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AIList Digest Volume 6 Issue 054
AIList Digest Tuesday, 22 Mar 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 54
Today's Topics:
Seminars - A Formalization of Inheritance (Unisys) &
Partial Global Planning for Problem Solving (CMU),
Conferences - AAAI88 Design Workshop &
Parallel Algorithms in AI workshop at AAAI88 &
Workshop on Blackboard Systems &
IJCAI 89 in Detroit
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Date: Thu, 17 Mar 88 13:35:37 EST
From: finin@PRC.Unisys.COM
Subject: Seminar - A Formalization of Inheritance (Unisys)
AI SEMINAR
UNISYS PAOLI RESEARCH CENTER
A Formalization of Inheritance Hierarchies
with Exceptions and Multiple Ancestors
Lokendra Shastri
University of Pennsylvania
Many knowledge-based systems express domain knowledge in terms of a hierarchy
of concepts/frames - where each concept is a collection of attribute-value (or
slot-filler pairs). Such information structures are variably referred to as
frame-based languages, semantic networks, inheritance hierachies, etc. One
can associate two interesting classes of inference with such information
structures, namely, inheritance and classification. Attempts at formalizing
inheritance and classification, however, have been confounded by the presence
of conflicting attribute-values among related concepts. Such conflicting
information gives rise to the problems of exceptions and multiple inheritance
during inheritance, and partial matching during classification. Although
existing formalizations of inheritance hierarchies (e.g., those proposed by
Etherington and Reiter, and Touretzky) deal adequately with exceptions, they
do not address the problems of multiple inheritance and partial matching.
This talk presents a formalization of inheritance hierarchies based on the
principle of maximum entropy. The suggested formalization offers several
advantages: it admits necessary as well as default attribute-values, it deals
with conflicting information in a principled manner, and it solves the
problems of exceptions, multiple inheritance, as well as partial matching. It
can also be shown that there exists an extremely efficient realization of this
formalization.
2:00 pm Tuesday, March 22
Unisys Paloi Research Center
Route 252 and Central Ave.
Paoli PA 19311
-- non-Unisys visitors who are interested in attending should --
-- send email to finin@prc.unisys.com or call 215-648-7446 --
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 11:27:24 EST
From: Anurag.Acharya@CENTRO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Seminar - Partial Global Planning for Problem Solving (CMU)
AI SEMINAR
TOPIC: The Partial Global Planning Approach
to Coordinating Distributed Problem Solvers
SPEAKER: Edmund H. Durfee
Department of Computer & Information Science
Lederle Graduate Research Center
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts 01003
(413) 545-1349
WHEN: Tuesday, March 15, 1988 3:30pm
WHERE: Wean Hall 5409
ABSTRACT
As distributed computing is used in applications where the distributed tasks
are highly interrelated and change dynamically, coordination becomes
increasingly important and difficult. Distributed artificial intelligence
(DAI) applications often have these characteristics. In distributed problem
solving networks, for example, individual nodes solve interacting subproblems
of larger network problems. Network problems may change over time, so
effective network problem solving depends on nodes coordinating their local
actions and planning their interactions to cooperate as a coherent team.
We introduce partial global planning as a new approach to coordination.
Whereas previous DAI approaches, such as contracting or multi-agent planning,
are specialized for particular situations, our new partial global planning
approach provides a unified and versatile framework for dynamically
coordinating independent nodes. The approach views control as a planning
task, where nodes individually develop local plans and asynchronously
exchange plan information in order to form and follow partial global plans
that specify cooperative actions and interactions. In this talk, I will
describe how partial global planning has been implemented in a simulated
distributed problem solving network for vehicle monitoring. I will discuss
experimental results showing that partial global planning improves
coordination without introducing excessive overhead, allows effective
coordination even in dynamically changing situations, and provides
flexibility so that nodes can cooperate in different ways to achieve a
variety of goals.
