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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 3 December 2003, vol. 19:14
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
3 December 2003 Stanford Vol. 19, No. 14
______________________________________________________________________
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 3 DECEMBER 2003 TO 12 DECEMBER 2003
WEDNESDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2003
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags
Bldg. 420:286
"How children avoid the logical problem of language learning"
Michael Ramscar
Stanford University
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#dev_brownbag
12 noon Asia Event
Encina Hall, Philippines Conference Room (3rd floor center)
"Global Shared Services"
Sanjay Singh
HP Business Process Delivery
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/aparc_bpo.html
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium
Jordan Hall 420:041
"Small Changes in Question Wording Can Produce Big Changes in
People's Reports of Their Attitudes: Unravelling the Mysteries
of Questionnaire Design with the Theory of Satisficing"
Jon Krosnick
Ohio State University
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
4:00pm Fifth Annual CS248 3D Video Game Competition
Graphics Teaching Labs, Basement, Sweet Hall
Information below
4:30pm Logical Methods in the Humanities
Baker Room, Stanford Humanities Center
"Unprovable Theorems"
Harvey Friedman
Ohio State
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"Building a Virus-Safe Computing Platform Don't Add Security,
Remove Insecurity"
Mark S. Miller
HP Labs, Virus-Safe Computing Initiative
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
(note that original talk by David Farber had to be cancelled)
THURSDAY, 4 DECEMBER 2003
3:00pm Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program Seminar
email for location mailto:digitalvision@csli.stanford.edu
John M. Cioffi
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/reuters/cgi-bin/calendar/index.cgi
4:00pm PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Automated Systems Administration: Taming the Chaos in IT"
Steve Traugott
Founder, Infrastructures.Org
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm SRI AI Seminar Series
EK255, SRI International
"Open Source at the AIC:
Issues in releasing and using open source software"
Sunil Mishra
SRI
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
"Approximate Dynamic Programming"
Ben Van Roy
Stanford University
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~wainwrig/cis-seminar
Abstract below
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"Machine learning and autonomous helicopter flight"
Andrew Ng
Computer Science, Stanford
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Abstract below
4:15pm US-Asia Technology Management Center Public Lecture Series
Terman Auditorium
"A China/Taiwan Vision"
Morris Chang, Founder, Chairman and CEO
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)
http://asia.stanford.edu/events/fall03/
RSVP required, see web site
4:15pm Fundamental Themes in Neuroscience Seminar
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman B060
"Molecular Determinants of Neurotransmitter Release"
Thomas Sudhof
Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical Center
http://www-med.stanford.edu/sbrc/calendar/
FRIDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2003
11:00am Berkeley Institute of Cognitive and Brain Seminar
Tolman 5101 (Berkeley)
"Neural Plasticity and Consciousness: An Enactive Approach"
Alva Noe
Philosophy, UC Berkeley
http://socrates.berkeley.edu:4247/seminar.html
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
"People Paper and Computers"
Francois Guimbretiere
University of Maryland
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 380:380Y (note unusual location)
"Representation and Perspective in Science"
Bas van Fraassen
Princeton
http://webware.princeton.edu/vanfraas/
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar
Jordan Hall 420:100
Title to be announced
Alexander Klippel
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#frisem
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"Contributions of visual area MT to stereoscopic depth
perception: linking neural representation to function"
Greg DeAngelis
Anatomy/Neurobiology, Washington University
http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/ucbso/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2003
7:30am Stanford Breakfast Briefings
Stanford Faculty Club
"Ants at Work: Organization Without Management"
Deborah M. Gordon
Biological Sciences, Stanford University
(fee $48/$36 for Stanford staff/students/alumni, includes breakfast)
http://breakfastbriefings.stanford.edu/
Abstract below
7:00pm Emerging Technology Group
Cubberley Community Center, H-1, 4000 Middlefield, Palo Alto
"Lucene and Nutch"
Doug Cutting
http://www.sdforum.org/
(there is a fee for non-SDForum members, see web page)
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 11 DECEMBER 2003
12 noon UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"The Geo Wall: Stereo Projection's Contribution to Earth
Science Education"
Paul Morin
Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota
http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/ucbso/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
Abstract below
12:15pm CSLI CogLunch
Ventura 17 (note room change)
"Notes on Expressivity, Synonymy, Translation, and Compositionality"
Dag Westerstahl
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
4:15pm Fundamental Themes in Neuroscience Seminar
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman B060
"Moving Parts in GABA Receptors"
David Weiss
UAB School of Medicine, Neurobiology Department
http://www-med.stanford.edu/sbrc/calendar/
____________
Stanford Blood Center status: Shortage of O+, O-, A+, A-, B-, and AB-.
