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CSLI Calendar, 26 January 2000, vol. 15:16
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
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26 January 2000 Stanford Vol. 15, No.16
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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 FROM 26 JANUARY TO 4 FEBRUARY 2000
WEDNESDAY, 26 JANUARY
12:00pm Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching
Hartley Conference Center, Mitchell Earth
Sciences Building
How to Give an Academic Job Talk
Michele Marincovich
Assistant Vice Provost and Director, CTL
http://www-ctl.stanford.edu/events.html
3:45pm Psychology Colloquium
Building 420:041
Learning to Learn Words: A Functional and
Developmental Account of the Object Bias
Jesse Snedeker
University of Pennsylvania
http://matia.stanford.edu/html/talks.html#colloq
4:00pm Geometric Analysis Seminar
Building 380:381T
Symplectic Properties of Hypersurfaces in
Euclidean Space
Kai Cieliebak
Stanford University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:00pm Working Seminar on Homotopy Theory
Building 380:383N
Applications of Configuration Spaces in Engineering
Jim Miligram
Stanford University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:15pm Broad Area Colloquium
TCseq201 (Lecture Hall B)
Simulation-Based Medical Planning for Cardiovascular
Disease
Charles A. Taylor
Stanford University
http://robotics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/#Schedule
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
NEC Auditorium, Gates B03
Internet TV
David Schwartz
Len Kain
ImaginOn
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Abstract below
4:15pm ME297: Design Theory and Methodology Seminar
Building 560
Designer-User-Artifact Interaction
Vesna Popovic
Associate Professor
Queensland University of Technology
http://design.stanford.edu/Courses/me297/#1/26
Abstract below
7:00pm The Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium
Kroeber Hall 160 (at UC Berkeley)
Print is Flat and Code is Deep:
Rethinking Signifiers in New Media
Katherine Hayles
UCLA
http://ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs/
THURSDAY, 27 JANUARY
11:00am The International Computer Science Institute
ICSI 607
A Generic Scheme for the Recording of
Interactive Media Streams
Volker Hilt
University of Mannheim
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/talks/
Abstract below
12:15pm Stanford Networking Seminar
Gates 104
Application Outsourcing: The Next Big Thing
on the Internet
Peter Newman
Ensim Corporation
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
2:45pm Distinguished Visiting Lecture Series (V)
Building 380:380C
Floer Homology for Monopoles
Tomasz Mrowka
MIT
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:15pm Mathematics Colloquium
Building 380:380W
Self-focusing and Singularity Formation
in the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation
Stephane Mallat
Ecole Polytechnique - Curant Institute
Gadi Fibich
Tel Aviv University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:15pm Stanford Algorithms Seminar
Gates 498
Gomory-Hu Algorithms: An Experimental Study
Andrew Goldberg
Intertrust STAR Labs
http://Theory.Stanford.EDU/~aflb/1999-00.html
Abstract below
5:15pm Philosophy Colloquium
Location TBA
Finitism and Intuitive Knowledge
Richard Zach
UC Berkeley
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/philosophy/
FRIDAY, 28 JANUARY
11:00am CCRMA Hearing Seminar
CCRMA Ballroom (Main Floor of the Knoll)
Timbre Evaluation of Musical Instruments
Based on Auditory Information Processing
Miriam Valenzuela
UC Berkeley
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
Advanced Interface Design for Ease of Use
Tony Temple
IBM
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
2:30pm Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar
Building 380:383N
Holomorphic K-Theory and Bott Periodicity
Dana Powell Rowland
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
3:30pm Applied Math Seminar
Building 380:380C
Large Eddy Simulation and the Variational
Multiscale Method
Tom Hughes
Mechanics and Computation, Stanford
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar
Building 420:100
Mental Animation
Mary Hegarty
http://matia.stanford.edu/html/talks.html#frisem
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Building 90:92Q
The Fight of the Century - Brouwer Versus Hilbert
Dirk van Dalen
University of Utrecht
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
Abstract below
MONDAY, 31 JANUARY
4:15pm Probability and Stochastic Processes Seminar
Sequoia Hall 200
Graphs with Anchored Expansion and Random Walk
Balint Virag
UC Berkeley
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~amir/prob-seminar/
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 2 FEBRUARY
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
NEC Auditorium, Gates B03
Architecture and Performance of the Direct RDRAM
Steve Woo
Rambus
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/schedule.html
