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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 13 November 2002, vol. 18:10
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
13 November 2002 Stanford Vol. 18, No. 10
______________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/
____________
ACTIVITIES FROM 13 NOVEMBER 2002 TO 22 NOVEMBER 2002
WEDNESDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2002
3:00pm Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program Seminar
Cordura 217 (Digital Vision Fellowship Program lounge)
The Future of Search Technology on the Internet
Sergey Brin
Co-Founder and President of Technology, Google
http://reuters.stanford.edu/seminar_speakers.html
Abstract below
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium
Jordan Hall 420:041
Concept Meets Precept in Extrastriate Cortex
Sharon Thompson-Schill
University of Pennsylvania
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
We Know Where You Are: 3D Visual Person Tracking
John Woodfill
Tyzx
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
9:00pm Symbolic Systems CoHo Night
Coffee House at Tressider Union
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Information below
THURSDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2002
12 noon Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
`Before' and `After' are Inverses
David Beaver, Linguistics, Stanford
Cleo Condoravdi, PARC
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
12:15pm CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Use of Pictures in Teaching
Yvonne Eriksson
Goeteborg and Vaexoe Universities, Sweden
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
12:15pm Stanford Networking Seminar
Gates 104
Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe
David Rosenthal
Sun Labs
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
4:00pm SRI AI Seminar Series
EJ228, SRI International
Self-Reconfigurable Robots/Systems and Digital Hormones
Wei-Min Shen
ISI, University of Southern California
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
Soft X-Ray Microscopy and EUV Lithography:
Imaging in the 20-40 nm Regime
David Attwood
College of Engineering, UC Berkeley
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar
Soda Hall 310, UC Berkeley
Assisted Cognition
Henry Kautz
University of Washington
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~eyal/cis-seminar
Abstract below
4:15pm SSP: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
Inside Verb Meanings
Beth Levin
Linguistics
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Abstract below
4:15pm Fundamental Themes in Neuroscience Seminar
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman B060
Cortical Patterning
John Rubenstein
UCSF
http://www-med.stanford.edu/sbrc/calendar/
4:15pm US-ATMC Public Lecture Series
Gates B01 (HP Classroom)
Online Gaming and the Demand on Bandwidth
Shin'ichi Okamoto
Senior Vice President & CTO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2002
12 noon Logic Lunch: Logical Methods in the Humanities
Bldg. 380:383N (math corner)
Purity and mathematical explanation
Andrew Arana
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Abstract below
12:30pm CS547: HCI Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Gates B01 (HP Classroom) and SITN
Advanced User-Interface Design for Vehicles
Aaron Marcus
Aaron Marcus and Associates
http://hci.stanford.edu/seminar
Abstract below
2:00pm Lecture
Gates 104
Symbolic Scheduling for Behavioral
and Transaction-level Hardware Synthesis
Forrest Brewer
UC Santa Barbara
Abstract below
2:15pm NLP Reading Group
Margaret Jacks Hall, 460:301
An Experiment in Unsupervised Training
of Statistical Translation Models
Work by Bob Moore and Michele Banko, Microsoft Research
Bob Moore, presenter
http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/nlpgroup.html
Abstract below
MONDAY, 18 NOVEMBER 2002
4:00pm Berkeley Linguistics Department Colloquium
182 Dwinelle (Berkeley)
Aspects of Urarina Grammar
Knut J. Olawski
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
La Trobe University, Melbourne
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/events.html
Abstract below
4:15pm Broad Area Colloquium in AI,
Geometry, Graphics, Robotics, and Vision
TCSeq 200
Marshall Bern
PARC
http://robotics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/
TUESDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2002
4:15pm Logic Seminar
Bldg. 380:381T (math corner)
Rabin Theory and Tree Automata: An Introduction
Ting Zhang
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Abstract below
5:15pm Gestures and Dialogue Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Embodied Knowledge
Jurgen Streeck
Communication Studies, U. of Texas at Austin
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Gestures/
Abstract below
6:00pm Syntax Workshop
Margaret Jacks 460:126
title to be announced
Mary Dalrymple and Tracy King
PARC
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/sssg/
WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2002
3:00pm Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program Seminar
Cordura 100
Intellectual Property of Indigenous Peoples
