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CSLI Calendar, 11 Jan 1996, vol.11:11
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 11 Jan 1996, vol.11:11
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From: Tom Burke <burke>
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Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 13:06:11 -0800 (PST)
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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
______________________________________________________________________________
11 January 1996 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 11
______________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
__________________________________
| |
| !! HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE !! |
|__________________________________|
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CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 11 -- 19 JANUARY 1996
THURSDAY, 11 JANUARY
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Reasoning about Knowledge
Joe Halpern, IBM Almaden Research Center
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 12 JANUARY
10:00 - Discussion Group
Cordura Hall, Room 104
Discussion Group on Object Theory
Ed Zalta, CSLI
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
The Socialization of Cyberspace: From Habitat to the
Full Service Network
Doug Crockford and Randy Farmer, Electric Communities
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
Spinoza's Substance Monism
Michael Della Rocca, Yale Philosophy
TUESDAY, 16 JANUARY
7:00p - SSP Film Series
Cubberley Hall, Room 128
The Paperback Computer (The Machine That Changed the
World, Part 3) (1992)
7:15p - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Readings in Computation: The Origin of Objects
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 17 JANUARY
3:15 - Speech Recognition Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Developing Continuous Speech Recognition Applications
Tom Veatch, Sprex Inc.
Abstract below
4:15 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Theory Revision in Fault Hierarchies
Pat Langley, Stanford Robotics Lab
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 18 JANUARY
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Applying Situation Theory to Study Communication
in the Workplace
Keith Devlin, CSLI & St.Mary's College
and Duska Rosenberg, Brunel University
Abstract below
12:00 - Cognitive Science Lunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Development of Children's Knowledge About Thinking
and Consciousness
John Flavell, Stanford Psychology
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 19 JANUARY
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Social Activity on Networked Systems
Mark Ackerman, UC Irvine Computer Science
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Title to be announced
Edward Flemming, Stanford Linguistics
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears on Wednesdays weekly 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.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 11 January
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Reasoning about Knowledge
Joe Halpern
IBM Almaden Research Center
[halpern@almaden.ibm.com]
Reasoning about knowledge -- what I know about what you know about what I know
about ... -- is the type of reasoning that is often seen in puzzles and
paradoxes, and has been studied at length by philosophers. Recently, it's
been shown to play a key role in a surprising number of other contexts, from
understanding conversations to the analysis of distributed computer
algorithms.
I'll start the talk by considering a number of well-known puzzles and
paradoxes, which both illustrate the subtleties of reasoning about knowledge
and the advantages of having a good framework in which to make this reasoning
precise. These puzzles also turn out to be closely related to important
problems in distributed computing and game theory. In particular, they
emphasize the importance of the notion of common knowledge, which turns out to
be essential for reaching agreements and coordinating action. Unfortunately,
we can prove that in practical multi-agent systems, common knowledge is not
attainable. This seems somewhat paradoxical. How can common knowledge be
both necessary and unattainable? The paradox gets resolved (to some extent)
by examining a number of variants of common knowledge that turn out to be both
attainable and sufficient for many applications.
JOSEPH Y. HALPERN received a Bs.C. in mathematics from the University of
Toronto in 1975 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard in 1981. In between,
he spent two years as the head of the Mathematics Department at Bawku
Secondary School, in Ghana. After a year as a visiting scientist at MIT, he
joined the IBM Almaden Research Center in 1982, where he is currently a
research staff member. He is also a consulting professor in the Computer
Science Department at Stanford University. From 1988 to 1990, he was the
manager of the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department at IBM.
His major research interests are in reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty,
distributed computation, and logics of programs. He was program chairman and
organizer of the first conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about
Knowledge, program chairman of the fifth ACM Symposium on Principles of
Distributed Computing, and program chairman of the 23rd ACM Symposium on
Theory of Computing. He was the recipient of the Publishers' Prize at the
1985 and the 1989 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence,
and is a Fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. He is
currently editor of the {\em Journal of the ACM}, {\em Information and
Computation}, {\em Journal of Logic and Computation}, and {\em Chicago Journal
of Theoretical Computer Science}. He has coauthored over 130 articles in
journals and conferences, and holds four patents on work on clock
synchronization and load management. His work on knowledge was recognized as
one of the top IBM Research Division accomplishments in 1986, and Halpern has
received IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards for both his work on knowledge and
his work on fault tolerance.
