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CSLI Calendar, 09 Nov 1995, vol.11:07
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 09 Nov 1995, vol.11:07
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From: Tom Burke <burke>
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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 20:14:42 -0800 (PST)
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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
______________________________________________________________________________
9 November 1995 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 7
______________________________________________________________________________
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 8 -- 17 NOVEMBER 1995
WEDNESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Turing Machines Revisited (II)
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 9 NOVEMBER
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Designing Applications that Help People Collaborate
Ellen Isaacs, Sun Microsystems
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 10 NOVEMBER
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
The Establishment of Identity in Virtual Communities
Judith Donath, MIT Media Lab
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
Reason and Actions
Philip Clark, UC Davis Philosophy
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
On the Need to Recognize Constructions
Adele Goldberg, UC San Diego Linguistics
Abstract below
SATURDAY, 11 NOVEMBER
10:00 - Phonology Workshop
287 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
Trilateral Phonology Weekend (TREND) V:
UC Berkeley / Stanford / UC Santa Cruz
Program below
MONDAY, 13 NOVEMBER
2:00 - Semantics Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Anchoring Definites in Discourse
Kjetil Strand, Oslo Linguistics
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER
7:00 - SSP Film Series
Cubberley Hall, Room 128
Daniel Dennett (A Glorious Accident, Part 3) (1993)
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
THURSDAY, 16 NOVEMBER
10:45 - STASS Seminar (NOTE LATER-THAN-USUAL TIME)
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Mathematical Water in the Refrigerator
Keith Devlin, CSLI & St. Mary's College
Abstract below
12:00 - Cognitive Science Lunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Consciousness as an Information Bearing Medium
Bruce Mangan, UC Berkeley Institute of Cognitive Studies
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Interpreting Discourse
Henriette de Swart, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
4:15 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Cordura Hall, Room 100
PAGODA: A Model for Autonomous Learning in
Probabilistic Domains
Marie desJardins, SRI International
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 17 NOVEMBER
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
New Voices, New Visions
Sally Rosenthal, Interval Research
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Reciprocals in Bantu: Quantification in Morphology?
Sam Mchombo, UC Berkeley 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/csli/>.
The Calendar is also posted each week to the <csli.bboard> newsgroup.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 8 November
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Turing Machines Revisited (II)
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
The reading for today's seminar is Volume III Chapter 1 of _The Middle
Distance_. A course description can be found at [http://shr.stanford.edu/
BCSmith/phil395a.html]
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 9 November
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Designing Applications that Help People Collaborate
Ellen Isaacs
Sun Microsystems
[Ellen.Isaacs@eng.sun.com]
In this talk, I will describe two multimedia-based prototype applications
developed by our group to help people collaborate when they are distributed
across different locations. I will also discuss the process we used to build
these applications to make sure they are usable and useful for people. The two
applications are Montage and Forum. Montage is a "next-generation" desktop
video conferencing system that focuses on helping people find opportune times
to interact. Forum lets speakers give live, interactive talks over the
network to participants who watch and ask questions from their desktops. To
build these tools, user interface designers and developers collaborated to use
a highly iterative process of studying use -> designing -> implementing ->
studying use, etc. We found that the process allowed us to create
easy-to-use, well-architected applications that were gratifying to the
developers, UI designers and users alike -- all without costing extra time or
expense.
ELLEN ISAACS works in SunSoft's Collaborative Computing group, an advanced
development group that studies the use of technology to help people who are in
different locations work together more closely. Her job involves designing
user interfaces for tools to support group work and studying how groups
incorporate the technology into their work. Before coming to Sun, Isaacs
worked at Stanford's Knowledge Systems Lab on a project to develop a speech
interface to a medical expert system. She received her PhD in cognitive
psychology from Stanford, where she studied language use and collaboration in
conversation. She received her BS from Brown University in psychology and
semiotics.
_____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 10 November
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
The Establishment of Identity in Virtual Communities
Judith Donath
MIT Media Lab
[judith@media.mit.edu]
When you first meet someone, a multitude of details -- many gleaned
subconsciously -- go into creating your impression of the new acquaintance.
