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NL-KR Digest Volume 06 No. 32
NL-KR Digest (Wed Aug 9 11:11:58 1989) Volume 6 No. 32
Today's Topics:
Query - OCR of Arabic
Parsing word problems
Lexical Functional Grammar, Situations Semantics
NLU benchmarking - request for info
Formal Semantics
Sentence analysis and text linguistics
UM90: 2nd Int'l Workshop on User Modeling
IJCAI 89 Update
Tech Report: Symbol Grounding Problem
Submissions: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
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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.
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To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: 27 Jul 89 14:34:38+0200
From: wilks yorick <yorick@divsun.unige.ch>
Subject: Query - OCR of Arabic
Is anyone out there aware of work on the OCR of Arabic letters
- -either as research or a commercial product? I would be
grateful for information on that or ony any computer-based
analysis of Turkish, either parsing, morphology, or redundancy
measures on letter sequences.
Thanks
yorick@nmsu.edu
Yorick Wilks
Computing Research Lab.,
NMSU, Las Cruces NM 88003.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 89 10:12:15 EDT
From: "Mark D. LeBlanc" <mdl%unh.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Parsing word problems
Does anyone know of systems which parse word problems?
I'm a PhD student here at UNH and currently on a
"literature review wave." Many systems, including the
nice arithmetic word problem simulations (Kintsch,
Greeno, Cummins et al.) start with the word problem
in some propositional form. My question really addresses
those systems which do parse sentences/problems into some
"internal-meaning" representation.
My research area is Intelligent Tutoring Systems, specifically
in helping young (K-3) children solve arithmetic word
problems. I am aware of the 'original' works of
STUDENT (Bobrow), ISAAC (Novak),
Bregar,Bayley and Rapp's ATN, SOPHIE, etc.
Our current parser is a conceptual analyzer, in the spirit of
Schank, Riesbeck, Selfridge and Birnbaum, et al.
In short, the question is quite broad including current
PC software that you may have seen, tried, or just read about.
- Mark LeBlanc
mdl@unh.edu
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: unido!unidocv.!kurej@uunet.UU.NET (Petra Kurej)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.nlang-know-rep
Subject: Lexical Functional Grammar, Situations Semantics
Keywords: natural language database front end
Date: 1 Aug 89 06:41:00 GMT
Reply-To: unidocv!kurej@uunet.UU.NET (Petra Kurej)
Hi,
we - two students at University of Dortmund - want to design and to implement
a natural language database front end.
The parser shall be based on the Lexical Functional Grammar formalism.
The representation of the functional structure may also comprise aspects
of situations semantics. As input language we want to use English and
the implementation language shall be PROLOG (esp. qprolog or cprolog).
We are therefore interested in information about related topics (literature,
experiences, software, etc.).
We are looking forward to your responses... .
So long,
CIAO
Antje & Petra
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
UUCP: ...mcvax!unido!unidocv!kurej
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 89 12:36:39 EDT
From: rpg@cs.brown.edu
Subject: NLU benchmarking - request for info
Reply-To: rpg@cs.brown.edu (Robert Goldman)
Some time ago, in this digest, I recall reading about a workshop
about evaluation of natural-language understanding programs. Could
anyone provide me with more information about this workshop? Was a
report produced, or a set of position papers/abstracts? If so, I'd be
interested in seeing a copy.
Best,
Robert Goldman
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: kozma@rex.cs.tulane.edu (John Kozma)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.logic,comp.lang.misc,comp.ai.nlang-know-rep
Subject: Formal Semantics
Keywords: detonational semantics model theory Montague case grammar
Date: 6 Aug 89 02:29:27 GMT
Reply-To: kozma@rex.cs.tulane.edu (John Kozma)
Followup-To: sci.logic
Can anyone describe succinctly the distinction (if indeed there is one)
between "model theoretic semantics" and "denotational semantics"?
Or for that matter, between "denotation" and "extension", or between
"intensional" and "extensional" verbs.
For anyone familiar with both Goedel's First Incompleteness Theorem and
Montague Semantics, which do you consider easier to understand?
Finally, can anyone suggest references expressing a combination of
concepts from Case Grammar and Montague Semantics?
I'm attempting to post this to several different groups, but I'm not sure
whether some of them are moderated. Anyway, I will gladly post a summary
of responses to the same groups, though I judged it prudent to direct
follow-ups to sci.logic.
