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CSLI Calendar, 8 April 1998, vol. 13:28 (1/2)
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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
______________________________________________________________________
8 April 1998 Stanford Vol. 13, No. 28
______________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
ACTIVITIES DURING 8 APRIL TO 17 APRIL 1998
WEDNESDAY, 8 APRIL
3:15pm ME297: Design Theory and Methodology Seminar
The Reciprocal Variable Feedback Principle for Design And
Control of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
Aristides Gogoussis
Visiting Scholar, CDR Professor, Department of Automation
Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki
(this may be a closed seminar, check the web page)
http://cdr.stanford.edu/DD/Courses/me297/
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
The Internet and Copyright Law
Mark Radcliffe
Gray Cary Ware and Freidenrich
Abstract below
4:30pm Engineering Economic Systems Colloquium
Room 380:380Y (Math Corner)
A Polynomial-Time Solution of a Stochastic Maximum Flow
Problem
R. Kevin Wood
Naval Postgraduate School
http://www.stanford.edu/class/eesor406/
4:30pm Berkeley Phonology Laboratory Colloquium
46 Dwinelle Hall
The Role of Dynamic Cues in Speech Perception, Spoken
Word Recognition, and Phonological Universals
Natasha Warner
University of California, Berkeley
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 9 APRIL
12 noon CSLI Talk
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Advanced Human Interface and New Applications Research at
Intel
Dave Cobbley and Herman D'Hooge
Intel, Hilsboro, Oregon
Abstract below
4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
Technology as a Tool for Community-Building
Bart Decrem
Plugged In
Abstract below
4:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 60:62L
The Metaphysics of Separation
Alan Silverman
Ohio State University
co-sponsored with Classics
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/general/colloqs.html
4:15pm AI-Vision-Robotics Division Colloquium
Gates 104
Computational Mechanisms of Visual Grouping
Jitendra Malik
U.C.Berkeley
Abstract below
4:15pm Mathematics Colloquium
Room 380:380Y
Model-Theoretic Methods in Diophantine-Geometric Problems
Anand Pillay
University of Illinois, visiting MSRI
Abstract below
4:15pm Frontiers of Neuroscience Seminars
Munzer Auditorium
Nerve Growth and Synaptic Plasticity
Dr. Mu-Ming Poo
University of California, San Diego
Host: Dr. Howard Schulman
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/Spring98.html
4:15pm Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation (SCLA)
Gates 100
Average Reward Reinforcement Learning
Prasad Tadepalli
Department of Computer Science, Oregon State University
Abstract below
7:30pm Phonology Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall, 460:146
The Optimization of Portuguese Verb Representations:
Vowel Harmony Revisited
James Giangola
General magic
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 10 APRIL
12:30pm Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Gates B03 (NEC classroom)
Graphical Style Sheets:
Reusable Representations of Domain-Specific Information
Graphics
Ramon Felciano
Stanford Section on Medical Informatics
Abstract below
3:15pm Computer Science Database Seminar
Gates B-12
SGML Documents and their Manipulation in Object and
Object-Relational Databases
Eric Neuhold
ICSI, Berkeley and GMD IPSI, Germany
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
Abstract below
MONDAY, 13 APRIL
3:30pm Psychology Social Lab
Jordan Hall 420:100
Psychological And Social Implications Of The Internet
Eric Person
Cybercafes: Social Interaction In New Communication
Environments
Victoria Plaut
http://matia.stanford.edu/html/talks.html#social_lab
4:10pm Berkeley Linguistics Colloquium
210 Wheeler Hall (Berkeley)
Epithets and Strong Pronouns
Joseph Aoun
University of Southern California
http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/Colloquia/
4:30pm Stanford Digital Libraries Seminar
Gates B08
Marti Hearst
Berkeley
http://diglib.stanford.edu/diglib/seminars/seminars.html
TUESDAY, 14 APRIL
2:00pm International Computer Science Institute
Main Lecture Hall at ICSI, 1947 Center Street, Berkeley
City and Tourism Network
Hans Mittendorfer
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
Abstract below
4:15pm Logic Seminar
Room 380:381T
Universes over Frege structures
Reinhard Kahle
University of Tuebingen, visiting Stanford
Abstract below
4:30pm SRI AI Seminar Series
EK 109: Computer Dialogue Lab Demo Room (SRI)
Fast Layout and Drawing of Large Directed Graphs Using
Spanning Trees in 3D Hyperbolic Space
Tamara Munzner
Stanford University
Abstract below
8:00pm Tanner Lectures
Bldg. 200:002 (History Corner)
Experience and its Moral Codes:
Culture, Human Conditions, and Disorder
"The Danger of Social Experience: Suffering in the Local
and Global Perspectives"
Arthur Kleinman
Harvard University
Dept. of Anthropology and Medical School
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/general/colloqs.html
WEDNESDAY, 15 APRIL
12 noon Semantics Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
The Semantics and Pragmatics of Presupposition
Alex Lascarides
Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh and
CSLI
Abstract below
3:30pm CSLI Publications Talk
Ventura 17
Aristotle and the Lexicon of Space
Claude Vandeloise
Linguistics / Louisiana State University
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
Mission Impossible: Be and the BeOS
Scott Paterson
Be Incorporated
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 16 APRIL
12 noon CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
How Rational Are Internet Users?
