[Prev][Next][Index]
CSLI Calendar, 12 Oct 1995, vol.11:03
-
To: friends
-
Subject: CSLI Calendar, 12 Oct 1995, vol.11:03
-
From: Tom Burke <burke>
-
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 13:17:19 -0700
-
Flags: 000000000000
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
______________________________________________________________________________
12 October 1995 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 3
______________________________________________________________________________
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 11 -- 20 OCTOBER 1995
WEDNESDAY, 11 OCTOBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
The Mind/Body Problem for Machines
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 12 OCTOBER
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Reflexive/Incremental Approach to Information, Cognition,
Language, and Action: Information Content, Part 2
John Perry and David Israel
Stanford Philosophy and SRI International
Abstract below
12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Evolution of Consciousness
Owen Flanagan, Duke Philosophy, Psychology, and Neurobiology
Abstract below
4:00 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Induction of Extended Bayesian Classifiers
Pat Langley, Stanford Robotics Laboratory
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
"Preparing" for Tomorrow's Workplace
Dennis Matthies, Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-N
Model Building by Resolution
Chris Fermueller, Tech Univ of Vienna
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
Sketching Information
Takeshi Sunaga, Tama Art University, Tokyo
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Scope Inversion Under the Rise-Fall Intonation in German
Manfred Krifka, UT Austin Linguistics and CASBS
Abstract below
MONDAY, 16 OCTOBER
2:00 - Semantics Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Partitive Case and Aspect
Paul Kiparsky, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER
4:15 - Logic Seminar
Building 380, Room 381-T
Cut-elimination for Higher Order Logic with an Axiom of Choice
Grigori Mints, Stanford Philosophy
7:00 - SSP Film Series
Cubberley Hall, Room 128
The Human Language (Part 2): Acquiring the Human Language
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 18 OCTOBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Formal Symbol Manipulation (Part 1)
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 19 OCTOBER
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Reflexive/Incremental Approach to Information, Cognition,
Language, and Action: Practical Content
John Perry and David Israel
Abstract below
12:00 - Cognitive Science Lunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Title to be announced
Ernest Hilgard, Stanford Psychology
FRIDAY, 20 OCTOBER
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
Hypermedia Applications in BETA
Kristen Nygaard, Joergen Lindskov Knudsen, Elmer Sandvad,
and Kaj Groenbaek, University of Oslo, University of Aarhus
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
The Meaning of "Life" in Aristotle
Chris Shields, U Colorado Philosophy
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Title to be announced
Edward Flemming, Stanford Linguistics
MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER
2:00 - Semantics Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Anchoring of Definites in Discourse
Kjetil Strand, Oslo Linguistics
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears on Wednesday of each week throughout the academic
year. Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in the
Calendar can be submitted by e-mail to <incalendar@csli.stanford.edu>.
Further information about CSLI and past issues of the CSLI Calendar
are available on the Internet at URL <http://www-csli.stanford.edu/>.
The Calendar is also posted each week to the <csli.bboard> newsgroup.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 11 October
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
The Mind/Body Problem for Machines
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
The reading for today's seminar is Volume I Chapter 3 of _The Middle
Distance_. A course description can be found at [http://shr.stanford.edu/
BCSmith/phil395a.html]
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 12 October
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Reflexive/Incremental Approach to Information, Cognition,
Language, and Action: Information Content, Part 2
John Perry and David Israel
Stanford Philosophy and SRI
[john@csli.stanford.edu,israel@ai.sri.com]
The third meeting of the Autumn STASS series will be the second of two
sessions on Information Content. As background, see Israel and Perry,
"Information and Architecture." In _Situation Theory and Its Applications,
vol. 2_, edited by Jon Barwise, Jean Mark Gawron, Gordon Plotkin, and Syun
Tutiya, 147--60. Stanford University: CSLI Publications. Also available on
WWW via [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/john/phil.html].
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 12 October
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Evolution of Consciousness
Owen Flanagan
Duke Philosophy, Psychology, and Neurobiology
[ojf@acpub.duke.edu]
Although all conscious mental states are neural states, neuroscience is not
equipped to answer all the scientific questions we want answered.