Thanx in advance,
John P. Kozma
kozma@comus.cs.tulane.edu
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: san@4alley.UUCP (Steve Sanderson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Sentence analysis and text linguistics
Keywords: natural lang sentence text linguistics analysis
Date: 24 Jul 89 19:45:19 GMT
Organization: Tandem Computers, Austin, TX
[[the following article appeared on comp.ai, and was quite garbled by
the time it got here, I attempted to reconstruct it as best I could - CW ]]
Help!
I'm looking for survey information on the different methods of sentence
analysis and text linguistics. Since I'm relatively new to this area,
I'm interested in working both with individual sentences in isolation
*and* with units larger than a sentence, such as a paragraph, etc...
The following is some of the information I'm looking for with each method:
- Perhaps a brief description of the analysis method or
references to descriptions.
- Input domain; which domain it was designed for.
- What information the analysis yields
- Performance characteristics, whether projected or actual.
- Any other information you might think was useful for
evaluating different sentence analysis methods.
Does anyone out there know of where I can obtain this information? I
know I can get some introductory books, or some in-depth books but
I'm really looking for information to help me evaluate and briefly understand
many different methods, then when I find some that fit my requirements, I
can delve deeper.
Thanks,
Steve Sanderson
cs.utexas.edu!4alley!san -or- halley!san@cs.utexas.0724f#
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: "Alfred Kobsa" <unido!sbsvax!ak@fb10vax.sbsvax>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 11:15:16 +0200 (MET dst)
Subject: UM90: 2nd Int'l Workshop on User Modeling
Second International Workshop on User Modeling
Hawaii, March 30 - April 1, 1990
Call for Participation
Objectives
User models have recently attracted much research interest in the field of
computer dialog systems. It has become evident that the cooperativeness of
such systems can be greatly improved if the system has a model of the user
available which contains assumptions about his/her background knowledge as well
as his/her goals and plans in consulting the system. Research in the field of
user models investigates how such assumptions can be automatically created,
represented and exploited by the system in the course of an interaction with
the user.
This workshop (a sequel of one in Germany in 1986) will provide a forum for the
discussion of research topics central to the development of user modeling
components in dialog systems. The issues to be addressed include (but are not
restricted to):
-Acquisition of user and student models
-Plan recognition
-Representation of user models
-User stereotypes
-Dialog planning and response tailoring
-Levels of user expertise
-Student modeling and tutoring strategies
-Shell systems for user modeling
-Conceptual models, mental models
An explicit aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers working on
user modeling in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer
Interaction, as well as researchers working in the related field of student
modeling in Intelligent Tutoring Systems.
Program chairman David Chin, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, 2565 The Mall,
+ local arrangement Honolulu, HI 96822, U.S.A.
Phone: (808) 948-8162
E-mail: chin@cultis.ics.hawaii.edu
General Chairman Wolfgang Wahlster,
Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Saarbruecken and
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence
D-6600 Saarbruecken 11, West Germany
Phone: +49 681 302 2363
E-mail: wahlster%fb10vax.uni-saarland.dbp.de
...[U.S.: uunet!]unido!sbsvax!wahlster
Program committee: Sandra Carberry, Univ. of Delaware, U.S.A.
Robin Cohen, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada
Thomas Green, Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.
Anthony Jameson, Univ. of Nijmegen, Netherlands
Aravind Joshi, Univ. of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Alfred Kobsa, Univ. of Saarbruecken, W. Germany
Gordon McCalla, Univ. of Saskatchewan, Canada
Kathleen McCoy, Univ. of Delaware, U.S.A.
Cecile Paris, Univ. of Southern California, U.S.A.
Elaine Rich, MCC, Austin, TX, U.S.A.
Derek Sleeman, Univ. of Aberdeen, U.K.
Michael Tauber, Univ. of Paderborn, W. Germany
To encourage interaction and a broad exchange of ideas, the workshop will be
kept to a moderate size - preferably to about 50 participants who will either
be presenters or commentators on presentations. Attendance is by invitation
only. Interested presenters should send 4 copies of an extended abstract or a
full paper of their talk to the program chairman (at least 6 pages,
double-spaced). Interested commentators should send him a short statement of
interest. Inquiries regarding the program and local arrangements should be
directed to David Chin, and all other inquiries to Wolfgang Wahlster.
Deadlines: Nov. 31, 1989: Extended abstracts due
Dec. 31, 1989: Statement of interest of commentators due
Jan. 31, 1990: Notification about acceptance of
presentation or attendance.
The papers of the workshop may be published in the newly founded international
journal 'User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction'.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 89 15:39:06 EDT
From: dewitt@caen.engin.umich.edu (Kathryn Dewitt)
Subject: IJCAI 89 Update
CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Invited Speakers:
Koichi Furukawa, ICOT will speak Monday, August 21, at
11:10am. The title of his talk is "Fifth Generation Computer
Project: Toward a Coherent Framework for Knowledge Information
Processing and Parallel Processing".