For an appointment: http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call
650-723-7831. It only takes an hour of your time.
____________
FIFTH ANNUAL CS248 3D VIDEO GAME COMPETITION
on Wednesday, 3 December 2003, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Graphics teaching labs, basement level, Sweet Hall
At 4:00pm on Wednesday, December 3, a judging will be held to select
the best 3D video game produced by a current student (or team of
students) in CS 248 - Introduction to Computer Graphics.
The jury will consist of:
BILL BUDGE, Senior Software Engineer at Electronic Arts' Redwood
Shores Studio. As a graduate student at UC Berkeley in 1979, Bill
bought an Apple II computer and immediately flunked out. Luckily
he found his life's work, building video games. Bill wrote Pinball
Construction Set, one of EA's first platinum selling games, and is
currently building world editing tools as part of the Central
Technology Group.
LANG BEECK, software design engineer at Microsoft and a Stanford
alumnus (MSCE '84). Pre-Microsoft game credits include Aces of the
Deep, Cyberstorm, ProPilot, and Red Baron II. Credits at Microsoft
include Flight Simulator 2000, Combat Flight Simulator 2, Microsoft
Flight Simulator 2002, and Combat Flight Simulator 3.
ALLAN ALCORN, co-founder of Atari, creator of coin-op Pong and the
home version of Pong. He led the development of the Atari VCS and
Cosmos, the first holographic game. After Atari, Alcorn was a
Fellow at Apple Computer where he did early work that led to the
MPEG standard and QuickTime. Al was also VP Engineering at Digital
FX and consulted at Interval Research.
RENE PATNODE, veteran of CS 248, former member of the Digital Forma
Urbis Romae Project programming team, general man-about-campus for
academic projects and courses related to video games and their
history, and stalwart teaching assistant in CS 248 this year.
IAN BUCK, senior PhD student in the Stanford Computer Graphics
Laboratory and a stalwart teaching assistant in CS 248 this year.
While grades for the assignments in CS 248 are based mainly on
"technical merit", entries in the video game competition will be
judged on technical merit, compelling game play, and originality.
Students are not required to participate in this competition.
Here is the schedule of events:
Wednesday, December 3:
9:00 - 3:15 Grading of video games (course students only)
3:15 - 4:00 Professor and TAs meet to choose 6-8 finalist teams
4:00 Public part of video game competition begins
4:00 - 5:30 Finalists present their games to the jury
5:30 - 5:45 Jury retires to consider their decision
5:45 Announcement of winners
5:45 - 6:30 Continued heavy partying
There will be one grand prize - an all-expenses-paid trip to Siggraph
2004 in Los Angeles next summer, and one second-place prize - dinner
for two at Il Fornaio in Palo Alto. In addition, every member of a
finalist team will receive a current video game title for the PC
platform, generously donated by Electronic Arts. Finally, there will
also be a special prize given for the wackiest or most daring
submission - a Microsoft Xbox, donated by Microsoft, with games
donated by Microsoft. If the grand prize is won by a team, it must be
split among the team members. The second-place prize will be
duplicated as necessary to cover the team. Only one Xbox will be
awarded.
Refreshments will be served beginning at 4:00pm. Finalists' entries
will be "hung" on the PCs in the graphics labs and will be available
for viewing throughout the judging and party. However, the room is
going to be crowded, so milling around to look at them will only be
possible before 4pm or after 5:30pm.