Evolutionary biology is needed to answer questions about why we have
experiences at all, whether all conscious mental state types are adaptations;
and cultural and psychological anthropology are needed to answer questions
about conscious mental state types, e.g., certain emotions, that seem to occur
only in certain cultures. Pain, dreams, lust, and certain unusual emotions
are used to exemplify the thesis.
A description and schedule for the CogLunch series on consciousness can be
found at [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/9495reps/coglunch.html].
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
on Thursday, 12 October
4:00 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Induction of Extended Bayesian Classifiers
Pat Langley
Stanford Robotics Laboratory
[langley@cs.stanford.edu]
In this talk, I review the naive Bayesian classifier, a simple algorithm for
the induction of probabilistic concept descriptions. The naive Bayesian
approach relies on two strong assumptions about the nature of the target
concept: that one can represent each class in terms of a single probabilistic
summary, and that the predictor attributes are conditionally independent given
the class. Most implementations also posit that numeric attributes follow a
normal distribution within a class. Despite these assumptions, experimental
studies have shown that naive Bayes fares remarkably well on many real-world
induction tasks. Still, additional studies have revealed that simple
extensions to the algorithm can produce improved behavior in domains that
involve multiple regions per class, correlations among predictor attributes,
and distributions that diverge from the normal. I describe some of these
extensions and relate them to other recent work on the induction of
probabilistic descriptions.
This talk describes work done in collaboration with George John and Stephanie
Sage.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 12 October
4:15 p.m., Building 380, Room 383-N
"Preparing" for Tomorrow's Workplace
Dennis Matthies
Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning
[matthies@jessica.stanford.edu]
Suppose you are going to experience a half-dozen different careers. (That's
careers, not jobs.) Suppose your average stay on a job is going to be only
three or four years. Suppose that the form of work you will be doing ten or
so years from now doesn't even exist yet. Suppose. Suppose.
The "career" -- that upward trajectory along a single, chrome-plated, fully
guaranteed flight path -- is gone forever. How can undergraduates best equip
themselves for a wild ride in the new economy? Is a traditional liberal
education now obsolete? Does "preparation" for tomorrow's workplace even make
sense? Should we just close our eyes and plunge into it?
DENNIS MATTHIES, through the Center for Teaching and Learning and over SITN,
teaches courses like these: Think on Your Feet, Self-Coaching, Precision
Questioning, Mental Ecology, and Handling Information Overload. His current
clients include companies such as Microsoft, National Semiconductor, and the
public relations firm Wilson McHenry. As an undergraduate at M.I.T., Dennis
majored in physics; as a graduate student at Stanford he studied philosophy.
For the past several years Dennis has been trying to understand the nature of
"learning-intensive" work, as it develops in Silicon Valley.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 13 October
12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 383-N
Model Building by Resolution
Christian Fermueller
CSLI and Tech Univ of Vienna
[chrisf@csli.stanford.edu]
Resolution calculi are best known as basis for algorithms testing the
unsatisfiability of sets of clauses. Much less attention is paid to the fact
that various resolution refinements may also be usefully employed as decision
procedures for a wide range of decidable classes of clause sets. In this
proof theoretic approach to the decision problem one usually tries to test for
satisfiability by termination of complete resolution procedures. Building on
such types of decidability results we show that, for certain classes of clause
sets, one can extract (representations of) models from the set of resolvents
generated by hyperresolution.
The process of model construction proceeds in two steps: First, hyperreso-
lution is used to construct a finite set of atoms that represents a
description of a Herbrand model. In a second step we extract from this set of
atoms a full representation of a model with finite domain. In both steps, no
backtracking is needed.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 13 October
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Sketching Information
Takeshi Sunaga
Tama Art University, Tokyo
[sunaga@cdr.stanford.edu]
I am studying ways of giving form to artifacts, i.e., man made objects,
especially immaterial objects which dynamically and interactively perform with
people and their task environment. A few examples are software, communication,
information, and interaction.
Several works will be shown as representative of our exploration done in Media
and Interface Design program at Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan. Those
explorative projects are named "Designing Events", "Visualizing Experience"
and "Composing Information (sound, motion, location and knowledge)"
In summary, a few concepts, "Media", "Ecological View" and "Semi-Living
Things," underlying our program will be introduced. These three concepts
attempt to make one aware of the form of material and immaterial artifacts.
