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CSLI Calendar, 12 April 2000, vol. 15:26
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
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12 April 2000 Stanford Vol. 15, 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 FROM 12 APRIL TO 21 APRIL 2000
WEDNESDAY, 12 APRIL
12:45pm Stanford Networking Seminar
Room 150, McCullough Building
Mobile IP and Cellular Telephony
Charles E. Perkins
Nokia Research Laboratories
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
4:00pm Geometric Analysis Seminar
Building 380:381T
Determining Shapes from Discontinuous Shading
Data and Solving Related First Order PDEs
Where the Flux Function is Discontinuous
Dan Ostrov
Santa Clara University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:15pm Broad Area Colloquium For
AI-Geometry-Graphics-Robotics-Vision
TCseq201, Lecture Hall B
The Toy Robots Initiative: Educational and
Interactive Robotics
Illah R. Nourbakhsh
Assistant Professor of Robotics
The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
http://robotics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/#Schedule
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
A Pseudonymous Communications Infrastructure for
the Internet
Ian Goldberg
Chief Scientist and Head Cypherpunk
Zero-Knowledge Systems
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 13 APRIL
12:00pm Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching Presentation
Hartley Conference Center
Mitchell Earth Sciences Building
Teaching by the Case Method
Mary Barth
Stanford University
http://www-ctl.stanford.edu/events.html
4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium
Spinning Off and Building Up SRI
Bill Mark
SRI International
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/
Abstract below
4:15pm Mathematics Department Colloquium
Building 380:380F
Symmetries of Four-Manifolds
Ian Hambleton
McMaster University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
4:15pm US Japan Technology Management Center
Skilling Auditorium
CyberDisplay: Revolutionary Displays for
Portable Products
Dr. John Fan
President, Chairman & Founder, Kopin Corporation
http://fuji.Stanford.edu/seminars/spring00/
Abstract below
7:30pm Stanford Phonology Workshop
Building 460:126
Describing Syncretism:
Rules of Referral after Fifteen Years
Arnold Zwicky
Stanford University
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 14 APRIL
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B03
HWI: Human-Wearable Interaction
Vaughan Pratt
Stanford University
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
1:00pm Special Mathematics Seminar
Building 420:048
Lagrangian Torus Fibration of Calabi-Yau
Manifold and Mirror Symmetry
Wei-Dong Ruan
Columbia University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
2:30pm Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar
Building 380:383N
A Random Talk on Steiner Trees
Philip Walford
AIM and University of Melbourne
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
3:00pm Applied Math Seminar
Building 380:380C
On The Analysis and Construction of Absorbing
Layers in CEM and CFD
Saul Abarbanel
Tel-Aviv University
http://math.stanford.edu/html/seminars.html
3:15pm Infolab Seminar
Gates Building B1
The Problem of Business Semantics
Jon Bosak
Sun Microsystems
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
Abstract below
3:15pm Philosophy Colloquium
Building 90:92Q
A Moral Argument Against Moral Dilemmas
Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu
3:30pm Semantics and Pragmatics Lecture
Building 460:126
Discovering the Sounds of Discourse Structure
Barbara Grosz
Harvard University
Why Dynamic Semantics Needs Discourse Structure
Alex Lascarides
University of Edinburgh
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics
MONDAY, 17 APRIL
4:10pm UC Berkeley Linguistics Colloquium
182 Dwinelle Hall at UC Berkeley
Minimalizing Movement
Howard Lasnik
University of Connecticut, Storrs
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/Colloquia/
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 19 APRIL
12:00pm Developmental Brownbag Lecture
Jordan Hall:286
The Essentialist Aspect of Naive Theories
Michael Strevens
Stanford University
http://matia.stanford.edu/html/talks.html#frisem
4:15pm Broad Area Colloquium in AI,
Geometry, Graphics, Robotics, and Vision
TCseq201, Lecture Hall B
NPS MOVES - Entertainment Research Directions
Michael Zyda
Chair, MOVES Academic Group
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey
http://calendus.stanford.edu/CS/read/month.pl
