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AIList Digest Volume 6 Issue 082
AIList Digest Friday, 29 Apr 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 82
Today's Topics:
Seminars - AURORA -- An Or-Parallel Prolog System (Unisys) &
Nonmonotonic Parallel Inheritance Networks (AT&T) &
Internet Self-Organization (SU) &
ACM SIGART (LA) &
Explanation-Based Search Control Learning (BBN) &
Triangular Scheduling for Depletion-Process Control (SRI),
Conference - Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Annual Meeting &
Int. Neural Network Society '89 &
Robotics and Intelligent Machine Automation &
AAAI Workshop on Plan Recognition
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 23 Apr 88 16:40:03 GMT
From: antares!finin@burdvax.prc.unisys.com (Tim Finin)
Subject: Seminar - AURORA -- An Or-Parallel Prolog System (Unisys)
AI SEMINAR
UNISYS PAOLI RESEARCH CENTER
AURORA - An Or-parallel Prolog System
Andrzej Ciepelewski
Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)
A parallel prolog system has been constructed in a cooperative effort
among Argonne National Lab, University of Manchester and SICS. The
system has been based on a state of the art sequential Prolog. It runs
on multiprocessors with shared memory and is expected to perform
better than on e.g. Sequent Symmetry than the commercial Prolog
systems available today. The system executes "ordinary" ordinary
Prolog programs withs cuts and side effects keeping the semantics of
sequential execution. Also programs written in Prolog extended with
parallel primitives like "cavalier" commit and unorderd sided-effects
can be excuted. The system has been designed for portability and
modifiability. It main part, the engine part and the scheduler part
are nicely interfaced. Two quite different schedulers have already
been tried. Some preliminary performance data has already been
collected, running mostly small search and parsing problems. The
largest program ran so far have been the parallelised SICStus Prolog
compiler and Chat-80. The figures from Sequent Balance 8000 show about
20% parallel overhead in one processor case and close to linear
speed-ups. We are waiting with exitement for figures from Sequent
Symmetry where the system has been recently ported. In my talk I will
mainly discuss implementation decisions and performance figures.
2:00 pm Tuesday, April 26
Paoli Auditorium
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 --
Tim Finin finin@prc.unisys.com
Paoli Research Center ..!{psuvax1,sdcrdcf,cbmvax,bpa}!burdvax!finin
Unisys Corporation 215-648-7446 (o)
PO Box 517, Paoli PA 19301 215-386-1749 (h)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 12:30:25 EDT
From: dlm%research.att.com@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Seminar - Nonmonotonic Parallel Inheritance Networks (AT&T)
Speaker: Chiaki Sakama
ICOT, Japan.
Time: 10:30, May 2nd, 1988
Room: AT&T Bell Laboratories- Murray Hill 3D-436
Title: Nonmonotonic Parallel Inheritance Networks
This paper discusses a formalization of nonmonotonic inheritance
reasoning in semantic networks using Reiter's default theory. It enables us to
define inheritance rules apart from data in a network, and improves
readability or maintenance of a network compared with other approaches.
We also present a parallel inheritance algorithm based on this method,
which generates a set of properties for an input class. This algorithm is
easily realized in a parallel logic programming language GHC (Guarded Horn
Clauses), which is developed as the kernel language of the fifth-generation
project at ICOT.
Sponsor: David Etherington
ether@research.att.com
------------------------------
Date: 25 Apr 1988 15:01-PDT
From: Steve Deering <deering@pescadero.stanford.edu>
Subject: Seminar - Internet Self-Organization (SU)
INTERNET CONGESTION, SELF-ORGANIZATION AND SELF-DESTRUCTION
Van Jacobson
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
DSRS: Distributed Systems Research Seminar (CS548)
Thursday, April 28, 4:15 pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 352
A typical internet contains a large number of interdependent
pieces, each with many degrees of freedom. A congested internet
forces these pieces to operate `far from equilibrium' (where
`equilibrium' is the absence of queues). In the natural world,
these characteristics (coupling, choice and a non-equilibrium
environment) usually herald a `self-organizing system' whose
behavior becomes more than the sum of its parts. I speculate
that a congested internet is such a system and offer some
evidence to support the conjecture. Left to itself, an internet
seems to evolve into a system bent on self-destruction.
Although I currently know of no way to prevent this, I'll try to
point out promising research directions.
------------------------------
Date: 27 Apr 88 00:20:43 PDT (Wednesday)
From: Bruce Hamilton <Hamilton.osbuSouth@Xerox.COM>
Reply-to: Hamilton.osbuSouth@Xerox.COM
Subject: Seminar - LA ACM SIGART
Wednesday May 4 at the Ramada Hotel, 6333 Bristol Parkway, Culver City (just
off the 405 freeway at Sepulveda) will be the kickoff event for the Artificial
Intelligence Special Interest Group of the Los Angeles chapter of the ACM.
Professional gambler Mike Caro will discuss "ORAC", his computer program which
plays world-class poker.
Dinner (optional) is at 7 PM, program at 8 PM. Dinner is approx. $16.50;
program is free.
