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CSLI Calendar, 2 March 1995, vol.10:18
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 2 March 1995, vol.10:18
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From: Tom Burke <burke>
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Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 10:00:55 -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
______________________________________________________________________________
2 March 1995 Stanford Vol. 10, No. 18
______________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 2 -- 10 MARCH 1995
THURSDAY, 2 MARCH
10:00 - STASS Tutorial
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Modeling with Nonwellfounded Structures
Rachel Lunnon, UCLA Mathematics
Abstract below
12:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Mathematically Modeling Situation Theory
Rachel Lunnon, UCLA Mathematics
Abstract below
2:15 - CSLI Seminar
Series on Visual Programming
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Prograph CPX
Kurt Schmucker, Apple Computer
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Life After SSP: A Discussion with Recent Graduates
of the Symbolic Systems Program
FRIDAY, 3 MARCH
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-N
Adding the Lambda Calculus to Set Theory
Rachel Lunnon, UCLA Mathematics
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Terman Auditorium
Content and Community on the Web
Jonathan Steuer, Stanford and HotWired
Abstract below
2:30 - Linguistics Colloquium (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE)
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Status of English After Colonization: Problems with
Predictors and Criteria in Cross-polity Comparison
Joshua Fishman, Yeshiva Linguistics
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Building 90, Room 91-A
What Can We Do "In Principle"?
Charles Parsons, Harvard Philosophy and CASBS
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 8 MARCH
4:00 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Building 370, Room 370
An Experimental and Theoretical Comparison of Model
Selection Methods
Michael Kearns, AT&T Bell Labs
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 9 MARCH
12:00 - CSLI TINLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Cognitive Science's Missed Opportunity: Discussion of
Jean-Pierre Dupuy's _Aux Origines des Sciences Cognitives_
Stefano Franchi, Stanford Philosophy
Abstract below
2:15 - CSLI Seminar
Series on Visual Programming
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Directing the Behavior of Improvisational Characters
Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford Computer Science
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 10 MARCH
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-N
A New Path to Pseudorecursive Varieties
Benjamin Wells, U San Francisco MAthematics and CS
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Terman Auditorium
Focus+Context Techniques for Visualizing Large Tables
and Hierarchies
Ramana Rao and John Lamping, Xerox PARC
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Building 60, Room 61-H
Sovereign Performatives in the Contemporary Scene of
Utterance: Speech and Conduct in the Contemporary
Politics of Representation
Judith Butler, UC Berkeley Philosophy
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Speakers, Perspectives, and Words in Acquisition
Eve Clark, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
____________
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 TUTORIAL
on Thursday, 2 March
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Modeling with Nonwellfounded Structures
Rachel Lunnon
UCLA Mathematics
<lunnon@math.ucla.edu>
This will be informal tutorial about modeling with nonwellfounded structures.
This will be useful background for the STASS Seminar at noon.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 2 March
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Mathematically Modeling Situation Theory
Rachel Lunnon
UCLA Mathematics
<lunnon@math.ucla.edu>
In this talk I will discuss how the tools developed by Peter Aczel and myself
can be used to model some of the aspects of situation theory given in the
Barwise and Cooper preprint: "Simple Situation Theory and its Graphical
Representation." I will also discuss some of the problems that arise when
trying to model some of the other operations.
____________
CSLI SEMINAR
SERIES ON VISUAL PROGRAMMING
on Thursday, 2 March
2:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Prograph CPX
Kurt Schmucker
Apple Computer
<schmucker1@applelink.apple.com>
The Prograph CPX is one of the few commercial strength object-oriented visual
programming environments available today. (Real visual environments, not
those that just use the word 'visual' because they have a direct manipulation
window layout tool.) This talk will present a overview of the Prograph
language, its environment, and its class library. Demos of the environment
will be given. RAM and disk footprints statistics for the same applications
written in Prograph and MacApp, as well the speed differences in execution and
development will also be presented. (MacApp is a C++ application framework
for the Macintosh.) One of the main approaches in this comparison is the
re-implementation in CPX of the MacApp sample applications, and demos of these
will be shown.