Bernardo Huberman
Xerox PARC
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Coglunch/
4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
Advancing Xerox Technology By Selling Services
Rick Beach
Region Manager, Advanced Services Team
Xerox Business Services
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/
4:15pm AI-Vision-Robotics Division Colloquium
Gates 104
Ben Kuipers
University of Texas at Austin
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/aicolloq/
4:15pm Frontiers of Neuroscience Seminars
Munzer Auditorium
Intracellular Ca2+ imaging reveals high affinity of
release for Ca2+, then what determines initiation and
termination of release in fast synapses?
Dr. Hanna Parnas and Dr. Itzchak Parnas
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Host: Dr. Eric Shooter
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/Spring98.html
7:30pm Phonology Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall, 460:146
Phonetics in Phonology: More and Less
John Ohala
Department of Linguistics, UC Berkeley
Abstract below
8:00pm Tanner Lectures
Bldg. 200:002 (History Corner)
Experience and its Moral Codes:
Culture, Human Conditions, and Disorder
"The Moral, the Political, and the Medical: Ethnographic
and Clinical Approaches to Human Engagement"
Arthur Kleinman
Harvard University
Dept. of Anthropology and Medical School
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/general/colloqs.html
FRIDAY, 17 APRIL
12:30pm Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Gates B03 (NEC classroom)
The Design of the Palm Pilot
Rob Haitani
3Com (Palm Computing)
http://hci.stanford.edu/html/body_cs547.html
3:15pm Computer Science Database Seminar
Gates B-12
Old Media Meet New
Kevin McKenna
The New York Times
Abstract below
3:15pm Cognitive Seminar
Jordan Hall 420:100
An Explanation for why the World Appears Small in the
Enright (1970) Illusion: Mutual Constraint of Structures
from Stereo and Motion
Dr. Ben Backus
3:30pm Linguistics Department Colloquium
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
Reconstructing the Historical Development of African
American
Walt Wolfram
North Caroline State University
Abstract below
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 8 April 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
The Internet and Copyright Law
Mark Radcliffe
Gray Cary Ware and Freidenrich
Copyright law is critical for doing business on the Internet, yet
copyright law is based on a world of printed books and movies which
are fixed in tangible objects. It is also a "national" law which
differs from country to country. How does copyright law need to be
changed to meet the new challenges of the Internet?
____________
BERKELEY PHONOLOGY LABORATORY COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 8 April 1998, 4:30pm-6:00pm
46 Dwinelle Hall (Berkeley)
http://trill.berkeley.edu/
The Role of Dynamic Cues in Speech Perception,
Spoken Word Recognition, and
Phonological Universals
Natasha Warner
University of California, Berkeley
There is a long-standing debate as to whether speech is perceived
through steady states or transitions (dynamic information). Furui
(1986), gating Japanese monomoraic syllables, found listeners
identified syllables correctly only if they heard the point of maximal
spectral transition, and concluded that listeners use dynamic
information rather than steady state information in speech perception.
In this talk, I will present the results of an experiment on both
English and Japanese which extends this work by 1) investigating a
wide variety of transitions (VC, CC, and VV as well as the more
commonly studied CV transitions) and 2) using an open response method
to give information on spoken word recognition as well as on segment
perception. The results of this experiment show that for many but not
all transitions, perception of segments improves rapidly near the
point of maximal spectral change. This indicates that dynamic cues
are important in speech perception, but there are several types of
exceptions. Furthermore, the tendency for spoken word recognition to
improve near the area of maximal spectral change is less reliable. In
this talk, I will discuss language specific effects as well as effects
common to both languages of the experiment, and will show the
relevance of such experimental perceptual results for phonological
universals.