Douglas I. Kalish
Biotechnology Consultant and Educator, Palo Alto
http://reuters.stanford.edu/seminar_speakers.html
Abstract below
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium
Jordan Hall 420:041
Exploring the Architecture of Emotion
Robert W. Levenson
University of California
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
4:00pm Wireless Communication Seminar
Packard 101
Resource Allocation in Multihop Wireless Networks
Rene L. Cruz
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering, UC San Diego
http://www.stanford.edu/group/wcs/schedule.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
Title to be announced
K. Ganapathi
Fidelica
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
THURSDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2002
12:15pm Stanford Networking Seminar
Gates 104
Title to be announced
Costa Sapuntzakis
Stanford University
URL: http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
4:15pm CSLI Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Cordura Hall, room 100
Title to be announced
Ioannis Iglezakis
DaimlerChrysler
http://cll.stanford.edu/scla.html
4:15pm SSP: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
Conversational Interfaces: a Domain-Independent Architecture
for Task-Oriented Dialogues
Alex Gruenstein
Symbolic Systems Program
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Abstract below
4:15pm Fundamental Themes in Neuroscience Seminar
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman B060
Emotional Synapses
Joseph LeDoux
NYU
http://www-med.stanford.edu/sbrc/calendar/
FRIDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2002
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 90:92Q
Dialectic and Logic: The Truth of Axioms
William Tait
University of Chicago
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
____________
Stanford Blood Bank status: Critical shortage of O+ and O-
and a shortage of A+, A-, B+, B-, and AB-. For an appointment:
http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call 650-723-7831.
It only takes an hour of your time.
____________
REUTERS FOUNDATION DIGITAL VISION PROGRAM SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 13 November 2002, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
Digital Vision Fellowship Program lounge (217), Cordura Hall
http://reuters.stanford.edu/seminar_speakers.html
The Future of Search Technology on the Internet
Sergey Brin
Co-Founder and President of Technology, Google
Mr. Brin, a native of Moscow, received a bachelor of science degree
with honors in mathematics and computer science from the University of
Maryland at College Park. He is currently on leave from the
Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, where he
received his master's degree. Brin is a recipient of a National
Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. It was at Stanford where he
met Larry Page and worked on the project that became Google. Together
they founded Google Inc. in 1998, and Brin continues to share
responsibility for day-to-day operations with Larry Page and Eric
Schmidt.
Brin's research interests include search engines, information
extraction from unstructured sources, and data mining of large text
collections and scientific data. He has published more than a dozen
academic papers, including Extracting Patterns and Relations from the
World Wide Web; Dynamic Data Mining: A New Architecture for Data with
High Dimensionality, which he published with Larry Page; Scalable
Techniques for Mining Casual Structures; Dynamic Itemset Counting and
Implication Rules for Market Basket Data; and Beyond Market Baskets:
Generalizing Association Rules to Correlations.
Brin has been a featured speaker at several national and international
academic, business, and technology forums, including the Academy of
American Achievement; European Technology Forum; Technology,
Entertainment and Design; and Silicon Alley 2001. He has shared his
views on the technology industry and the future of search on the
Charlie Rose Show, the ABC Nightly News, CNBC, and CNNfn as well as in
numerous newspaper articles. Brin was named a "Young Innovator Who
Will Create the Future" by MIT's Technology Review magazine in 2002.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 13 November 2002, 4:15pm - 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
We Know Where You Are: 3D Visual Person Tracking
John Woodfill
Co-Founder and CTO, Tyzx Inc.
Of all our senses, we rely most heavily on our sense of sight to
interact with the world. As we incorporate embedded processors into
everyday products to make them more intelligent, we can imbue them as
well with this powerful capability. To date, however, machine vision
has only achieved success in manufacturing facilities where lighting
and scene variation are strictly controlled. Seeing in the real world
is much harder.
The challenge to seeing is to view the world in real-time in three
dimensions and color. Until recently, this was possible only with
dedicated high-performance computers. Today, technology developed by
Tyzx performs the task on a single IC at rates which outstrip the
fastest CPUs.