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 3 FEBRUARY
12:00pm Center for Teaching and Learning
Hartley Conference Center,
Mitchell Earth Sciences Building
The Value of the Laboratory
Experience in the Sciences
Richard Zare
Stanford University
http://www-ctl.stanford.edu/events.html
12:15 Coglunch 2000: Evolution and the Mind
Cordura 101
Perspectives on Evolutionary Psychology
Roger Shepard
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Stanford University
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/
12:15pm Stanford Networking Seminar
Gates 104
Application Performance Pitfalls and
TCP's Nagle Algorithm
Greg Minshall
Siara Systems
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 4 FEBRUARY
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
Tools for Knowing, Judging, and Taking
Action in the 21st Century
Brenda Laurel
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
3:30pm Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460:126
Subjects, Objects, and the Extended Projection
Principle
Howard Lasnik
University of Connecticut/CASBS,
Stanford University
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/
Abstract below
____________
BROAD AREA COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 26 January 2000, 4:15pm to 5:15pm
TCseq201 (Lecture Hall B)
Simulation-Based Medical Planning for Cardiovascular
Disease
http://robotics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/#Schedule
Charles A. Taylor
Assistant Professor of Research
Department of Surgery
Department of Mechanical Engineering
School of Engineering (by courtesy)
Stanford University
The current paradigm for surgery planning for the treatment of
cardiovascular disease relies exclusively on diagnostic imaging data
to define the present state of the patient, empirical data to evaluate
the efficacy of prior treatments for similar patients, and the
judgment of the surgeon to decide on a preferred treatment. The
individual variability and inherent complexity of human biological
systems is such that diagnostic imaging and empirical data alone are
insufficient to predict the outcome of a given treatment for an
individual patient. We have proposed a new paradigm of predictive
medicine in which the physician utilizes computational tools to
construct and evaluate a combined anatomic/physiologic model to
predict the outcome of alternative treatment plans for an individual
patient. We are implementing the predictive medicine paradigm in
software systems developed for Simulation-Based Medical Planning.
These systems provide an integrated set of tools to test hypotheses
regarding the effect of alternate treatment plans on blood flow in the
cardiovascular system of an individual patient. They combine
internet-based user interfaces developed using Java and VRML, image
segmentation, geometric solid modeling, automatic finite element mesh
generation, computational fluid dynamics and scientific visualization
techniques. Progress in developing and validating these methods will
be presented in addition to broader issues related to applying
computer simulation methods in biomedical engineering and sciences.
About the Speaker:
Professor Taylor received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in
1987 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He then joined the
Engineering Physics Laboratory at GE Research & Development Center in
Schenectady, New York where he worked on projects ranging from polymer
process modeling to aircraft engine design. He received his
M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1991 and his M.S. Degree in
Mathematics in 1992 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He entered
the Ph.D. program in the Division of Applied Mechanics at Stanford in
1992 and earned his Ph.D. degree in 1996 for his work on finite
element modeling of blood flow. He was co-advised by Professor Tom
Hughes and Professor Chris Zarins, Chief of Vascular Surgery at
Stanford. Dr. Taylor joined the faculty in 1997 as an Assistant
Professor (Research) in the Department of Surgery and holds a courtesy
appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He founded
and currently directs the Stanford Cardiovascular Biomechanics
Laboratory and is particularly interested in the application of
computational and advanced imaging methods to the study of the
cardiovascular system. He is internationally recognized for the
development of simulation-based surgery planning methods.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LABORATORY COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 26 January 2000, 4:15pm
NEC Auditorium, Gates B03
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Internet TV
David Schwartz
Len Kain
ImaginOn
A single home system that fully merges television programming, home
theater, games, telephony, productivity software and the Internet is
on the horizon. Most of the bits and pieces needed on the hardware
side are done. Better high bandwidth connectivity is being installed
at a rapid rate, and the software needed to glue it all together is
nearly here.