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
Fantasma's Ultrawideband Wireless Technology
Roberto Aiello
CEO, Fantasma Networks
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 20 APRIL
12:00pm CSLI Coglunch
Cordura 100
The Sonas System
Dr. Sean O Nuallain
Dublin City University, Nous Research
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
4:15pm US-Japan Technology Management Center
Skilling Auditorium
Optical Switching Comes to Market
Peter J. Farmer
Strategies Unlimited
http://calendus.stanford.edu/CS/read/month.pl
FRIDAY, 21 APRIL
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B03
The Task Gallery: A 3D Window Manager
Dan Robbins
Microsoft Research
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
3:15pm Infolab Seminar
Gates Building B1
Preleminary Topic: Structure of the Web
Sridhar Rajagopalan
IBM Almaden
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
____________
STANFORD NETWORKING SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 12 April 2000, 12:45pm
Room 150, McCullough Building
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Mobile IP and Cellular Telephony
Charles E. Perkins
Nokia Research Laboratories
Mobile IP is under serious consideration in various working groups as
a protocol component for a new cellular infrastructure. Groups within
the IETF, 3GPP, and 3GPP2 all have related but distinctive
perspectives on how to realize the still-nascent potential offered by
Mobile IP. In this talk, I will describe some of these recent
developments, concentrating on Mobile IPv6 and AAA (Authentication,
Authorization, and Accounting). AAA is receiving a lot of attention
related to Mobile IP and mobile networking, because service providers
need authorization before they can establish a business relationship
with mobile computer users that may roam into their area of
service. This attention to the profit-making possibilities for mobile
networking seems likely to provide a big boost for the deployment of
Mobile IP. In this way, AAA will also provide additional impetus for
creation of the wireless Internet. All major cellular standardization
bodies are making Mobile IP and AAA services an integral part of the
new cellular infrastructure. There is also a recognition that IPv6 is
crucial for the eventual deployment of billions of IP-addressable
wireless devices. I will end this talk by taking a look at the
interactions between Mobile IPv6 and AAA, pointing out new areas
needing work and making some guesses about the directions that may be
taken within the IETF.
About the speaker:
Charles E. Perkins is a Research Fellow at Nokia Research
Laboratories, investigating mobile wireless networking and dynamic
configuration protocols. He is the editor for several ACM and IEEE
journals for areas related to wireless networking. He is serving as
document editor for the mobile-IP working group of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF), and is author or co-author of
standards-track documents in the mobileip, svrloc, dhc (Dynamic Host
Configuration) and IPng working groups. Charles is also associate
editor for Mobile Communications and Computing Review, the official
publication of ACM SIGMOBILE, and is on the editorial staff for IEEE
Internet Computing magazine. Charles has authored a book on Mobile IP,
and has published a number of papers and award winning articles in the
areas of mobile networking, ad-hoc networking, route optimization for
mobile networking, resource discovery, and automatic configuration for
mobile computers, most of which are available at
http://www.iprg.nokia.com/~charliep. Charles has served on the
Internet Architecture Board (IAB) of the IETF, on various committees
for the National Research Council, and is currently the general chair
for the first annual Mobile Ad Hoc Networking workshop.
____________
BROAD AREA COLLOQUIUM FOR
AI-GEOMETRY-GRAPHICS-ROBOTICS-VISION
on Wednesday, 12 April 2000, 4:15pm
TCseq201, Lecture Hall B
http://robotics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/#Schedule
The Toy Robots Initiative: Educational and
Interactive Robotics
Illah R. Nourbakhsh
Assistant Professor of Robotics
The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
In 1998 we founded the Toy Robots Initiative at The Robotics
Institute. Its research charter focuses on human-robot interaction,
elegant robot mechanism and educational robotics. I will describe our
research as well as our educational projects, and then I will provide
some entertaining wisdom regarding effective collaboration with toy
companies. You can learn more about the initiative at
www.cs.cmu.edu/~illah/EDUTOY.
