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CSLI Calendar, 25 March 1998, vol. 13:26



   
     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 March 1998                   Stanford               Vol. 13, No. 26
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                     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 MARCH TO 3 APRIL 1998

THURSDAY, 26 MARCH
        12 noon CSLI Talk
                Cordura 100
                Grounding Meaning through Language Games
                Prof. Luc Steels
                VUB AI Lab (Brussels)
                and Sony CSL (Paris)
                Abstract below

         4:15pm CSLI Talk
                Cordura 100
                Producing Intelligent Telegraphic Text Reduction to
                Provide an Audio Scanning Service for the Blind
                Gregory Grefenstette
                Xerox Research Centre Europe

         4:15pm Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation (SCLA)
                Gates 100
                Summarizing Similarities and Differences Among Related
                Documents
                Eric Bloedorn
                Mitre, McLean, VA.
                Abstract below

FRIDAY, 27 MARCH
        10:00am Neurobiology Seminar
                Neural Learning Rules in the Cerebellum: Insights from
                the Vestibulo-ocular Reflex
                Dr. Jennifer Raymond
                Department of Physiology and Keck Center for Integrative
                Neuroscience
                University of California, San Francisco
                Host: Dr. Eric Knudsen
                http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/seminars.html  
        
MONDAY, 30 MARCH
        10:00am Neurobiology Seminars
                Knockouts, Networks, and Navigation
                Dr. Kenneth Blum
                Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
                Center for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology
                M.I.T.
                Host: Dr. Eric Knudsen
                http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/seminars.html  
   
WEDNESDAY, 1 APRIL
         5:30pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
                Bldg. 200:002 (History Corner)
                Pictorial Representations
                Richard Wollheim
                UC Berkeley
   
THURSDAY, 2 APRIL
         4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
                George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
                Wages, Skills and Technology in the United States and
                Canada
                Paul Romer
                Stanford University
                http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/

         4:15pm Frontiers of Neuroscience Seminars
                Munzer Auditorium
                Cell Fate Determination in the Vertebrate CNS
                Dr. Connie Cepko
                Harvard Medical School
                Host: Dr. Susan McConnell
                http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/Spring98.html
                
         7:30pm Phonology Workshop
                Margaret Jacks Hall, 460:146
                Title to be announced
                Bruce Hayes
                Department of Linguistics, UCLA
                http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/pinterest/

         4:15pm AI-Vision-Robotics Division Colloquium
                Gates 104
                Geometric Algorithms in AdeptRAPID
                John Craig
                Adept Technology
                Abstract below

FRIDAY, 3 APRIL
         3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
                Bldg. 90:92Q (Philosophy)
                The Science of Pragmatics and the Pragmatics of Science:
                Scientific Philosophy and Unified Science in Carnap and
                Morris
                Alan Richardson 
                University of British Columbia
                      
         3:30pm Linguistics Department Colloquium
                Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
                Narrative and Institutional Memory
                Charlotte Linde
                Institute for Research and Learning, and Stanford
                University

SATURDAY, 4 APRIL
        all day Second Annual Stanford Undergraduate Philosophy
                Conference
                Bldg. 60:61H
                Information below
                             ____________

                              CSLI TALK
                 on Thursday, 26 March 1998, 12 noon
                        Cordura Hall, Room 100
             http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Coglunch/

               Grounding Meaning through Language Games
                           Prof. Luc Steels
                        VUB AI Lab (Brussels)
                      http://arti.vub.ac.be/www/
                         and Sony CSL (Paris)
                       http://www.csl.sony.fr/

Experiments are presented with physical robotic agents operating in a
real-world environment. It is shown how these agents can build up a
repertoire of perceptually grounded distinctions through
discrimination games and how they can develop a shared lexicon
verbalising these distinctions through adaptive naming games.
       
These experiments illustrate that language can be viewed as a complex
adaptive system that emerges through self-organization from the local
interactions of individuals. Language continues to evolve and adapt
due to stochasticity (which introduces innovation), uncertainty (which
maintains variation), and constant renewal of its user population.
       