____________
CSLI TALK
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 12 noon
Cordura Hall, Room 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Coglunch/
Advanced Human Interfaces and New Applications Research at Intel
Dave Cobbley and Herman D'Hooge
Intel
Intel, as part of the Intel Architecture Labs, has recently started an
"Advanced Human Interface and New Applications" research lab. This
new applications lab will conduct long-term research focused on the
discovery and exploration of compelling new uses of computing. The
presentation will provide an overview of the Intel Architecture Labs,
the new applications research lab, and current research focus areas.
____________
XEROX PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, Xerox
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/
Technology as a Tool for Community Building
Bart Decrem
Plugged In
We'll give an overview of Plugged In: a community technology access
program in East Palo Alto, CA. Our mission is to bridge the technology
gap between East Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley. In many ways,
technology is a tool that is further stratifying our society and
allowing us to interact only with people just like us. At Plugged In,
we're trying to use technology to build social spaces, both physical
and virtual, where people from different backgrounds come together and
build community. We'll discuss what Plugged In is trying to do, and
demonstrate some of the activities we are involved in on the Web.
____________
AI-VISION-ROBOTICS DIVISION COLLOQUIUM
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 4:15pm until 5:30pm
Gates 104
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/aicolloq/
Computational Mechanisms of Visual Grouping
Jitendra Malik
Computer Science Division
University of California at Berkeley
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~malik/
I shall argue that early and intermediate level visual processing be
modeled as a three stage process. The first stage is a measurement
stage carried out with spatiotemporal receptive fields tuned to
orientation, spatial frequency, opponent color, and short-range
motion. The second stage is a grouping stage resulting in the
formation of regions of coherent brightness, color and texture. Call
these 'proto-surfaces'. The third stage results in the formation of
surfaces/objects with attached properties such as lightness, object
motion, occlusion relationships (figure-ground), depth, slant-tilt etc
and is based on the combined operation of Gestalt grouping factors,
shape cues, and can be partially influenced by knowledge of familiar
configurations.
The first stage can and has been modeled by many researchers using
tools of linear system analysis. We offer a novel approach to the
second stage by modeling it as the process of finding a partition of
the image into regions such that there is high similarity within a
region and low similarity across regions. This is made precise as the
'Normalized cut' criterion which can be optimized by solving an
eigenvalue problem. The resulting eigenvectors provide a hierarchical
partitioning of the image into regions ordered according to salience.
Brightness, color, texture, motion similarity, proximity and good
continuation can all be encoded into this framework. We show results
on complex images of natural scenes which demonstrate the significant
superiority of this technique over classical approaches such as those
based on edge detection, MRFs etc. Phenomena such as subjective
contours emerge as side consequences.
Our work on the third stage is preliminary; I shall argue on
computational and psychophysical grounds that modular shape processing
should be abandoned, and that grouping driven by ecological statistics
is as crucial as shape cues driven by ecological optics.
This is joint work with Jianbo Shi, Serge Belongie and Thomas Leung.
____________
MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 4:15 PM
Room 380:380Y (Math Corner)
Model-Theoretic Methods in Diophantine-Geometric Problems
Anand Pillay
University of Illinois, visiting MSRI
I discuss how the model theory of differential fields is able to
provide good bounds for certain finiteness theorems in
algebraic-diophantine geometry. Some straightforward examples concern
the number of generic points on X intersection \Gamma where X is a
plane curve over Q^{alg} and \Gamma a finitely generated subgroup of
C^{*}xC^{*}.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION (SCLA)
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Gates 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/cll/scla.html
Average Reward Reinforcement Learning
Prasad Tadepalli
Department of Computer Science
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR
mailto:tadepall@cs.berkeley.edu
Reinforcement Learning is the study of programs that improve their
performance by taking actions and receiving rewards and punishments
from the environment. Most methods for reinforcement learning optimize
the discounted total reward received by an agent, while, in many
domains, the natural criterion is to optimize the average reward per
time step. In this talk, we describe a model-based method for
average-reward reinforcement learning called H-learning and show that
it converges more quickly and robustly than its discounted counterpart
in the domain of scheduling simulated automatic guided vehicles. I
describe several extensions of H-Learning, including automatic
exploration using optimism under uncertainty, constraining action
models with dynamic Bayesian networks, and approximating the value
function using local linear regression. I show that all these
extensions are effective in significantly reducing the space
requirements of H-learning and making it converge faster in some
vehicle scheduling tasks.
