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CSLI Calendar, 8 December 1994, vol.10:10
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 8 December 1994, vol.10:10
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From: Tom Burke <burke>
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Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 11:27:32 -0800
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
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8 December 1994 Stanford Vol. 10, No. 10
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A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
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CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 8 -- 16 DECEMBER 1994
THURSDAY, 8 DECEMBER
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Two Treatments of the Conditional in Situation Semantics
Keith Devlin, Saint Mary's College Mathematics
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
TBA or not TBA: Reflections on Symbols, Objectivism
and Biological Naturalism
Rafael Nu\~nez, University of Fribourg and CSLI
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 9 DECEMBER
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-N
Fixpoint Logic versus Infinitary Logic in Finite Model Theory
Phokion G. Kolaitis, UC Santa Cruz
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
McCullough Building, Room 134
The Magic Lens Interface
Eric Bier, Ken Fishkin, and Maureen Stone, Xerox-PARC
Abstract below
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The CSLI Calendar appears on Thursday of each week throughout the academic
year. Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in the
Calendar on a given Thursday should be submitted by e-mail to
incalendar@csli.stanford.edu by 5:00 p.m. on the previous Tuesday.
Past issues of the CSLI Calendar, a quarterly schedule of upcoming CSLI
events, and other information about CSLI are available on the World Wide Web:
<http://csli-www.stanford.edu/>. The Calendar, with available abstracts, is
also posted each week to the csli.bboard newsgroup.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 8 December
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Two Treatments of the Conditional in Situation Semantics
Keith Devlin
Saint Mary's College Mathematics and CSLI
<devlin@csli.stanford.edu>
I shall present two treatments of conditionals within the framework of
situation semantics, one that tries to stay close to the material conditional,
the other one more intrinsically situation theoretic in its approach. Though
I have a clear preference for the second treatment, the main purpose of the
talk is not to argue for either one over the other, rather to provide an
illustration of how the ideas of situation theory may be applied to a
traditional topic in natural language study.
This will be the last meeting of the seminar this quarter. The seminar will
resume again the first Thursday of next quarter.
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SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 8 December
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
TBA or not TBA: Reflections on Symbols,
Objectivism and Biological Naturalism
Rafael Nu\~nez
University of Fribourg and CSLI
<nunez@csli.stanford.edu>
There is a widely spread belief in Cognitive Science, that in explaining human
cognition it is necessary to refer to mental representations and
information-processing, and to posit a level of analysis separate from the
biological. Moreover, there is a strong belief that central to any
understanding of the human mind is the idea of computation. However, if by
"Cognitive Science" is meant a multidisciplinary, empirically based effort
which, following the scientific method, addresses old epistemological
questions such as the nature of knowledge, nothing says that a cognitive
scientist must endorse this dogmatic framework (so often taken for granted).
Cognitivism and Connectionism thus do not define Cognitive Science, rather
they constitute only some possible paradigms that happen to be popular today.
Some reflections on why objectivist oriented concepts, such as those adopted
by today's mainstream Cognitive Science (e.g., mental representation, symbol
manipulation, information-processing), are inadequate to explain animal (and
therefore human) cognition will be made. The analysis will be based on a
paradigm that considers cognition as a biological, embodied phenomenon which
is realized through the co-determination between the organism and the medium
in which it exists (Ecological Naturalism). Notions developed in theoretical
biology by H. Maturana and F. Varela, such as "autopoiesis" and "structural
coupling", will be discussed.
