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NL-KR Digest Volume 06 No. 15
NL-KR Digest (Wed Mar 29 17:38:53 1989) Volume 6 No. 15
Today's Topics:
Reference on frame languages wanted
Text Analysis for Text Retrieval (Unisys AI Seminar)
Symbolic Problem Solving ... Call for participation
Esperanto in machine translation
1990 Connectionist Summer School announcement
ACAI'89 - course announcement
Submissions: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Requests, policy: nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu
Back issues are available from host archive.cs.rpi.edu [128.213.1.10] in
the files nl-kr/Vxx/Nyy (ie nl-kr/V01/N01 for V1#1), mail requests will
not be promptly satisfied. If you can't reach `cs.rpi.edu' you may want
to use `turing.cs.rpi.edu' instead.
---------------------------------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 12:26:00 CST
From: wex@radiant.csc.ti.com (Alan Wexelblat)
Subject: Reference on frame languages wanted
What's a good reference on frame-based languages for someone (like me) who
knows Common Lisp, object-oriented programming principles, but very little AI?
I would be particularly interested in papers/books that talk about what you
*do* with frame-based languages (rather than how to implement them or their
formal properties).
Please reply to the address below (not the one in the From: line); I will of
course summarize replies back to the list if there's interest.
- -Alan Wexelblat TI Application Tools, Austin, TX
Internet: wex@dsg.csc.ti.com
Usenet: ...!uunet.uu.net!dsg.csc.ti.com!wex
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 15:24:01 -0500
From: finin@PRC.Unisys.COM
Subject: Text Analysis for Text Retrieval (Unisys AI Seminar)
AI SEMINAR
UNISYS PAOLI RESEARCH CENTER
Text Analysis for Text Retrieval
David D. Lewis
Information Retrieval Laboratory
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
The performance of traditional text retrieval methods has plateaued in recent
years, sparking a renewed interest in applications of natural language
processing (NLP) to information retrieval (IR). The ADRENAL (Augmented
Document REtrieval using NAtural Language processing) system, under
construction at U Mass, makes use of syntactic and semantic processing, as
well as plausible inference techniques, to construct a rich, though rather
general and errorful, semantic representation of queries and documents for
use in retrieval. I will focus in this talk on the problems of applying NLP
to large collections of real-world text, paying particular attention to the
lexical analysis and inference phases. Preliminary results from hand
simulations of the system, and data on the operational syntactic parser and
inference components, will be presented. Two algorithms which have been
implemented for making use of NLP-produced representations in text retrieval
will be described. One is based on the probabilistic retrieval model from IR,
while the other is an incremental graph matching and inference algorithm
derived from AI work on knowledge representation.
11:00am Monday, April 17
BIC Conference Room
Unisys Paoli 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 --
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: cfields@NMSU.Edu
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 89 17:56:33 MST
Subject: Symbolic Problem Solving ... Call for participation
Call for Participants / Call for Abstracts
Symbolic Problem Solving in Noisy, Novel, and
Uncertain Task Environments
20-21 August, 1989 (tentative), Detroit, MI, USA
An IJCAI-89 Workshop, Sponsored by AAAI
Goals.
Brittleness in the face of noise, novelty, and uncertainty is a
well-known failing of symbolic problem solvers. The goals of this
Workshop are to characterize the features of task environments that
cause brittleness, to investigate mechanisms for decreasing the
brittleness of symbolic problem solvers, and to review case histories
of implemented systems that function in task environments high in
noise, novelty, and data of uncertain relevance.
Topics of interest for the Workshop include the following.
Analysis of task environments: Definitions of noisy, novelty,
and uncertain relevance; exploration of related concepts in general
systems theory or logic; parameters for characterizing task
environments; knowledge engineering strategies.
Mechanisms for addressing noise and novelty: Plasticity and
learning; constructive problem solving; fragmentation of knowledge
structures; dynamic modification of rules, schemata, or cases;
coherence maintenance; adaptive control mechanisms.