------------------------------
Date: 13 Mar 88 19:54:52 GMT
From: ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU!dchandra@pt.cs.cmu.edu (Dundee Navinchandra)
Subject: Conference - AAAI88 Design Workshop
AAAI-88 WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT
AI in Design
------------
Part-of: Workshop on Integrated Manufacturing
Sponsored-by: AAAI Special Interest Group on AI in Manufacturing
Date: August 24, 1988 (During the Conference)
Background:
Design is fast becoming a major focus of AI research. This is due, in
part, to the emerging theory's reliance on AI techniques such as
planning, control, learning, qualitative reasoning, etc. The purpose
of this workshop is to identify critical issues in design, applicable
AI technologies, and directions for future research. The emphasis
will be on issues rather than on specific systems. There are several
issues which are of common interest to people concentrating in
different domains such as : VLSI design, Mechanical Engineering,
Chemical Engineering, Computer Engineering etc. The workshop will
provide researchers from these different domains an opportunity to
exchange ideas and views on topics of specific interest to the them.
Organization:
The workshop will be a one-day affair and will be comprised of five
sessions of 1.5 hours each. Each session will be led by a member of
the organizing committee and will concentrate on one issue.
We have tentatively identified the following topics of interest:
* Planning and Control of the design process. The use abstractions
and rough designs to guide future decisions.
* Design Modeling. Qualitative modeling. Simulation of behavior and
manufacturing process.
* Innovation in design. The use and control of mutation operators,
precedents and the role of analogy in design.
* Cooperative design. Control and communication among agents.
Negotiation and conflict management.
* Constraint management and domain-independent frameworks
for configuration design problems. Constraint compilation.
The list is tentative and will be revised based on the interests expressed
by the participants. Potential attendees are invited to submit extended
abstracts of about 5 pages. These abstracts will be used as background
information for the discussions during the workshop. Send SIX copies of your
abstract, including your name, address, phone number, title and authors on a
separate page, to:
D. Navinchandra
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Abstracts should be received no later than May 15. Authors will be notified
of acceptance by July 1, 1988. The workshop is limited to 45 participants
and acceptance of abstracts will be based on their relevance to the
prevailing issues.
Organizing Committee:
Workshop Chairmen: Mark S. Fox and D. Navinchandra, Carnegie Mellon
University.
Program Committee:
M. Dyer, UCLA
J. Gero, Sydney University, Australia
R. Mayers, Texas A&M
S. Mittal, Xerox PARC
D. Sriram, M.I.T.
C. Tong, Rutgers University
------------------------------
Date: 16 Mar 88 00:12:02 GMT
From: Laveen N. KANAL <kanal@mimsy.umd.edu>
Reply-to: kanal@mimsy.umd.edu.UUCP (Laveen N. KANAL)
Subject: Conference - Parallel Algorithms in AI workshop at AAAI88
AAAI-88 workshop on Parallel Algorithms for Machine Intelligence
and Pattern Recognition.
Minneapolis, Minn. Aug.20 and 21, 1988.
Organizing Committee:
Prof. Laveen N. Kanal,(kanal@mimsy.umd.edu)
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Maryland,College Park, Md., 20742
Dr. P.S. Gopalakrishnan, (PSG@ibm.com)
IBM Research Division
T.J. Watson Research Center, 39-238
P.O.Box 218
Yorktown Heights, N.Y. 10598
Prof. Vipin Kumar,(kumar@sally.utexas.edu)
Computer Science Dept.
Univ. of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas, 78712.
There is much interest in AI in parallel algorithms for exploring
higher level knowledge representations and structural relationships. Parallel
algorithms for search,combinatorial optimization,constraint satisfaction,
parallel production systems,and pattern and graph matching are expressions of
this interest. There is also considerable interest and ongoing work on
parallel algorithms for lower level analysis of data,in
particular,in vision,speech and signal processing,often based on stochastic
models. For practical applications of machine intelligence and pattern
recognition the question arises as to the extent to which parallelism
for high and low level analysis can be achieved in an integrated manner.