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EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 3 December 2003, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
"Building a Virus-Safe Computing Platform Don't Add Security,
Remove Insecurity"
Mark S. Miller
HP Labs, Virus-Safe Computing Initiative
When you run Solitaire, why can it delete any file you can? Such
pervasive excesses of access rights cause our vulnerability to viruses
and more. For thirty years, mainstream systems -- such as today's
Unixes, Windows, Java, .NET -- have been built on two conflicting
logics of access: capabilities and ACLs. They unsuccessfully provide
security using ACL logic. They successfully provide functionality
using modularity and abstraction mechanisms which follow capability
logic.
E, a distributed secure object-capability language, is the plumbing
underneath CapDesk, the virus-safe desktop demonstrated in Marc
Stiegler's earlier talk on the "SkyNet Virus". E's security derives
mostly by removing from conventional objects all causal pathways
outside the pure object model -- leaving only capability-based
access. Rather than making users chose between functionality and
security, we use one access paradigm to provide both together. As an
example, we show secure distributed money implemented in 15 lines of
readable E code.
About the speaker: Mark S. Miller is the Chief Architect of the Virus
Safe Computing Initiative at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, and is the
Open Source Coordinator of the E Project at http://www.erights.org.
He is a designer of several secure distributed programming languages
including Vulcan for Xerox PARC, Trusty Scheme for AutoDesk, Joule for
Agorics and Fujitsu, Tclio for Sun Labs, and E for Electric
Communities, ERights.org, and Combex. As founder and CTO of Combex,
Mark fashioned E into the platform used for CapDesk -- a
Darpa-sponsored prototype of a virus-safe desktop and application
launching framework.
Mark was drawn into security by pursuit of another dream. He is a
co-creator of the agoric paradigm of market-based adaptive distributed
secure computation. He is also a founder of Agorics, a company started
to capitalize on agoric computing ideas.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 4 December 2003, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
"Automated Systems Administration: Taming the Chaos in IT"
Steve Traugott
Founder, Infrastructures.Org
Most IT organizations still install and maintain computers the same
way the automotive industry built cars in the early 1900's: An
individual craftsman manually manipulates a machine into being, and
manually maintains it afterward. In most IT shops, relatively little
effort is allocated for automating changes made to systems in order to
gain economies of scale. In losing repeatability, we also lose safety
-- reliability of standby systems is mixed, and even disaster recovery
planning is often considered to be a paper exercise rather than a
technology driver.
But outside the systems administration field, it's not well understood
that computer systems administration is generally manual as well as
ad-hoc. The CIOs of some of our best and brightest Silicon Valley
companies are blissfully unaware of the chaos in their own ranks. In a
global economy dependent on information technology, the friction
generated by ineffective IT practices impacts productivity, jobless
rates, quality of life, and the growth of emerging industries.
The automotive industry discovered first mass production, then mass
customization using standardized tooling. This talk describes similar
techniques that are being applied in IT today, ranging from tools for
systems administrators to workable business models of interest to the
executive officer. Developed over the last several years by a growing,
loose-knit group of active UNIX and Linux systems administrators,
architects, and IT executives, these methodologies have been proven in
mission-critical environments as well as in recovery from major
disasters. They lower the cost of providing IT infrastructure,
increase data center scalability and efficiency, and make for rapid,
reliable, and repeatable deployments and changes.
About the Speaker: Steve Traugott's 1998 USENIX Large Installation
Systems Administration(LISA) paper, "Bootstrapping an Infrastructure",
helped launch the IT Infrastructure Architect career field. He is a
former Vice President of trading floor engineering for Chase Manhattan
Bank and a U.S. Air Force Special Operations veteran. His IT industry
experience spans over 20 years and covers platforms ranging from
embedded systems to supercomputers. He helped port the Mach kernel to
mainframes, and UNIX System V to PC's. After September 11th, 2001, he
returned to New York for three months to work with World Trade Center
survivors.