____________
STANFORD PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Thursday, 9 April 1998, 7:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/pinterest/
The Optimization of Portuguese Verb Representations:
Vowel Harmony Revisited
James Giangola
General Magic
Three relatively recent phonological theories facilitate an
explanatorily superior account of the historically knotty problem of
Vowel Harmony (VH) in the Portuguese verb conjugation.
(1) Optimality Theory (OT, Prince & Smolensky 1993): The grammar
consists of a hierarchy of ranked and violable constraints against
which competing outputs are evaluated in parallel.
(2) Grammar Optimization (Inkelas 1995): "The optimal grammar is the
most transparent, i.e. the one in which alternations are maximally
structure-filling (Kiparsky 1993)". Underlying Representations
(URs) are thus posited to achieve maximum transparency.
(3) Archiphonemic Underspecification (Inkelas 1995): The
underspecification of alternating, predictable structures is
necessary in order to achieve Grammar Optimization.
The following three verbs illustrate VH, each representing a distinct
conjugation class.
conjugation class [a]-Theme [e]-Theme [i]- Theme
infinitive l[e]v[a]r 'to take' b[e]b[e]r 'to drink' v[e]st[i]r 'to dress'
1sg.pres.ind l[LOW e']vo b[e]bo v[i]sto
infinitive g[o]st[a]r 'to like' m[o]v[e]r 'to move' d[o]rm[i]r 'to sleep'
1sg.pres.ind g[LOW 'o']sto m[o]vo d[u]rmio
Assuming a simple vowel matrix consisting of heights high (i, u), mid
(e, o), and low (LOW e, o), one may generalize that Root Vowels (RVs)
orthographically represented by "e" and "o" assume the height of a
non-surfacing Theme Vowel (TV). Notably, all three TVs (/i/, /e/, /a/)
can trigger VH, while RVs /i/, /a/, /u/ are invariant.
The proposed analysis exploits the full predictability in verbs of
stress placement and the MID [e]/[o] ~ LOW [e]/[o]alternation, which
would require (chez Inkelas 1995) that we posit archiphonemes of /E/
and /O/, underspecified for [low]. This moves paves the way for
Grammar Optimization. In addition, an OT analysis portrays VH as the
resolution of conflicting constraints: on one hand, constraints
prohibit the TV from surfacing in certain contexts; on the other hand,
constraints require that features be parsed. Resolving this tension,
underspecified RVs salvage the stranded height features of unparsed
TVs.
Assuming archiphonemic underspecification, a constraint-based approach
offers considerable explanatory power. For example,
(1) constraint interaction accounts for the 'if-and-ony-if'
relationship between VH and Truncation in a non-stipulative
manner.
(2) Constraint interaction accounts for all three TVs /a/, /e/, and
/i/ as VH triggers, as well as for the invariance of RVs /i/, /a/,
and /u/, since these are fully specified.
(3) This analysis, in contrast to previous approaches, exploits the
predictability of MID [e]/[o] vs. LOW [e]/[o], along with stress
placement, in verbs.
In contrast, previous generative analyses have assumed three fully
specified low RVs, LOW /e/, /a/, and LOW /o/, which are based on
nominal forms, and posit an alpha-notation VH rule which causes only
mid and low RVs (but not /a/), to harmonize in height with the TV. A
rule of Truncation then suppresses the TV; thus, e.g., /vEst-i-o/ -->
vist-i-o --> v[i]sto ('I dress').
Such analyses engender a number of problems.
(1) The mutual dependency of VH and Truncation is handled
stipulatively via a counterbleeding rule order.
(2) Formulations of the VH rule fail to explain the invariance of RVs
/i/, /a/, and /u/.
(3) The underlying distinction between MID /e, o/ and LOW /e, o/
results in an opaque grammar; underlying structure is consistently
undone or replaced by the action of the VH rule.
(4) For many verbs, it is impossible to ascertain a fully specified
underlying RV.
These problems are handled as a matter of course in the proposed
analysis.