KURT SCHMUCKER has been at Apple for over seven years and has lead a variety
of projects in its Advanced Technology Group, including the Scientific
Computing Project and portions of the Human Interface Group. Currently he is
using Prograph CPX to accelerate the transition of ATG research into Apple
products. Prior to Apple, he worked for a decade in the US Department of
Defense as a computational linguist, computer scientist, and research
mathematician.
Kurt is the author of three books, including _Object-Oriented Programming for
the Macintosh_, and is a frequent contributor on Prograph topics in both
Visual News and the MacTech Magazine. He has advanced degrees in both
mathematics and computer science. The brand of shame ("ABD") is on his
forehead, but has faded somewhat with the passing of the years.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 2 March
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Life After SSP: A Discussion with Recent Graduates
of the Symbolic Systems Program
This SSP Forum will feature Symbolic Systems graduates talking about their
work after graduation. The speakers are:
Reid Hoffman '90 Greg Edwards '94
MA Philosophy, Oxford Archimedes Project
Interface designer at Apple CSLI
Srinija Srinivasan '93 Martin Reinfried '94
Ontological engineer Started up company called Architext
Cyc Project
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 3 March
12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 383-N
Adding the Lambda Calculus to Set Theory
Rachel Lunnon
UCLA Mathematics
<lunnon@math.ucla.edu>
A theory of sets and functions which is non-well-founded will be presented.
The functions that have to exist in models of the theory are considered. It
is shown that some interesting functions, such as a powerset function, do not
have to exist in models, but they may be added.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 3 March
12:30 p.m., Terman Auditorium
Combining Content and Community: The Potential
and Pitfalls of WWW Publishing
Jonathan Steuer
Stanford Computer Science and HotWired
<jonathan@cyborganic.com>
In August 1993, the newly-launched Wired magazine decided to pursue
Internet-based publishing. On October 27, 1994, Wired begat HotWired, one of
the first commercially-supported content-oriented sites on the World Wide Web.
The goal was to create a new kind of online space, one that both permitted
traditional magazine-like distribution of content, and one that served as a
discussion space in which readers could interact with each other, and with the
architects of their online environment, in novel and meaningful ways. In
other words, the goal was to combine content and community via the Web.
These goals were achieved with varying degrees of success. This presentation
will address the difficulties of Web publishing in relation to these goals,
highlighting in particular the following:
* The difficulty of integrating top-down and bottom-up content structures.
* Interface and information design problems.
* Lessons learned about integrating content and community.
* How these lessons can be applied to new kinds of online spaces.
JONATHAN STEUER led the construction and development of HotWired, Wired
Magazine's successful new World Wide Web-based publication. Jonathan led
online activities for Wired from September 1993 through December 1994, and has
been involved in getting Wired wired since the magazine's launch in January
1993.
He has been on the Net and attending PCD seminars since 1989, and is very
interested in the social implications of networked interactive media. His
company, Cyborganic Media, hopes to launch the Cyborganic Clubhouse, an
integrated real/virtual community space, some time in 1995.
Jonathan received his BA from Harvard University in June 1988, and his Ph.D.
in Communication Theory and Research from Stanford University in January 1995.
As a graduate student, he helped found the Social Responses to Communication
Technologies research group with Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves.
Some of this work has become the cornerstone for Microsoft's new "social
interface" operating system, "Bob".
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 3 March
2:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Status of English After Colonization: Problems with
Predictors and Criteria in Cross-polity Comparison
Joshua Fishman
Yeshiva Linguistics, visiting Stanford
<fishman@csli.stanford.edu>
The relative assets and debits of three different methods of cross-polity
comparison (cross-tabulations, cumulative multiple correlations, and
rankings/ratings performed on case-study data) will be illustrated. The
examples presented are derived from my ongoing study with Andrew W. Conrad and
Alma Rubal-Lopez, prompted to some degree by Phillipson's _Linguistic
Imperialism_ (1992), but essentially a follow-up on my earlier _The Spread of
English_ (1976) with Robert L. Cooper and Andrew W. Conrad.