TAKESHI SUNAGA is Associate Professor of Design Department at Tama Art
University, Tokyo, Japan. He has done extensive research and practice on
Industrial Design for hardware products and Interaction Design for information
systems.
He has been directing the Media and Interface Program at Tama for six years.
The project exhibit their results in Tokyo every year, once in Berlin,
Germany. His early research on Industrial Design was cited on user conceptual
models of products with a statistical approach. Then, cognitive aspects of
interaction between user and product were discussed as design issues in his
doctoral dissertation based on studies of design and cognitive science at the
University of Tsukuba.
He directed a number of research and development projects; Reflective models
of drawing-thinking as creative process on designing, Temporal structure of
screen view on animation film, Dynamic information design for high speed train
cockpit, and Graphical user interface design for network operation system.
Sunaga is on the board of the Japanese Society of Science of Design.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 13 October
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Scope Inversion Under the Rise-Fall Intonation Pattern in German
Manfred Krifka
UT Austin Linguistics and CASBS
[krifka@casbs.stanford.edu]
This talk will propose an explanation for a well-known but ill-explained fact
about the interaction of syntax, semantics and prosody in German and
presumably other OV-type languages. To illustrate, a sentence like (1)
(1) Ein Junge hat jeden Roman gelesen.
a/one boy has every novel read
has only the reading "there is a boy x such that for every novel y, x has read
y" under standard intonation. But with rising accent on "ein" and falling
accent on "jeden" it also has the reading "for every novel y there is a boy x
such that x read y".
I will show that accounts that try to explain this scope inversion as a result
of contrastive topicalization are misguided. Rather, I will argue that the
observed facts follow from an independently motivated principle of the
syntax/semantics interface in German that has been proposed by Frey (1993)
(namely, that an operator A has scope over an operator B iff A c-commands B or
a trace of B) under certain additional assumptions, most importantly that
focus is assigned to preverbal constituents and that focus can be assigned
prior to movement. I will argue that these assumptions, though partly novel,
in turn are well motivated.
____________
SEMANTICS SEMINAR
on Monday, 16 October
2:00 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Partitive Case and Aspect
Paul Kiparsky
Stanford Linguistics
[kiparsky@csli.stanford.edu]
The Finnish partitive is a structural case which marks objects of atelic
predicates, and indefinite bare plurals and mass nouns regardless of telicity.
It shares both its aspectual and NP-related function with the verbal category
of imperfective aspeies these functions and elucidates the parallelism with
aspect. I also show that Krifka's (1992) analysis, which derives the
parallelism for a special class of verbs (essentially, verbs of consumption
and creation) is correct for a related Finno-Ugric language, and represents a
historically anterior stage.
____________
LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 17 October
4:15 p.m., Building 380, Room 381-T
Cut-elimination for Simple Type Theory with an Axiom of Choice
Grigori Mints
Stanford Philosophy
[mints@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
ANNOUNCEMENT
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m.
Cubberley Hall, Room 128
The Symbolic Systems Film Series showcases videos and films of general
cognitive science interest. Attendance at the films can substitute for
attendance at the Symbolic Systems Forum for students enrolled in SSP 10 for
one unit. All are welcome at these events. The showing of the video will be
followed by a discussion, and researchers who are knowledgeable about the
film's topic are urged join us in evaluating how well the program represents
the field.
Schedule for Fall 1995:
Oct 10 "Discovering the Human Language" (The Human Language, Part 1) (1995)
Oct 17 "Acquiring the Human Language" (The Human Language, Part 2) (1995)
Oct 24 "The Human Language Evolves" (The Human Language, Part 3) (1995)
and "In Praise of Language" [Lan Nso] (1989)
Oct 31 "Today's Innovators and Tomorrow's Technologies" (1992)
Nov 7 "Bill Gates Addresses the Electronic Messaging Association" (1994)
Nov 14 "Daniel Dennett" (A Glorious Accident, Part 3) (1993)
Nov 21 "N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdos" (1993)
Nov 28 "Giant Brains" (The Machine That Changed the World, Part 1) (1992)
Dec 5 "Inventing the Future" (The Machine That Changed the World, Part 2)
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 17 October
7:00 p.m., Cubberley Hall, Room 128
The Human Language (Part 2): Acquiring the Human Language (1995)
This 55 minute video is the second installment of "The Human Language," a
three-part PBS series produced by Gene Searchinger and featuring several
Stanford and Bay Area language scholars as well as other prominent researchers
(e.g., Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, and Lila Gleitman). Part 1 was shown last
week.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 18 October
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Formal Symbol Manipulation (Part 1)
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
The readings for today's seminar are John Haugeland's "Semantic Engines"
(Introduction to _Mind Design_); Newell & Simon: "Computer Science as
Empirical Inquiry"; and Volume I Chapter 4 of _The Middle Distance_. A course
description can be found at [http://shr.stanford.edu/ BCSmith/phil395a.html].