Combined with commodity CMOS imagers, the result is a new platform for
low-cost, low-power 3D sensing for a broad range of affordable
applications. 3D vision-enabled applications from video games to
automotive to robotics are now possible. In many ways, the most
immediate and compelling application is in Homeland Defense.
Dr. Woodfill will discuss the merits of 3D technology for computer
vision and its application to new security challenges.
About the speaker: Dr. John Woodfill is a founder of Tyzx, Inc.
John is known for his research in frame-rate depth and motion vision
for systems that work in the real world. This focus has led to
patented, stereo-vision hardware that is at the core of Tyzx's 3D
imaging technology. Dr. Woodfill initiated and led Interval
Research's work on computational stereo vision. He was previously a
consultant at Xerox PARC and SRI, and a Visiting Scientist at the IBM
Science Center in Heidelberg, Germany. John was also a member of the
original team that developed the INGRES relational database system at
UC Berkeley. He holds a dual AB degree from UC Berkeley in Computer
Science and Philosophy, and an MS degree and PhD from Stanford in
Computer Vision. His thesis work resulted in interactive robotic
systems that tracked people (and cats) in unstructured environments
based solely on estimates of optical flow.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS COHO NIGHT
on Wednesday, 13 November 2002, 9:00pm - 11:00pm
Coffee House at Tressider Union
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
The Stanford Symbolic Systems Student Society and the Symbolic Systems
Program invite you to a night of (free!) coffee and poetry. That's
"co-po" - get it? It's clever... and so are you! So bring your mugs
for a free beverage of your choice (< $4) and a limerick about syntax,
an epic about logic, or an ode to Godel. We will award prizes for the
best (and worst) poems.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 12:15pm - 1:30pm
Cordura Hall, Room 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
The Use of Pictures in Teaching
Yvonne Eriksson
Goeteborg and Vaexjoe Universities, Sweden
Many concepts and phenomena are virtually impossible to illustrate or
explain purely verbally. Therefore images and models are used in
teaching mostly in order to make objects and phenomena intelligible.
In a present project I exam how illustrations are used in teaching,
and what kind of expectations are involved for the representation as a
vehicle of meaning. I will also elucidate how the look and the
aesthetic/artistic quality of pictures used in teaching effects the
meaning, and how that is related to the perceptual and cognitive
process that are involved in an interpretation. I investigate both
illustrations in printed schoolbooks and in pedagogical multimedia
programmes.
____________
STANFORD NETWORKING SEMINAR
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 12:45pm (lunch 12:15pm)
Gates 104
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe
David Rosenthal
Sun Labs
The LOCKSS project at Stanford Libraries is building a peer-to-peer
system of persistent, self-healing web caches to preserve academic
journals, government documents and other important information
published on the web. About 50 libraries around the world have been
running a test version for about 18 months - we expect to grow to
several hundred over the next year as we release the first production
version.
Libraries are among the oldest human institutions, having evolved over
several millenia into a fault-tolerant peer-to-peer system for
preserving information that works remarkably well. LOCKSS provides
librarians with a tool they can use to continue this tradition into
the digital future.
Designing a system to work within an existing social and
organizational structure has led to interesting technical challenges,
including new approaches to fault tolerance, trust and system
integrity without secrecy in peer-to-peer systems.
About the speaker: Dr. David Rosenthal is investigating techniques
for distributed fault tolerance in a project jointly funded by Sun
Labs, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation
and Stanford University Libraries. The project is aimed at long-term
preservation of the web editions of academic journals, such as those
published by Stanford's Highwire Press. David received an MA degree
from Trinity College, Cambridge and a Ph. D. from Imperial College,
London. He is the author of several technical publications and holds
23 patents.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 4:00pm
EJ228, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Self-Reconfigurable Robots/Systems and Digital Hormones
Wei-Min Shen
ISI, University of Southern California
Self-reconfigurable systems are network of autonomous elements that
can alter their physical or logical structures based on feedback of
their performance in the environment. Examples of such systems
include metamorphic robots that can change their shape and size for
the mission and the environment, or distributed sensor networks that
can gather and process information in a wide range of areas. Such
reconfigurable systems provide a powerful and flexible approach to
complex tasks in unstructured and dynamic environments, and they are
highly desirable for future applications of computer technologies such
as space exploration, search/rescue after disasters, and
anti-terrorists operations. Due to their dynamic topology and
decentralized configuration, however, self-reconfigurable systems
demand control mechanisms that go beyond those used by conventional
control mechanisms and software engineering. This presentation
describes a novel approach called "digital hormone model" that is
inspired by the biological concept of hormones that support adaptive
communication, distributed control, online reconfiguration, and
collaboration for many autonomous components in a single or multiple
robot systems. We will demonstrate the utilities of this approach for
controlling locomotion and reconfigurations in CONRO metamorphic
robots, and illustrates its potential for self-reconfigurable systems
that will be distributed, scalable, robust, adaptive, and self-repair.