ImaginOn's Internet Television "Station in a Box", ImOm.comTV,
demonstrates Internet Television with capabilities beyond those of
HDTV or set top television boxes today. Internet television must offer
substantial benefits over ordinary Television to gain acceptance. There
are economic, technical, and regulatory issues that must be resolved
to bring the benefits of Internet Television to the general
public. The talk today will discuss the challenges and how we are
meeting them at ImaginOn.
About the speakers:
David M. Schwartz and Len Kain are the founders of ImaginOn,
Inc. David Schwartz serves as the CEO and Chairman of the
company. Prior to ImaginOn, David was Vice President of New Media
Systems & Technology at Atari Corporation, where he headed the Jaguar
CD development group. Before going to Atari, David directed the
software team at Tandy Research that developed the first erasable CD
recorder/player. In 1983, Schwartz started Compusonics Corporation,
which went public in 1984. David received a Bachelor of Arts in
Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University, has been granted twelve
US Patents for his inventions and published numerous technical papers.
Len Kain serves as ImaginOn's Vice President of Engineering. Prior to
ImaginOn, Len has spent 14 years in various engineering and management
positions in the computer field at Compression Labs, Telebit,
Compusonics and Lockheed. Len holds a Bachelors Degree in Engineering
from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, a Master's Degree
in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from
the University of Phoenix.
____________
ME297: DESIGN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 26 January 2000, 4:15pm
Building 560
http://design.stanford.edu/Courses/me297/#1/26
Designer-User-Artifact Interaction
Vesna Popovic
Associate Professor
Queensland University of Technology
The presentation addresses designer - user - artifact interaction. It
will cover artifacts and their contextual environment of
interaction. It stands on the premise that dynamic interaction between
user, artifacts and their contextual environment is essential in order
to understand how to design. The discussion will focus of the
complexity of interaction that has increased in parallel with the
development of human civilization. These influence the number of
activities people make during this process. This means that designers
need to understand the nature of the activity and the people. In order
to do this they need to share the knowledge about the activity with
them. The philosophical construct of this interaction is linked with
Popper's theory of objective knowledge. In his philosophical approach
to knowledge, Popper (1989, 1989b) suggested a pluralistic view of
three worlds. These are (a) the world of physical objects or the world
of physical states, (b) the mental world or the world of mental states
and (c) the world of objective content of thought or the world of
ideas. The correspondence of the three worlds with human expertise and
knowledge engineering is outlined by Gaines (1987), who delineated
three environments that correspond with Popper's worlds: (a) the
physical environment, (b) the social environment and (c) the knowledge
environment. These three environments, or three worlds, are linked
with an artifact interface that is the main communication channel
between them. Therefore, the interface of an artifact can be looked
upon as its primary source that supports interaction. It is a major
objective where both users and designers are concerned via which they
share their expertise and knowledge.
Vesna Popovic is Associate Professor in Industrial design at the
Queensland University of Technology where she is responsible for the
development of the Industrial design discipline. She has worked as an
industrial design and ergonomics consultant and was involved in
international studies conducted by ICSID (International Council of
Societies of Industrial Design), UNDRO (United Nation Disaster Relief
Organization) and The League of Red Cross Societies. She is UNIDO
Expert for Developing Countries. She has a number of realised designs
and some of them received significant awards (18 Awards) and has been
published in refereed and non-refereed publications. Her research
interest is in area of design research, design theory and human
factors and applied ergonomics. She is a Fellow of the Design
Institute of Australia, Member of Human Factors Society (USA),
Ergonomic Society of Australia and Design Research Society (UK). She
is the Executive Member of the International Council of Societies of
Industrial Design (ICSID).