Biography: Luc Steels is a professor in Artificial Intelligence at the
University of Brussels (VUB). He also directs the Sony Computer
Science Laboratory in Paris. His current work focuses on
behavior-oriented approaches to sensori-motor intelligence using
physical robotic agents as experimental platforms, and the origins and
evolution of language.

A limited number of sandwiches available for purchase at the talk.
                             ____________
   
       SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION (SCLA)
             on Thursday, 26 March 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
                              Gates 100
              http://www-csli.stanford.edu/cll/scla.html

   Summarizing Similarities and Differences Among Related Documents
                           Eric E. Bloedorn
                          MITRE Corporation
                   mailto:bloedorn@azrael.mitre.org
     
Text summarization attempts to address the information overload
problem by taking a partially-structured source text, extracting
information content from it, and presenting the most important content
to the user in a manner sensitive to the user's or application's
needs. The first part of the talk will describe WebSumm, a system for
summarizing related documents. The approach in WebSumm exploits recent
progress in information extraction to represent salient units of text
and their relationships. By exploiting meaningful relations between
units based on an analysis of text cohesion and the context in which
the comparison is desired, the summarizer can pinpoint similarities
and differences, and align text segments. The second part of the talk
will describe an application of machine learning methods to train our
summarizer. The goal of this learning approach is to have a system
capable of adjusting summarizers to better fit the user's interest.
                             ____________

                AI-VISION-ROBOTICS DIVISION COLLOQUIUM
            on Thursday, 2 April 1998, 4:15pm until 5:30pm
                              Gates 104
               http://www-formal.stanford.edu/aicolloq/

                  Geometric Algorithms in AdeptRAPID
                            John J. Craig
                           Director of R&D
                  SILMA Division of Adept Technology
                         
AdeptRAPID is a software package used to design and simulate
robot-based flexible automation cells. Its goal is to simplify the
conception and design of automation installations used for
applications such as mechanical assembly, material handling, or
packaging. Ease of use is of paramount importance so that this
technology can truly impact the way industrial automation is
accomplished. The need for ease of use drives the need for the
simulation system to behave like the actual physical world. The more
the simulator acts like the real world, the simpler the user interface
paradigm for the user, since the physical world is the one we are all
familiar with. At the same time, trade-offs for computational speed
and other factors have driven a design in which a particular "slice"
of reality is simulated, while many details are not. AdeptRAPID is
well-suited as a host for a variety of geometric algorithms. The need
to model various portions of the real world, as well as the need to
unburden the user by making various computations of a geometric nature
drive the need for such algorithms. AdeptRAPID provides the
environment in which some advanced algorithms can be brought to bear
on real problems occurring in industry. This paper presents the
current state of development of the AdeptRAPID simulator. Attention is
paid to the various geometric algorithms already in place as well as
the need for more and better algorithms.
                             ____________

      SECOND ANNUAL STANFORD UNDERGRADUATE PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE
                      on Saturday, 4 April 1998
                             Bldg. 60:61H
     http://www.stanford.edu/group/dualist/conference.html
                       Sponsored by The Dualist
             and The Undergraduate Philosophy Association

Philip Kitcher, Professor of Philosophy, UCSD
        "Scientific Progress and Human Flourishing": The ways in which
        the sciences make progress, focusing not only on advances in
        knowledge, but also on how knowledge affects the ways in which
        people live.

Peter Godfrey-Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford
        "On Genes and Codes": How do claims about genetic coding
        relate to philosophical analyses of meaning, coding, and
        information?

Eric Beerbohm, Senior, Political Science and Ethics in Society, Stanford
        "Where the Action _Isn't_: On the Site of Distributive
        Justice"

Johannes Kratz, Senior, Philosophy, Stanford            
        "Hume: Between Moral Subjectivism and Realism"

Kritika Yegnashankaran, Senior, Philosophy, Stanford
        "The Philosophy of Biology"
                             ____________

                             END MATERIAL

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                             ____________