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AIList Digest Volume 6 Issue 013
AIList Digest Monday, 18 Jan 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 13
Today's Topics:
Queries - AI in Psychiatry & Parallelized LISP &
Computerized Mice and Mazes,
Robotics - Table Tennis-Playing Robot,
Linguistics - Machine-Readable Dictionaries,
Reviews - Spang Robinson Supercomputing V1/N3 & Intelligent Nanocomputers
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Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 16:43:01 PST
From: George Thomsen <THOMSEN@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: AI applications in Psychiatry
I am interested in learning about recent AI applications in Psychiatry.
I would appreciate any references or suggestions.
Thanks,
George Thomsen
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jan 88 17:39:30 GMT
From: jharris@pyr.gatech.edu (JERRY L. HARRIS)
Subject: parallelized LISP
Hi!
I am a graduate student at Georgia Tech and I am researching the
efficiency and execution of parallelized LISP programs. Has anyone out
there done any work with parallel LISP? I would appreciate any
bibliographical references or personal experience.
Thanks in advance.
Jerry Harris
bitnet: jharris@pyr.gatech.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 16:05:47 EST
From: russelr@radc-lonex.arpa
Subject: Computerized Mice and Mazes
Does anyone have any info as to designing/building computerized mice to run
mazes?
Bob Russel, russelr@radc-lonex.arpa
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Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 07:53 EST
From: "William E. Hamilton, Jr."
<"RCSMPA::HAMILTON%gmr.com"@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: re: table tennis playing robot
I believe the table tennis playing robot work was done by Bell Labs at
one of their New Jersey locations (probably Murray Hill or Holmdel).
Bill Hamilton
GM Research Labs
Computer Science
Warren, MI
48090-9055
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Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 11:25:39 est
From: france@vtopus.cs.vt.edu (Robert France)
Subject: Machine-Readable Dictionari(es) for AI/NL
At Virginia Tech we have been working for a few years with dictionaries
available through the Oxford Text Archive. Thte OTA is a depository
for machine-readable literary texts. They have assembled by this point
a considerable body of both primary and secondary (lexicographic)
material, all of which is available for research use only at a nominal
fee. Restrictions and a list of their materials can be obtained from
The Oxford Text Archive
Oxford University Computing Service
13 Banbury Rd.
Oxford GREAT BRITAIN OX2 6NN
Telephone: Oxford (0865) 56721
They are on the net but I'm afraid I've misplaced their Eaddress.
Most of OTA's material is available only in (some) typesetters' format,
and often the formatting conventions are no longer available. They are
also archiving re-formatted versions as they become available, though,
so in some cases the data is fairly directly useable. A case in point
is the following:
One of our early efforts with machin-readable dictionaries involved
translating the Collins English Dictionary from typesetters' format into
a set of files of Prolog facts. These facts include, for the c. 80,000
headwords in the CED: syllabification, variant spellings, abbreviations,
irregular inflections and morphological variants; parts of speech and
semantic register information; "also called", "related adjective", and
"compare" cross-references; and the texts of definitions, sample uses
and usage notes. We ignored only etymology and pronunciation. A
syntactially corrrect copy of these facts (i.e., a set of facts in
Edinburgh standard syntax that can be consulted without blowing up a
Prolog compiler) is now on deposit at the Archive and available under
the same terms as the raw data. We are working on a semantically
correct version (i.e., one where the data in the facts is in all cases
the data that ought to be there), and will deposit that when we have
it complete.
Currently, our group here, headed by E.A. Fox and Terry Nutter,
is coordinating with a group at the Illinois Institue of Technology
headed by Martha Evens to analyse the definition texts of this
and other M-R dictionaries and to integrate our findings into a
*VERY* large semantic net. This product will also be made available
to the community for research use only. Anyone desiring further
information on this project is invited to contact any of the principles.
Believe me, we have some stories to tell.
Good luck,
Robert France
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061
france@vtopus fox@vtopus nutter@vtopus csevans%iitvax
"Believing people is a very bad habit. I stopped years ago."