_____________
THE INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTITUTE
on Thursday, 27 January 2000, 11:00am to 12:30pm
ICSI 607
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/talks/
A Generic Scheme for the Recording of Interactive Media Streams
Volker Hilt
University of Mannheim
Interactive media streams with real-time characteristics, such as
those produced by shared whiteboards, distributed Java applets or
shared VRML viewers, are rapidly gaining importance. Current solutions
to the recording of interactive media streams are limited to one
specific application (e.g. one specific shared whiteboard). In this
talk I will present our generic recording service which enables the
recording and playback of this new class of media. To facilitate
generic recording we have defined the Application Level Real-Time
Protocol for Interactive Media (RTP/I) which covers common aspects of
the interactive media class in analogy to the RTP protocol for audio
and video. Based on the RTP/I protocol we have introduced a
generalized recording service that enables the recording and playback
of arbitrary interactive media
A paper regarding the topic of this talk is available at
http://www.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/~hilt/publications/IntMediaRecPaper.ps.gz
____________
STANFORD NETWORKING SEMINAR
on Thursday, 27 January 2000, 12:15pm to 1:45pm
Gates 104
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Application Outsourcing: The Next Big Thing
on the Internet
Peter Newman
Ensim Corporation
The current model for application distribution is deeply
flawed. Customers are forced to keep track of the latest version of
each software package, to size their desktop machines to have
sufficient power to deal with anticipated application load, and to
painfully recover from hardware failures. These problems disappear
overnight when applications are outsourced to Application Service
Providers (ASPs). Potentially, the shift of applications from
desktops to ASPs is as powerful and disruptive as the introduction of
the World Wide Web. However, ASPs too face severe scaling problems in
providing outsourced services to tens of thousands of customers. In
this talk, we will outline these problems and describe a novel
approach to solving them.
About the speaker:
Peter Newman is the Chief Scientific Officer at Ensim, a Silicon
Valley startup enabling the automated deployment of managed
services. He was one of the early members of Ipsilon Networks,
inventors of IP Switching. Earlier noble failures include designing
the first ATM switch to fail commercially and ATM congestion control
in the Traffic Management Group of the ATM Forum. In a former life he
was a research fellow at the Computer Laboratory of the University of
Cambridge where in 1989 he received a PhD for research in fast packet
switch design.
____________
STANFORD ALGORITHMS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 27 January 2000, 4:15pm
Gates 498
http://Theory.Stanford.EDU/~aflb/1999-00.html
Gomory-Hu Algorithms: an Experimental Study.
Andrew Goldberg
Intertrust STAR Labs
Gomory-Hu trees, which represent all pair-wise cuts in an undirected
graph, have important applications, in particular in reliability
theory. In theory, the best algorithms for the problem require n-1
minimum s-t cut computations, where n is the number of vertices in the
graph. We conduct an experimental study of two algorithms for the
problem, one due to Gomory and Hu and another one due to Gusfield. We
show that although obtaining an efficient implementation of the former
algorithm is not easy, such an implementation is more robust than a
good implementation of Gusfield's algorithm. We also introduce
heuristics which in further improve robustness of the Gomory-Hu
algorithm.
This is joint work with Kostas Tsioutsiouliklis (Princeton University)
____________
CCRMA HEARING SEMINAR
on Friday, 28 January 2000, 11:00am
CCRMA Ballroom (Main Floor of the Knoll)
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/
Timbre Evaluation of Musical Instruments
Based on Auditory Information Processing
Miriam Valenzuela
UC Berkeley
The sense of hearing plays an important role in acoustic
investigations of musical instruments. Therefore the processing of a
musical sound signal through the auditory system must be considered
properly. A method will be presented with which the signal parameters
that are relevant to hearing can be extracted out of the audio
signal. With this method a distinct reduction of the data necessary
for the reproduction of instrument sounds by additive synthesis can be
achieved with hardly any change in the perceptual quality of the
sound.