Today Steve is a consulting Infrastructure Architect, and publishes
tools and techniques for automated systems administration and disaster
recovery. His clients have included Chemical Bank, Cisco, NASA, IBM,
AT&T, DEC, Netscape, Sun, Caterpillar, Morgan Stanley, and the Central
Bank of Trinidad.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Thursday, 4 December 2003, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
EK255, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
"Open Source at the AIC:
Issues in releasing and using open source software"
Sunil Mishra
SRI
Open source software today has become a common means of releasing and
exchanging software. However, neither releasing nor using such
software is a simple matter. In using open source software, we tie our
work to the license of the software we use. And in releasing open
source software, we must choose a license, make sure all the parties
involved in producing the software agree to its release, and finally
release and support the software. This seminar aims at giving a quick
overview of the common open source licenses, some potential pitfalls,
and an overview of the process in place at SRI for releasing software
as open source. There will be a significant emphasis on discussion.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 4 December 2003, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~wainwrig/cis-seminar
"Approximate Dynamic Programming"
Ben Van Roy
Stanford University
Approximate dynamic programming has the potential to become a
widely-used high-impact technology, but further development of the
field is required to get there. In this talk, I will discuss a few
examples of real-world problems that should benefit, recent advances
in algorithms and theory, and important directions for future
research.
____________
SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 4 December 2003, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
"Machine learning and autonomous helicopter flight"
Andrew Y. Ng
Computer Science, Stanford University
Helicopters have complex, highly non-intuitive, noisy dynamics, and
autonomous helicopter flight represents one of the most challenging
control problems. In this talk, I will describe the key ideas that
had enabled the successful application of machine learning to
designing a controller for our autonomous helicopter here at Stanford.
I will also describe the application of these ideas to some other
challenging control problems, such as four-legged robot locomotion.
About the Speaker: Andrew Ng is an assistant professor in the Computer
Science department at Stanford University. His research interests
include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms for
web and text data processing.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 5 December 2003, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
"People, Paper and Computers"
Francois Guimbretiere
University of Maryland, Human-Computer Interaction Lab
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~francois/
For several decades, experts have predicted that the advent of more
powerful and compact computers will result in the creation of
paperless offices. Yet, the consumption of paper is on the rise and,
with few exceptions, office work still relies heavily on paper. At the
root of this apparent paradox is the tension between the set of
affordances provided by printed and digital documents: on the one
hand, printed documents are easy to navigate, annotate and provide
large inexpensive high-resolution display surfaces. Their tangibility
also makes them easy to navigate. On the other hand, digital documents
are easy to edit, search and index. Their intangibility makes them
inexpensive to store, duplicate and distribute.
The project on People, Paper and Computers explores how to design
new human computer interfaces that will bridge the affordance gap
between printed and digital documents. These interfaces will let users
navigate and annotate digital documents with the ease and comfort of
printed documents.
In this talk, we will present an overview of the project on People,
Paper and Computers and report on the current status of several major
components including the Paper Augmented Digital Document system.
About the Speaker: Francois Guimbretiere is an assistant professor at
the University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL). His
current research interests include exploring how new technologies can
be used to reduce the gap between the digital world and the paper
world; designing and quantifying new command selection mechanisms such
as FlowMenu and understanding how new interaction and rendering
techniques could help people understand and compare very large trees
such as phylogenies. More information can be found at
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~francois .
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Friday, 5 December 2003, 4:00pm
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/ucbso/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
"Contributions of visual area MT to stereoscopic depth perception:
linking neural representation to function"
Greg DeAngelis
Anatomy/Neurobiology, Washington University
Although binocular disparity signals have been indentified in several
cortical visual areas in primates, the respective roles of these
different areas in stereopsis remain poorly understood. I will
summarize some of our efforts to characterize the roles that visual
area MT plays in depth perception. I will describe single-unit
recording and microstimulation experiments which show that MT plays an
important role in coarse judgments of depth from absolute disparities,
whereas it appears not to contribute to fine judgments of relative
depth. In addition, I will show that this task-specific contribution
of MT can be simply explained by the fact that MT neurons code
absolute, but not relative, disparities, the latter of which are
necessary for fine depth discrimination. These results establish an
important link between neural representation and function.
