Technology, Japan
The conference will consist of a presentation of selected papers.
Well-known researchers having made major contributions in the field
- like C. Hewitt and K. Nygaard - will also give invited lectures.
This new conference will deal with all domains using the techniques
and methodologies of Object Oriented Programming. It is likely to
interest both software designers and users.
Proposed themes are the following:
- Theory :
semantic models (instantiation, inheritance), compilation
- Conception :
new languages, new hardwares, new extensions of languages
- Applications :
man/machine interfaces, simulation, knowledge representation,
data bases, operating systems
- Methodology :
Smalltalk-80 methodology, actor methodology,
frame methodology, the abstract type approach
- Development :
industrial applications.
The papers must be submitted in English and should not be longer
than ten pages. Five copies must be received at one of the address
below, no later than January 9th,1987 (and, if possible, by electronic
mails to the conference co-chairmen). Papers selection will be done
by circulating papers to members of the program committee having
appropriate expertise. Authors will be notified of acceptance by
February, 15th 1987. To be included in the Proceedings the definitive
version of the paper must reach the AFCET office before April, 27th 1987.
- Conference Co-chairmen
- J.M. Hullot (INRIA)
mcvax!inria!hullot
- J. Bezivin (LIB)
mcvax!inria!geocub!bezivin
- Program Co-chairmen
- P. Cointe (LITP)
mcvax!inria!cointe
- H. Lieberman (MIT)
mcvax!ai.ai.mit.edu!henry
- USA Coordinator
- B. Stroustrup (AT&T, Bell Labs)
mcvax!research!snb!bs
Murray Hill, Nj 07974 USA
(201 582 7393)
- Organization
- Claire Van Hieu
AFCET
156 Boulevard Pereire
75017 Paris, France
(1) 47.66.24.19
Following the conference - and in the same place - Jerome Chailloux
and Christian Queinnec will organize on June 18th and 19th a workshop
about Lisp and its standardization.
People interested in Tutorials, Workshops or Exhibitions may contact
the AFCET organization.
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End of AIList Digest
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