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AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 049
AIList Digest Sunday, 14 Aug 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 49
Query Responses:
How to compile a psychologists' email directory?
Ornithology as an AI domain
AISB Proceedings
Church's Y-operator
PCES
Sigmoid transfer function
Feigenbaum's Citation
English grammar (open/closed classes)
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Date: 6 Aug 88 21:39:24 GMT
From: mind!harnad@princeton.edu (Stevan Harnad)
Subject: How to compile a psychologists' email directory?
This is a copy of letter to Bob Morecock, Editor of Psychnet:
Bob,
Here is a thought I had: You could perform a double service, to Psychnet
as well as the psychological community if you systematically put together
a psychologists' email address directory. I heard (perhaps from you) that
APA will be publishing members' email addresses, but that's in hard copy and
a while away. If you could get the addresses in an electronic file/listserver
it would be a great service to the field AND would give Psychnet an automatic
broad subscribership.
I don't know what official policy and rules are on this. I suspect
that they're only now being improvised on the fly. But it seems to me
that a newsletter and email directory are sufficiently non-invasive so
you can probably treat email address information as public-domain --
like (listed) phone numbers. People who want to be "unlisted" could
easily put up software that returned unwanted messages unread, and
they could even distribute passwords to the only ones they want to
hear from; but most psychologists, I suspect, would like to see email
used more widely and imaginatively, at least for the time being. Once
we reach the junk mail threshold we can start putting in safeguards.
A method for compiling such a directory might be this: Besides requesting
APA's cooperation (i.e., asking them to give you all the email lists
they've gotten as they go along) you could send email queries to all the
major universities and research institutions, either requesting their
directories of psychologists email addresses, if possible, or else requesting
that your appeal for psychologists' email addresses be posted on the local
electronic bboards and msgs to ask psychologists to send in their email
addresses for the directory and newsletter directly to you. In exchange
you could promise to provide email addresses to those who inquire --
this would not have to be done by you personally, but by software, if
the directory were set up properly.
This is EXACTLY the right time to set up such a psycholgists' email
directory; it will get already-emailing psychologists more actively involved
and it will encourage others to get email addresses. You might even be able
to get a grant to help you do this from APA, NSF or NIMH.
What do you think? [You may want to post this on Psychnet to get
readers' reactions, but really the Psychnet readership is still far
too small and unrepresentative, so in talking to ourselves now we are
just preaching to the converted. This also needs to be posted to a much
larger population. I'm going to put it on some of the USENET groups to
see whether there is other information on compiling such a directory,
perhaps from experience in other fields, and also to beat the bushes
to see whether this has already been begun or done by anyone else for
psychology or related fields.]
Stevan
--
Stevan Harnad ARPANET: harnad@mind.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu
harnad@confidence.princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@mind.uucp
BITNET: harnad%mind.princeton.edu@pucc.bitnet UUCP: princeton!mind!harnad
CSNET: harnad%mind.princeton.edu@relay.cs.net
------------------------------
Date: 7 Aug 88 00:20:58 GMT
From: sunybcs!dmark@rutgers.edu (David Mark)
Subject: Re: How to compile a psychologists' email directory?
In article <2721@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>
>This is a copy of letter to Bob Morecock, Editor of Psychnet:
>
>Bob,
>
>Here is a thought I had: You could perform a double service, to Psychnet
>as well as the psychological community if you systematically put together
>a psychologists' email address directory. I heard (perhaps from you) that
>APA will be publishing members' email addresses, but that's in hard copy and
>a while away. If you could get the addresses in an electronic file/listserver
>it would be a great service to the field AND would give Psychnet an automatic
>broad subscribership.
I have had good success in compiling such a directory for geographers and other
spatial scientists. Three of us began the project by merging our own lists
about 3 years ago. Then, we ran a workshop on e-mail at the Association
of American Geographers' national meeting in May 1986. Periodically, I send
the file to all in the file, asking them to confirm their entries and
suggest colleagues to add. It just grows and grows. I did a mass e-mailing
in June to about 240 users, and got about 60-70 new ones back. I even
have a few spatial psychologists! We have suggested that a field for
email address be added to the AAG's membership form.