About the Speaker:
Illah R. Nourbakhsh is an Assistant Professor of Robotics in The
Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his
Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1996. He is
co-founder of the Toy Robots Initiative at The Robotics Institute. His
current research projects include electric wheelchair sensing devices,
robot learning, theoretical robot architecture, believable robot
personality, visual navigation and robot locomotion. His past research
has included protein structure prediction under the GENOME project,
software reuse, interleaving planning and execution and planning and
scheduling algorithms. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he was a
member of the New Millenium Rapid Prototyping Team for the design of
autonomous spacecraft. He is a founder and chief scientist of Blue
Pumpkin Software, Inc. and Mobot, Inc. He is also chief scientist of
Hyperbot, Inc, and leads robot autonomy for Probotics, Inc.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LABORATORY COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 12 April 2000, 4:15pm
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
A Pseudonymous Communications Infrastructure for
the Internet
Ian Goldberg
Chief Scientist and Head Cypherpunk
Zero-Knowledge Systems
The underlying structure of the Internet Protocol requires users of
the Internet to reveal their IP addresses to those with whom they
communicate. This and other things (such as cookies) allow data
collection, tracking, and other privacy violations without the user's
consent. It also makes it difficult for some people to speak out
against oppressors (be they an employer or a government), for fear of
repercussions.
Anonymous remailers and other so-called "Privacy-Enhancing
Technologies" have been around for quite a while, but they are
difficult to use, and are often limited in the extent or effectiveness
in which they can pretect users' identities.
In this talk, I will discuss protocols for allowing anonymous and
pseudonymous use of any IP-based service. These protocols can be
leveraged to provide services such as anonymous web browsing,
pseudonymous email and newsgroup posting, and private electonic
payment systems, and are the basis for Zero-Knowledge Systems' Freedom
product.
About the speaker:
Ian Goldberg is Chief Scientist and Head Cypherpunk of Zero-Knowledge
Systems, a Montreal-based company producing privacy software for
consumers. He is simultaneously completing his PhD from the University
of California, Berkeley, where his research interests include privacy
systems, cryptography, security, and electronic cash. In the past, he
has been known to find security holes in Netscape's SSL
implementation, to break cryptographic algorithms used in GSM cell
phones, and to throw a lot of parties.
____________
US JAPAN TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT CENTER
Skilling Auditorium
on Thursdday, 13 April 2000, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
http://fuji.Stanford.edu/seminars/spring00/
CyberDisplay: Revolutionary Displays for Portable Products
Dr. John Fan
President, Chairman & Founder, Kopin Corporation
CyberDisplays utilize high quality, single crystal silicon. This
single crystal silicon is not grown on glass; rather, it is first
formed on a silicon wafer and then lifted off as a thin film. The thin
film is patterned into an integrated circuit (including the active
matrix, driver circuitry and other logic circuits) in an integrated
circuit foundry and transferred to glass, so that the transferred
layer is a transparent fully-functional active matrix integrated
circuit. CyberDisplay imaging properties are a result of the formation
of a liquid crystal layer over the transparent active matrix
integrated circuit. Our manufacturing process offers several
advantages over conventional active matrix LCD manufacturing
approaches with regard to small form factor displays, including
greater miniaturization, reduced cost, higher pixel density, full
color capability, lower power consumption, and simple optical
configuration. Currently, over a hundred thousand CyberDisplays are
shipped per month to portable consumer products, such as camcorders
and digital still cameras. We believe such displays would be very
useful for internet-accessed phones when broadband wireless
infrastructure is in place.
____________
XEROX PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 13 April 2000, 4:00pm to 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum/
Spinning Off and Building Up SRI
Bill Mark
SRI International
Commercialization is making SRI an even more exciting place to do
research. Together with its Sarnoff subsidiary, SRI has spun off more
than a dozen companies in the past few years, with several more in the
pipeline for this year. Our technology deal with Digital Island
exemplifies the approach of partnership and licensing with
independently formed new companies. This technology outreach amplifies
the mission of SRI -- and requires new organizational and personal
commitments. The SRI Way of commercialization is based on three
tenets: staff involvement, success sharing, and proactive internal
processes. I will describe this SRI Way, go through some examples, and
get into some of the issues we face. Active discussion encouraged!
