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AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 130
AIList Digest Wednesday, 23 Nov 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 130
Announcements:
NSF Program in Knowledge Models and Cognitive Systems
Computer Games Olympiad
Call for Papers (ISMIS'89)
Congress on Cybernetics and Systems
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Date: Tue, 15 Nov 88 11:26:05 -0500
From: "Henry J. Hamburger" <hhamburg@note.nsf.gov>
Subject: NSF Program in Knowledge Models and Cognitive Systems
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
---------------------------
PROGRAM in
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KNOWLEDGE MODELS and COGNITIVE SYSTEMS
--------------------------------------
Knowledge Models and Cognitive Systems is a relatively new name
at NSF, but the Program has significant continuity with earlier
related programs. This holds for its scientific subject matter
and also with regard to its researchers, who come principally
from computer science and the cognitive sciences, each of these
emphatically including important parts of artificial intelligence.
Many such individuals are also interested in areas supported by
other NSF programs, especially in this division -- the Division
of Information, Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) -- and in
the Division of Behavioral and Neural Sciences.
This unofficial message has two parts. The first is a top-down
description of the major areas of current Program support. There
follows a list of some particular topics in which there is strong
current activity in the Program and/or perceived future
opportunity. Anyone needing further information can contact the
Program Director, Henry Hamburger, who is also the sender of this
item. Please use e-mail if you can: hhamburg@b.nsf.gov or else
phone: 202-357-9569. To get a copy of the Summary of Awards for
this division (IRIS), call 202-357-9572
Many of you will be hearing from me with requests to review
proposals. To be sure they are of interest to you, feel free to
send me a list of topics or subfields.
MAJOR AREAS of CURRENT SUPPORT
------------------------------
The Program in Knowledge Models and Cognitive Systems supports
research fundamental to the general understanding of knowledge
and cognition, whether in humans, computers or, in principle,
other entities. Major areas currently receiving support include
(i) formal models of knowledge and information, (ii) natural
language processing and (iii) cognitive systems. Each of these
areas is described and subcategorized below.
Applicants do not classify their proposals in any official way.
Indeed their work may be relevant to two or all three of the
categories (or conceivably to none of them). In particular, it
is recognized that language is intertwined with (or part of)
cognition and that formality is a matter of degree. For work
that falls only partly within the program, the program director
may conduct the evaluation jointly with another program, within
or outside the division. Descriptions of the three areas follow.
FORMAL MODELS of KNOWLEDGE and INFORMATION:
-------------------------------------------
Recent work supported under the category Formal Models of
Knowledge and Information divides into formal models of three
things: (i) knowledge, (ii) information, and (iii) imperfections
in the two. In each case, the models may encompass both
representation and manipulation. For example, formal models of
both knowledge representation and inference are part of the
knowledge area.
The distinction between knowledge and information is that a piece
of knowledge tends to be more structured and/or comprehensive
than a piece of information. Imperfections may include
uncertainty, vagueness, incompleteness and abductive rules. Many
investigations contribute to two or all three categories, yet
emphasize one.
COGNITIVE SYSTEMS
-----------------
Four recognized areas currently receive support within Cognitive
Systems: (i) knowledge representation and inference, (ii)
highly parallel approaches, (iii) machine learning, and (iv)
computational characterization of human cognition.
The first area is characterized by symbolic representations and a
high degree of structure imposed by the programmer, in an attempt
to represent complex entities and carry out complex tasks
involving planning and reasoning. The second area may have
similar long-term goals but takes a very different approach. It
includes studies based on a high degree of parallelism among
relatively simple processing units connected according to various
patterns. The third area, machine learning, has emerged as a
distinct area of study, though the choice between symbolic and
connectionist approaches is clearly relevant. In all of the
first three areas, the research may be informed to a greater or
lesser degree by scientific knowledge of the nature of high-
level human cognition. Characterizing such knowledge in
computational form is the objective of the fourth area.
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
---------------------------
Recent work supported under the category Natural Language
Processing is in three overlapping areas: (i) computational
aspects of syntax, semantics and the lexicon, (ii) discourse,
dialog and generation, and (iii) systems issues. The distinction
between the first two often involves such intersentential
concerns as topic, plan, and situation. Systems issues include
the interaction and unified treatment of various kinds of
modules.