RAFAEL NUNEZ is currently a visiting scholar at CSLI under a fellowship
awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. He studied mathematics in
Chile and received his M.A. in Psychology from Universidad Catolica. He
worked as a consultant on Human Resources for Coopers & Lybrand International
in Santiago. Afterwards he studied in Japan and later obtained his Ph.D. in
Cognitive Science from University of Fribourg in Switzerland. After have done
research on mental health in early adolescence at the University of Lausanne,
he joined research teams in Geneva and Fribourg working on induction and
mathematical thinking. As a researcher, his interest is centered on looking
for evidence to support non-representational explanations of mathematical
thinking by means of developmental and cross-cultural studies. He is also
working on foundations of cognitive science, from the perspective of
embodied/enactive cognition, and is currently studying the relation between
the different disciplines of cognitive science in so far as non-objectivist
oriented approaches are concerned. Before coming to Stanford, he spent one
year as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 9 December
12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 383-N
Fixpoint Logic versus Infinitary Logic in Finite Model Theory
Phokion G. Kolaitis
UC Santa Cruz
<kolaitis@cse.ucsc.edu>
In his 1987 Ph.D. thesis, G. L. McColm formulated two conjectures concerning
the interplay between first-order logic, fixpoint logic, and the infinitary
logic L with finitely many variables on arbitrary classes C of finite
structures. The first conjecture asserted that L collapses to first-order
logic on a class C of finite structures if and only if fixpoint logic
collapses to first-order logic on C. The second stated that L collapses to
first-order logic on C if and only if fixpoint logic is bounded on C. In LICS
1992, Kolaitis and Vardi proved that McColm's second conjecture is true and
gave evidence that the first conjecture has substantially different character
than the second. In LICS 1994, Gurevich, Immerman, and Shelah refuted
McColm's first conjecture. In fact, they provided two different
constructions, a deterministic one and a probabilistic one, witnessing its
failure.
In this talk, after describing the original McColm's conjectures in some
detail, we study refinements of them that are obtained by considering formulas
with an a priori fixed number of variables. In particular, we establish a
finer, "level-by-level" version of the second conjecture about appropriate
fragments of fixpoint logic and each of the infinitary logics L^k with k
variables. We also introduce certain restricted versions and refinements of
the first conjecture that have a reasonable chance to be true. This is joint
work with M. Y. Vardi.
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SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 9 December
12:30 p.m., McCullough Building, Room 134
The Magic Lens Interface
Eric Bier, Ken Fishkin, and Maureen Stone
Xerox-PARC
<{bier,fishkin,stone}@parc.xerox.com>
Traditional workstation user interface design separates the tools from the
work by clustering the tools (typically encoded as menus) around the
application work area. To perform an operation, the user must select a tool
and its point of application separately. If the optimal use of the tool
requires an alternate view of the application, selecting the view must be
performed as an additional step. The Magic Lens(TM) Interface places tools on
movable, transparent sheets that overlay the work area. The user positions
these sheets over the application and operates through the tools on the
objects beneath. These tools can also contain visual filters called "magic
lenses" that modify the view of objects seen through them. By positioning the
tools over the work, we can combine the selection of the view, the tool and
its point of application into one operation.
The Magic Lens Interface is an exciting new design space for tools that can be
applied both within and across applications. It can be constructed to make
good use of two hands, where one hand moves the sheet to position tools and
the other operates through the tools. Tools can be composed by overlapping,
providing a graphical way to construct complex tools out of simple ones. The
interface can be scaled for displays of all sizes, from palmtops to wall sized
displays. This talk will describe the Magic Lens Interface and demonstrate
its application in a variety of areas.
ERIC BIER received a PhD in computer graphics from UC Berkeley in 1988 and has
worked at PARC full time since. His research includes new techniques for
interactive computer graphics, user interface layout, active documents,
multi-user editors, and two-handed user interfaces. These techniques and
systems include: the Gargoyle and Gargoyle3d graphical editors, skitters and
jacks for 3D editing, snap-dragging, graphical search and replace,
EmbeddedButtons active documents, the Multi-Device Multi-User Multi-Editor
(MMM), and the Magic Lens Interface. Eric now manages a small group called
Graphics and Interaction Research in the Information Sciences and Technologies
Lab at PARC.
KEN FISHKIN is a member of the Graphics and Interaction Research group at
Xerox PARC. Since receiving a MS in Computer Graphics from UC Berkeley in
1983, he has held a variety of jobs in industry, focusing on 2D graphics, user
interfaces, and color. Ken has been at PARC since 1991, where his work has
focused on color science, image manipulation, and the Magic Lens user
interface paradigm.
MAUREEN STONE began her career at Xerox in 1978 working on the Griffin
graphical illustration system. This work inspired her to spend the next 16
years at Xerox PARC doing research in interactive graphics, spline algorithms,
device independent color reproduction and user interaction techniques. From
1989 to 1994 she managed a research group focused on digital color and
computer graphics. She is currently a Principal Scientist in the Graphics and
Interaction Research Area in the Information Sciences and Technologies
Laboratory. She received her BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the
University of Illinois, and a MS in Computer Science from Caltech.
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