David Mark, Chair, AAG Gegraphic Information Systems Specialty Group
geodmm@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu
geodmm@ubvms.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 8 Aug 88 17:01:21 GMT
From: jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle)
Reply-to: glacier!jbn@labrea.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle)
Subject: Ornithology as an AI domain
Rod Brooks at MIT has been addressing this problem with his "artificial
insects". He is referring to the size of the brain, though, rather than an
attempt to emulate real insect behavior. His most advanced "insect" to date is
supposed to wander around the AI lab searching for empty aluminum cans.
I suspect that the time has come to make more detailed studies of low-level
animal behavior than have usually been made in the past. It might be useful,
for example, to study grasping behavior in squirrels by videotaping their
activities as they are presented with food made up in specific shapes, and
reducing the videotape data into kinematic models, then trying to find
control equations that produce similar behavior. Studies of animal locomotion,
from Muybridge to Raibert, have used similar techniques, and the most
recent work has resulted in just such control equations. Raibert now has
machines that walk, run, and most recently, turn flips. The state of the
art in grasping is much worse; most of the work is based on very elaborate
computational geometry and still doesn't work too well with complex hands.
I have a conjecture that animals do grasping by moving the hand into
a relatively standard configuration for the type of grasp and then turning
control over to a feedback process that can be modelled by energetic means
along the lines of Khatib or Witkin. One could validate or refute a
conjecture of this type with properly analyzed photographic studies.
Trying to actually build nests or emulate other sorts of low-level
animal manipulative behavior will be very difficult until the simpler
tasks of basic manipulation are achievable routinely under varied conditions.
John Nagle
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 88 14:03:53 +0100
From: Tony Cohn <agc%snow.warwick.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: AISB Proceedings
Further to the posting of the call for papers for AISB89 (due by November
1 1988), I have been asked about the availability of past AISB conference
proceedings.
The first AISB conference was in 1974 and thereafter biennially until 1982
which was the first ECAI. AISB conferences restarted bienially from 1985.
The availability of past proceedings is as follows:
1974 (Sussex): not available.
1976 (Edinburgh): not available.
1978 (Hamburg, joint with GI): small numbers available from AISB office
1980 (Amsterdam): small numbers available from AISB office
1982 (Paris, retrospectively became the first ECAI): small numbers available
from the AISB office; selected and revised papers available as
"Progress in Artificial Intelligence, Steels and Campbell (eds),
Ellis Horwood, 1985".
1985 (Warwick): selected papers published as "Artificial Intelligence and
its Applications, Cohn and Thomas (eds) Wiley, 1986".
1987 (Edinburgh): proceedings published as "Advances in Artificial
Intelligence, Hallam and Mellish (eds) Wiley, 1987".
The address of the AISB office is
Judith Dennison, AISB Executive Officer, School of Cognitive Sciences,
University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QN, UK
(email: judithd@uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa).
Please contact the AISB office for details of how to join the society.
Benefits currently include the AISB quarterly, AI Communications (European
members only), and reduced entry to AISB events.
AISB is currently considering publication of selected papers from
the unpublished proceedings (1974 to 1980). Any comments on this project
including suggestions for papers to be included please contact me.
_______________________________________________________________________________
|UUCP: ...!ukc!warwick!agc | Tony Cohn |
|JANET: agc@uk.ac.warwick.cs | Dept. of Computer Science |
|ARPA: agc%uk.ac.warwick.cs@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk | University of Warwick |
|BITNET: agc%uk.ac.warwick.cs@UK.AC | Coventry, CV4 7AL |
|PHONE: +44 203 523088/(secretary: 523193) | ENGLAND |
------------------------------
Date: 10 Aug 88 07:38:56 GMT
From: munnari!banana.cs.uq.oz.au!farrell@uunet.UU.NET (Friendless
Farrell)
Reply-to: farrell%banana.OZ@uunet.UU.NET (Friendless Farrell)
Subject: Church's Y-operator
In a previous article, GODDEN@gmr.COM writes:
>Subject: Church's Y-operator
Maybe not Church's Y-operator, but Curry's. I know for certain (since I have
it in front of me) that it is defined on p178 of
Combinatory Logic Volume 1
Curry, Feys and Craig
(QA9.C84 v1 1958 in our library system)
Y is commonly called the paradoxical or fixpoint combinator. Its important
property is that
Y f = f (Y f)
Look up the ACM Guide to Computing Literature under combinators, lambda calculus
or possibly applicative languages if you're really interested.