The same is true when you meet someone online, except that there are far fewer
details to observe and the resulting impression is quite sketchy. With more
and more of our social interactions occuring online, the question of how to
make this virtual impression more vibrant and meaningful becomes increasingly
important.
I will begin this talk by examining how identity is established online today
in Usenet news and Web home pages. In these technologically constrained
environments, some very interesting ways of establishing (or hiding) one's
personal identity have evolved. And, for the designer, it is the constraints
which are most interesting -- which ones have had the most impact on the
resulting culture? And which are the most important to remove? I will then
discuss designs for more sociable interfaces, focusing on the design and
implementation of the recent Media Lab / Art Technology Group project: A Day
in the Life of Cyberspace.
JUDITH DONATH is a doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab. Her research
focuses on the social side of computing -- on the online communities and
virtual identities and computer-mediated collaborations that have emerged with
the convergence of computing and communication. Prior to entering the doctoral
program she taught interface design, produced multimedia applications and
designed educational software.
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 10 November
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
Reason and Actions
Philip Clark
UC Davis Philosophy
[pclark@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 10 November
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
On the Need to Recognize Constructions
Adele Goldberg
UC San Diego Linguistics
[aegoldberg@ucsd.edu]
Basic sentence patterns of a language are traditionally taken to be determined
by semantic or syntactic information specified by the main verb in the
sentence. Thus, the sentence patterns given in (1) and (2) appear to be
determined by the specifications of give and put respectively:
1. Chris GAVE Pat a ball.
2. Pat PUT the ball on the table.
In this talk I will argue that while (1) and (2) represent perhaps the
prototypical case, sentence patterns of a language are not reliably determined
by independent specifications of the main verb. For example, it is implausible
to claim that sneeze has a three argument sense in (3):
3. Pat SNEEZED the foam off the cappuccino.
The following attested examples similarly involve sentential patterns that do
not seem to be determined by independent specification of the main verb:
4. "My father FROWNED away the compliment."
5. "We LAUGHED our conversation to an end."
6. "Pauline SMILED her thanks."
7. "The Miami quarterback was BOO-ED to the bench."
It is argued, on the basis of linguistic and psycholinguistic evidence, that
lexically unfilled phrasal constructions exist and contribute significantly to
the overall semantic interpretation. In addition, a way to capture linking
generalizations across constructions is discussed.
It is suggested that the recognition of phrasal constructions corresponding to
basic sentence patterns leads one toward a view of grammar in which the
construction (or sign): any non-predictable form-meaning pairing, plays a
central role.
Note: Linguistics Colloquium abstracts are available at
[http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/~kessler/colloq/].
____________
PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Saturday, 11 November
starting 10:00 a.m., 287 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
Trilateral Phonology Weekend (TREND) V
UC Berkeley / Stanford / UC Santa Cruz
[contact: inkelas@cogsci.berkeley.edu]
Program:
10:00 Coffee and pastries
10:30 Ronald Sprouse, UC Berkeley
"Vowels that borrow moras: Geminates and weight in OT"
11:05 Edward Flemming, Stanford University
"Vowels undergo consonant harmony"
11:40 Philip Spaelti, UC Santa Cruz
TBA (re: reduplication)
12:15 Andrew Dolbey, UC Berkeley
"Cyclic allomorph optimization in Sami"
12:50 Lunch
2:20 Arman Maghbouleh, Stanford University
"Detecting prominences using a vowel duration model (building
blocks for a numerical model of duration)"
2:55 Chris Albert, UC Santa Cruz
TBA (re: Turkana vowel harmony)
3:30 Susanne Gahl, UC Berkeley
"Mathimathi stress is not onset-sensitive"
4:05 Happy hour
____________
SEMANTICS SEMINAR
on Monday, 13 November
2:00 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Anchoring of Definites in Discourse
Kjetil Strand
Oslo Linguistics
[kstrand@csli.stanford.edu]
A number of theories on definiteness agree that interpretation of
"the"-phrases relies on one ore more contextual elements to identify the
reference unambiguously. Spelled out in the framework of DRT, there should be
at least one discourse referent A available in the DRS which the discourse
referent D corresponding to the definite noun phrase should be related to by a
condition L(D,A). I will refer to the familiar discourse referent A by the
term "anchor", and to the relation L that obtains between D and A by the term
"link". According to this view, the interpretation process involves both
location of anchors and identification of links, yielding an unambiguous
reading of the definite noun phrase.