TOPICS of STRONG CURRENT ACTIVITY and
-------------------------------------
OPPORTUNITY for FUTURE RESEARCH
-------------------------------
Comments on this list are welcome. It has no official status,
is subject to change, and, most important, is intended to be
suggestive, not prescriptive. The astute reader will notice that
many of these topics transcend the neat categorization above.
Reasoning and planning in the face of
imperfect information and a changing world
- reasoning about reasoning itself: the time
and resources taken, and the consequences
- use and formal understanding of
temporal and nonmonotonic logic
- integration of numerical and symbolic approaches
to uncertainty, imprecision and justification
- multi-agent planning, reasoning,
communication and coordination
Interplay of human and computational languages
- commonalities in the semantic formalisms
for human and computer languages
- extending knowledge representation systems to
support formal principles of human language
- principles of extended dialog between humans
and complex software systems, including
those of the new computational sciences
Machine Learning of Classification,
Problem-Solving and Scientific Laws
- formal analysis of what features and parameter
settings of both method and domain are
responsible for successes.
- reconciling and combining the benefits of
connectionist, genetic and symbolic approaches
- evaluating the relevance to learning of AI
tools: planning, search, and learning itself
------------------------------
Date: 16 Nov 88 12:58:17 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!eagle.ukc.ac.uk!icdoc!qmc-cs!pd@uunet.uu.net (Paul
Davison)
Subject: Computer Games Olympiad
[ I have been asked to post this but have nothing to do with the event, so
please address any enquiries to the address given in the posting. ]
There is to be a Computer Games Olympiad in London in 1989. The details
are as follows:
"The world's first Olympiad for computer programs will take place at the
Park Lane Hotel, London, from August 9th to 15th 1989. This unique event
will feature tournaments for chess, bridge, backgammon, draughts, poker,
Go, and many other classic "thinking" games. In every tournament all of
the competitors will be computer programs. The role of the human operators
will merely be to tell their own programs what moves have been made by
their opponents.
The Computer Olympiad is organised by International Chess Master David Levy,
who is President of the International Computer Chess Association.
Anyone wanting more information on the event should send a large stamped
addressed envelope to: Computer Olympiad, 11 Loudoun Road, London NW8 OLP,
England.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 1st London Conference on Computer Games will take place as part of the
Computer Olympiad during the period August 9th to 15th 1989. Papers are
invited on any aspect of programming computers to play "thinking" games
such as chess, bridge, Go, backgammon, etc.
The conference Chair will be Professor Tony Marsland, from the Computing
Science Department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. The
editor of the conference proceedings will be Don Beal, from the Computer
Science Department at Queen Mary College, London University.
Papers should preferrably be 3000 to 4000 words in length, and if possible,
should be submitted with an IBM-PC format disk containing the text as a
file for a widely-used word-processor (e.g. Wordstar). The closing date
for submissions is May 9th 1989. Papers should be sent to: Computer
Olympiad, 11 Loudoun Road, London NW8 OLP, England.
--
Paul Davison
UUCP: pd@qmc-cs.uucp | Computer Science Dept
ARPA: pd%cs.qmc.ac.uk@nss.ucl.ac.uk | Queen Mary College
JANET: pd@uk.ac.qmc.cs | Mile End Road
Voice: +44 1 980 4811 x5250 | London E1 4NS
------------------------------
Date: 21 Nov 88 16:08:44 GMT
From: wong@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu (Mike Wong)
Subject: Call for Papers (ISMIS'89)
CALL FOR PAPERS
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON METHODOLOGIES
FOR INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
Charlotte, North Carolina, Hilton Hotel, University Place
October 12-14, 1989
SPONSORS: Energy Division of the ORNL, Martin Marietta Energy Systems,
University of North Carolina - Charlotte, University of Turin (ITALY)
PURPOSE OF THE SYMPOSIUM: This Symposium is intended to attract individuals
who are actively engaged both in theoretical and practical aspects of
intelligent systems. The goal is to provide a platform for a useful exchange
between theoreticians and practitioners, and to foster the cross-fertilization
of ideas in the following areas: approximate reasoning, expert systems,
intelligent databases, knowledge representation, learning and adaptive
systems, logic for A.I., neural networks.