Friendless
farrell@banana.cs.uq.oz - mail me if you can !
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 88 11:57:39 GMT
From: IT21%SYSB.SALFORD.AC.UK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: PCES
Subject: expert systems on PCs
From: Andrew Basden
In July -- parvis@gitpyr.gatech.edu asked for info on the usability of
ESs on PCs. He said:
>I'm doing research on the usability and feasibility of expert systems on
>personal computers such as the Apple Macintosh and the IBM PC.
>
>There are certainly limitations due to memory size and time efficiency.
>What are typical problems when developing and/or using a PC based expert
>system? What do users (not only developers) think about expert systems
>on PCs? What domain solutions are successfully realized on a PC? Are
>the users satisfied with the features and efficiency or are such
>systems 'just expensive toys'?
We developed ELSIE 1986-6 as one of the Alvey Community Club projects.
It consists of four ESs, linked into one system via a common database, to
give Quantity Surveyors advice when acting in a Lead Consultant role
(hence its name! - work it out if you don't get it; finding the name took
6 months of intensive research!). In this role they help clients who
want to build, say, offices, at the initial stages of planning. At this
stage the client wants to know, among other things how much the building
will cost, so as to set a budget, how long it will take, what the
development appraisal over the life of the building will be (taking into
account interest, inflation, maintenance, etc.) and how they should go
about organising the building project.
ELSIE has 4 modules to cover these:
Budget module,
Time module,
Development Appraisal module,
Procurement module.
We started the project in Jan 86, with the aim of creating awareness of
ES technology capability, but in fact found that by June 87 we had
produced four truly usable systems. These have now been packaged for
sale, and are selling at a rate of over two per week. Some companies are
coming back for second copies. Therefore we feel there is evidence that
ELSIE is NOT just an expensive toy, and that users (not just developers)
think it a good thing.
We developed it in Savoir, which is a mature and flexible shell. SAvoir
is better than some because it is designed to be fast, and to performs
good checking of the KB, such as for loops. The Budget module, the
biggest, for instance, has around 2500 rule equivalents. (Savoir is an
inference net system rather than rule based.) At this size it is
getting near the limits of Savoir on PCs, but we did not hit any such
limits during the whole project. We developed on PCs.
This actually gave an advantage during validation, in that we could send
out copies of the ES for testers to run on their own PCs.
The knowledge acquisition and other aspect of building the four modules
was based on a methodology mentioned (in an early version) in Attarwala
and Basden (1985)
References:
Savoir, from ISI Ltd., 11 Oakdene Road, Redhill, Surrey, UK. 1000 on PC
For description of ELSIE, see
Brandon P.S., Basden A., Hamilton I., Stockley J. (1988) 'Expert Systems
- the strategic planning of construction projects', The Royal Institution
of Chartered Surveyors, London, UK.
Attarwala, F.T., Basden. A. (1985) 'A methodology for building Expert
Systems', R&D Management.
Trust this info helps. I can give more if you ask me specific questions.
Andrew Basden,
I.T. Institute,
University of Salford, UK.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Aug 88 17:48:58 GMT
From: pacbell!eeg!marcus@ames.arpa (Mark Levin)
Subject: Sigmoid transfer function
> >Try this one : f(x) = x / (1 + |x|)
I followed up before by claiming that this function is used in physiology
and psychophysics to describe neural properties. However the function I
gave showed only one half of the function and had an obvious
discontinuity, which you may find distastful.