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 3 March
3:15 p.m., Building 90, Room 91-A
What Can We Do "In Principle"?
Charles Parsons
Harvard Philosophy and Stanford CASBS
<parsons@casbs.stanford.edu>
Philosophers frequently appeal to what is "in principle" within the capacity
of agents, even when this far outstrips the actual abilities of human beings
(or real machines). Such possibilities enter discussion of the foundations of
mathematics at at least two points: the theory of computability, and
explication of constructivist views, in particular intuitionism.
Clearly the possibilities in question are highly idealized, and appeal to them
has been challenged. An attempt will be made to determine to what extent
appeal to such possibilities makes sense, what its actual use in mathematical
contexts is, and what philosophical weight it will bear.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
on Wednesday, 8 March
4:00 p.m., Bldg 370, Room 370
An Experimental and Theoretical Comparison
of Model Selection Methods
Michael Kearns
AT&T Bell Labs
In the model selection problem, we must balance the empirical error of a
statistical model with its complexity (as measured by the number of
parameters, code length, or any other appropriate measure), in order to
minimize the resulting generalization error. Well-known proposals for solving
this problem include "penalty-based" methods (such as Rissanen's minimum
description length principle and Vapnik's guaranteed risk minimization), as
well as the widely used cross validation. In this talk I will provide both
controlled experimental evidence and theoretical results to support the
following conclusions:
(1) Even on simple model selection problems, the behavior of the
methods examined can be complex and incomparable. Furthermore,
no amount of "tuning" of the methods (such as the introduction
of constant multipliers on penalty terms, or notions of
"effective dimension") can eliminate this incomparability.
(2) It is possible to give general bounds on the generalization error
for any penalty-based method, and also for cross validation.
The quality of the penalty-based bound is determined by the
extent to which the penalty-based method under consideration
automatically limits the complexity of the model selected. The
quality of the cross-validation bound is determined by the
extent to which the underlying learning curve adheres to the
classically predicted power law behavior.
(3) The entire class of penalty-based methods is fundamentally
handicapped, in the sense that there exist two types of model
selection problems such that every penalty-based method must
incur large generalization error on at least one type, while
cross validation enjoys small generalization error on both.
This talk describes joint research with Yishay Mansour, Andrew Ng, and Dana
Ron.
The goal of this seminar is to increase communication among local researchers
with interests in computational approaches to learning and adaptation. If you
would like to be added to (or removed from) the mailing list, or if you are
interested in giving a talk in the seminar, please send email to
<langley@cs.stanford.edu>.
____________
CSLI TINLUNCH
on Thursday, 9 March
12:00 noon, in Cordura Hall, Room 100
Cognitive Science's Missed Opportunity: Discussion of
Jean-Pierre Dupuy's _Aux Origines des Sciences Cognitives_
Stefano Franchi
Stanford Philosophy
<sfranchi@parc.xerox.com>
Is there any chance to solve the age-old philosophical problems about the
nature of the mind, the structure of cognition, and the like, without falling
into the metaphysical quagmires about the nature of the subject, its
relationship with the object, and so forth? According to Jean-Pierre Dupuy,
during the late 1940s cybernetics was about to reach such a goal by developing
a new understanding of man which would eschew any metaphysics of the subject.
Yet, the opportunity was missed, and not in the least because of its founders'
lack of philosophical background.
In this context, I will consider the following two questions: Can cybernetics'
heirs -- cognitive science and contemporary philosophy of mind -- profit from
the errors of the past? Or are they bound to repeat them because of their
refusal to acknowledge any relationship whatsoever with the discredited
ancestor?
Dupuy's book, _Aux Origines des Sciences Cognitives_, is on closed reserve in
Tanner Library, Building 90.
____________
CSLI SEMINAR
Series on Visual Programming
on Thursday, 9 March
2:15 p.m., in Cordura Hall, Room 100
Directing the Behavior of Improvisational Characters
Barbara Hayes-Roth
Stanford Computer Science
<bhr@hpp.stanford.edu>
"Directed improvisation" is a paradigm for human-computer interaction.