Assuming that judgments about the sound quality of musical instruments
are based on audible dissimilarities, experiments were conducted to
determine the perceptual attributes listeners use to judge
dissimilarities between different piano tones. The psychoacoustic
results show that two major attributes contribute with over 90% to the
explanation of the perceived dissimilarities: the psychoacoustic
"sharpness" and a second attribute that was described with the scale
"open-closed". The model developed for calculating audible
dissimilarities between piano tones shows a good agreement between
psychoacoustically measured and calculated dissimilarities
(correlation 0.90).
The influence of the two attributes on sound quality judgments was
verified by listening tests with appropriately modified piano
sounds. The results show that calculating the sound quality of musical
instruments on the basis of their sound signals requires a signal
processing that is related to auditory perception. A model to estimate
the sound quality of piano tones was developed and will be discussed
along with the results obtained in psychophysical experiments.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 28 January 2000, 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Gates B01
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Advanced Interface Design for Ease of Use
Tony Temple
IBM
Computers are just too complex for the average user, and many experts
suffer too. This has got to change, firstly through design that
satisfies the intended audience. Users have to be intimately involved
at the beginning of every project, such that their expectations are at
least satisfied and hopefully exceeded. At the same time we need to
embrace some of the new technologies that will dramatically change the
user experience. Our goal must be to make the computer transparent, so
that users can perform their tasks in a natural and effective manner.
MR A C C Temple (Tony) is an IBM Fellow and Vice President, Ease of
Use, IBM Corporation. He helped to launch IBM's international Time
Sharing service in Europe and was instrumental in the development of
Application System (AS), one of IBM's most successful application
offerings, both as a service and subsequently as a Program
Product. This success with AS led to the establishment of the IBM
Software Development Laboratory, in Warwick, UK, where he served as
Director. Soon after he also took responsibility for IBM's Dublin
Laboratory.
During the late 1980's, Tony led the design of IBM's future end user
systems, including the definition of User Interface Standards. Tony is
the recipient of many IBM awards for innovation and technical
achievement. He became a member of the IBM Academy of Technology in
1989 and was appointed an IBM Fellow in 1993.
____________
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 28 January 2000, 3:15pm
Building 90:92Q
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
The Fight of the Century - Brouwer Versus Hilbert
Dirk van Dalen
University of Utrecht
In 1921 Hermann Weyl published a provoking and alarming paper ``On the
new foundational crisis of mathematics", in which he joined Brouwer's
"revolution" in mathematics. In the same year Brouwer lectured for
the first time in international company on his intuitionistic
mathematics. Mostly in reaction to Weyl's paper, Hilbert vehemently
counter-attacked; the so-called Grundlagenstreit resulted. In a long
exchange the fight dragged on until 1928, when Hilbert threw Brouwer
out of the Mathematische Annalen. The scientific conflict rapidly
assumed the shape of a personal vendetta. Surprisingly, it was
Hilbert who set the aggressive tone. Scientifically, the fight acted
as a catalyst for Hilbert. He developed, together with Paul Bernays,
one new device after another. A number of ideas and tools in proof
theory go back to this period. Brouwer was at the same time working
out details of his intuitionistic program. Both sides had, however, no
interaction at all. The conflict and its origins will be discussed.
Although the issues were purely foundational, the conflict was colored
by external influences, such as the tension between Berlin and
Goettingen, the cultural atmosphere after the war, the boycott of
German scholars by the international community, etc.