____________
DISCUSSION GROUP
on Friday, 12 January
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Discussion Group on Object Theory
Ed Zalta
CSLI
[zalta@mally.stanford.edu]
The Discussion Group on Object Theory will resume meeting on Friday mornings,
10 to 12, in Cordura 104. The first meeting of the quarter will be Friday,
January 12. We will begin discussing the final two sections of the manuscript
Principia Metaphysica (http://mally.stanford.edu/theory.html). Section 14 is
on the theory of mathematical objects and relations, and Section 15 is on the
theory of Fregean logical objects.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 12 January
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
The Socialization of Cyberspace: From Habitat
to the Full Service Network
Doug Crockford and Randy Farmer
Electric Communities
[randy@communities.com]
Electric Communities aims to develop an enabling software technology called
the Cyberspace Operating System (or COS) which supports online markets and
social communities. This technology will reside in a network environment
which, by design, can scale to serve everyone in the world adequately.
COS is designed explicitly to provide a secure and robust platform for fully
decentralized operation. Decentralization, a guiding principle of the
Internet, is the only means by which the commercial and social environment can
scale large enough to become a self-sustaining mass medium. However,
decentralization can increase the vulnerability of systems to hacking;
therefore, COS provides a rigorous security model that protects computers and
their communications far more reliably than Firewalls and other security
band-aids. This level of security will become increasingly important, because
a significant portion of the world's monetary system is going to move into the
Net. Electric Communities will establish COS as an open standard by publishing
the specifications of the protocols it implements, by publishing a reference
implementation, and by making the COS standard available to all parties
without royalties.
COS has been developed on the basis of previous experience with Habitat, a
graphical online multi-person environment, and AMiX (American Information
Exchange), which provided the first electronic information marketplace for
buying and selling business information and consulting services under open
market conditions. These and other examples of virtual communities will be
described and discussed.
For more details, see [http://www.communities.com]
DOUGLAS CROCKFORD is the president of Electric Communities, the world's
foremost Cyberspace design and development company. Previously, Doug was
Director of Technology at Lucasfilm Ltd. and Director of New Media at
Paramount.
F. RANDALL FARMER is the VP for Services at Electric Communities, and has been
building virtual communities for over 18 years, including multiplayer games,
chat systems, and bulletin boards. He has been most deeply involved with
"habitats" (graphical virtual environments with avatars and has written
extensively on the technology and sociology of these new worlds.
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 12 January
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
Spinoza's Substance Monism
Michael Della Rocca
Yale Philosophy
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 16 January
7:00 p.m., Cubberley Hall, Room 128
The Paperback Computer (The Machine That
Changed the World, Part 3) (1992)
This 58 minute video is the third of five installments of "The Machine That
Changed the World," a WGBH-BBC series about the past, present, and future of
computing. Local researchers and Silicon Valley pioneers are featured
prominently. "The Paperback Computer" shows how room-sized computers evolved
into desktop machines easy enough for a child to use. It covers the Apple
story, the development of microprocessors, and the innovative work of Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Michael Markkula. Parts 1 and 2 of the series were
shown in January, and Part 4 will be shown next week.
The Symbolic Systems Film Series showcases films and tapes of general
cognitive science interest. Attendance at film series events 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 Tuesday, 16 January
7:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Readings in Computation: The Origin of Objects
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
Two decades of studying computational practice has led me to develop a new
metaphysics: one that aims to integrate realism and constructivism, unify
representation and ontology under a single notion of registration, and
reconstruct the notion of an object, pretty much from scratch.
The proposal is laid out in a book, "On the Origin of Objects", due from MIT
this spring. This seminar will read and discuss the book, a chapter per week.
(Copies to be distributed at the first session, January 9.)
Open to anyone of a metaphysical bent.
____________
SPEECH RECOGNITION WORKSHOP
on Wednesday, 17 January
3:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Developing Continuous Speech Recognition Applications
Tom Veatch
Sprex Inc.
[veatch@sprex.com]
This talk will provide a conceptual overview and cursory technical
introduction to methods and engineering requirements for development of
applications capable of continuous, speaker-independent speech recognition.
* The state of the art: Recent ARPA Benchmark results.
* Components of a continuous recognition system.
* Hidden Markov models: structure and methods for training and decoding.
* Model richness vs. data sparseness: achieving an optimal balance.
* Solving the problems posed by continuous speech, large vocabulary,
and speaker independence.
* A procedure for converting speech data into a working recognizer.