Representations: Data structures allowing dynamic abstraction
and modification; representation of ``unstructured'' knowledge;
knowledge implicit in control or learning procedures; ordering of
knowledge structures; tradeoffs between explicit and implicit
knowledge representation.
Implementation issues: Implementing symbolic problem solvers on
parallel machines; concurrency control strategies; integrating
symbolic systems with artificial neural networks; general systems
integration.
Researchers interested in participating in the Workshop are invited to
submit abstracts describing work in any of these topic areas.
Format.
All participants will present their current work, either as a brief
oral report or as a poster. Most presentations will be posters, as
these provide the greatest opportunity for presentation and discussion
of technical details. Presentations will be on the first day of the
Workshop, followed by discussions in working groups organized by
application domain and a panel discussion on the second day.
Attendance at IJCAI Workshops is limited to fifty participants.
Participants not registered for IJCAI must pay a $50/day fee.
Abstract Submission.
Please submit a 1 page abstract of the work to be presented,
together with a cover letter summarizing previous work in relevant
areas and expected contribution to the Workshop, to Mike Coombs, Box
30001/3CRL, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-0001
USA, by 15 May 1989. Authors will be notified as to acceptance by 1
June 1989. Accepted abstracts will be distributed at the Workshop. A
volume collecting selected papers from the Workshop is planned; papers
for this volume will be solicited at the Workshop.
Organizers.
Mike Coombs and Chris Fields (NMSU), Russ Frew (GE), David Goldberg
(Alabama), Jim Reggia (Maryland). Points of contact: Mike Coombs,
505-646-5757, mcoombs@nmsu.edu; Chris Fields, 505-646-2848,
cfields@nmsu.edu.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 09:36:06 +0200
From: Klaus Schubert <dlt1!schubert@nluug.nl>
Phone: +31 30 911911
Telex: 40342 bso nl
Subject: Esperanto in machine translation
As an answer to Venu Dasigi's request I send some basic information about the
DLT machine translation system. I can only very briefly motivate the choice
of Esperanto as an intermediate language.
Regards,
Klaus Schubert
schubert@dlt1.uucp
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISTRIBUTED LANGUAGE TRANSLATION
Essential features
The DLT machine translation project is carried out by the Dutch software
house Buro voor Systeemontwikkeling (BSO/Research in Utrecht, Netherlands).
It is aimed at high-quality translation for datacommunication services,
product documentation etc. The architecture is interlingual. Each complete
transition of the system includes two translation processes: source language
-> intermediate language and intermediate language -> target language. The
first half is semi-automatic, since it involves an interactive dialogue (in
the source language only) with the user. The second half is fully automatic.
It need not take place at the same time or location as the first half.
Project phases:
1979-1983 Feasibility study
1984-1988 Prototype phase
1989-1990 Preparation for industrial phase
1990- Industrial production
The first phase was funded by the European Community (1.2 mln guilders), the
second and third one (17 mln guilders) jointly by BSO and the Netherlands
Ministry of Economic Affairs. BSO are involved in commercial negotiations
with industrial partners for the forth phase. Marketing is expected not
before 1993. The first versions will be restricted to special
technical-writing styles; the restrictions will be abolished in later
versions. DLT does not adopt a sublanguage approach but aims at virtually
unrestricted, non-literary language.
A prototype involving translation from technical English through the
intermediate language Esperanto into French was first demonstrated for the
public in December 1987, a second version in March 1988. A selective
demonstration version was shown at the Coling conference in August 1988 in
Budapest.
The use of Esperanto as an intermediate language and, thus, as a medium of
all semantic and pragmatic subprocesses, is essentially based on the
following insights:
1 The IL is the only link between SL and TL text. Therefore it cannot
make do with less expressiveness than any of these.
2 No artificial symbol system has the same expressive power as a human
language.
3 Since the second half of the DLT translation process is FULLY
automatic and since due to a generally accepted dogma fully automatic
high-quality translation from an ordinary human language is impossible,
the IL of DLT has to combine the expressiveness of a human language
with extreme translation-friendliness.