Bill Mark is Vice President of Information and Computing Sciences at
SRI International. SRI International is one of the largest independent
research institutions in the world. The Information and Computing
Sciences Division creates new technology in information security,
system design, speech and natural language, vision and perception,
planning and reasoning, and formal methods. The group, located in
Menlo Park, California and Cambridge, UK, performs leading edge
research, with a strong interest in intellectual property creation and
commercialization. Current projects include intrusion detection
software, physical and virtual information spaces, speech based
language education, and technology for dynamic enterprise
management. Prior to joining SRI, Bill headed the System Technology
Group at National Semiconductor, and was formerly Director of
Information and Computing Sciences at the Lockheed Martin Palo Alto
Research Laboratories. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from
MIT. His personal research interests include system design and
mediated spaces.
____________
STANFORD PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Thursday, 13 April 2000, 7:30pm
Building 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics
Describing Syncretism:
Rules of Referral after Fifteen Years
Arnold Zwicky
Stanford University
Careful development of Zwicky's (1985) notion of "rule of referral" by
Stump posits four different mechanisms for describing systematic
identities in inflectional paradigms; the identities differ on two
dimensions, (a) the naturalness of the class of categories involved
and (b) the directionality of the relationship (nondirectional,
unidirectional, bidirectional). In the alternative developed in this
paper, these dimensions are not matters of theory. Instead, for each
language there is a list of relevant identities (e.g. 2sg = 1pl), each
identity licensing reference to a class of categories (whether
natural, like 3sg/3pl, or quite language-particular, like 2sg/1pl) and
thereby defining patterns for the morphological rules of the language
(e.g. covering only 2sg/1pl or covering its complement as default).
Directionality is not a property of a rule; the appearance of
directionality arises from the exceptions to the rule that happen to
occur in the language.
____________
CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
on Friday, 14 April 2000, 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Gates B03
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
HWI: Human-Wearable Interaction
Vaughan Pratt
Stanford University
Human interaction with desktop computers has come far and still has
far to go. Interacting with today's tiny wearable computers is
qualitatively harder. This talk describes the 4 cu.in. Matchbox PC
and examines the challenges and options for convenient and efficient
user interaction with so small a computer.
About the Speaker:
Vaughan Pratt teaches computer science at Stanford University. His
Ph.D. thesis at Stanford University under D. Knuth was on Shellsort
and Sorting Networks. He taught at MIT from 1972 to 1980, working in
natural language, algorithms, complexity theory, and logics of
programs. In 1980 he joined Stanford's Sun workstation project,
subsequently managing it until the formation of Sun Microsystems in
1982, for whom he designed several software packages as well as the
Sun logo. His current interests are wearable computing, speech
processing, concurrency theory, and Chu spaces.
____________
INFOLAB SEMINAR
on Friday, 14 April 2000, 3:15pm to 4:30pm
Gates Building B1
http://www-db.stanford.edu/dbseminar/dbseminar.html
The Problem of Business Semantics
Jon Bosak
Sun Microsystems
For thousands of years, commercial transactions have consisted of two
things: an exchange of goods and services, and an exchange of
documents. XML is achieving wide acceptance because it allows us to
implement the exchange of documents electronically. Originally
designed as a more capable replacement for HTML, XML is becoming the
technology of choice for a style of spontaneous trade in which
previously unacquainted buyers and sellers meet and do business in a
virtual marketplace.
But trade -- especially international trade -- works only if we have
common vocabularies and forms for the conduct of business. XML solves
this problem on one level by providing a mechanism for the creation of
an unlimited number of these vocabularies and forms, each designed for
a different purpose. But clearing away the syntactic underbrush
merely exposes the real problem: How do we arrive at shared systems of
meaning across industries and cultures?
This talk describes attempts to grapple with this question now taking
place in ebXML, a joint initiative of two organizations -- the
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
(OASIS) and the United Nations body for Trade Facilitation and
Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) -- dedicated to the development of an
XML-based infrastructure for electronic commerce.
