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CSLI Calendar, 11 Apr 1996, vol.11:22




        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 April 1996                     Stanford                     Vol. 11, No. 22
______________________________________________________________________________

      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 -- 19 APRIL 1996

  THURSDAY, 11 APRIL
        12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
                Cordura Hall, Room 100
                Awareness, Mental Phenomena, and Consciousness:
                A Synthesis of Dennett and Rosenthal
                Teed Rockwell, Berkeley
                Abstract below

         4:15 - SSP Forum
                Building 60, Room 61-F
                Automated WYWIWYG Design of Analog Electrical Circuits
                Using Genetic Programming
                David Andre, Stanford Computer Science
                Abstract below

  FRIDAY, 12 APRIL
        12:00 - Logic Lunch
                Building 380, Room 380-N
                Divisibility Relations for Natural Deductions in Linear Logic
                Grigori Mints, Stanford Philosophy
                Abstract below

        12:30 - HCI Seminar
                Skilling Auditorium
                Interactive Sketching for the Early Stages of User
                Interface Design
                James Landay, Carnegie Mellon University
                Abstract below

        7:00pm- CLRF Conference
                Cordura Hall, Room 100
                28th Annual Child Language Research Forum
                Friday--Sunday, April 12-14
                [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/clrf]
                Abstract below

  MONDAY, 15 APRIL
         1:15 - Semantics Workshop
                Cordura Hall, Room 100
                A Situation Semantic Account of Existential Sentences
                (Dissertation Proposal)
                Yookyung Kim, Stanford Linguistics
                Abstract below

  TUESDAY, 16 APRIL
         6:30 - SSP Film Series
                Cubberley Education Building, Room 128
                Does Mind Matter? Minds, Brains, and Science [interview with
                John Searle] (1988) and
                Thinking About Thinking [interview with Michael
                Scriven] (1987)
                Abstract below

  WEDNESDAY, 17 APRIL
         4:15 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
                Gates Hall, Room 104
                Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Focusing Challenges
                Thomas P. Reinartz, Daimler-Benz
                Abstract below

  THURSDAY, 18 APRIL
        12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
                Cordura Hall, Room 100
                My Experience, Your Experience, and the World We Experience
                Roger Shepard, Stanford Psychology

         4:15 - SSP Forum
                Building 60, Room 61-F
                Title to be announced
                Yul Kwon

  FRIDAY, 19 APRIL
        12:30 - HCI Seminar
                Skilling Auditorium
                International User Interface Design
                Tony Fernandes, Netscape

         3:30 - Linguistics Department Colloquium
                Building 460, Room 146
                On the Disputed Origins of Caribbean Spanish
                Armin Schwegler, UC Irvine
                Abstract below

                               ____________

The CSLI Calendar appears weekly on Wednesdays throughout the academic year.
Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in the Calendar can
be submitted to [mailto:incalendar@csli.stanford.edu].

Information about CSLI's research program and past issues of the CSLI Calendar
are available at [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/].  The CSLI Calendar is
also posted each week to [news://nntp-csli.stanford.edu/csli.bboard].

                               ____________

                       CSLI INTERFACE LAB TUTORIALS
                     on 13--16 May 1996, Cordura Hall
                      Four Days of Tutorials on the
         Internet, Human Interfaces to Communication Technology,
            Automatic Speech Recognition, and Machine Learning
              [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Workshop/]

A full schedule, a list of speakers, and registration information may be found
at the URL given above.  Topics covered on each day are as follows:

 May 13: THE INTERNET
 New Developments in Education, Business, Medicine, Engineering.

The first day's tutorial covers a range of topics centered on the design and
development of effective internet technologies:
 * Internet Agents -- software tools for finding and accessing information on
   the internet;
 * Distance Learning -- delivery of traditional lectures and educational
   material over the internet; new ways of participating in interactive study
   groups; organizing training material so that it can be found on demand;
 * Professional Support Systems -- providing doctors with diagnostic
   information over the internet; professional teamwork on the internet;
 * Digital Libraries -- providing new ways of storing and finding information
   stored in libraries, especially over the Net.

 May 14: HUMAN INTERFACE DESIGN
 Social Responses to Communication Technology

People respond subconsciously to computers, and other devices that convey
information, as if the devices were capable of thoughts and feelings.
Pioneering research being carried out at Stanford shows how social rules can
be exploited to improve Interface design.  Experiments performed by the
creators of this field will be discussed.  Interface designers are strongly
encouraged to attend this seminar.

