[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
CSLI Calendar, 25 February 1998, vol. 13:22
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
______________________________________________________________________
25 February 1998 Stanford Vol. 13, No. 22
______________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
ACTIVITIES DURING 25 FEBRUARY TO 6 MARCH 1998
WEDNESDAY, 25 FEBRUARY
1:15pm Neurobiology Seminar
Fairchild Auditorium
The Neurobiology of Sex
Dr. Simon LeVay
Host: Dr. Barbara Barres
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
Big Data and the Next Wave of InfraStress
John Mashey
Silicon Graphics
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 26 FEBRUARY
12 noon CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Agency, Will and Practical Reason: In Search of a Middle
Way
Michael Bratman
Stanford, Philosophy
4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
Self-Assembled, Self-Ordered, Nanostructures: A Path to
21st Century Electronics?
Ted Kamins
Quantum Structures Research Initiative
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/
4:15pm Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation (SCLA)
Gates 100
Kernel Methods for Classification
Tommi Jaakkola
UC Santa Cruz
Abstract below
7:30pm Phonology Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall, 460:146
Some Arguments Against Using Underlying Representations
in OT Phonology
Edward Flemming
Department of Linguistics, Stanford University
POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE
FRIDAY, 27 FEBRUARY
12:30pm Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Gates B01 (HP classroom)
AHA: Audio HTML Access
Frankie James
Stanford
Abstract below
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 90:92Q
Identifying Praise: In Moments of Henry James and Fred
Astaire
Stanley Cavell
Professor, Harvard University
3:15pm Cognitive Seminar
Jordan Hall 420:100
Language Biases in Recognition Memory
Meredyth Krych
3:30pm Linguistics Department Colloquium
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
How to get Passive
James Huang
CASBS, Stanford University, and University of California,
Irvine
Abstract below
MONDAY, 2 MARCH
3:30pm Psychology Social Lab
Jordan Hall 420:100
Theory-Based School Reform For Urban Minorities: Two Case
Studies
Thomas D. Cook
Northwestern
4:30pm Stanford Digital Libraries Seminar
Gates B08
Digital Library Information Appliances
Bill Schilit
FX Palo Alto Lab
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 3 MARCH
4:15pm Logic Seminar
Room 380:381T
Universes in Explicit Mathematics (part 1)
Gerhard Jaeger
University of Bern (visiting Stanford)
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 4 MARCH
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
Microsoft Research: Origins, Present and Future
Rick Rashid
Microsoft Research
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 5 MARCH
12 noon CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Epilepsy and Mechanisms of Cortical Discontrol
David Prince
Stanford, Neurology
4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
SMART Play: Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity
in the Classroom
Dr. Brigid J.S. Barron
Stanford University, School of Education
4:15pm Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation (SCLA)
Gates 100
Rich Sutton
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
FRIDAY, 6 MARCH
12 noon Logic Lunch
Room 380:383N
Measuring Information Efficiency by Bounded Oracle
Computation
Paul Fahn
Stanford
Abstract below
12:30pm Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Gates B01 (HP classroom)
Title to be announced
Larry Friedlander, Charles Kerns, Larry Leifer, Sheri
Sheppard
Stanford Learning Lab
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 90:92Q
David Kaplan
Professor, UCLA
3:15pm Cognitive Seminar
Jordan Hall 420:100
To be announced
3:30pm Linguistics Department Colloquium
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
Title to be announced
Charlotte Linde
Institute for Research and Learning,
and Stanford University
____________
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Logic Lunch/Seminar series now has a web page at
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/Logic/
Also of possible interest is the Stanford Presidential Lectures and
Symposia at
http://prelectur.stanford.edu/home.html
____________
EE380 COMPUTER SYSTEMS COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 25 February 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Big Data and the Next Wave of InfraStress
John Mashey
Silicon Graphics
Data is growing faster than ever, with a sudden uptick now expected in
disk storage in late 1998. The combination of Big Data and the Net is
already creating, and will create much more stress on the
infrastructure (i.e., InfraStress) of computing: interconnect
bandwidths, I/O systems, operating systems, disk file systems, backup,
networking, where the infrastructure is unable to change as fast as
the subsystems (CPUs, DRAM, disks).