Biography:
Jon Bosak is Sun Microsystems' XML architect. He organized and led the
working group that created XML and served for two years as chair of
the W3C XML Coordination Group. He is a founding member of OASIS and
of its predecessor, SGML Open. At Sun he holds the position of
Distinguished Engineer.
Prior to his work with XML, Jon originated the Web strategy used by
Sun for the distribution of Solaris documentation. Before joining
Sun, he was responsible for the SGML-based delivery system that put
Novell's NetWare documentation online and was a primary force behind
the development of the DocBook standard for Unix and Linux
documentation. He was also involved in the final stages of the
development of DSSSL (ISO/IEC 11079), a precursor of XSL, and headed
the effort to define an online subset of DSSSL called dsssl-o.
A frequent speaker at XML events, Jon co-chairs the annual XTech
Conference, chairs the annual XML Developers' Conference, and serves
on the committee responsible for organizing the annual International
World Wide Web Conferences.
____________
UC BERKELEY LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Monday, 17 April 2000, 4:10pm
182 Dwinelle Hall at UC Berkeley
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/Colloquia/
Minimalizing Movement
Howard Lasnik
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Transformational grammar has always been heavily concerned with
movement operations. Since the mid 1980's, and especially with the
advent of the 'Minimalist Program', more and more attention has
focused on the 'driving force' for movement. Movement is regarded as a
last resort in order to remedy some deficiency of something in the
underlying structure, some morpho-syntactic feature that must be
'checked'. The question of whether the deficiency is of the moving
item, the position it moves to, or both has been the source of
considerable controversy, which I will survey. Another major research
topic has involved 'overt' vs. 'covert' movement, the latter posited
to explain constructions with morpho-syntactic and/or semantic
properties often associated with movement but displaying none of the
typical phonological effects of movement. Two interesting questions
arise here: What determines whether an instance of movement will be
overt or covert? And in covert movement, exactly what moves? For the
first of these questions, I will consider three theories of 'strong
features' put forward by Noam Chomsky. Strong features trigger overt
movement; the three theories differ in their implementation of this
basic idea. As for the second question, Chomsky has put forward
successively more 'minimal' theories, beginning with an entire
constituent moving (exactly as in the case of standard overt movement,
but not feeding into the phonological component); then proceeding to
just morpho-syntactic ('formal') features moving; then finally to the
most minimal view - no covert movement, just an operation of
agreement, potentially at a distance. I will suggest an argument that
feature movement does exist and thus, that the last of the three
theories is too minimal.
____________
BROAD AREA COLLOQUIUM IN AI,
GEOMETRY, GRAPHICS, ROBOTICS, AND VISION
on Wednesday, 19 April 2000, 4:15pm to 5:15pm
TCseq201, Lecture Hall B
http://calendus.stanford.edu/CS/read/month.pl
NPS MOVES - Entertainment Research Directions
Michael Zyda
Chair, MOVES Academic Group
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey
The National Research Council report entitled "Modeling and Simulation
- Linking Entertainment and Defense described a basic and applied
research agenda for both defense and entertainment, with foci on
technologies for immersion, networked simulation, computer-generated
autonomy, and tools for creating synthetic environments. In the
presentation, we examine the future of networked entertainment and its
obvious implications for defense modeling and simulation. We look at
the research that must be done to get there and the types of
researchers and research organization that must be involved. We then
look at the Naval Postgraduate School's Modeling, Virtual Environments
and Simulation (MOVES) Academic Group's research efforts and how that
organization is fulfilling the NRC's proposed research agenda.
About the Speaker:
Michael Zyda is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at
the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. Professor Zyda is
also the Chair of the NPS Modeling, Virtual Environments and
Simulation Academic Group. Since 1986, he has been the Director of the
NPSNET Research Group. Professor Zyda's research interests include
computer graphics, large-scale, networked 3D virtual environments,
computer-generated characters, video production, entertainment/defense
collaboration, and modeling and simulation. He is known for his work
on software architectures for networked virtual environments.