Just as biological cells, the components in these systems function
based on the principle of self-organization, not on fixed roles,
identifiers or addresses that must be designated in the conventional
computational systems. (This work is jointed with Peter Will and
Behnam Salemi.)
About the Speaker: Dr. Wei-Min Shen is the Associate Director of
USC's newly established Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, the
Co-Director of ISI's Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory, and a Research
Assistant Professor at University of Southern California in
Information Sciences Institute and Computer Science Department. He
received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989 under
Professor Herbert Simon. Dr. Shen's research interests include
Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Machine Learning. He has won
several research awards in these fields, such as the RoboCup World
Championship Award in 1997, and the AAAI Robotics Competition
Silver-Medal Award in 1996. He is the author of the book "Autonomous
Learning from the Environment." He has chaired several international
conferences and workshops in Robotics, Machine Learning, and Data
Mining, and served on the editorial boards for two scientific books and
one international journal. His work is sponsored by the National
Science Foundation, US Air Force, and Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. His research achievements have been reported by many
news media, including CNN, PBS, Discovery channel, LA Times, BYTE,
Chinese World Journal, and SCIENCES.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Soft X-Ray Microscopy and EUV Lithography:
Imaging in the 20-40 nm Regime
David Attwood
College of Engineering, UC Berkeley
Advances in short wavelength optics, covering the range from 1 to 14
nanometers (nm), are providing new results and new opportunities.
Zone plate lenses for soft x-ray microscopy are now made to high
accuracy with demonstrated resolution of 23 nm with proper
illumination and stability. These permit important advances in the
study of protein specific transport and structure in the life
sciences, and the study of magnetic materials with elemental
sensitivity at the resolution of individual domains.
Major corporations are now preparing the path for the fabrication of
future computer chips, in the years 2007 and beyond, using multilayer
coated reflective optics, which achieve reflectivities of 70% in the
11-14 nm region. These coated optics are to be incorporated in EUV
print cameras, known as "steppers." Electronic patterns with features
in the range of 40-70 nm have been printed. The first alpha tool
stepper recently demonstrated all critical technologies needed for EUV
lithography. Pre-production beta tools are targeted for delivery by
leading suppliers in 2005, with high volume production tools available
for manufacturing in 2007.
New results in these two areas will be discussed in the context of the
synergy of science and technology.
About the speaker: David Attwood received his doctorate in Applied
Physics from NYU in 1972, then worked in the laser fusion program at
LLNL for ten years. In 1982 he started the Center for X-ray Optics at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as its founding Director,
1982-2001. He is a Professor in Residence in the College of
Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he co-founded a new PhD program in
Applied Science and Technology, and is the Faculty Advisor for the
undergraduate program in Engineering Physics. He is one of three
Program Managers for the three national laboratory/six company EUV
Lithography Program, responsible for the Berkeley portion which covers
all EUV metrologies and static printing. He has authored the graduate
text "Soft X-Rays and Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation: Principles and
Applications" (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge UK, 1999). For more
information see www.coe.berkeley.edu/AST/sxreuv.
Directions: PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) is located at 3333
Coyote Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. A road map and driving
directions are available at www.parc.com/company/directions.html.