4 An IL should possess a linguistic norm of its own, i.e., it should be
autonomous. It cannot fulfill its function if it is a copy or a subset
of a reference language.
The solution adopted in DLT is Esperanto. Esperanto WAS an artificial symbol
system when it was first launched in 1887. Its critics, however, often
overlook that Esperanto HAS BECOME a human language since then by being used
in a language community. In the same way as ethnic languages, Esperanto today
has a linguistic norm maintained by communicative use. The extreme
translation-friendliness needed for DLT's purposes could be achieved by some
slight and unobtrusive modifications which made IL sentences syntactically
unambiguous.
More about DLT can be found in publications. I give a few representative
references below.
Feasibility study:
Witkam, A. P. M. (1983): Distributed Language Translation. Feasibility
study of a multilingual facility for videotex information networks.
Utrecht: BSO
Architecture of first prototype:
Schubert, Klaus (1986): Linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge. A
catalogue of language-related rules and their computational
application in machine translation.
In: Computers and Translation 1, pp. 125-152
Why Esperanto:
Schubert, Klaus (1988): Ausdruckskraft und Regelmaessigkeit: Was
Esperanto fuer automatische Uebersetzung geeignet macht.
In: Language Problems and Language Planning 12, pp. 130-147
Book series "Distributed Language Translation", published by Foris
Publications in Dordrecht (Netherlands) and Providence (USA):
Papegaaij, B. C. (1986): Word expert semantics. An interlingual
knowledge-based approach. [DLT 1]
Schubert, Klaus (1987): Metataxis. Contrastive dependency syntax for
machine translation. [DLT 2]
Papegaaij, Bart / Klaus Schubert (1988): Text coherence in translation.
[DLT 3]
New directions in machine translation (Conference proceedings, Budapest
18/19 August 1988). Ed. Dan Maxwell / Klaus Schubert / Toon Witkam.
1988. [DLT 4]
Sadler, Victor (forthcoming): Working with analogical semantics: an
assessment of current disambigutation techniques in DLT. [DLT 5]
Metataxis in practice. Dependency syntax for multilingual machine
translation. Ed. Dan Maxwell / Klaus Schubert. Forthcoming. [DLT 6]
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 89 21:37:58 PST
From: elman%amos@ucsd.edu (Jeff Elman)
Subject: 1990 Connectionist Summer School announcement
March 28, 1989 PRELMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT
CONNECTIONIST SUMMER SCHOOL / SUMMER 1990
UCSD
La Jolla, California
The next Connectionist Summer School will be held at
the University of California, San Diego in June 1990. This
will be the third session in the series which was held at
Carnegie-Mellon in the summers of 1986 and 1988.
The summer school will offer courses in a variety of
areas of connectionist modelling, with emphasis on computa-
tional neuroscience, cognitive models, and hardware imple-
mentation. In addition to full courses, there will be a
series of shorter tutorials, colloquia, and public lectures.
Proceedings of the summer school will be published the fol-
lowing fall.
As in the past, participation will be limited to gradu-
ate students enrolled in PhD. programs (full- or part-time).
Admission will be on a competitive basis. We hope to have
sufficient funding to subsidize tuition and housing.
THIS IS A PRELMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT. Further details
will be announced over the next several months.