 May 15: AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION
 New Developments in Spoken Language Computer Interfaces

The third day covers theoretical and practical aspects of Automatic Speech
Recognition. After nearly 30 years of gradual progress, ASR is now showing up
everywhere, over the phone, on PCs, and soon on the internet. The history,
theory, current practice, and future of the ASR field is treated in this
tutorial by several acknowledged authorities in the area who have both
industrial and academic experience.

 May 16: MACHINE LEARNING
 New Developments in Data Mining

The fourth day tutorial reviews computational techniques -- known as machine
learning or data mining -- designed to support this activity, then examines
the main stages of the knowledge discovery process, drawing on illustrative
examples from successsful industrial efforts. Applications to be discussed
include mechanical diagnosis, control problems, and financial prediction.

For more information, contact Michele King [mailto:mking@csli.stanford.edu].

                               ____________

                           COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT
                        on Fridays, Spring Quarter
                    10:00 a.m., Building 60, Room 62-M
                Topics in Logic, Language, and Computation
                              Philosophy 298
                            Johan van Benthem
                        [johan@csli.stanford.edu]

This year's topic is categorial grammars and proof theories for natural
language.  The following topics will be covered:

    1. Categorial grammar: history and basics
    2. Categorial deduction and substructural logics
       (linear, relevant, constructive, dynamic)
    3. Curry-Howard-deBruyn isomorphism: connections between
       linguistic interpretation and lambda calculus/type theory
    4. Proof theory and linguistic recognizing power:
       results by Buszkowski, Pentus, Kanazawa
    5. General type-theoretic semantics: linking up with generalized
       quantifiers and Booleans (cf. Partee & Roth, Keenan & Faltz)
    6. Completeness for various models: syntactic, dynamic:
       results by Andreka & Mikulas, Pentus, Kurtonina
    7. Modal strategies for resource management (Moortgat, Morrill)
    8. Labeled deductive systems for linguistics (Gabbay & Kempson)
    9. Proof theory and natural language: perspectives on dynamics
       (relating CHB algorithmics with dynamic logic)

References:

 * J. van Benthem, 1991, "Language in Action", North-Holland, Amsterdam
   (reprinted with addenda as a MIT paperback, 1995).
 * M. Moortgat, 1996, 'TypeLogical Grammars', a chapter in the "Handbook of
   Logic and Language" (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1996).
 * Other material will be made available during the course.

All relevant material will be available on reserve in Tanner Library,
Philosophy Department, Encina Hall (fourth floor).

                               ____________

                           COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT
                        on Mondays, Spring Quarter
                   1:15 p.m., Building 550, Room 550-D
                            Intensional Logic
                              Philosophy 168
                            Johan van Benthem
                        [johan@csli.stanford.edu]

This is an introduction to modal logic, consisting of a base part with an
emphasis on current semantic techniques, followed by a special topics part,
including presentations by Ph.D. students and visiting scholars. This year's
topics are the following:

   Week 1.  Introduction
        2.  Semantic games and bisimulation
        3.  Computing frame correspondences
        4.  Testing validity
        5.  Modal predicate logic
        6.  Dynamic logic of programs
        7.  Conditional and nonmonotonic logics
        8.  Special topics (tentative): epistemic logic, belief revision,
            partial modal logic

References:

 * J. van Benthem, 1988, "A Manual of Intensional Logic", CSLI Publications,
   Stanford
 * R. Goldblatt, 1987, "Logics of Time and Computation", CSLI Publications,
   Stanford
 * P. Blackburn, M. de Rijke, and Y. Venema, 1996, "A Course in Modal Logic",
   department of computer science, University of Warwick
   (Maarten.de.Rijke@dcs.warwick.ac.uk).

Further material will be made available in Tanner Library (Phil Dept).

                               ____________

                              CSLI COGLUNCH
                          on Thursday, 11 April
                    12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
             Awareness, Mental Phenomena, and Consciousness:
                   A Synthesis of Dennett and Rosenthal
                              Teed Rockwell
                                 Berkeley

The problem of consciousness has at least three things to account for: (1)
awareness, (2) mental phenomena, and (3) a unified sense of self.  I show that
Dennett and his critics frequently talk past each other by conflating these
three with the single term "consciousness".  Once we make this distinction, we
can see that Dennett's critique of the Stalinist-Orwellian distinction,
althoug basically valid, has no necessary connection to the Multiple Drafts
Model (MDM).  The MDM, however, does have important things to say about the
relationship between awareness and the sense of self, once we follow David
Rosenthal's advice and separate the MDM from first person operationalism.