If the function is graphed with the x-axis in log coordinates the
function becomes your favorite Sigmoid Function.
FOOTNOTE:
I used this on my thesis which was on the psychophysics of light adaptation.
This is a convenient form for displaying it in the area of adaptation since the
changing of sigma (the constant 1 above) will shift the function along the
axis without changing the shape of the function (change the *threshold*). And
this is what we want adaptation to do. But, remember that the real function
has the discontinuity at 0 (or Threshold). For those who are interested, a
better model of adaptation is by scaling the inputs to the function
and keeping sigma constant. This looks the same, but hypothesizes that
pre-processing accounts for adaptation rather than changes in neural
properties.
marcus@eeg.com
Mark Levin RA at the EEG Systems Lab.
1855 Folsom St., San Francisco, CA 949103
{pacbell,lll-winken,ucsfcgl}!eeg!marcus
------------------------------
Date: Fri 12 Aug 88 22:02:23-CDT
From: Charles Petrie <AI.PETRIE@MCC.COM>
Subject: Feigenbaum's Citation
No help for the citation. But I offer the suggestion that Feigenbaum's
suggestion has been bumped up a level (and more, recursively) by
research into the explicit control of reasoning. It isn't enough
simply to have a lot of rules executed by a "dumb" interpreter than it is
to have a clever, domain-independent theorem proving strategy. You
can get pretty far, but you soon bump up against the complexity
barrier. In the former case, it's because rules interact in
complicated ways that need to be controled to produce useful behavior.
In the case of theorem proving, the community is awaiting
the explicit representation of mathematicians' expertise rather than
depending upon clever encodings and syntactic search strategies.
"Dumb" interpreters have built-in strategies: for instance, OPS. Users
take advantage of built-in strategies by hiding control strategies in
domain data, e.g., ad hoc control predicates and extra rule antecedents.
Genesereth's, de Kleer's, and others' work in making reasoned control explicit
has the potential to make systems much smarter. That's where I'd
place bets on rule-based success these days: research in the
representation of reasoned but explicit control knowledge.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 88 00:50:25 -0700
From: mcguire@aerospace.aero.org
Subject: English grammar (open/closed classes)
John B. Nagle <jbn@glacier.stanford.edu> writes:
> I understand that there is an approach to English grammar based on
>the following assumptions.
> 1. There are four main categories of words, essentially nouns,
> verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These categories are
> extensible; new words can be added.
> 2. There are about 125 "special" words, not in one of the four
> main categories. This list is essentially fixed. (New
> nouns appear all the time, but new conjunctions and articles
> never.)
>Does anyone have a reference to this, one that lists all the "special"
>words?
The proper technical term for what I think you are referring to is the
distinction between "open class" v.s. "closed class" words. Certain
classes of words (where a class is defined by its members in some way
behaving the same) contain a finite number of members while other
classes contain a potentially infinite number. If you want to construct
a list of all closed class words in English you might start with the
prepositions, determiners, articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions,
numerals, verb features, etc. - though your ultimate list depends upon
how you define your classes, what "behave the same" means, and what
counts as a words.
While I'm familiar with this distinction, and think that it may have
been around in linguistics for quite some while (Bernard Bloch maybe?),
I don't remember it being used much. The only references that spring to
mind are some studies in speech production and slips of the tongue done
in the 70s by Anne Cunningham (she's a Brit though I'm not sure of her
last name) and maybe Victoria Fromkin claiming that less errors are
associated with closed class words and that they play some privileged role
in speech_production/syntax/lexical_access/the_archetecture_of_the_mind.
I can't think of any explicit influence the "open/closed" distinction has
had on generative grammer. I feel however that implicit awareness of
this distinction has lead people to construct and prefer theories where
closed classes correspond to atomic linguistic categories. Coupled with
the generativist bias on how classes are defined, this preference has
left most most current theories analyzing the examples:
"John loved Mary"
"John has loved Mary"
"John might love Mary"
"John seems to love Mary"
as having practically nothing in common.
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End of AIList Digest
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