Forum attendees may park anywhere in the lot. The George Pake
Auditorium is to the left of the main entrance, near the upper parking
lot.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Soda Hall 310, UC Berkeley
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~eyal/cis-seminar
Assisted Cognition
Henry Kautz
University of Washington
The goal of the Assisted Cognition project is to create novel computer
systems that will enhance the quality of life of people suffering from
Alzheimer's Disease and similar cognitive disorders. This
interdisciplinary project combines computer science research in
artificial intelligence and ubiquitous computing with clinical
research on patient care. Assisted Cognition systems are proactive
memory and problem solving aids that help an individual perform the
tasks of day-to-day life. They sense aspects of an individual's
location and environment, both outdoors and at home, relying on a wide
range of sensors such as GPS, active badges, motion detectors, and
other ubiquitous computing infrastructure; learn to interpret patterns
of everyday behavior, and recognize signs of distress, using
techniques from state estimation, plan recognition, and machine
learning; and offer help to patients through various kinds of
interventions. Research efforts within the Assisted Cognition project
include the Activity Compass and the ADL Prompter.
About the speaker: Henry Kautz is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of
Washington. He joined the faculty in the summer of the year 2000
after a career at Bell Labs and AT&T Laboratories, where he was Head
of the AI Principles Research Department. His academic degrees
include an A.B. in mathematics from Cornell University, an M.A. in
Creative Writing from the Johns Hopkins University, an M.Sc. in
Computer Science from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in
computer science from the University of Rochester. He is a recipient
of the Computers and Thought Award from the International Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence and a Fellow of the American
Association for Artificial Intelligence. In 1998 he was elected to
the Executive Council of AAAI, and in 2000 was Program Chair for the
AAAI National Conference.
____________
SSP: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Inside Verb Meanings
Beth Levin
Linguistics, Stanford
Verbs, as the child's rhyme puts it, "tell of something being done"
or, to quote a novel I once read, they are "the engines of language."
Not surprisingly given this essential function, verbs pose special
challenges for speakers, linguists, and lexicographers alike. I show
how the scope, complexity and richness of our knowledge of verbs goes
well beyond the explicit knowledge embodied in even the most elaborate
entries of unabridged dictionaries. I then present results from my
ongoing investigations into the internal structure of verb meanings.
To conclude I briefly discuss how my research illuminates certain
previously observed systematic crosslinguistic differences in the use
of certain verbs said to be "translation equivalents."
About the speaker: Beth Levin is the William H. Bonsall Professor in
the Humanities at Stanford. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in 1983
and then spent four years at the MIT Center for Cognitive Science,
where she had major responsibility for the Lexicon Project. From 1987
to 1999 she was a professor in the Department of Linguistics at
Northwestern University. She joined the Stanford Department of
Linguistics in September 1999. In 1999-2000 she was a fellow at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Her research
focuses on the lexicon -- the component of the language system that
serves as a repository for information on the words of a language.
She has conducted extensive breadth- and depth-first studies of the
English verb lexicon, which have provided the foundation for much of
her theoretical research. Her recent work investigates the linguistic
representation of events and the ways in which events and their
participants are expressed in English and other languages. Her
publications include Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics
Interface (1995, coauthored with Malka Rappaport Hovav), English Verb
Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation (1993), and
Lexical and Conceptual Semantics (1992, coedited with Steven Pinker).
____________
US-ASIA TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT CENTER PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
on Thursday, 14 November 2002, 4:15pm - 5:30pm
Gates B01 (HP Classroom)
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/
Online Gaming and the Demand on Bandwidth
Shin'ichi Okamoto
Senior Vice President & CTO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
The spread of the broadband in Asia continues in spite of a blip in
the macro economy, and the contents sector has filled in the available
infrastructure. The on-line gaming and entertainment industries are
expected to grow although it was an area where previous advances were
not always consistent. However, the offer of complex content is about
to be offered in Japan following the phenomenal success of on-line
gaming in South Korea. This talk will focus on on-line gaming and
PlayStationBB, the broadband contents service for PlayStation 2;
introduce recent expansion modes in broadband content for
entertainment in Asia, and report on realizing the needs for
broadband/bandwidth growth.