____________
STANFORD BREAKFAST BRIEFINGS
on Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 7:30am-9:00am (talk starts at 8:00am)
Stanford Faculty Club
(fee $48/$36 for Stanford staff/students/alumni)
http://breakfastbriefings.stanford.edu/
"Ants at Work: Organization Without Management"
Deborah M. Gordon
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University
"The mystery about ant colonies is that there is no management."
--Deborah Gordon
* Ant colonies operate without any central control
* No ant has power over another
* There are no territorial borders
...yet, the ant colony performs extremely complex tasks! Gordon's
discoveries have profound implications for anyone who is interested in
how organizations work.
Special Feature: Gordon's recent book, "Ants at Work: How an Insect
Society is Organized" will be available for purchase in the lobby
____________
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY GROUP
on Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 7:00pm
Cubberley Community Center, H-1, 4000 Middlefield, Palo Alto
http://www.sdforum.org/
(there is a fee for non-SDForum members, see web page)
"Lucene and Nutch"
Doug Cutting
Nutch is a nascent effort to implement an open-source internet search
application. Search is essential for internet navigation, yet the
ranking algorithms of existing internet search engines are secret. We
believe users have a right to know why pages rank as they do, and that
providing an open source implementation can help to defend this
right. Nutch also provides a scalable, high-quality search application
for intranets, and a platform for research.
Nutch is built atop Lucene. I will discuss the goals and architecture
of Nutch, and how it uses Lucene to implement these.
About the Speaker: Doug Cutting has worked on search technology for
over 15 years. He spent five years at Xerox PARC, three years at Apple
with its Advanced Technology Group, and over four years at Excite. In
1998 he wrote Lucene ( http://jakarta.apache.org/lucene/ ),
open-source text-search software which subsequently became part of the
Apache Jakarta project. He is also the principal architect of Nutch (
http://www.nutch.org/ ) an open source web search application.
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Thursday, 11 December 2003, 12 noon
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/ucbso/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
"The Geo Wall:
Stereo Projection's Contribution to Earth Science Education"
Paul Morin
Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota,
National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics
Host: Marty Banks
http://geowall.geo.lsa.umich.edu/
A good understanding of spatial relationships is a fundamental
requirement in the study of the Earth Sciences. Traditional teaching
methods have strongly relied on the 2D representations through maps
and profiles that are occasionally augmented by physical models.
Although most Earth Scientists have been trained to understand the 3D
structure from such representations, the extrapolation requires
spatial thinking skills that are difficult to learn and often form a
stumbling block for students at the introductory level.
The GeoWall project's mission is to broaden the use of scientific
visualization tools for Earth Science research and education by the
use of low cost virtual reality visualization devices. Over 200 of
these a low-cost (<$10,000) stereo projection systems have been
deployed to more than 60 institutions around the world serving about
25% of undergraduate, non-major students in the U.S.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 11 December 2003, 12:15pm-1:30pm
Ventura 17
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
with FREE burritos at 12 for the first arrivals
"Notes on Expressivity, Synonymy, Translation, and Compositionality"
Dag Westerstahl
Theoretical Philosophy, Gothenburg University, Sweden
The talk brings up some issues from a chapter in a forthcoming book by
Stanley Peters and me. The book is about quantification, but this
chapter has wider scope, and is meant as an introduction to the
concept of expressive power in both formal and natural
languages. Various questions present themselves, including: What is a
suitable level at which to talk about expressivity in a sufficiently
general yet informative way? Surprisingly little appears to be
available in the literature. Perhaps no very exciting claims can be
made, but some points do seem to merit the attention of
semanticists. At least that's what I'll argue, focusing on the
concepts mentioned in the title. They hang together in an obvious way:
A notion of relative expressivity relies on a concept of translation,
which in turn presupposes a notion of synonymy, within and between
languages. Compositional translations are especially nice. There are
details to fill in, and some compensation in the form of provable
structural facts. But why are there so many notions of synonymy
around, and what follows from that? And what, if any, is the
relevance of logic (model theory) in all of this?
____________
END MATERIAL
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____________