Terry Sejnowski Jeff Elman
UCSD/Salk UCSD
Geoff Hinton Dave Touretzky
Toronto CMU
hinton@ai.toronto.edu touretzky@cs.cmu.edu
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: 29 Mar 89 8:38 +0200
From: "Thomas E. Rothenfluh" <rothen%ifi.unizh.ch@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: ACAI'89 - course announcement
Announcement
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
ACAI'89
3rd Advanced Course in Artificial Intelligence
Neuchatel, Switzerland
8 - 16 August, 1989
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
An ECCAI (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence)
event organized by SGAICO (Swiss Group for Artificial Intelligence and
Cognitive Science), a special interest group of the SI (Schweizerische
Informatiker Gesellschaft)
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Topic
Advanced Knowledge Representation
and
Methodology of Knowledge Engineering
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Lecturers
Hector J. Levesque University of Toronto, Canada
Paul Smolensky University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
John F. Sowa IBM Systems Research Inst., Thornwood, New York, USA
Luc Steels Free University of Brussels, Belgium
Yorick Wilks New Mexico State University, USA
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date Tuesday, 8 August - Wednesday, 16 August 1989
Location Neuchatel, Switzerland
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Course Director Thomas Rothenfluh,
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Local Organizing Chair Philippe Dugerdil,
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
Program Committee Pierre Bonzon, Rolf Pfeifer, Johannes Retti,
Oliviero Stock, Bob Wielinga, Yorick Wilks
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The course
ECCAI (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence)
organizes biannual Advanced Courses in Artificial Intelligence open to
researchers and practitioners of AI from all countries. The level of
presentation is aimed at a highly capable and well prepared audience.
After the first two Courses (Vignieu, France in 1985; Oslo, Norway in
1987), the Swiss Group for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive
Science (SGAICO) is happy to announce that the third course in 1989
will take place in Neuchatel (Switzerland).
With respect to evaluations of previous courses, ACAI'89 will focus on
two major topics, namely advanced knowledge representation and the
methodology of knowledge engineering.
Knowledge engineering and its related topics are not restricted to
expert system development methodology exclusively but to the
development of AI systems in general. It is well recognized that the
lack of an established theory and methodology is one of the most
crucial issues within AI and pertinent to most of current research and
development efforts.
The course in 1989 will try to highlight different approaches to those
problems and should lay the grounds for interesting and productive
discussions.
The course is structured into the following main components
A series of lectures are to cover advanced concepts in the field of
knowledge "handling" in general as well as in its various subfields,
e.g. knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, knowledge
verification, and the entire development of "intelligent" systems,
etc. Tutorial-style lectures, hands-on training, and case-studies
should expose methodology and techniques together with pertinent
problems, solutions, and limitations. These detailed, practical and
even technical lectures and workshops should provide the opportunity
to gain insights and experiences with current "hot topics" in AI and
allow participants to evaluate these new trends with respect to their
own work.
Theory lectures will also cover the general philosophical and
epistemological background of AI. The topics relevant to that
discussion, e.g. the relation of logic or of empirical methodology to
AI, the deep questions about the "nature" of mind, etc., need to be
discussed and reflected by the community of advanced AI workers. In
general, there is not enough time to cover these issues in congresses
and workshops. Also, hopefully these lectures could provide some means
of integration for people working within the many different subfields
of AI.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Course site
Neuchatel, the beautiful course site in the French speaking part of
Switzerland, is within easy reach of public transportation from all
over Europe. It is located at the border of Lake Neuchatel and at the
foot of the Jura mountains. It is part of the charming littoral with
its picturesque villages, old boroughs, vineyards, fields, and woods.
Together with its university, Neuchatel is well prepared to provide
the participants with a pleasant working atmosphere as well as
enjoyable surroundings for sports, leisure, and weekend journeys.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The lectures
The speakers are all well known within AI and a fair description of
their work cannot be given within the limited space of this
announcement. A large number of reference points may be found in
books, scientific journals, conference proceedings a.s.o. (preparatory
reading lists will be sent to the participants).
Some of the topics to be presented and discussed at ACAI'89 within the
general perspective of advanced knowledge representation and
methodologies of knowledge engineering are:
Belief Systems, Conceptual Graphs, Connectionist Principles of
Knowledge Representation, Deep Reasoning, Development Strategies for
Knowledge-based Systems, Foundations of AI, Functional Approach to
Knowledge Representation, Learning, Metaphors, Natural Language
Issues, Philosophical Issues, Role of Logic, Second Generation Expert
Systems, Situations and attitudes, Statistical Inference, Symbolic and
Neural Modeling Paradigms.