About the speaker: Shin'ichi Okamoto graduated from Waseda University
in Tokyo in 1983 with a master's degree in Science/Chemistry. He
joined Sony Corporation in 1989 as a systems engineer. In 1992, he
became involved in Sony's computer entertainment project, which soon
became Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. There, he managed three
engineering units as the Director of Development responsible for
creating the OS, the development environment and technical support for
the very successful game console, "PlayStation." This success
catapulted Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. into one of the most
prominent companies in the Sony Group. In April 1999 Mr. Okamoto
became the Senior Vice President of R&D and played a key role in the
development of PlayStation2. Between April 2001 and August 2002, he
took over the position of Chief Technology Officer supervising R&D and
Broadband and Business division. In April 2001, he became the Chief
Technology Officer at Sony Computer Entertainment. He primarily
devoted his efforts on supervising R&D and the Broadband and Business
division until August 2002, and since then has been focusing on OS
development and distributed computing technology for the 3rd
generation system, further exploring the possibilities of the
PlayStation business worldwide.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH: LOGICAL METHODS IN THE HUMANITIES
on Friday, 15 November 2002, 12 noon - 1:15pm
Math Corner 380:383N
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Purity and mathematical explanation
Andrew Arana
Stanford
A proof is methodologically pure, roughly, if it uses methods `close'
or `akin' to the statement being proved. Advocates of purity in one
form or another include Aristotle, Descartes, Newton, Bolzano, and
Hilbert. In this talk, we distinguish between two main breeds of
purity, and explain their distinctive epistemic benefits. To
highlight the importance of purity concerns, we discuss a particular
case study in mathematics, concerning the so-called `casus
irreducibilis' for cubic polynomial equations. This case study
follows the development of algebra from the Italian Renaissance
through the late nineteenth century, and highlights the role of the
introduction of complex numbers in algebra. We close by considering
briefly what impact purity concerns might have on a search for natural
kinds in mathematics.
____________
CS547: HCI SEMINAR ON PEOPLE, COMPUTERS, AND DESIGN
on Friday, 15 November, 2002, 12:30pm - 2:00pm
Gates B01 (HP Classroom) and SITN
http://hci.stanford.edu/seminar
Advanced User-Interface Design for Vehicles
Aaron Marcus
Aaron Marcus and Associates
The driver/rider experience is a major development in mobile
user-interface design worldwide, similar in scale to the first
introduction of personal computers to the desktop. Most automobile
manufacturers seeking to develop smart cars have relatively little
experience with advanced software-based user-interfaces and
information visualization. This lecture introduces essential concepts
of user-interface design, discusses important human factors issues,
based on AM+A's recent 100-page analysis for BMW Germany, illustrates
prototypes designed by AM+A of radically different information
displays, and discusses cross-cultural communication issues in
relation to global product and service deployment.
About the speaker: Aaron Marcus is a graduate of Princeton University
(physics) and Yale University (graphic design). He was the world's
first graphic designer to work full-time in computer graphics, was a
pioneer in user-interface and information-visualization design, worked
at Bell Labs and Lawrence Berkeley Labs as a computer graphics design
researcher, and taught at Princeton and the University of California
at Berkeley. Since starting AM+A in 1982, he has authored/co-authored
four books and over 100 articles. He lectures and tutors at industry
conferences and onsite worldwide.
For this lecture on the Internet, look under Computer Science 547 in
http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/students/courseList.asp
For more information about the project in general use, see
http://interactivity.stanford.edu
____________
LECTURE
on Friday, 15 November 2002, 2:00pm
Gates 104
Symbolic Scheduling for Behavioral
and Transaction-level Hardware Synthesis
Forrest Brewer
UC Santa Barbara
Symbolic Scheduling is a set of boolean techniques which allow
modeling of many kinds of behavioral synthesis problems as the
behavior of symbolic automata which can be explored by Boolean
symbolic techniques. There are several advantages (as well as obvious
disadvantages) to this idea. The advantages are mechanisms for
describing extremely complex control, resource and side-effect
constraints, and the ability to model control complexity as part of
the synthesis. The disadvantages have mostly to do with the
complexity of the induced Boolean problem. Despite the complexity,
these techniques have been effective on a surprisingly wide family of
problems from both academic and industrial sources. Typically, the
techniques are most effective on highly constrained problems such as
instruction micro-operation scheduling and related binding and control
problems. In this arena, exact scheduling solutions have been found
for schedules with 50-100 operations and several million control
paths. A particular difficulty has been trying to write succinct
problem specifications containing both the constraints and freedom to
be exploited.