The solution is relatively cost-free since (1) the constraints reflect
general principles suggested by the data themselves; (2) the ranking
of constraints is built into the very architecture of OT grammar; and
(3) archiphonemic underspecification has been shown to be
indispensable for Grammar Optimization cross-linguistically. Finally,
this analysis brings to light a case of VH involving both [high] and
[low], a scenario for which there are purportedly "no known cases" in
the literature (Van der Hulst & Van der Weijer 1996).
____________
SEMINAR ON PEOPLE, COMPUTER, AND DESIGN
on Friday, 10 April 1998, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B03 (NEC Classroom)
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/seminar/
(SITN Channel E2)
Graphical Style Sheets:
Reusable Representations of
Domain-Specific Information Graphics
Ramon Felciano
Stanford Section on Medical Informatics
mailto:felciano@smi.stanford.edu
Over time, practitioners in particular scientific or technical domains
may custom-tailor data graphics to display certain types of
information. Biomedicine in particular has many specialized graphics
used to display genetic, molecular, and physiologic data. As these
statistical and informational graphics become increasingly
specialized, their value to biomedical practitioners increases, while
their applicability to data from other fields diminishes. If these
specialized graphics, which we term "Domain Graphics", become widely
used and accepted by practitioners in the field, they become part of
the lingua franca of that field. Domain graphics differ from generic
visual formalisms in their use of domain-specific layout rules,
information symbols, and other drawing conventions in the display of
domain data. As they become more specialized and specifically useful,
they become difficult to create because of the relative lack of
specialized drawing and visualization tools.
To support the use of domain graphics in interactive information
visualizations and specialized user interfaces, we propose to model
domain-specific graphic design conventions as declarative,
knowledge-based graphical style sheets. Graphical Style Sheets (GSS)
define the layout and drawing conventions shared by members of a
particular family of data graphics. We have developed a conceptual
that describes how a visualization system can use graphical style
sheets to determine how to represent domain data elements as graphical
elements positioned on a page (the essence of information
visualization). The framework includes (1) an object-oriented
representations of data, (2) a numeric and logical metrics that
measure and constrain the characteristics of graphical elements (e.g.
position, color) and (3) a declaration of mappings between domain
concepts and these graphical objects and constraints. We have
developed a prototype constraint-based visualization system (PALLADIO)
and design representation language (P-SPEAK) to evaluate this
framework.
This is joint work done with Russ Altman at the Stanford Section on
Medical Informatics.
Biography: Ramon M. Felciano is a Ph.D. candidate in Medical
Informatics at the Stanford Section on Medical Informatics. He holds
bachelors degrees from Stanford in Computer Science and in English and
French Literatures. Mr. Felciano's research interests include
innovative methods for designing intelligent user interfaces,
interactive information graphics, and Internet technologies. Prior to
joining the Section on Medical Informatics, Mr. Felciano co-founded
SUMMIT, the Stanford University Medical Media and Information
Technologies lab, where he held the position of Associate Director for
4 years. Mr. Felciano is also the founder of Digital Alchemy, a
design and consulting firm based in Palo Alto, California.
____________
COMPUTER SCIENCE DATABASE SEMINAR
on Friday, 10 April 1998, 3:15pm - 4:30pm
Gates B12
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
SGML Documents and their Manipulation
in Object and Object-Relational Databases
Eric Neuhold (joint work with Karl Aberer)
GMD-IPSI, Darmstadt
Over the past 5 years at GMD-IPSI the problem of managing SGML/HyTime
compliant documents has been investigated and prototypes for managing
SGML/Hytime documents within object-oriented and object-relational
database management systems have been developed. In the course of this
work a number of problems have been addressed that are related to
generic data management issues for documents as well as to specific
techniques required to support the SGML/HyTime standard.
With regard to data management we investigated the object modelling of
documents, the use of different degrees of document fragmentation at
the physical storage level and the use of indexing techniques and
corresponding query optimization techniques. With regard to the
SGML/HyTime standard we looked at technical issues arising from
incomplete markup as well as inclusions/exclusions, and the
maintenance of document consistency, both with regard to the DTD
definitions and with regard to the additional semantic constraints
specified within the HyTime standard. In the light of todays
developments in the context of semi-structured data management and
around the evolving XML standard family, many of these results
experience renewed interest.