In this talk I will focus on the taxonomy of linking relations, as the
computability of the account will depend on the possibility to give precise
descriptions of the different kinds of links involved. I want to propose a set
of 5 main classes and 20 subclasses of linking relations, and I show how they
distribute in a Norwegian newspaper corpus comprising 1808 "the"-phrases. I
also present the results regarding the location of anchors. To my own
surprise, I found as many as 86% of the anchors provided by the text itself,
that is, the anchor(s) were expressed by linguistic means.
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 14 November
7:00 p.m., Cubberley Hall, Room 128
Daniel Dennett (A Glorious Accident, Part 3) (1993)
This 100 minute video is from the 8-part Dutch series, "A Glorious Accident:
Understanding Our Place in the Cosmic Puzzle," produced by Wim Kayzer. This
series brings together some of the greatest scientific thinkers of our time,
recording their thoughts, their speculations, their questions on man's place
in the cosmic puzzle. Part 3 features Daniel Dennett, a philosophy professor
>From Tufts University, who is well known for his work in the philosophy of
mind and is, most recently, the author of _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_.
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 videos is
followed by a discussion, and researchers who are knowledgeable about the
program's topic are urged to join us in evaluating it.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 15 November
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 16 November
10:45 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
(NOTE LATER-THAN-USUAL TIME)
Mathematical Water in the Refrigerator
Keith Devlin
CSLI & St.Mary's College
[devlin@csli.stanford.edu]
A common objection to mathematical models of meaning is that they assume words
have fixed meanings, or at most a small finite range of meanings. In their
book _Understanding Computers and Cognition_, Winograd and Flores use the
example of "water" in the refrigerator to illustrate how a seemingly simple
noun can have an indefinite number of "meanings", depending on the context of
use. Likewise, in his book _Arenas of Language Use_, Herb Clark provides
numerous examples of "ad hocing", whereby the meaning of a particular word (or
phrase) is determined by the speaker and listener in a given context.
Objections such as these seem to restrict the applicability of relational
models of meaning such as the situation-theoretic models presented in Barwise
and Perry's _Situations and Attitudes_ and my own _Logic and Information_.
However, I recently discovered a relational model of meaning that does capture
ad hocing. (The model uses standard situation-theoretic apparatus.) The talk
will describe the model, and illustrate its range with examples from
Winograd-Flores, Clark, and Harvey Sacks.
PLEASE NOTE: The seminar will start 45 minutes later than usual, at 10:45am,
as the speaker is flying back from Reno that morning. (Any additional delay
should be blamed on Southwest Airlines.)
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 16 November
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Consciousness as an Information Bearing Medium
Bruce Mangan
UC Berkeley Institute of Cognitive Studies
[mangan@cogsci.berkeley.edu]
I propose to formalize the notion of consciousness in a slightly new way:
consciousness is simply one information bearing medium, among many others, at
work in our organism. In general, scientific analysis of a biological
information bearing medium (e.g., of DNA or the fluid in the cochlea) aim to
answer at least two related but different questions: (1) what information does
the medium bear? and (2) in what specific *way* does the medium bear its
information? Answering the first question lets us assert that something
belongs to the *genus* information bearing media, answering the second lets us
assert its uniqueness as a subordinate *species*.
Common-sense notions about consciousness usually emphasize its unique aspect,
while cognitive science usually does the opposite, treating consciousness as
if its generic status as an information bearing medium is all we need to
consider. But each stance tacitly recognizes the other in many cases, and I
believe there is no necessary conflict between them. In particular I will
claim that (1) consciousness tends to bear information that is relevant to
novel evaluations either expected or at hand; (2) consciousness bears its
information as experience, or qualia. In doing so, I hope to sharpen the core
dispute between functionalism and its enemies, and try to show a way out of
one research dead around the notion of qualia.