In this talk, we briefly overview symbolic scheduling techniques and
touch on the practical and theoretical issues. We then introduce a
simple intermediate language currently in development which has
bounded control growth and (we hope) succinctly represents the problem
space peculiar to symbolic scheduling. In particular, the language
makes extensive use of non-determinism to allow effective co-solution
of the tasks in behavioral and transaction-level synthesis.
About the speaker: Professor Brewer is a faculty member of the
University of California, Santa Barbara. He received the B.S. degree
in physics (honors) from the California Institute of Technology, and
M.S. and Pd.D. degrees in computer science from the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His primary research work is in the
application of Boolean symbolic techniques in high-level, behavioral,
and sequential synthesis and low level enabling work such as jitter
analysis and accommodating physical constraints in system design.
Practical applications include synthesis of production-based
specifications (technology underlying the Synopsys Protocol Compiler
toolset), NDFA based scheduling, and VLSI timing improvement via clock
and jitter analysis. Recent work includes control dominated
scheduling, heuristic hierarchical behavioral synthesis and efficient
NFSM controller synthesis. Prof. Brewer is a member of APS, IEEE,
ACM, TauBetaPi, and PhiKappaPhi.
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NLP READING GROUP
on Friday, 15 November 2002, 2:15pm - 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 460:301
http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/nlpgroup.html
An Experiment in Unsupervised Training
of Statistical Translation Models
Work by Bob Moore and Michele Banko, Microsoft Research
Bob Moore, presenter
A substantial amount of work in recent years has addressed the problem
of machine translation using statistical methods. Most of this work,
however, depends on having "bitexts"--parallel corpora consisting of
the same text in two languages. While a number bitexts are widely
available, they do not begin to cover the broad range of topics or
languages one might wish to be able to translate. Thus, statistical
translation models would be far more useful if they could be trained
without the need for bitexts.
In fact, the statistical framework most commonly used in the work with
bitexts, the "source-channel model" can be applied in principle to
learning translation models without the use of bitexts. Some work has
been done in this direction, but it has generally been limited in
scope, typically by relying on hand-compiled bilingual dictionaries in
some way.
In our experiment, we ask whether it might be possible to learn a
complete statistical word-translation model without any prior
knowledge of the translation of any word. To simplify other aspects
of the translation problem, we have created an artificial translation
task consisting of a word-level substitution cipher for half of a
corpus in a limited domain, and we attempt to learn the correct
decoding of this cipher, using only word frequency and sequence
statistics derived from the other half of the corpus. By applying the
source-channel model, we were able to obtain 89% word-translation
accuracy in this task.
In this talk we will look at the method and results in detail,
including an analysis of the type of errors committed by the model.
We will conclude by considering the implications of this experiment
for a famous issue in philosophy of language, W.V.O. Quine's doctrine
of "indeterminacy of radical translation."
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BERKELEY LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Monday, 18 November 2002, 4:00pm
182 Dwinelle (Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/events.html
Aspects of Urarina Grammar
Knut J. Olawsky
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
La Trobe University, Melbourne
Urarina is an isolate/unclassified language spoken by ~3000 speakers
in NW Amazonia, Peru, around the tributaries of the Rio Chambira. The
dialect discussed here is spoken in the only village at the Rio
Espejo. In this talk I am going to address a range of grammatical
features that represent typical characteristics of the language.
Urarina is a language in which the correct interpretation of reference
strongly depends on the context known to the participants, as full NPs
are typically omitted. In this talk an overview of a few selected
grammatical properties of Urarina will be given. I will focus on the
following two matters:
1) Verb structure: One interesting aspect is the fact that each verb
has up to three different forms for each person (affirmative and
negative). The use of these forms depends on clause type, constituent
order and other factors. Another unusual property is the absence of
ditransitive verbs: Not only are both direct and indirect objects
omittable; there is no group of verbs, which would require a third
argument.