The workshop will aim at bringing together individuals working in each of
the above two aspects of parallel algorithms to consider the basic nature
of the procedures involved and the degree to which parallel
approaches to high and low level operations in machine intelligence,
pattern recognition, and signal processing can be integrated.
Contributors interested in participating in this workshop are requested to
submit a 1000-2000 word extended abstract of their work on parallel algorithms
in areas of Machine Intelligence and Pattern Recognition. Areas of interest
include Search Problems in A.I. and Pattern recognition, high and low level
processing in Computer Vision, Speech Recognition, Optimization Problems
in A.I.,Constraint Satisfaction, and Pattern and Graph matching. Although
the number of participants at the workshop must be limited due to limited
room size, papers invited for submission on the basis of the abstracts,
together with invited papers and discussions presented at the workshop, will
all be reviewed for inclusion in an edited volume of the series Machine
Intelligence and Pattern Recognition published by North-Holland Publishers.
Abstracts should be sent as soon as possible and must reach the organizers
no later than June 1,1988. Abstracts may be sent by electronic mail to all
the organizers at the e-mail addresses shown. Hard copy versions of each
abstract should also be sent to each of the organizers in order to expedite
review. Responses to all who submit abstracts will be sent by July 1, 1988.
--
Laveen N. KANAL
(301)454-7877/927-3223
kanal@mimsy.umd.edu
uunet!mimsy!kanal
------------------------------
Date: 10 Mar 88 10:14:26 PST (Thu)
From: rajd@cel.fmc.com (Rajendra Dodhiawala)
Subject: Conference - Workshop on Blackboard Systems
Workshop Announcement -- Call For Participation
THE SECOND WORKSHOP ON BLACKBOARD SYSTEMS
Sponsored by AAAI
Congress Suite, Radisson St. Paul Hotel, St. Paul, Minnesota
Wednesday, August 24, 1988
(Parallel activity during AAAI '88)
(Note change in date from previous announcements of the workshop)
The Second Workshop on Blackboard Systems will address issues that pertain to
the design, implementation and applications of blackboard systems. Emergence
of blackboard systems as practical tools to implement a diversity of
applications has raised some important questions about the various aspects that
need further investigation. The focus of the workshop will be to discuss the
following interest areas in blackboard systems:
1. Control and Organization Issues: What is the approach taken to control the
problem solving and the rationale for the choice? What is the ramifications on
performance? What are the mechanisms available for organizing knowledge in such
systems? What is the ramifications of organization in control?
Moderator: Vic Lesser
2. Real-time Issues: What is the applicability of blackboard systems to
real-time problems? How is the architecture enhanced or reduced to meet the
needs of real-time problem-solving? There is increasing interest on the role of
parallelism at the system level to achieve real-time performance. How can
parallelism or distribution be exploited to provide for real-time performance?
Moderator: Roberto Bisiani
3. Applications: In what innovative ways can the blackboard system be used to
address particular problems or classes of problems? Comparisons with alternate
approaches and paradigms, why they fail, and distinctive features of the
blackboard paradigm that had the greatest impact should be highlighted.
Moderator: Bob Engelmore
To encourage vigorous interaction and exchange of ideas between those
attending, the workshop will be limited to approximately 30 participants. There
will be three panel sessions, one for each of the three subject areas listed
above. There will also be a free form discussion session to address unanswered
questions. The format of the panels will be decided by the respective
moderators.
All submitted papers will be refereed with respect to how well they identify
and discuss the factors affecting the design and implementation of blackboard
systems. Authors should discuss their design decisions (why a particular
approach was selected); what worked, what did not and why; the advantages,
disadvantages and limitations of their approach; and what they would recommend
to others developing such systems. Preference will be given to those papers
that discuss approaches that have been demonstrated in real applications.
Workshop planning committee and referees:
Roberto Bisiani, Carnegie Mellon University
Harold Brown, Stanford University
Dan Corkill, University of Massachusetts
Robert Engelmore, Stanford University
Lee Erman, Teknowledge, Inc.
Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford University
Victor Lesser, University of Massachusetts
Penny Nii, Stanford University
D. Sriram, MIT
Submission Details: Five copies of an extended abstract, double spaced up to
4000 words, should be submitted to either of the workshop co-chairs before May
10, 1988. Acceptances will be mailed by June 30, 1988. Final copies of the
papers will be required by July 31, 1988.
Title Page: The extended abstract must have a title page which lists the names
and addresses, including electronic addresses if any, of all the authors. All
communication will be with the first author, unless indicated otherwise. Since
there may be overlaps in the subject areas of this workshop, authors are
encouraged to mention on the title page the area in which they think their work
best contributes.
Edited Volume: Academic Press (HBJ Publishers) have agreed to publish an edited
volume of the current and outstanding papers in the subject areas of this
workshop. The papers for this volume will be selected from the submissions to
this workshop and the proceedings of the first workshop. However, there will be
an additional review process to select the final set of papers for the edited
volume.
Workshop Co-chairs:
V. Jagannathan, M/S 7L-64 R. T. Dodhiawala
Boeing Advanced Technology Center FMC Central Engineering Labs
Boeing Computer Services 1205 Coleman Avenue, Box 580
P. O. Box 24346 Santa Clara, CA 95052
Seattle, WA 98124-0346. (408) 289-3303
(206)865-3240. rajd@cel.fmc.com
juggy@boeing.com
Important dates:
May 10, 1988: Extended Abstracts due (5 copies)
June 30, 1988: Notification of acceptance
July 31, 1988: Final versions of papers and abstracts due.
August 24, 1988: Workshop
- rajendra
------------------------------
Date: 16 Mar 88 18:31:11 PST (Wed)
From: sridhara@cel.fmc.com (Sridharan)
Subject: Conference - IJCAI 89 in Detroit
Eleventh International Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence
Detroit, Michigan U.S.A
August 20 thru 26 1989
The International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)
continue to be the premier forum for international scientific
exchange and presentation of AI research. The next conference will
be held in Detroit, Michigan USA from August 20 through August 26,
1989. The conference is sponsored by the International Joint
Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Inc. (IJCAII) and is co-
sponsored and hosted by the American Association for Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI) and a broadly-based consortium of academic,
industrial and governmental institutions in the Southeastern
Michigan region.
The conference is designed to give representation to all subfields of
AI including research of all kinds. The conference will also highlight
the relationship of AI to other related disciplines. The technical
program will comprise a Paper Track focusing on empirical,
analytical, theoretical, conceptual, foundational aspects and applied
research; and a Videotape Track focusing on applications in all
subfields best suited for this form of presentation.
The Eleventh IJCAI will feature:
o an outstanding technical program;
o state-of-the-art exhibit of AI related hardware and software;
o stimulating and informative tutorials;
o special events that include prizes, awards, panels and workshops;
o visits to academic and industrial research centers and
o automobile manufacturing plants; and
o an interesting variety of extra-conference activities.
The official language of the conference is English, both for papers
and videotapes. The major areas and subareas are indicated below.
A. AI Tools and Technologies
A1. Machine Architectures, Languages, Shells
A2. Parallel and Distributed Processing
A3. Real-Time Performance
B. Fundamental Problems, Methods, Approaches
B1. Search Methods
B2. Knowledge Acquisition, Learning, Analogy
B3. Cognitive Modeling
B4. Planning, Scheduling, Reasoning about Actions
B5. Automated Deduction
B6. Patterns of Commonsense Reasoning
B7. Other issues in Knowledge Representation
C. Fundamental Applications
C1. Natural Language, Speech Understanding and Generation
C2. Perception, Vision, Robotics
C3 Intelligent Tutoring Systems
C4. Design, Manufacturing, Control
D. Perspectives and Attitudes
D1. Philosophical Foundations
D2. Social Implications
Submission Requirements and Guidelines
Important Dates
Submissions must be postmarked by: December 12, 1988
Notification of acceptance or rejection: March 27, 1989
Edited version to be produced by: April 27, 1989
Conference: August 20-26, 1989
Program Chair: Paper submissions, reviewing, invited talks, panels,
awards and all matters related to the technical program.