The lectures will be held in a tutorial style, the necessary
prerequisite to follow the classes is some background and knowledge of
the basic themes and techniques of AI (e.g. inference mechanisms,
search), basic representation formalisms (e.g. logic, semantic
networks), and some experience with the more applied side of AI,
namely research traditions (e.g. solved and unsolved problems) as well
as applications of AI (e.g. implementation, programming).
The structure of the course is based on the lectures, which will be
held mainly in morning and afternoon sessions. For special interest
groups, evening sessions may be organized on request (e.g. mini-
tutorials, demonstration of software, presentation of whole research
groups).
Another part of ACAI'89 will be devoted to discussions, round tables,
demonstrations, and expositions. There will also be space and time to
present and discuss the participants own work with lecturers and other
participants. In this respect, the organizers will try to arrange
informal meetings in small groups having common interests.
In order to facilitate discussions and the exchange of ideas, a
"poster exhibition" will allow participants to present their own work
in the pertinent fields. Participants who are willing to give
demonstrations should contact the organizers to provide the necessary
infrastructure.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Small Print
Organization
ECCAI (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence)
SGAICO (Swiss Group for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive
Science)
Course Location
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
Dates
Deadline for application: 15 April 1989
(reception of application form)
Notification of acceptance: 1 May 1989
Payment of course fees: 1 July 1989
Arrivals: Participants will arrive Monday, 7 August in the evening
Lectures start at Tuesday, 8 August and last until Wednesday, 16
August.
Departures: Participants will leave Wednesday, 16 August in the
afternoon.
Participants
The course is open to practitioners and researchers of AI from all
countries. The level of presentation will be aimed at an advanced
audience, i.e. all participants should have good knowledge of the
basics of AI as well as practical experience. To preserve the
character of such a course and due to space limitations, the number
of participants will be limited. Applicants should complete the
attached form and return it to the address given below at their
earliest possible convenience.
Course Fee
Course fees include:
- admission to all lectures and workshops
- accommodation for 9 nights (Nights of Monday, 7 August until
and including Tuesday, 15 August, extended stays are possible)
- breakfast; lunch (except Sunday), refreshments
- reductions for evening meals (if desired)
- documentation, working material
On the basis of double rooms, the overall course fee is ECU 900 or
the equivalent in a convertible currency; for single rooms, the fee
is ECU 1000.
For applicants without a need for hotel etc. other arrangements are
possible; contact the organizers in advance.
In most countries, funding for participation of such educational
events is possible. Please contact your local authorities and
national AI-societies for details. A limited number of reduced fees
are available for graduate students/assistants. Please enclose with
your application a request for financial support which is well
justified and which proves your current status (photocopy of
student ID, letter of recommendation, or similar).
Payment
Please remit the fee only upon receipt of admission notice and
invoice by the organizers. The acceptance letter will indicate the
paying modalities.
Final admission to the course may be guaranteed after the reception
of the payment only.
Accommodation
Costs for accommodation are included in the course fee (see above).
The rooms have already been reserved by the organizers. Double
rooms are standard, a limited number of single rooms is available.
Some hotels are located outside Neuchatel in its beautiful
surroundings. If you intend to come with your private car, you may
also want to check a hotel out of town on the application form.
Cancellations
If an (admitted) registration is cancelled, there will be a
cancellation charge of 10% after 1 July 1989, unless you name a
replacement.
Language
The language of the course is English.
Sponsors
Ascom Tech (Switzerland)
Cables Cortaillod S.A.
City of Neuchatel
ECCAI
Electricite Neuchateloise S.A.
IBM (Switzerland)
NEWIS S.A.
Schweizerische Kreditanstalt
SGAICO and SI
Texas Instruments (Switzerland)
UNISYS (Switzerland)
University of Neuchatel
University of Zurich
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Address
To get more information and application forms, please contact:
ACAI'89
Zurichbergstr. 43
CH-8044 Zurich
Switzerland
Phone +41 1 257 30 98
Telex 817 260 uniz ch
Fax +41 1 257 23 04
E-mail rothen@ifi.unizh.ch
rothen@unizh.UUCP
K715311@CZHRZU1A.BITNET
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
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