2) Clause linking: Besides the various types of coordination,
subordination, and serial verb constructions, the language makes
extensive use of a "gerund" form, by which a seemingly indefinite
number of clauses can be joined. A high degree of context-dependency
in long sentences also results from the fact that Urarina has no
switch reference markers.
The complexity of these topics makes it evident that only an overview
for each can be given. In addition, I will try to answer questions on
related areas of Urarina grammar. It is understood that all data is
based on work in progress.
Reception follows.
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LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 19 November 2002, 4:15 pm
Math Corner 380:381T
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Rabin Theory and Tree Automata: An Introduction
Ting Zhang
Stanford
Rabin theory, the monadic second order theory of infinite binary trees
(S2S), is a powerful generalization of theory of Buchi automata (S1S).
Due to the expressive power of monadic second order language, many
decision problems can be formalized in it and hence Rabin's theory
gives a strong mathematical foundation to study decision theories. It
also has numerous applications in computer science, especially in
concurrent computation and program checking and verification.
In this exposition, we present Rabin's famous result that $S2S$ is
decidable. The proof is essentially due to Gurevich and Harrington
with simplification by Zeitman. The talk will cover on the
relationships between S2S, tree automata, game automata and briefly
the forgetful determinacy for game automata. We show how to prove the
decidability result using theory of Buchi automata and the forgetful
determinacy theorem.
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GESTURES AND DIALOGUE SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 19 November 2002, 5:15pm
Cordura Hall, Room 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Gestures/
Embodied Knowledge
Jurgen Streeck
Communication Studies, U. of Texas at Austin
I present inquiries into relationships between ordinary practical
activities and skills of the hands ('handling'), and expressive and
symbolic hand movements ('gesturing'). I am interested in the ways in
which the knowledge that the hands possess, as a result of their
ordinary practical dealings (i.e. the ways in which our hands know the
world), might bear upon the ways in which we gesture and shape
gesture's semiotic and experiential qualities. Hands largely know the
world by way of grasping, and manual knowledge is embodied in
routinized, distinctive 'prehensile postures'. These are the result
of 'structural couplings' between sets of hands and graspables and
manipulation tasks in the world. Prehensile postures and gestures are
known proprioceptively, and grasping is largely experienced, in the
kinesthetic mode. Accordingly, I emphasize the haptic qualities of
gesture.
The inquiries I present concern the emergence and patterning of
gesture in videotaped interactions in a do-it-yourself class, among
car-mechanics and their customers, and amongst architects.
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REUTERS FOUNDATION DIGITAL VISION PROGRAM SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 20 November 2002, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
Cordura Hall, Room 100
http://reuters.stanford.edu/seminar_speakers.html
Intellectual Property of Indigenous Peoples
Douglas I. Kalish
Biotechnology Consultant and Educator, Palo Alto
Doug Kalish is an educator, consultant, and serial entrepreneur who
has founded or been an early executive in three companies. With over
30 years of IT, KM, and management experience, Doug consults in
technology forecasting, strategic technology planning, electronic
business, knowledge management, and biotechnology.
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SSP: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 21 November 2002, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Conversational Interfaces: a Domain-Independent Architecture
for Task-Oriented Dialogues
or
Conversations with Robots, Cars, and Toasters
Alex Gruenstein
Symbolic Systems Program
Humans use natural language to get just about everything done in their
everyday lives, yet they are surrounded by electronic devices like
TVs, VCRs, and even powerful computers which can't understand a word
they say. At the same time, there are many groups of people working
on creating even more intelligent, complex devices capable of doing
everything from vacuuming on their own to flying helicopters
autonomously. As electronic devices become more complex and capable
there arises an immediate need for better interfaces, ones which allow
for humans to interact naturally with complex devices and agents.
Because humans use natural language so effortlessly, it emerges as one
clear choice for such an interface. Clearly, however, it would be
undesirable, complex, and expensive to design from scratch a natural
language interface for each new device which is invented. In this
talk, I will describe an architecture which can be quickly and easily
adapted to a wide variety of devices.
Draft available at: http://www.stanford.edu/~alexgru/thesis/
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END MATERIAL
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