The talk examines various technology trends expected over the next few
years, tries to pinpoint the likely stress periods and reasons, and
looks at some of the potential solutions for the problems. By
accident, it appears that several technology trends just happen to be
maximizing InfraStress in th 1998-2002 period, just in time to add to
year 2000 problems.
Put another way: if you are standing on a dike, and you see a big
tidal wave coming in the distance, you hope that the dike is pretty
strong already, because you have some building to do. Scalability of
hardware and software, high input/output performance, and mature
64-bit systems provide a good foundation, while lack of these will
cause "excitement" for users.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION (SCLA)
on Thursday, 26 February 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Gates 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/cll/scla.html
Kernel Methods for Classification
Tommi S. Jaakkola
Dept. of Computer Science
University of California, Santa Cruz
mailto:tommi@cse.ucsc.edu
[collaborative work with David Haussler]
I will introduce a class of flexible (conditional probability) models
and techniques for classification problems. Many existing methods such
as generalized linear models and support vector machines are subsumed
under this class. The flexibility of this class of techniques comes
from the use of kernel functions as in support vector machines. A
kernel captures a mapping of examples into (high dimensional) feature
vectors and allows the classification to be carried out in the feature
space without ever explicitly representing it. This class of methods
can be characterized in several alternative ways and I will discuss
some of these with examples. I will also touch generalization
performance of these methods and, in particular, the construction of
appropriate kernel functions from generative probability models. Some
experimental results will be given in the context of biosequence
analysis illustrating the effectiveness of these techniques.
____________
SEMINAR ON PEOPLE, COMPUTER, AND DESIGN
on Friday, 27 February 1998, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01 (HP Classroom)
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/seminar/
(SITN Channel E2)
AHA: Audio HTML Access
Frankie James
Stanford Computer Science and CSLI
mailto:fjames@cs.stanford.edu
Every day, more and more information is being made available online to
the general public in the form of electronic documents. Since the
advent of the WWW, hypertext (in particular, HTML) has become the
medium of choice for the presentation of these documents. This is
because HTML can be used to present not only the text of a document,
but also much of its structure. The ability to use this structure in
a generic (multi-modal) way would mean that electronic documents could
be accessible to everyone, even non-standard users such as blind users
or users connecting to the WWW via the telephone.
In this talk, I will present my research into the development of audio
interfaces to HTML that can allow blind users (and others) to access
the WWW non-visually. In particular, I will discuss the AHA (or Audio
HTML Access) framework that I developed for choosing the types of
audio markings to use in an HTML interface. This framework, which was
based on user testing, can be used in conjunction with other
information about the users and their tasks to allow interface
designers to select specific sounds for the presentation of HTML in
audio.
Biography: Frankie James is completing her Ph.D. in Computer Science
at Stanford University. Her dissertation is on auditory interfaces to
HTML for blind computer users and others who might need to access the
WWW nonvisually, such as PDA users or people driving cars. She has
developed the AHA framework as a means for choosing sounds to use in
such interfaces, based on empirical evidence gathered from user
testing. Frankie has also worked for the Archimedes Project at
Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI),
whose goal is to promote equal access to computer technology for
individuals with disabilities.
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 27 February 1998, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 460:146
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/colloq/colloq.html
How to get Passive
C.-T. James Huang
University of California, Irvine
and Stanford University
This talk will start with an analysis of a class of passive sentences
in Mandarin Chinese that integrates two traditional opposing views
(i.e., the "complementation approach" and the "movement approach"). It
treats this class of passives as involving an experiential verb taking
a clausal complement (hence complementation) which turns itself into a
null-operator structure by A' movement of its object (hence movement).