Gerald Edelman, Rockefeller University, will speak Monday
August 21, at 2:00pm. The title of his talk is "Neural
Darwinism and Selective Recognition Automata".
E.D. Dickmanns, Universitat de Bundeswehr Munchen, will speak
Wednesday, August 23, at 11:10am. The title of his talk is "Real-Time
Machine Vision Exploiting Integrak Spatio-Temporal World Models".
Enn Tyugu, Institute of Cybernetics, USSR, will speak
Thursday, August 24, at 9:00am. The title of his talk is
"Knowledge-Based Programming Environments"
Fernado Pereira, AT&T Bell Laboratories, will speak Thursday,
August 24, at 11:10am. The title of his talk is "Interpreting
Natural Language".
Geoffrey Hinton, University of Toronto, will speak Friday,
August 25, at 11:10 am. The title of his talk is
"Connectionist Learning Procedures".
Invited Panels:
THE CHALLENGE OF NEURAL DARWINISM - Monday, August 21, 4:15pm.
members: Stephen W. Smoliar(chair), Linda Smith, David Zisper,
John Holland and George Reeke.
ROBOT NAVIGATION - Tuesday, August 22, 9:00am
members: David Miller(chair), Rod Brooks, Raja
Chatila, Scott Harmon,
Stan Rosenschein, Chuck Thorpe, and Chuck Weisbin.
HIGH-IMPACT FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Tuesday, August 22, 11:10am.
members: Perry Thorndyke(Chair), Raj Reddy, and Toshio Yakoi
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and SPACE EXPLORATION - Tuesday,
August 22, 2:00pm
members: Peter Friedland(chair), David Atkinson, John Muratore,
and Greg Swietek.
(HOW) IS AI IMPACTING MANUFACTURING? - Friday, August 25, 9:00am.
members: Mark Fox (chair), E.J. van de Kraatz, Dennis
O'Connor, and Karl Kempf.
------------------------------
To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu
From: harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (S. R. Harnad)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Tech Report: Symbol Grounding Problem
Keywords: connectionism language categorization Searle symbol-systems
Date: 4 Aug 89 04:37:21 GMT
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
THE SYMBOL GROUNDING PROBLEM
Stevan Harnad
Department of Psychology
Princeton University
ABSTRACT: There has been much discussion recently about the scope and
limits of purely symbolic models of the mind and about the proper role
of connectionism in cognitive modeling. This paper describes the
"symbol grounding problem" for a semantically interpretable symbol
system: How can its semantic interpretation be made intrinsic to the
symbol system, rather than just parasitic on the meanings in our heads?
How can the meanings of the meaningless symbol tokens, manipulated
solely on the basis of their (arbitrary) shapes, be grounded in
anything but other meaningless symbols? The problem is analogous to
trying to learn Chinese from a Chinese/Chinese dictionary alone.
A candidate solution is sketched: Symbolic representations must be
grounded bottom-up in nonsymbolic representations of two kinds:
(1) iconic representations, which are analogs of the proximal sensory
projections of distal objects and events, and (2) categorical
representations, which are learned and innate feature-detectors that
pick out the invariant features of object and event categories from
their sensory projections. Elementary symbols are the names of these
object and event categories, assigned on the basis of their
(nonsymbolic) categorical representations. Higher-order (3) symbolic
representations, grounded in these elementary symbols, consist of
symbol strings describing category membership relations ("An X is a Y
that is Z").
Connectionism is one natural candidate for the mechanism that learns
the invariant features underlying categorical representations, thereby
connecting names to the proximal projections of the distal objects they
stand for. In this way connectionism can be seen as a complementary
component in a hybrid nonsymbolic/symbolic model of the mind, rather
than a rival to purely symbolic modeling. Such a hybrid model would not
have an autonomous symbolic "module," however; the symbolic functions
would emerge as an intrinsically "dedicated" symbol system as a
consequence of the bottom-up grounding of categories' names in their
sensory representations. Symbol manipulation would be governed not just
by the arbitrary shapes of the symbol tokens, but by the nonarbitrary
shapes of the icons and category invariants in which they are grounded.
[Presented at CNLS Conference on Emergent Computation, June 1989
Submitted to Physica D -- Preprint Available]
- -
Stevan Harnad
INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu
srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp
CSNET: harnad%confidence.princeton.edu@relay.cs.net
BITNET: harnad1@umass.bitnet harnad@pucc.bitnet
(609)-921-7771
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End of NL-KR Digest
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