Directors (who may be human users or other computer programs) guide the
behavior of computer characters with abstract instructions that establish
skeletal narrative structures and weak constraints on the desired behaviors.
The characters work together to improvise a course of behavior that conforms
to the structure, meets the constraints, and achieves other performance
objectives. Thus, characters follow directions, but may also enhance
performance, while surprising and engaging users with their improvisations
along the way.
Directed improvisation appears to be a promising paradigm for a variety of
applications. Our current work focuses on a particular testbed application, a
"Virtual Theater for Children," in which children direct the improvisational
behavior of animated characters to create their own stories. In this
presentation, I will give a brief introduction to the directed improvisation
paradigm and the Virtual Theater project, but I will focus on how children
direct/program characters' behavior in both interactive and scripted modes.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 10 March
12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 383-N
A New Path to Pseudorecursive Varieties
Benjamin Wells
U San Francisco Mathematics and Computer Science
A variety (really, its equational theory) may be recursive (or "decidable") as
in the case of the variety of all commutative semigroups, or nonrecursive
("undecidable"), as in the case of relation algebras. Intermediate between
these two examples is the pseudorecursive variety, whose theory is not
recursive, but
(*) for every n the set of equations in the theory with n variables is
recursive (for relation algebras, even the variable-free equations
in the theory form a nonrecursive set).
Informal reasoning may suggest any variety with the property (*) is decidable,
but pseudorecursive varieties can be shown to exist in abundance, even with
strict logical and algebraic limitations. Their existence urges that language
be used precisely and presents opportunities for an expanded appreciation of
decidability.
The existence of pseudorecursive varieties is in fact easily shown.
Construction of finitely based ones is a harder matter and the principle goal
of this talk. The major concrete tool is a Turing machine that records past
behavior and periodically reviews this history for accuracy, and so is termed
a recapitulator. An abstraction of this action is so closely coded by
equations in an expanded theory of semigroups, that the n-variable parts
correspond to bounded machine resources and are thus recursive, but the entire
theory matches the machine's unfettered operation, chosen to be nonrecursive.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 10 March
12:30 p.m., Terman Auditorium
Focus+Context Techniques for Visualizing Large Tables and Hierarchies
Ramana Rao and John Lamping
Xerox PARC
<{rao,lamping}@parc.xerox.com>
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 10 March
3:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-H
Sovereign Performatives in the Contemporary Scene of Utterance:
Speech and Conduct in the Contemporary Politics of Representation
Judith Butler
UC Berkeley Philosophy
<jbutler@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Recent efforts to regulate hate speech on campus, the workplace, and other
public spheres rely on a conception of language as an injurious form of
action. Some legal scholars rely on Austin's conception of the performative
character of language to argue that language not only acts, but has the power
to effect certain injurious effects. Significantly, this notion is used to
support certain descriptions of hate speech and pornography, and has become
central to arguments in favor of heightened regulation. This paper considers
which view of the performative is at work in such arguments, and suggests that
an alternative view might both account for the injurious and even traumatic
character of some utterances and representations and for the possibility of
their recontextualization. The paper appreciates arguments against first
amendment absolutism, but suggests that the cultural restaging and
resignification of injurious speech is a more productive way to counter its
injurious effects than the route of regulation.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 10 March
3:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Speakers, Perspectives, and Words in Acquisition
Eve Clark
Stanford Linguistics
<eclark@psych.stanford.edu>
Speakers mark their perspective on an object, an event, an activity, or a
relation through the words they choose. The range speakers can draw on
include different levels in hierarchical taxonomies (_animal_, _mammal_,
_dog_, _spaniel_; _meal_, _lunch_; _ingest_, _eat_, _chew_) and orthogonal
domains (_teacher_, _cellist_, _parent_, _gardener_). Diversity in the
lexicon offers choices to speakers in representing their perspectives to
addressees. One consequence is that the same object or the same event may be
referred to in a number of ways on different occasions, where each expression
reflects a different perspective and hence a different goal on the part of the
speaker. There is no simple one-to-one relation between terms used for making
reference and their intended referents. This talk explores some consequences
for early lexical acquisition of such input.
____________