Professor Zyda was a member of the National Research Council's
Committee on "Virtual Reality Research and Development". Professor
Zyda was the chair of the National Research Council's Computer Science
and Telecommunications Board Committee on "Modeling and Simulation:
Linking Entertainment & Defense". From that report, for the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology, Professor
Zyda drafted the operating plan and research agenda for the USC
Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). Professor Zyda is a member
of the National Research Council Committee on Advanced Engineering
Environments. Professor Zyda is also a Senior Editor for Virtual
Environments for the MIT Press quarterly PRESENCE, the journal of
teleoperation and virtual environments. He is a member of the
Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Computers & Graphics.
Professor Zyda is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the
Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics, Providence, Rhode
Island.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LABORATORY COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 19 April 2000, 4:15pm
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
Fantasma's Ultrawideband Wireless Technology
Roberto Aiello
CEO, Fantasma Networks
Fantasma Networks Inc. (www.fantasma.net) is dedicated to the
development and commercial integration of products that enable new
media experience for consumers. The Company, spun out from Interval
Research, a research company funded by Paul Allen, closed its first
round of financing in January 2000, drawing investment from venture
capital firms and corporate strategic partners. Fantasma's new
wireless technology is based on ultra-wideband radio (UWB) signals and
provide better integration of home entertainment systems and Internet
access. Fantasma's strenghts are its innovative system designs and
high levels of integration. In this talk I'll discuss Fantasma
technology's characteristics and its advantages with respect to
conventional technologies. I'll explain why it is a good idea to use
more bandwidth rather than less and how Fantasma will fit in the
emerging wireless consumer market.
About the speaker:
Roberto joined Interval Research in 1996 to work on advanced wireless
technologies. Under his leadership, the project he coordinated built
the first Ultra Wideband (UWB) network that connects consumer devices
and his group grew from a research project to Fantasma Networks. Prior
to joining Interval, Roberto was with the Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center and at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory in
Texas. He previously was Visiting Professor at the Arcetri
Astrophysics Observatory, and worked at Elettra in Italy. Roberto has
several patents pending on wireless communication technologies. He
received his doctorate in Physics from the University of Trieste. He
is a member of APS, IEEE and AAAS.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 20 April 2000, 12:00pm
Cordura 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
The Sonas System
Dr. Sean O Nuallain
Dublin City University, Nous Research
This talk describes a project currently being undertaken at Nous
Research which focuses on the visual interpretation of scene
descriptions. This system accepts verbal scene descriptions and
re-constructs a three-dimensional display of the virtual model of the
world that it builds up in the process of interpreting the input.
Gestural input is also catered to.
We are working towards a system in which multi -user - and multi-
modal input are possible. We intend to use the system as a test bed.
On the one hand, we appear interested in developing innovative
software products. However, we also retain our interest in
ontological and epistemological issues. Consequently, we - as it were
-"hide" research in various parts of the Sonas system. For example,
the merging of the multi-modal input stream may require use of a
blackboard architecture, the inspiration for Baars' "Global Workspace"
(GW) theory of consciousness. However, would a cortical columnar
automata system be more neurally realistic? Similarly, a host of
situated cognition issues arise with respect to the use of any such
system . At the most trivial level, we now have a new way of doing
semantics of natural language processing. We can simply scan visually
on the realized scene to determine issues like relevance, or whether
it the input ticket is ill-formed et al. We have developed a number
of variations of the system, and a video of them will be shown.
About the Speaker:
Sean O Nuallain holds an M.Sc in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Computer
Science from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He is an associate
professor at Dublin City University, where he initiated and directed
the B.Sc. in Applied Computational Linguistics. He is the author of a
book on the foundations of Cognitive Science "The Search for Mind"
(1995) and the co-editor of "Two sciences of Mind"(1997). Intellect
(England) is to publish a second edition of "The Search for Mind" and
a follow-up "Being Human" later this year. John Benjamins is to
publish, also in 2000, "Spatial Cognition" and "Language, Vision and
Music", proceedings of recent conferences Sean chaired and organized
in his capacity as CEO of Nous Research.
____________
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