The attendance at this event will determine if LA SIGART is a viable idea, so
please attend and bring a friend!
--Bruce for Kim Goldsworthy
------------------------------
Date: Wed 27 Apr 88 14:23:02-EDT
From: Marc Vilain <MVILAIN@G.BBN.COM>
Subject: Seminar - Explanation-Based Search Control Learning (BBN)
BBN Science Development Program
AI Seminar Series Lecture
LEARNING EFFECTIVE SEARCH CONTROL KNOWLEDGE:
AN EXPLANATION-BASED APPROACH
Steven Minton
Carnegie-Mellon University
(Steven.Minton@cad.cs.cmu.edu)
BBN Labs
10 Moulton Street
2nd floor large conference room
10:30 am, Tuesday May 3
In order to solve problems more effectively with accumulating
experience, a problem solver must be able to learn and exploit search
control knowledge. In this talk, I will discuss the use of
explanation-based learning (EBL) for acquiring domain-specific control
knowledge. Although previous research has demonstrated that EBL is a
viable approach for acquiring control knowledge, in practice EBL may not
always generate useful control knowledge. For control knowledge to be
effective, the cumulative benefits of applying the knowledge must
outweigh the cumulative costs of testing whether the knowledge is
applicable. Generating effective control knowledge may be difficult, as
evidenced by the complexities often encountered by human knowledge
engineers. In general, control knowledge cannot be indiscriminately
added to a system; its costs and benefits must be carefully taken into
account.
To produce effective control knowledge, an explanation-based learner
must generate "good" explanations -- explanations that can be profitably
employed to control problem solving. In this talk, I will discuss the
utility of EBL and describe the PRODIGY system, a problem solver that
learns by searching for good explanations. Extensive experiments testing
the PRODIGY/EBL architecture in several task domains will be discussed.
I will also briefly describe a formal model of EBL and a proof that
PRODIGY's generalization algorithm is correct with respect to this model.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 26 Apr 88 14:59:07-PDT
From: Ken Laws <LAWS@IU.AI.SRI.COM>
Subject: Seminar - Triangular Scheduling for Depletion-Process
Control (SRI)
Triangular Scheduling for Depletion-Process Control
Kenneth Laws
SRI International
There exist phenomena in which resource depletion rate is proportional
to the amount of material available. Control of such processes can be
exerted through replenishment of consumable resources or through
manipulation of the proportionality function. I propose an application
of triangular numbers to such control in a simple discrete system.
Consider the ingestion of m&m's. Unless the consumer process employs
appropriate feedback, the supply of these expensive units will be
exhausted before full psychogustatory satisfaction has been achieved.
This side-effect of the well-known greedy algorithm can be overcome
by a stict discipline of triangularization. The steps are as follows:
1) Arrange the units in a triangular pattern, with distribution
of colors optional. Start with one element at the top, then
increase the number in each successive row by one. Any leftover
units may be scheduled for immediate consumption.
2) Queue rows for removal in inverse order of their creation.
A row may be deleted right to left, left to right, or in random
order, but not from the middle outward. The rate of consumption
will depend on numerous parameters, including attentional factors,
but is typically limited by sequential transport and processing--
the so-called Laws bottleneck.
3) A delay of approximately one minute should separate removal of any
two rows. This enhances perception of the immanent depletion crisis,
with possible dynamic replanning to mitigate its effects. The
active agent may wish to increase the delay in inverse proportion
to the number of units remaining, possibly selecting such delays
from the set of triangular numbers.
This simple algorithm admits many obvious variations, such as hierarchical
control systems with triangular arrangements substituting for the rows
(or even units) described above. The demonstrated efficacy of the
technique leads to speculation about related depletion processes --
e.g., peanuts, peppermints, and Chex party mix -- but extension to
these domains has not yet been attempted. There may be difficulties
in transferring the triangular scheduling approach to the real world,
particularly for area-intensive elements such as potato chips.
------------------------------
Date: 22 Apr 88 05:19:48 GMT
From: mind!harnad@princeton.edu (Stevan Harnad)
Subject: Conference - Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Annual
Meeting
Society for Philosophy and Psychology: 14th Annual Meeting
Thursday May 19 - Sunday May 22
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Contributors will include Jerry Fodor, Ruth Millikan, Colin Beer,
Robert Stalnaker, Paul Churchland, Lynn Nadel, Michael McCloskey, James
Anderson, Alan Prince, Paul Smolensky, John Perry, William Lycan, Alvin Goldman
Paper (PS) and Symposia (SS) on:
Naturalism and Intentional Content (SS)
Animal Communication (SS)_
The Child's Conception of Mind (PS)
Cognitive Science and Mental State, Wide and Narrow (PS)
Logic and Language (PS)
Folk Psychology (PS)
Current Controversies: Categorization and Connectionism (PS)
Current Controversies: Rationality and Reflexivity (PS)
Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind (SS)
Connectionism and Psychological Explanation (SS)
Embodied vs Disembodies Approaches to Cognition (SS)
Emotions, Cognition and Culture (SS)
Naturalistic Semantics and Naturalized Epistemology (PS)
Registration is $30 for SPP members and $40 for nonmembers. Write to
Extension and Continuing Education
CB # 3420, Abernethy Hall
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3420
Membership Information ($15 regular; $5 students):
Professor Patricia Kitcher
email: ir205%sdcc6@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
Department of Philosophy B002
University of California - San Diego
La Jolla CA 92093
--
Stevan Harnad harnad@mind.princeton.edu (609)-921-7771
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 88 18:50:55 EDT
From: mike%bucasb.bu.edu@bu-it.BU.EDU (Michael Cohen)
Subject: Conference - Int. Neural Network Society '89
April 26, 1988
GOOD NEWS FOR THE NEURAL NETWORK COMMUNITY!