Ref: Klemens Boehm, Karl Aberer, Erich J. Neuhold, Xiaoya Yang:
Structured Document Storage and Refined Declarative and Navigational
Access Mechanisms in Hyperstorm. In: VLDB Journal, Vol. 6 (1997),
Springer Verlag (available also via IPSI's WEB Pages)
____________
BERKELEY INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTITUTE
on Tuesday, 14 April 1998, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Main Lecture Hall, ICSI, 1947 Center Street, Sixth Floor, Berkeley
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/talks/
City and Tourism Network
Hans Mittendorfer
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
mailto:mittendorfer@idv.uni-linz.ac.at
The merit of Internet technology is the possibility of interchanging
multimedia information across companies, regions and continents,
beyond hardware and operating systems. Internet has come up to the
mainstream in Information and Communication Technology, as for example
the CeBIT (Hannover, Germany) has shown. A lot of companies today take
advantage of web-based information systems. But uninterrupted
information process (automatic workflow) from the producer to the
consumer is still an exception.
Famous regions with a lot of Tourism, like the city of Salzburg have a
strong demand of information interchange between companies within the
region (Extranet) to give tourists all over the world (Internet)
actual information and offer information about history, culture,
events, hotels, restaurants, public transport and more. The tendency
to all inclusive packages and special offers makes particular and
rapid information processing across the whole city and region
necessary - more then ever. Hundreds of companies are invited to give
their input, being bundled by "Clearing Units" like Salzburg Tourist
Office.
The talk and presentation will discuss:
1. Technical approaches, organization and experiences with the existing
system
2. Obstacles and bottlenecks
3. Visions and planning
of tourism and the city network based on internet compatible
technology on the example of the City of Salzburg.
____________
LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 14 April 1998, 4:15pm
Math Corner 380:381T
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/Logic/Abstracts/seminars.html
Universes over Frege Structures
Reinhard Kahle
University of Tuebingen, visiting Stanford
Frege structures can be syntactically defined as a theory of truth
over applicative theories. In analogy to universes in explicit
mathematics we introduce universes over Frege structures as
propositional functions closed under the truth conditions. In contrast
to the corresponding theories of explicit mathematics, our theories
allow a direct syntactical embedding of iterated fixed point theories.
In this talk we will present the proof-theoretic treatment of
universes over Frege structures and discuss the calibration of Frege
structures in the landscape of proof theory.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Tuesday, 14 April 1998, 4:30pm - 5:30pm
EK 109: Computer Dialogue Lab Demo Room (SRI)
Trees in 3D Hyperbolic Space
Tamara Munzner
Stanford University
Laying out and drawing a general node-link graph is a hard problem.
From a theoretical standpoint finding an optimal layout is provably
NP-complete. On the implementation side, the most powerful current
general graph layout systems break down if confronted with more than a
few thousand nodes. Our system can handle two orders of magnitude more
nodes than this previous limit by finding an appropriate spanning tree
which is exploited as a backbone for fast layout and uncluttered
drawing. We draw the graph structure in 3D hyperbolic space to show a
large neighborhood around a node of interest and allow for quick and
fluid changes of the focus point. We introduce a novel drawing
algorithm which uses both graph theoretic and view dependent
information to achieve a high guaranteed frame rate. We have
implemented a software library which uses these layout and drawing
algorithms. This library has been incorporated into Site Manager, a
free web publishing application from Silicon Graphics. In this talk we
will interleave discussion with live demos of Site Manager and other
applications using these algorithms.
Biography: Tamara Munzner is currently in the PhD program at Stanford
University, where she received a BS in computer science in 1991. In
the intervening years she was a member of the technical staff at the
Geometry Center, a mathematical visualization research group at the
University of Minnesota. She was one of the authors of Geomview, the
Center's public domain interactive 3D visualization system. While at
the Center she was co-director and one of the animators of two
computer generated mathematical videos, Outside In and The Shape of
Space. Her current research interest is information visualization,
specifically techniques for visualizing large graphs.
Note for visitors to SRI: Please arrive at least 10 minutes early in
order to sign in and be shown to the conference room. SRI is located
at 333 Ravenswood Avenue in Menlo Park. Visitors may park in the
visitors lot in front of Building A or E, and should sign in at the
lobby of Building E and call 2641 to be escorted to the meeting room.
Directions to SRI, as well as maps, are available online through the
WWW at URL http://www.ai.sri.com/aic/AICDirections.html .