____________
PROBABILITY AND STOCHASTIC PROCESSES SEMINAR
on Monday, 31 January 2000, 4:15pm
Sequoia Hall 200
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~amir/prob-seminar/
Graphs with Anchored Expansion and Random Walk
Balint Virag
UC Berkeley
On Graphs that satisfy an isoperimetric inequality, random walk and
percolation exhibit interesting behavior unseen on Euclidean
lattices. The usual isoperimetric ("Cheeger") inequality is very
sensitive, and is destroyed by random perturbations. A robust yet
powerful variation of this is called anchored expansion. I will
present examples of graphs with anchored expansion, review the
stability of this property under perturbations, and show that this
property implies that a random walk on the graph will escape from its
starting point with positive speed.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LABORATORY COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 2 February 2000, 4:15pm
NEC Auditorium, Gates B03
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/schedule.html
Architecture and Performance of the Direct RDRAM
Steve Woo
Rambus
Over the past decade, rising clock speeds and advances in processor
design such as superscalar processing and simultaneous multithreading
have led to dramatic increases in CPU performance. Over the same time
period memory performance has increased more slowly, with increases
coming more from advances in manufacturing rather than from
revolutionary architectural improvements. Consequently, the
processor-memory performance gap has grown wider. If these trends
continue, the performance of future computing platforms will be
constrained more and more by the performance of their memory systems.
This talk will describe the Direct Rambus DRAM (Direct RDRAM), a novel
architecture designed to help reduce the processor-memory performance
gap. The Direct RDRAM was designed to meet the needs of several
computing environments, including home entertainment units, desktop
personal computers, laptops, and workstations/servers. Some of the
important design considerations for these computing environments will
be discussed, along with how they ultimately manifested themselves in
the Direct RDRAM architecture. A discussion of the performance
advantages of systems that utilize Direct RDRAMs compared to systems
that use other commercially-available alternatives will be included.
About the speaker:
Steven Woo is a Member of the Technical Staff in the Logical
Architecture Group of Rambus Inc., a company that designs, develops,
and licenses its high-speed chip-to-chip interface technology to
enhance the performance and cost-effectiveness of computing
systems. Since joining Rambus Inc. in 1996, he has been a member of
the Direct RDRAM team focusing on the development of detailed
event-driven simulators and performance analysis. Prior to joining
Rambus, he worked in the Neural Network Technology Center at Hughes
Aircraft Company, Ground Systems Group. He received BS Engineering
(1986) and Master of Engineering (1988) degrees from Harvey Mudd
College, and MS (1991) and PhD (1996) degrees in Electrical
Engineering from Stanford University.
____________
STANFORD NETWORKING SEMINAR
on Thursday, 3 February 2000, 12:15pm to 1:45pm
Gates 104
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Application Performance Pitfalls and TCP's Nagle Algorithm
Greg Minshall
Siara Systems
Performance improvements to networked applications can have unintended
consequences. In a study of the performance of the Network News
Transport Protocol (NNTP), the initial results suggested it would be
useful to disable TCP's Nagle algorithm for this application. Doing so
significantly improved latencies. However, closer observation revealed
that with the Nagle algorithm disabled, the application was
transmitting an order of magnitude more packets. We found that proper
application buffer management significantly improves performance, but
that the Nagle algorithm still slightly increases mean latency. We
suggest that modifying the Nagle algorithm would eliminate this cost.
About the speaker:
Greg Minshall is on the technical staff of Siara Systems, a networking
startup located in Silicon Valley. Previously, he was at Ipsilon
Networks, Novell, Kinetics, and the University of California,
Berkeley. He has been involved in the design and implementation of
internet protocols, at the routing and transport layers, since the
early 1980s. At one time in his life, he worked as a hardware
technician/engineer on the Illiac IV SIMD computer.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 4 February 2000, 3:30pm
Building 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/
Subjects, Objects, and the Extended Projection
Principle
Howard Lasnik
University of Connecticut/CASBS,
Stanford University
There is strong evidence for 'object shift' in English. That is, just
as there is an 'EPP position' high in the sentence where subjects and
derived subjects wind up, there is a similar 'EPP position' in the VP
region where objects and ECM subjects (among other categories) wind
up. The evidence comes from several phenomena. First, for various
binding purposes ECM subjects act as if they are higher than elements
in the higher clause. (1) is a representative example involving
Condition A satisfaction:
(1) The DA proved [two men to have been at
the scene of the crime] during each other's trials Other parallel
examples involve weak crossover and negative polarity item
licensing. Under the standard assumption that c-command is involved in
all of these phenomena, and given that the adverbial clauses
containing the item that needs to be licensed is in the higher clause,
the acceptability of examples like (1) indicates that the ECM subject
is in the higher clause as well.