                         COGLUNCH SPRING SCHEDULE
                           Theme: Consciousness

The Thursday noon CogLunch series on consciousness will continue
through the Spring Quarter, starting in April.  Here is a tentative
schedule of speakers and titles of the talks:

   April 4: MARLEEN ROZEMOND (Philosophy, Stanford U.)
            "Descartes and Consciousness"
        11: TEED ROCKWELL (Berkeley, CA) 
            "Awareness, Mental Phenomena, and Consciousness:
             A Synthesis of Dennett and Rosenthal"
        18: ROGER SHEPARD (Psychology, Stanford U.)
            "My Experience, Your Experience, and the World We Experience"
        25: JOHN GABRIELI (Psychology, Stanford U.)
            "Consciousness as the Gatekeeper of Memory"
   May   2: BRIAN SMITH (Xerox PARC & Philosophy, Stanford U.)
            "Who's on Third?  The Physical Bases of Consciousness"
         9: BOB ZAJONC (Psychology, Stanford U.)
            "Unappraised Affect"
        16: MICHAEL CORNER (Netherlands Institute for Brain Research)
            "Prologomena to Any Future Mind-Brain Synthesis, and
             a Theory About the Nature of Self-Consciousness: 
             Phenomenological and Physiological Constraints"
        23: JOHN PERRY [Commentary: G. Guzeldere]
            "Indexicality and the Knowledge Argument"
        30: KEN TAYLOR (Philosophy, Stanford U.)
            "The Hard Problem of Consciousness may not be
             Solvable, but Dualism is Still False"
   June  6: Dead Week

                               ____________

                          SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
                          on Thursday, 11 April
                    4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
          Automated WYWIWYG Design of Analog Electrical Circuits
                        Using Genetic Programming
                               David Andre
                        Stanford Computer Science
                      [andre@flamingo.stanford.edu]
        
I will briefly review genetic programming and then describe an automated
requirements-driven process for designing analog electrical circuits based on
the principles of natural selection, sexual recombination, and developmental
biology.

The design process starts with the random creation of a primordial ooze of
program trees composed of circuit-constructing and component-setting
functions.  Each program tree in the population specifies the steps by which a
single fully developed circuit is to be progressively developed from a very
simple embryonic circuit.  Each fully developed circuit is translated into a
netlist, simulated using a modified version of SPICE, and evaluated as to how
well it satisfies the user's requirements for the circuit to be designed.  The
fitness measure is a user-written computer program that may incorporate any
calculable characteristic or combination of characteristics of the circuit,
including the circuit's behavior in the time domain, its behavior in the
frequency domain, its power consumption, the number of components, cost of
components, or surface area occupied by its components.  That is, the design
process is a requirement-driven "What You Want Is What You Get" ("WYWIWYG"
pronounced "wow-eee-wig") process.  The population of program trees is
genetically bred over a series of many generations using genetic programming.
Genetic programming is driven by a fitness measure and employs genetic
operations such as Darwinian reproduction, sexual recombination (crossover),
and occasional mutation to create offspring.  This automated evolutionary
process produces both the topology of the circuit and the numerical values for
each component.  This talk describes how genetic programming can evolve the
circuit for various difficult-to-design filters and other circuits.

DAVID ANDRE graduated from Stanford in 1994 with degrees in Symbolic Systems
and Psychology.  Since that time, he has been working as a researcher at
Genetic Algorithm Technology Corporation working with Dr. John Koza pursuing
research in Genetic Programming.  In addition, David is a Visiting Scholar in
the Computer Science deptartment and is working with Dr. Genesereth, Dr.
Tomasi, and Illah Nourbakhsh on research into robotics and a new depth-sensing
method, depth from focus.  He is currently attempting to decide between grad
school choices.

Collaborators: John R. Koza, Forrest H. Bennett III, and Martin A. Keane.

                               ____________

                             CLRF CONFERENCE
                      on Friday--Sunday, 12-14 April
			  Cordura Hall, Room 100
                28th Annual Child Language Research Forum
                [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/clrf/]

For a complete schedule, see the URL given above.  All the meeting sessions
will be held in Cordura Hall, Room 100 (at Center for the Study of Language
and Information), Stanford University.  This building is located on Campus
Drive, between the Medical School and the exit onto Junipero Serra Blvd.  From
Palo Alto, take Palm Drive, then turn right onto Campus Drive until you see
"CSLI" signposted (a left-hand turn) after passing the Medical School on your
right.  For a detailed map, with a zoom on the location of Cordura Hall,
please consult the CSLI homepage [http://csli-www.stanford.edu/]

The Proceedings of the 27th Child Language Research Forum (1995) have been
published by the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford,
and are now available from Cambridge University Press.  The Proceedings of
previous CLRF meetings published by CSLI are also available from the same
source.  Look for CUP's Spring Catalogue for 1996.