Dr. N.S. Sridharan
FMC Corporation, Central Engineering Labs.
1205 Coleman Avenue, Box 580
Santa Clara, CA 95052 USA
(408) 289-0315 sridharan@cel.fmc.com
Videotape Track Chair: For videotape submissions, editing and
scheduling of video presentations.
Dr. John Birk
Hewlett-Packard Labs.
3500 Deer Creek Road, P.O. Box 10350
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1317 USA
(415) 857-2568 birk@hplabs.hp.com
Other Contacts:
Local Arrangements Chair: Enquiries about local arrangements.
Dr. Ramasamy Uthurusamy
General Motors Research Laboratories
Computer Science Department
Warren, Michigan, 48090-9055 USA
(313) 986-1989 samy%gmr@relay.cs.net
Tutorials, Exhibits and Registration:
Ms. Claudia Mazzetti
AAAI Office, 445 Burgess Drive, Suite 100
Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA
(415) 328-3123
General Chair: For all general conference related matters.
Professor Wolfgang Bibel
Computer Science, University of British Columbia
6356 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1W5 Canada
(604) 228-3061 bibel@ubc.csnet
IJCAII Secretary-Treasurer:
Dr. Donald Walker
AI and Information Science Research
Bell Communications Research
445 South Street, MRE 2A379
Morristown, NJ 07960-1961 USA
(201) 829-4312 walker@flash.bellcore.com
Paper Track Submission:
Authors should submit five (5) copies of their papers in hard copy
form. Papers should be a minimum of 2000 words (about four pages
single spaced) to a maximum of 5000 words (about 10 pages single
spaced). Papers should be printed on 8.5"x11.0" or European A4
sized paper, with 1.5" margins, using 12 pt type and be of letter-
quality print (no dot matrix printouts). Each full page figure counts
for 500 words.
Each paper should contain the following information:
o Title of paper
o Full names of all authors and complete addresses
o Abstract of 100-200 words
o Length of the paper in words
o The area/subarea in which the paper should be reviewed
o Declaration of multiple submissions.
If the paper submitted to IJCAI-89 is similar in substance or form to
another paper submitted to other major conferences in 1989, this
must be declared by the author.
Papers will be uniformly subject to peer review. Selection criteria
include accuracy and originality of ideas, clarity and significance of
results and the quality of the presentation. Late submissions will be
automatically rejected without review. The decision of the Program
Committee will be final and cannot be appealed. Papers selected will
be scheduled for presentation and will be printed in the Proceedings.
Videotape Track Submission:
Authors should submit one (1) copy of a videotape of 15 minutes
maximum duration, of applied research, accompanied by a
submission letter that includes
o Title
o Full names of authors and complete addresses
o Tape format (indicate one of NTSC, PAL or SECAM; and one of VHS
or .75" U-matic)
o Duration of tape in minutes
o An abstract not to exceed 100 words.
Late submissions will be automatically rejected without review.
Tapes will not be returned; authors must retain extra copies for
making revisions. All submissions will be converted to NTSC format
before review. Permission to copy for review purposes is
required and authors should indicate this in the submission letter.
This track is reserved for displaying interesting applications to real-
world problems arising in industrial, commercial, space, defense and
educational arenas. This track is designed to demonstrate the
current level of usefulness of AI tools, techniques and methods.
Tapes will be reviewed and selected for presentation during the
conference. The following criteria will guide the selection:
o Level of interest to the conference audience
o Clarity of goals, methods and results
o Presentation quality (including audio, video and pace)
Preference will be given to applications that show a good level of
maturity. Tapes which are deemed to be advertising commercial
products, propaganda, purely expository materials, merely taped
lectures or other material not of scientific or technical value will be
rejected.
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End of AIList Digest
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