Evidence for complementation comes from the theta-independent status
of the subject and various constituency tests. Evidence for movement
comes from the obligatory existence of a null object (in the relevant
cases). That this is A'-movement is evidenced by the existence of
long-distance passivization, its sensitivity to island conditions, the
distribution of object clitic suo, and the distribution of resumptive
pronouns.
A different class of Mandarin passives (the "agentless passive") will
be shown to lack all of the properties of A'-movement or
Agent-deletion, but retain apparent properties of complementation and
A-movement. An analysis that likens these passives to English get
passives is entertained, but called into question.
I will then compare Mandarin passives to passives in other Chinese
languages, then in other East Asian languages (Japanese and Korean),
and then in some Western languages (English and French). The questions
addressed include the universality of the notion 'passive', sources of
cross-linguistic variations, and the proper analysis of "indirect
passives" (both the 'inclusive' indirect passives and the
'exclusive'--i.e. adversative--passives). For the last question, it
will be suggested that they involve the passivization of the 'outer'
or 'outermost' object of a complex predicate.
Time permitting, I will point out that all facts considered
amount--for the most part--to an existence argument of the analyses
defended, as it is difficult to exclude the possibility that certain
passives are derived in a way typically assumed for English be
passives. Conversely, it is equally difficult to completely exclude an
analysis according to which certain English be passives involve
complementation and control.
____________
STANFORD DIGITAL LIBRARIES SEMINAR
on Monday, 2 March 1998, 4:30pm
Gates Building, B08
http://diglib.stanford.edu/diglib/seminars/seminars.html
Digital Library Information Appliances
Bill Schilit
FX Palo Alto Laboratory
http://www.fxpal.xerox.com/people/schilit
Although digital libraries are intended to support education and
knowledge work, current digital library interfaces are narrowly
focused on retrieval. Furthermore, they are designed for a desktop
computer platform consisting of a keyboard, mouse, and
network. Desktop computers fail to support many key aspects of
knowledge work, including: reading, free form ink annotation, fluid
movement among document activities, and physical mobility. This talk
proposes portable computers specialized for knowledge work, or digital
library information appliances, as a new platform for accessing
digital libraries. I'll present a number of ways that knowledge work
can be augmented and transformed by the use of such appliances. These
insights are based on implementations of two systems: XLibris, an
"active reading machine," and TeleWeb, a mobile World Wide Web
browser. This is work is in collaboration with Gene Golovchinsky and
Morgan Price.
Biography: Bill Schilit is a research scientist with FX Palo Alto
Laboratory (FXPAL), a Xerox affiliated research lab. At FXPAL his
research focuses on ubiquitous information access: finding the
information you want anytime, anyplace. Previously, Bill was a Member
of the technical staff at AT&T's Bell Labs where he worked on the
TeleWeb project, a weakly-connected web browser for mobile users. In
1995 Bill received a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University for studies
in location-dependent and context-aware mobile computing. His thesis
research was performed at Xerox PARC where he worked on the Ubiquitous
Computing initiative as a student intern and visiting scientist.
____________
LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 3 March 1998, 4:15pm
Math Corner 380:381T
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/Logic/
Universes in Explicit Mathematics (Part 1)
Gerhard Jaeger
University of Bern (visiting Stanford)
In one form or the other, universes play an important role in many
(sub)systems of set theory and analysis and in various formalizations
of constructive mathematics. One aspect of universes is that they
expand the set or type formation principles in a very natural and
perspicuous way and provide great proof-theoretic strength.
These two talks will be centered around universes in Feferman's
explicit mathematics. We begin with introducing some minimal
requirements for universes, compare these to related approaches in
other areas of proof theory and discuss several crucial ontological
aspects of universes.
Later we will make use of universes for calibrating theories of
explicit mathematics going in strength beyond the famous theory
$T_0$. By omitting the principle of inductive generation we obtain, in
addition, natural metapredicative systems of explicit mathematics.