REGISTRATION (fee includes program booklet): Walk-in registration will be $15
for students, $35 for non-students.

                               ____________

                               LOGIC LUNCH
                           on Friday, 12 April
                   12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 380-N
      Divisibility Relations for Natural Deductions in Linear Logic
                              Grigori Mints
                           Stanford Philosophy
                        [mints@csli.stanford.edu]

One of the advantages of natural deduction is the uniqueness of the normal
form.  Tensor-elimination rule of linear logic gives rise to the same kind of
non-uniqueness as the tensor-antecedent rule of the sequent calculus, and
proof nets were introduced to deal with this.  We show how to restore
uniqueness for multiplicative-additive (!- and constant-free) intuitionistic
linear logic without changing language or rules but preserving Curry-Howard
isomorphism.

Uniqueness proof develops and uses a view of the tensor-elimination rule as a
kind of multiplication of deductions, and employs corresponding divisibility
relation.  It provides an easy method for checking whether a simply typed
lambda-term with two kinds of pairing corresponds to some deduction in linear
logic.  Such terms generally are not linear, i.e., contain multiple
occurrences of assumption variables.

                               ____________

                  SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
                           on Friday, 12 April
                     12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
   Interactive Sketching for the Early Stages of User Interface Design
                               James Landay
                        Carnegie Mellon University
                           [landay@cs.cmu.edu]

Current interactive user interface construction tools are often more of a
hindrance than a benefit during the early stages of interface design.  These
tools take too much time to use and force designers to specify more of the
design details than they wish at this stage.  Most designers prefer to sketch
early interface ideas on paper.  I have developed an interactive tool called
SILK that allows designers to quickly sketch an interface using an electronic
pad and stylus.  SILK preserves the important properties of pencil and paper: a
rough drawing can be produced very quickly and the medium is very flexible.
However, unlike a paper sketch, this electronic sketch is interactive.  The
designer can illustrate behaviors by sketching storyboards, which specify how
the screen should change in response to end-user actions.  In addition, the
sketch can be semi-automatically transformed into a complete, operational
interface in a specified look-and-feel.

JAMES LANDAY is a Ph.D. student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU).  He received an M.S. in Computer Science from CMU and a B.S.
in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of
California, Berkeley.  Previous research includes internships at Xerox PARC,
DEC PRL, and GO, and work on the Garnet project at CMU with Brad Myers.
Currently he is developing a user interface design tool as part of his Ph.D.
thesis work.  He expects to complete his Ph.D. this summer.

                               ____________

                            SEMANTICS SEMINAR
                           on Monday, 15 April
                    1:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
          A Situation Semantic Account of Existential Sentences
                         (Dissertation Proposal)
                               Yookyung Kim
                           Stanford Linguistics
                       [yookyung@csli.stanford.edu]

How does the meaning of an existential sentence differ from that of the
corresponding subject-predicate sentence?  I propose that existential
statements present a situation, and I analyze them in Situation Semantics as
expressing Austinian propositions, thereby capturing their theticity and their
presentative function.  Subject-predicate statements, by contrast, are
categorical; accordingly I analyze them as expressing Russellian propositions
about their topic.

I will show that the proposed meanings, by incorporating this difference in
information articulation, account for the fact that indefinite subjects can
constitute the restriction of an adverb of quantification, but post-copular
NPs of existential sentences cannot, as (1) illustrates.

        (1) a. There are usually pigeons twittering in a basket.
                `#Most pigeons are twittering in a basket.'
            b. Sales usually suffer in hot weather.
                `Most sales suffer in hot weather.'

The difference in meaning also explains why the same cardinal quantifier
admits of different readings in (2).

        (2) a. There were 26 bumble-bees busily feeding.
                (existential reading only)
            b. 26 bumble-bees were busily feeding.
                (partitive and existential readings both possible)

Furthermore, I will derive the Predicate Restriction of existential sentences
>From the proposed semantic analysis.

        (3) There is a fireman available/*altruistic.

"Stage-level" properties hold of individuals in limited perspectival
situations which arise out of the interaction between agents and their
environments.  Accordingly they are situated and presentable by highly
situated activities like utterances of existential statements.  In contrast,
the non-situatedness of "individual-level" properties fails to make available
any presentable situation; hence they do not satisfy the requirements imposed
by the meaning of existential sentences.