(Miss Marple)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 88 09:03:30 CST
From: smu!leff@uunet.UU.NET (Laurence Leff)
Subject: Review - Spang Robinson Supercomputing V1/N3
Summary of The Spang Robinson Report on Supercomputing and Parallel Processing
Volume 1 No. 3
Minisupercomputers, The Megaflop Boom (Lead Story)
There have been a total of 850 minicomputer systems installed since 1981.
(This article considers Floating Point Systems general purpose version of
array processor the first entrant to this market)
Possible new entrants to this race are Supertek (a Cray-compatible product),
Cydrome's Dataflow-based system, Quad Design (a spin-off from Vitesse and
still hunting for venture capital), Gould Computer Systems Division,
Celerity, Harris (rumors only), Digital Equipment (project in force but
no announcements as to exact nature). They estimate sales for this year
at between 275 million and 300 million.
50 percent of minisupers customers required DEC system compatibility.
10 percent required Cray compatibility while more buyers were concerned
with SUN compatability with Cray compatibility.
The Consortium for Supercomputer Research estimates a total
of 500 Cray-1 equivalent units by 1992 world-wide for academic research
and development. Seventy percent of all applications were migrated form
VAX-class machines, 12 percent from workstations, 10 percent from mainframes
and eight percent from Cray machines.
_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+
Shorts; Cray Research has authorized to sell a X-MP14 to the Indian Minsitry
of Science and Technology
NEC announced the sale of single processor SX-2 to the Bangalor Science
Research center.
MASSCOMP received a large contract to sell its units to the government,
presumably the National Security Agency.
Three PhD's and a PhD candidate are part of Parasoft, a consulting company
specializing in software for hypercube architectures.
The Consortium for Supercomputer Research has released Volume II of
the series, "An Analysis and Forecast of International Supercomputing."
It concludes that supercomputer can cost its owner more than 50 million
dollars over the first five years not counting applications.
Encore Computer Corporation is using VMARK's PICK compatible applications
environment on its Multimax line.
Amdahl's 1400E now runs at 1700 MFLOPS and is thus the highest single
processor performance in the industry.
Ridge's new 5100 has 2MFLOP performance on the LINPACK benchmark and
14 million Whetstones per second.
MASSCOMP now runs 8 processors and thus is a 20 MIP machine.
Numerical Algorithms Corporation has released a version of its NAG
Fortran Library for the 3090 Vecctor facility.
^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*^&*
This issue also has a table of Superminicomputers listing various
information. Here are the number of installations:
Alliant 171
Celerity just shipping
Convex 200
ELXSI 80
FPS 365
Gould 6
Multiflow 5
Scientific 25
Computing
Supertek not shipping yet
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 88 09:46 EST
From: GODDEN%gmr.com@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Intelligent Nanocomputers
I would like to recommend to the readers of ailist that they take a
look at the book >Engines of Creation< by K. Eric Drexler of MIT.
He presents in layman's terms the basics of nanotechnology, which
is the emerging field of molecular-sized machines, including computers.
(In the notes are references to technical works.) Of particular
interest to AI folks is the chapter on AI and nanocomputers. Let me
just relate one item to give you a hint of what it's about. Drexler
makes the fascinating claim (no doubt many will vehemently disagree)
that to create a true artificial intelligence it is not necessary to
first understand intelligence. All one has to do is simulate the
brain, which can be done given nanotechnology. He suggests that a
complete hardware simulation of the brain can be done, synapse-for-
synapse and dendrite-for-dendrite, in the space of one cubic centimeter
(this figure is backed up in the notes). Such a machine could then
just be allowed to run and should be able to accomplish a man-year of
work in ten seconds. The unstated assumption is that a computer that
is isomorphic to the human brain will ipso facto be intelligent, and
presumably will be able to construct its own 'mental' models once power
is supplied. No need to supply it with software. (I may be misinter-
preting the book on this point.) Interesting reading in any case.
He even predicts (!) in chapter one that the initial nanomachines will
be with us in ten to fifty years. Forward is by Minsky. In paperback.
-Kurt Godden
godden@gmr.com
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End of AIList Digest
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