TOM VEATCH has a PhD in Linguistics under Mark Liberman at the University of
Pennsylvania (thesis: "English Vowels"). He was Visiting Assistant Professor
at Stanford in 1991-1993, and has given previous talks at CSLI on hidden
Markov models. Recently he started Sprex, Inc., a software company
specializing in speech recognition and synthesis products.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
on Wednesday, 17 January
4:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Theory Revision in Fault Hierarchies
Pat Langley
Stanford Robotics Lab
[langley@cs.stanford.edu]
The fault hierarchy representation is widely used in expert systems for the
diagnosis of complex mechanical devices. On the assumption that an appropriate
bias for knowledge representation is also an appropriate bias for learning in
this domain, we have developed Delta, a theory revision system that operates
directly on fault hierarchies. In this talk I describe Delta's learning
operators and control strategy, along with experimental studies of the
system's behavior on fault hierarchies from a fielded expert diagnostic
system. I also discuss some challenges that arise in evaluating such a
system, such as the fact that training cases are missing most feature values
and that the pattern of missing features is significant, rather than merely an
effect of noise.
This talk describes work done jointly with George Drastal, Bharat Rao, and
Russ Greiner.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 18 January
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Applying Situation Theory to Study Communication in the Workplace
Keith Devlin, CSLI & St.Mary's College
and Duska Rosenberg, Brunel University
[devlin@csli.stanford.edu, duska.rosenberg@brunel.ac.uk]
During the past five years we have been applying situation theory to analyze
the flow of information in the workplace. We are nearing completion of a
detailed study of a particular data corpus from a large computer company.
Interim reports on that work have appeared as a series of CSLI Reports, and a
comprehensive treatment will shortly appear as a CSLI Lecture Notes volume. We
are contemplating extending our work to various other areas of application,
including education and virtual enterprises. In our talk, we will survey the
work so far, and speculate on the future developments.
Note: Next week the STASS group will continue its reading of the
Barwise-Seligman manuscript. Contact Eric Hammer [ehammer@csli.stanford.edu]
for a copy of the manuscript, and read through the first three chapters.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 18 January
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Development of Children's Knowledge About
Thinking and Consciousness
John Flavell
Stanford Psychology
Most theory of mind research has dealt with children's knowledge about mental
states such as beliefs and desires. In contrast, our recent research focuses
on their knowledge about mental activities and experiences such as thinking
and consciousness.
In this talk, I will first summarize what our research suggests that
preschoolers know about such activities and experiences, and then summarize
what they appear not to know.
COGLUNCH WINTER SCHEDULE
Theme: Consciousness
1/18: JOHN FLAVELL (Psychology, Stanford U.) "The Development of Children's
Knowledge About Thinking and Consciousness"
1/25: GUVEN GUZELDERE (Philosophy & CSLI, Stanford U.) "The Nature of
Phenomenal Consciousness"
2/01: DAVID SPIEGEL (Psychiatry, Stanford U.) "Disintegrated Experience:
Dissociation, Hypnosis and Trauma"
2/08: PAT SUPPES (Philosophy, Stanford U.) "The Scientific Study of
Consciousness: Problems and Prospects"
2/15: BRIAN WANDELL (Psychology, Stanford U.) "Imaging Human Brain Activity"
2/22: WALTER FREEMAN (Neurobiology, UC Berkeley) "A Biological View of
Consciousness and Intentionality"
2/29: DAVID CHALMERS (Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz) "On the Search for a Neural
Correlate of Consciousness"
3/07: ALAN WALLACE (Religious Studies, Stanford U.) "Attentional Training,
Introspection, and the Investigation of Consciousness in Tibetan
Buddhism"
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 19 January
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Social Activity on Networked Systems
Mark Ackerman
UC Irvine Computer Science
[ackerman@ics.uci.edu]
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 19 Friday
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Title to be announced
Edward Flemming
Stanford Linguistics
[flemming@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
NEW CSLI VISITORS
Jim Blevins
Centre for Linguistics
University of Western Australia
[jblevins@csli.stanford.edu]
Nils Dahlaback
Cognitive Science Program
Linkoping University, Sweden
[nilsd@csli.stanford.edu]
Christopher Gauker
Department of Philosophy
University of Cincinnati
[gauker@csli.stanford.edu]
Hartley Slater
Department of Philosophy
University of Western Australia
[slater@csli.stanford.edu]
____________