Furthermore, the notion of Mahloness in explicit mathematics - in its
metapredicative and impredicative form - will be presented. If time is
left, then we also want to indicate how to proceed to even stronger
theories.
____________
EE380 COMPUTER SYSTEMS COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 4 March 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Microsoft Research: Origins, Present and Future
Rick Rashid
Microsoft Research
In 1991 Microsoft was only the second largest software company in
Redmond, with significantly smaller revenues than Nintendo of America
located just across the street. The company was best known for a
text-based operating system called DOS and was working hard to
establish its Windows operating system in a DOS dominated world. It
was an unlikely candidate to house a major basic research organization
in computer science.
That year Microsoft Research began as a very small group of computer
scientists working in natural language processing, programming
languages and operating systems. Today virtually every product
Microsoft ships has been influenced by the work done in Microsoft
Research. The research organization has grown to over 280 people
working in 25 research areas with laboratories located in Redmond, San
Francisco and Cambridge, England. And it's still growing. It is
expected to reach over 600 researchers by the year 2000.
In this presentation I will talk about the creation of Microsoft
Research, the philosophy behind its organization and growth and the
impact research has had on Microsoft as a company. I'll also talk
about the key research projects going on within Microsoft Research and
future directions for the company.
Biography: Rick joined Microsoft in the fall of 1991 as its first
Director of Research and now holds the title of Vice President of
Research. He received Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and
Comparative Literature from Stanford University in 1974 and he
received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Rochester
in 1980. He was a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University for 12 years
and was best known during that time for the creation of the Mach
operating system. He has published papers in a number of areas of
computer science including computer vision, AI, programming languages,
data compression, networking, and distributed and parallel operating
system design. He is well known for his interest in computer gaming
and as a graduate student implemented (with Gene Ball) Alto Trek --
the first real-time network space game for the Xerox Alto. Among other
odd facts, he is the inventor of the term NUMA (non-uniform memory
architecture), is often credited with the term microkernel, is an avid
fan of Babylon 5 and continues to write nearly 30,000 lines of code a
year on various projects.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 6 March 1998, 12 noon
Math Corner 380:383N
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/Logic/
Measuring Information Efficiency by Bounded Oracle Computation
Paul Fahn
Stanford
What does it mean for two nonrecursive sets of natural numbers to
contain the same information? If two sets contain the same
information, how can we compare the efficiency with which they
represent the information? We introduce quantitative measures of
relative information efficiency between two sets A and B by asking a
series of questions along the lines of "How many bits of A can be
computed from n bits of B?"
We show how to make these questions mathematically precise using a
model of computation with a bounded number of oracle queries. The
oracle queries can be either "parallel," where all n questions are
asked at once, or "sequential," where each oracle query can depend on
the answers to earlier queries. We examine, and present results for,
both models of bounded oracle computation, using the complete sets of
Ershov's difference hierarchy as natural examples.
____________
END MATERIAL
The CSLI Calendar appears weekly on Wednesdays throughout the academic
year. Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in
the Calendar should be submitted to the editor, who reserves the right
to decide what does or does not go in the calendar
mailto:incalendar@csli.stanford.edu.
Requests to be added to the mailing list should be sent to
mailto:majordomo@csli.stanford.edu. With the lines in the body of
the text of either
subscribe csli-calendar
for the long form or
subscribe csli-short-calendar
for the short form. Problems with subscribing or unsubscribing should
be sent to owner-csli-calendar@csli.stanford.edu.
The full current issue is at
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Archive/calendar/current.html
and the archives at
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Archive/calendar/.
People on most of the CSLI computers can type 'help csli-calendar' to
see the current issue. They can also type 'help quip' to see the
Linguistics Department newsletter, the Sesquipedalian,
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/.
The CSLI Calendar is also posted each week to
news://nntp-csli.stanford.edu/csli.bboard.
Information about CSLI's research program is available at
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/.
For maps to the Stanford University campus see
http://www.stanford.edu/home/visitors/maps.html.
____________