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STANFORD SEMANTICS WORKSHOP
on Wednesday, 15 April 1998, 12 noon
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/semgroup/
The Semantics and Pragmatics of Presupposition
Alex Lascarides
Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh and CSLI
This talk is based on joint research with Nicholas Asher. I will
offer a novel analysis of presuppositions, paying particular attention
to the interaction between the knowledge resources that are required
to interpret them. The analysis has two main features. First, I
capture an analogy between presuppositions, anaphora and scope
ambiguity (cf. van der Sandt, 1992), by utilizing semantic
underspecification (cf. Reyle, 1993). Second, resolving this
underspecification requires reasoning about how the presupposition is
rhetorically connected to the discourse context.
This has several consequences. First, since pragmatic information
plays a role in computing the rhetorical relation, it also constrains
the interpretation of presuppositions. Our account therefore goes
beyond existing ones, and provides a forum for analyzing problematic
data, that require pragmatic reasoning. Second, binding
presuppositions to the context via rhetorical links replaces
accommodating them, in the sense of adding them to the context
(cf. Lewis, 1979). Thus, unlike previous theories, I don't resort to
interpretation mechanisms that are peculiar to presuppositions.
Rather, they are handled entirely in terms of the discourse update
procedure.
I will formalize this approach in SDRT (Asher 1993, Lascarides and
Asher 1993), but I won't assume any prior knowledge of this framework.
I will assume prior knowledge of DRT and what presuppositions are.
If you would like to read the paper that this talk is based on in
advance of the meeting, then you can pick it up at:
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~alex/papers/presupposition.ps
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CSLI PUBLICATIONS TALK
on Wednesday, 15 April 1998, 3:30pm
Ventura 17
Aristotle and the Lexicon of Space
by Claude Vandeloise
Linguistics / Louisiana State University
mailto:Vdllsu@aol.com
The French linguist Emile Benveniste establishes a parallel between
Aristotle's Categories and the grammar of Greek. From a structuralist
point of view, this means that the philosopher remains trapped in the
structures of language. From a cognitive perspective, in contrast, it
will be shown that Aristotle establishes a `naive physics' well fitted
to the description of the spatial lexicon. In particular, the two
conflicting approaches of place (topos) proposed in the Categories and
in the Physics correspond to two different meanings of the word
`place' in French. Of special interest is the description of the Greek
preposition `en' (in) proposed in the fourth book of the Physics and
developed by Aristotle's commentators, Porphyrus, Ammonius and
Dexippus. From this analysis, it appears that the appellation of
`Aristotelician categories' attributed by Lakoff to classical
categories in contrast with natural `Roschian' categories is a
misnomer.
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EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 15 April 1998, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Mission Possible: Be, Inc. and the BeOS
Scott Paterson
Be, Inc.
Specialty operating systems are now taking on important roles in daily
computing. Linux has served the Internet community very well. The BeOS
aims to accomplish a similar role within the audio and video editing
niche where performance and stability are paramount. The BeOS is a
modern, multitasking, protected memory operating system based on
pervasive multithreading, symmetric multiprocessing and includes a
64-bit journaling file systems. The result is unprecedented user
responsiveness, enabling real-time manipulation and feedback of
digital sources.
Scott Paterson will give a brief overview of Be's history leading up to
the recent BeOS Release 3 for both Intel Pentium and PowerPC
platforms. Most of the talk will focus on the operating system demo
itself.
Biography: Scott Paterson joined Be in August 1996 as an Evangelist to
promote third party software development for the BeOS and is now the
Product Manager. Scott graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990.
____________
STANFORD PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Thursday, 16 April 1998, 7:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/pinterest/
Phonetics in Phonology: More and Less
John Ohala
Department of Linguistics
Phonology attempts to explain the behavior -- the patterning -- of
speech sounds. Psychology and scientific phonetics provides some of
the required explanatory principles. When explaining common
cross-language sound patterns, phonetics (in contrast to most
mainstream phonological accounts) provides principles which are
real-world, empirically testable, and which do not pertain exclusively
to the domain of speech, i.e., they cover non-linguistic phenomena as
well. These principles allow us to achieve the goals sought by any
scientific endeavor: insight and generality. This will be illustrated
briefly with three phonological phenomena: emergent (i.e., so-called
'epenthetic') obstruents (e.g., 'pul[t]se', Middle English 'nem[p]ne'
"name") sound patterns due to the aerodynamic voicing constraint
(e.g., [g] as the most common gap in voiced stop series), and
asymmetries in the direction of sound change (e.g., palatalized
labials change into apicals but not the reverse). The principles
underlying these phenomena influence speech sounds and their behavior
in the act of transmission of a pronunciation norm from the speaker to
the listener. Specifically, they lead to ambiguity in the speech
signal and thus variability in its interpretation. The norm created by
the listener may end up being different from that held by the speaker.