There are now over 2000 members of the International Neural Network Society
from 34 countries and 47 states of the U.S.A.
The INNS is thus beginning to fulfill its purpose of offering our
community an intellectual home of its own.
In particular, over 500 abstracts were submitted to the 1988 First Annual
INNS meeting in Boston, to be held on September 6--10, 1988, at the Park Plaza
Hotel. The abstracts cover the full spectrum of topics in the neural network
field.
While many are working hard on the final program and plans for the 1988
meeting, we also needed to plan further ahead. Accordingly, the INNS
Governing Board approved holding the Second Annual INNS Meeting in
Washington, DC, on September 5--9, 1989, and we have negotiated a contract
with the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
See you in Boston in '88 and Washington in '89!
Steve Grossberg, President, INNS
Demetri Psaltis, Vice President, INNS
Harold Szu, Secretary-Treasurer, INNS
----
Michael Cohen ---- Center for Adaptive Systems
Boston University (617-353-7857)
Email: mike@bucasb.bu.edu
Smail: Michael Cohen
Center for Adaptive System
Department of Mathematics, Boston University
111 Cummington Street
Boston, Mass 02215
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 88 09:45:59 PDT
From: meyer@tetra.nosc.mil (Kathi L. Meyer)
Subject: Conference - Robotics and Intelligent Machine Automation
POTENTIAL 88
============
Robotics and Intelligent Machine Automation Conference
======================================================
Date: 24 - 25 May 1988
Location: McLean Hilton, McLean, VA
POC: Robotics International (313) 271-1500 x374
Robotics International is sponsoring a conference on 24-
25 May to discuss DoD and Industrial requirements in
robotics and intelligent machine automation. In
addition to the projection of needs by Flag-level
speakers from Army, Navy, Air Force, and DARPA, VP/GM
level presentations will be made by speakers from
Boeing, Lockheed, General Motors, and Martin Marietta.
There are also a number of projections of technological
capabilities being made by scientists from CMU, MIT,
UCLA, U of Md, etc.
Whether you're providing research for DoD sponsors or
are the recipient of such technology developments, this
looks like the conference to attend.
------------------------------
Date: 27 Apr 88 18:29:57 GMT
From: dvm@YALE-BULLDOG.ARPA (Drew Mcdermott)
Subject: Conference - AAAI Workshop on Plan Recognition
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
WORKSHOP ON PLAN RECOGNITION
AAAI-88, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wednesday, August 24.
Radisson-St. Paul Hotel
Plan recognition is a touchstone issue for Artificial Intelligence,
which has generated thorny problems and theoretical results for years.
The class of problems we have in mind is to infer a goal-based
explanation of the behavior of one or more actors. This class can
be extended to closely related problems like inferring an author's
plans from a text, inferring a programmer's plans from his code, or
inferring explanations of new bug types from case histories.
Problems of this sort often seem to lie at the heart of intelligence,
because people can apparently select just the right explanatory
principles from large knowledge bases. For that reason, this problem
area has encouraged interest in nontraditional control structures such
as marker passing, parallelism, and connectionism. To date, however,
no decisive solutions have been obtained.
The workshop will aim at bringing together individuals working in all
the active areas related to plan recognition, as well as individuals
trying to exploit research results for practical applications. This
interaction should prove fruitful for both groups.
Contributors interested in participating in this workshop are requested
to submit a 1000-2000 word extended abstract of their work, describing
its relevance to the topic of plan recognition. The workshop attendance
will be limited to 35, and all participants will present their work,
either in an oral presentation, or in a poster session. Abstracts will
be refereed by the organizing committee. Copies of the chosen abstracts
will be sent to each participant prior to the workshop. Presenters shall
have the opportunity to expand their abstracts for inclusion in a workshop
proceedings to be published later.
Extended abstracts should be received prior to June 3, 1988. Mail them
to:
Jeff Maier
TASC
2555 University Blvd.
Fairborn, Ohio 45324
(513)426-1040
Authors will be notified of the status of their papers by July 8, 1988.
Organizing Committee:
Larry Birnbaum, Yale University
Doug Chubb, US Army, Center for Signals Warfare
Jeff Maier, TASC
Drew McDermott, Yale University
Bob Wilensky, UC Berkeley
Steve Williams, TASC
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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