A description and schedule for the CogLunch series on consciousness can be
found at [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/9495reps/coglunch.html].
Fall Calendar:
October 12: Owen Flanagan (Philosophy, Duke U.)
19: Ernest Hilgard (Psychology, Stanford U.)
26: John McCarthy (Computer Science, Stanford U.)
November 2: Fred Dretske (Philosophy, Stanford U.)
9: IAP EVENTS (No CogLunch)
16: Bruce Mangan (Cognitive Science, UC Berkeley)
23: THANKSGIVING (No CogLunch)
30: Henry Stapp (Physics, Berkeley Livermore Labs)
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 16 November
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Interpreting Discourse
Henriette de Swart
Stanford Linguistics
[deswart@csli.stanford.edu]
Many syntactic and semantic theories focus on the structure and meaning of
sentences. But communication typically involves a sequence of sentences which
hang together in a certain way. This means that we have to look beyond the
meaning of individual sentences and determine the way they are pieced together
to make a coherent discourse. In recent years, a number of linguistic
theories have been developed which take the discourse as their primary
syntactic and semantic unit. In this talk, I give an overview of some of the
general issues involved in the analysis of discourse, such as structure and
use, the role of context and situation, information structuring, etc. I
illustrate some of the similarities and differences between various approaches
to discourse with the way they treat reference to individuals. Questions
which arise are: which form does reference to individuals take? how are
discourse anaphora licensed? how do we find the antecedent of an anaphor? The
answers given to these questions reflect the different perspectives adopted in
the study of natural language in human communication.
HENRIETTE DE SWART is an assistant professor in the Linguistics Department at
Stanford University. She got her PhD from the University of Groningen (the
Netherlands) and was one of the coordinators of the cognitive science program
in Groningen for a year. She continued to be affiliated with the program when
she obtained a research fellowship granted by the Royal Dutch Academy of
Sciences. At Stanford, she teaches classes in semantics and pragmatics. Her
current research focuses on phenomena both at the sentential and at the
discourse level, such as negation, quantification, anaphoric relations, focus,
tense and aspect.
_____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
on Thursday, 16 November
4:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
PAGODA: A Model for Autonomous Learning in Probabilistic Domains
Marie desJardins
SRI International
[contact: langley@cs.stanford.edu]
PAGODA (Probabilistic Autonomous GOal-Directed Agent) is a model for
autonomous learning in probabilistic domains that incorporates innovative
techniques for using the agent's existing knowledge to guide and constrain the
learning process and for representing, reasoning with, and learning
probabilistic knowledge. This talk presents an overview of the PAGODA
learning model and describes in detail the probabilistic representation and
inference mechanism used in the system. PAGODA forms theories about the
effects of its actions and the world state on the environment over time.
These theories are represented as conditional probability distributions. A
restriction is imposed on the structure of the theories that allows the
inference mechanism to find a unique predicted distribution for any action and
world state description. These restricted theories are called "uniquely
predictive theories." The inference mechanism, Probability Combination using
Independence (PCI), uses minimal independence assumptions to combine the
probabilities in a theory to make probabilistic predictions.
_____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 17 November
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
New Voices, New Visions
Sally Rosenthal
Interval Research
[rosenthal@interval.com]
As the personal computer comes of age, it has evolved into an essential tool
for film makers, writers, musicians, animators, photographers, and designers.
As the artistic community becomes more intrigued and integrated with the
available technology, we are witnessing the birth of a new genre: works
created expressly for the computer.
Last year more than 2,000 people from around the world responded to our call
for entries and 550 of them sent their work for review. The winning pieces
were shown to a sell-out audience at the New York Video Festival and were
exhibited for two weeks at Stanford University. We are again seeking digital
works from the creative community. See [http://www.nvnv.org/] for entry
requirements, contact information, and other details.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 17 November
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Reciprocals in Bantu: Quantification in Morphology?
Sam Mchombo
UC Berkeley Linguistics
[mchombo@garnet.berkeley.edu]
____________