                               ____________

                             SSP FILM SERIES
                           on Tuesday, 16 April
                   6:30 p.m., Cubberley Hall, Room 128
               Does Mind Matter? Minds, Brains, and Science
                   [interview with John Searle] (1988)
                                   and
                         Thinking About Thinking
                 [interview with Michael Scriven] (1987)

This week's videos are two 30-minute interviews with Berkeley philosophers
conducted by Jeffrey Mishlove as part of the series "Thinking Allowed." In
"Does Mind Matter?" John Searle (who will be delivering the annual Symbolic
Systems Distinguished Lecture on April 25 at 4:15 in Annenberg Auditorium)
addresses the question, "Will computers ever achieve consciousness?" Searle
challenges the notion that the human mind operates like a computer and argues
that intentionality and other human faculties cannot be achieved through
artificial intelligence. Then, in "Thinking About Thinking" Michael Scriven
discusses what he calls "evaluation phobia", the fear that individuals and
organizations have about carefully examining the logic of their own decisions.

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.

                               ____________

             SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
                          on Wednesday, 17 April
                     4:15 p.m., Gates Hall, Room 104
          Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Focusing Challenges
                            Thomas P. Reinartz
                               Daimler-Benz

Recently, knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) has been defined as "the
non-trivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and
ultimately understandable patterns in data".  KDD has emerged as an
interdisciplinary field of interest for industrial applications, as well as
for scientific research.  One of the most challenging issues in KDD is the
pre-processing step called "focusing".  The focusing step is roughly
understood as reducing the vast amount of data in large databases before
data-mining algorithms are applied -- either by reducing the number of
entities or the number of attributes and values.  In this talk, I briefly
characterise the KDD process and its different subtasks.  In particular, I
define the focusing subtask more precisely and present a short review of the
state of the art on focusing-related techniques.  Thereafter, I introduce a
similarity-driven approach to focusing that has been developed at
Daimler-Benz.  Finally, I raise some challenges for focusing that should be
addressed in future work.

                               ____________

                              CSLI COGLUNCH
                          on Thursday, 18 April
                    12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
       My Experience, Your Experience, and the World We Experience
                              Roger Shepard
                           Stanford Psychology

                               ____________

                          SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
                          on Thursday, 18 April
                    4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
                          Title to be announced
                                 Yul Kwon

                               ____________

                  SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
                           on Friday, 19 April
                     12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
                   International User Interface Design
                              Tony Fernandes
                                 Netscape
                           [tony@netscape.com]

                               ____________

                    LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
                           on Friday, 19 April
                    3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
               On the Disputed Origins of Caribbean Spanish
                             Armin Schwegler
                                UC Irvine

It has long been claimed that several phenomena found in Afro-Caribbean
Spanish point to the prior existence of a uniform pan-Caribbean Spanish pidgin
or creole.  The ultimate source of this contact vernacular presumably was the
pidgin Portuguese `reconnaissance language' used along the Coast of colonial
West Africa.

As Lipski (1994) recognizes, this sweeping monogenetic claim, if
substantiated, would totally reshape our understanding of the formation of
American Spanish.  He and the majority of Hispanists have, however, rejected
the monogenetic hypothesis because, as they point out correctly, none of the
evidence adduced can convincingly resist alternative analyses (e.g.,
spontaneous innovation or peninsular origins).  Schwegler (1993) insists that
the discovery of a even single "deep" grammatical Afro-Portuguese feature in
Caribbean Spanish will automatically validate the monogenetic theory.

Concentrating on bozal Spanish (Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc.), Palenquero
(Colombia), and Chota (Highland Ecuador) Spanish, this paper presents two such
"deep" (Afro)Portuguese features, thereby offering a unequivocal evidence in
favor of the monogenetic pidgin/creole theory.

The data to be examined include reflexes of the Afro-Portuguese 3d person
singular pronoun ele (Port. jle `he' and jles `they') and "strange" double
negatives of the type "NO hablo inglis NO" `I don't speak English'.  These
grammatical items may comfortably be qualified as "deep" features.  As Arlotto
(1972) and others have recognized, pronouns are rarely borrowed, and if so
only in intense and prolonged contact situations.  The pronominal data (some
of which were collected in situ) discussed in this talk promise, therefore, to
be uniquely helpful for proving the genetic relationship between the putative
Afro-Portuguese pidgin/creole and the speech varieties in which they are
found.

                               ____________

                           NEW IAP RESEARCHERS

   * Greg Hill
     Cable & Wireless
     April 1 - May 31, 1996
     Cordura 225, 723-1684
     ghill@csli.stanford.edu
     Working with Brian Scott in the Applied Speech Technologies Lab.

   * Jae-Kap Kim
     LG Electronics
     March 25 - June 25, 1996
     Cordura 225, 723-9197
     jkkim@csli.stanford.edu
     Working with Cliff Nass and Byron Reeves on SRCT.

                               ____________