This is, I believe the basic mechanism of the vast majority of sound
changes. It is in this area that it is desirable to have more
phonetics in phonology than is currently the practice. But such
'natural' processes -- some phonetic and some psychological (what
listeners have to do to parse the phonetic events in the signal) --
take place OUTSIDE what may be regarded as the message 'source' and
the message 'destination'. Thus, there is no logical necessity of
complicating the account of how speakers represent and deal with the
sound patterns of their language by attributing to these speakers a
sense of what is 'natural' or common in languages and what is not. In
fact speakers' concepts about sound patterns are greatly influenced by
orthography (which in many cases bears little relation to sound or
phonetic naturalness). The phonetics that speakers do know seems to be
limited, shallow, inductively derived, and language-specific (in other
words, not innate): how to produce and perceive the distinctive sounds
in their language, including how to maintain (and occasionally to
exaggerate or attenuate) the differences between sounds. In the
psychological representation of words and their constituent sounds
less phonetics is desirable than what is currently advocated.
____________
COMPUTER SCIENCE DATABASE SEMINAR
on Friday, 17 April 1998, 3:15pm - 4:30pm
Gates B12
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
Old Media Meet New
Kevin McKenna
The New York Times
As the Internet and other new media emerge, traditional publishers are
finding themselves with new opportunities and new competitors. What
have they learned so far about this new communications frontier, and
how will it change the roles of information providers and users? What
moves publishers and consumers into a new realm is the unique
potential of the Internet in four areas: immediacy, interactivity,
customization and the ability to search a database. My presentation
will discuss what The New York Times and other publishers are doing in
these areas to reinvent themselves on the Internet, as well as the
privacy issues surrounding the vast databases we are compiling on our
usage and users.
Biography: Kevin McKenna is a Knight Journalism Fellow for the 1997-98
academic year at Stanford University, on leave from The New York
Times, where he had been an editor for 13 years.
Most recently, he served for more than two years as editorial director
of The New York Times Electronic Media Company, a group formed in 1995
to oversee the newspaper's on-line and multimedia endeavors, including
The New York Times on the Web, of which he was founding editor.
He began his career as a reporter for The Associated Press in Los
Angeles and Raleigh, N.C., and spent five and a half years in Paris as
an editor for The International Herald Tribune. He joined The New York
Times as a copy editor in 1984, and went on to serve as assistant
foreign editor, deputy news editor and assistant metropolitan editor.
He graduated from the University of Southern California and has a
master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 17 April 1998, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 460:146
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/colloq/colloq.html
Reconstructing the Historical Development of African American English:
New Evidence on an Old Theme
Walt Wolfram
North Carolina State University
An expanding database on earlier African American English that
includes ex-slave written and spoken records as well as data from
expatriate insular black speech communities has led to an extensive
reexamination of the historical development of AAVE. Curiously, these
investigations have often overlooked one the most diagnostic
sociolinguistic situations of all-that of the longstanding, insular
rural Southern black community in the United States (i.e., other than
the Sea Islands where Gullah is spoken). This presentation considers
data from a historically isolated community of African Americans in
mainland, coastal North Carolina located by the Pamlico Sound. Many
white and black families have co-existed in this remote marshland
since the early 1700s, thus providing a unique laboratory for
investigating critical questions about the historical status and the
present-day development of AAVE. To what extent have African Americans
participated historically in localized Anglo dialects? For example, do
African Americans in the Pamlico Sound area speak the distinctive
"Outer Banks brogue" strongly associated with their Anglo cohorts in
the area (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 1995, 1997)? Are there "core"
AAVE features that co-exist with local dialect features? Have
ethnolinguistic boundaries become more or less robust over time?
These questions are considered by examining both particular diagnostic
structures (e.g. copula absence, past be leveling, subject-verb
concord) along with overall dialect profiles (e.g. comparative vowel
systems) based on an extensive set of sociolinguistic interviews