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 19 October
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Reflexive/Incremental Approach to Information, Cognition,
Language, and Action: Practical Content
John Perry and David Israel
Stanford Philosophy and SRI International
[john@csli.stanford.edu,israel@ai.sri.com]
This third meeting of the Quarter will be a session on Practical Content. As
background, see Israel, Perry, and Tutiya, "Executions, Motivations and
Accomplishments," _Philosophical Review_ October 1993: 515--540. Also
relevant: Israel, Perry, and Tutiya, "Actions and Movements" _Proceedings of
IJCAI-'91_ (Mountain View: Morgan Kaufmann, August, 1991). Readings are also
available at [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/john/phil.html].
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 19 October
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Title to be announced
Ernest Hilgard
Stanford Psychology
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 20 October
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Hypermedia Applications in BETA
Kristen Nygaard, Joergen Lindskov Knudsen,
Elmer Sandvad, and Kaj Groenbaek
University of Oslo, University of Aarhus
[kristen@ifi.uio.no]
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 20 October
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
The Meaning of "Life" in Aristotle
Chris Shields
U Colorado Philosophy
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 20 October
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Title to be announced
Edward Flemming
Stanford Linguistics
____________
SEMANTICS SEMINAR
on Monday, 23 October
2:00 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Anchoring of Definites in Discourse
Kjetil Strand
Oslo Linguistics
[strand@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
NEW VISITORS
ANDREW IRVINE, Dept of Philosophy, U of British Columbia
Cordura 202, 3-0488, irvine@csli
Andrew Irvine is currently working on topics relating to Bertrand Russell,
including a number of issues in the history and philosophy of logic and
mathematics. He is editing a four volume collection of secondary literature
surrounding Russell, as well as working on empirical and experimental aspects
to mathematical knowledge. His background is in philosophy and logic. Other
interests include decision theory, computability theory, and theories of
truth.
MOTOYOSHI IRIFUJI, Dept of Philosophy, Yamaguchi University
Cordura 213, 3-6890, irifuji@csli
Motoyoshi Irifuji has been working on the philosophical inquiries about
different levels of self, with relation to the problem of solipsism. His
interest is centered on the relation between the ineffability of metaphysical
"I", and semantics of the first person. His paper "From De Se to De Me -- On
the singular self hidden in the Irreducibility Thesis of De Se" was presented
during the study meeting in Japan, held in honor of Professor Perry, Director
of CSLI. Irifuji wishes to expand and deepen his thoughts during his stay, and
to add a new approach, the analogy of "I", to the problem of solipsism. His
other interests include philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, the
problem of relativism.
KJETIL STRAND, Dept of Linguistics, U of Oslo
Cordura 214, 5-2317, kstrand@csli
Kjetil Strand has been working on the formal description of Norwegian anaphora
within Lexical Functional Grammar and Dynamic Semantics. He is currently most
concerned with the use and interpretation of "the"-phrases in discourse,
aiming at giving a computable description of the information processes
underlying so called "bridging" phenomena. To this end he has just finished
an empirical investigation of a Norwegian newspaper corpus, comprising 1808
definite descriptions. His other interests include natural language
semantics, discourse processing in general, and information retrieval.
JAN TORE LOENNING, Dept of Linguistics, U of Oslo
Cordura 214, 5-2317, loenning@csli
Jan Tore Loenning has been working on formal semantics, in particular mass
terms, plurals and generalized quantifiers. His background is from logic.
Currently he is interested in computational linguistics and its relationship
to semantics; approaches to the syntax-semantics interface, the question of
what a semantic representation represents, and the fundamental question of
what it means to compute semantics.
____________