In the kinds of paradigms just mentioned, the behavior of ECM subjects
is comparable to that of transitive objects. The following example
parallels (1):
(2) The DA accused two men during each other's trials Note that
under reasonable (though not universally accepted) assumptions about
clause structure, even direct object is not high enough to c-command
into an adverbial adjunct. So, under those assumptions, even object
raises. The null hypothesis is that object and ECM subject raise to
the same higher position.
An additional argument for raising of an object or an ECM subject has
to do with the Pseudogapping ellipsis construction. This construction
is exemplified in (3).
(3) Mary hired John, and Susan will [hire] Bill
Plausibly, the construction involves VP ellipsis, with the remnant
having escaped from the ellipsis site via a movement operation, object
shift.
The clausal phrase structure proposed by Chomsky (1991) provides a
possible target for the raising motivated by the above phenomena:
[Spec, AgrO], where AgrO is a functional head just above VP. Chomsky
had suggested that such raising exists, but that it is covert,
happening in the LF component. However, there are good reasons, which
I will summarize, to think that the raising is actually overt with
raising of V to a still higher position. Covert movement, on the other
hand, will typically involve formal features alone, hence does not
create any relevant binding or licensing configurations. The
'split-VP' hypothesis of Koizumi (1993) and Koizumi (1995), which I
adopt in its essentials, provides the needed structure for overt
raising. Within such an approach, it is natural to assume that the
'EPP' feature driving raising to 'subject position' resides in Agr,
hence is also responsible for raising to 'object position', under the
plausible assumption of Chomsky (1991) that 'AgrS' and 'AgrS' are
merely mnemonic, there really being just Agr, which can occur in
various places in the structure. This result constitutes part of a
promising reduction of an apparent asymmetry between subject and
object. However, unlike the situation with 'subject shift', object
shift is not obligatory. First, extraction out of an object is much
more acceptable than extraction out of a subject (the CED effect):
(4) ?*Who was [a picture of t] selected
(5) Who did you select [a picture of t]
As Branigan (1992) points out, if object and subject both necessarily
raise overtly, to [Spec, AgrO] and [Spec, AgrS] respectively, whatever
constraint is responsible for CED effects cannot distinguish (4) from
(5). I will explore a number of interactions between extraction and
'high' binding effects, all of them indicating that when the object or
ECM subject is high, extraction out of that NP is degraded, in accord
with the CED.
Verb-particle constructions provide additional evidence. Johnson
(1991) persuasively argues that the order V-NP-prt arises from the
raising of the NP from its base position, and the further raising of
the V portion of the 'particle-verb'. Pairs like the following, then,
indicate that the raising of the NP is optional:
(6) Mary called up friends of John
(7) ?Mary called friends of John up
When the NP precedes the particle, extraction out of the NP is
seriously degraded, as now expected:
(8) Who did Mary call up friends of
(9) ?*Who did Mary call friends of up
Finally, I will examine a very interesting verb-particle construction
first discussed by Kayne (1985) and later analyzed by Johnson (1991)
as involving overt raising of the ECM subject 'John'.
(10) Mary made John out to be a fool
Observe that the raising seen in (10) is optional. For most speakers,
(12) is an acceptable alternative to (10).
(11) Mary made out John to be a fool
Thus, we have yet another instance of optional object shift. The
scope properties of the construction prove particularly interesting,
so I will examine them in some detail.
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END MATERIAL
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