SYMPOSIUM CHAIRMAN: Zbigniew W. Ras (UNC-Charlotte)
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Bill Chu (UNC-C), Mary Emrich (ORNL),
Attilio Giordana (Turin, Italy), Zbigniew Michalewicz (New Zealand),
Alberto Pettorossi (Rome, Italy), Pietro Torasso (Turin, Italy),
S.K.Michael Wong (Cornell), Maria Zemankova (NSF & UT-Knoxville),
Jan Zytkow (George Mason)
PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Luigia Aiello (Italy), Andrew G. Barto (UM-Amherst),
James Bezdek (Boeing), Alan W. Bierman (Duke), John Bourne (Vanderbilt),
Jaime Carbonell (CMU), Peter Cheeseman (NASA), Su-shing Chen (UNC-C),
Melvin Fitting (CUNY), Brian R. Gaines (Canada), Peter E. Hart
(Syntelligence), Marek Karpinski (West Germany), Kurt Konolige (SRI),
Catherine Lassez (IBM-T.J Watson), R. Lopez de Mantaras (Spain),
Ryszard Michalski (George Mason), Jack Minker (Maryland),
Jose Miro (Spain), Masao Mukaidono (Japan), Ephraim Nissan (Israel),
Rohit Parikh (CUNY), Reind van de Riet (The Netherlands),
Colette Rolland (France), Lorenza Saitta (Italy), Eric Sandewall
(Sweden), Joachim W. Schmidt (West Germany), Richmond Thomason
(Pittsburgh), David S. Warren (SUNY-Stony Brook)
INVITED SPEAKERS: Jon Doyle (MIT), Ryszard Michalski (George Mason),
Richard Waldinger (SRI)
SUBMISSION AND INFORMATION: Send four copies of a complete paper to one of
the addresses below:
Dr. S.K. Michael Wong, Cornell Univ., Comp. Sci., Upson Hall,
Ithaca, New York 14853-7501
or
Dr. A. Giordana, Univ. of Turin, Comp. Sci., Corso Svizzera 185,
10149 Torino, Italy
TIME SCHEDULE:
Submission of papers..........................March 15, 1989
Notification of acceptance....................May 15, 1989
Final paper to be included in proceedings.....June 15, 1989
------------------------------
Date: 21 Nov 88 19:18:17 GMT
From: spnhc@cunyvm.bitnet (Spyros Antoniou)
Subject: Congress on Cybernetics and Systems
WORLD ORGANIZATION OF SYSTEMS AND CYBERNETICS
8 T H I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O N G R E S S
O F C Y B E R N E T I C S A N D S Y S T E M S
JUNE 11-15, 1990 at Hunter College, City University of New York, USA
This triennial conference is supported by many international
groups concerned with management, the sciences, computers, and
technology systems.
The 1990 Congress is the eighth in a series, previous events
having been held in London (1969), Oxford (1972), Bucharest (1975),
Amsterdam (1978), Mexico City (1981), Paris (1984) and London (1987).
The Congress will provide a forum for the presentation
and discussion of current research. Several specialized sections
will focus on computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive
science, biocybernetics, psychocybernetics and sociocybernetics.
Suggestions for other relevant topics are welcome.
Participants who wish to organize a symposium or a section,
are requested to submit a proposal ( sponsor, subject, potential
participants, very short abstracts ) as soon as possible, but not
later than September 1989. All submissions and correspondence
regarding this conference should be addressd to:
Prof. Constantin V. Negoita
Congress Chairman
Department of Computer Science
Hunter College
City University of New York
695 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10021 U.S.A.
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| Spyros D. Antoniou SPNHC@CUNYVM.BITNET SDAHC@HUNTER.BITNET |
| |
| Hunter College of the City University of New York U.S.A. |
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End of AIList Digest
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