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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 31 March 2004, vol. 19:29
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
31 March 2004 Stanford Vol. 19, No. 29
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A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
Stanford University, Cordura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/
____________
ACTIVITIES FROM 31 MARCH 2004 TO 9 APRIL 2004
WEDNESDAY, 31 MARCH 2004
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags
Bldg. 420:050
"Knowing what a novel word is not, and when a known word is necessary:
How two-year olds process pronominal adjectives in continuous speech"
Kirsten Thorpe
Psychology, Stanford
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#dev_brownbag
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"petaFLOP/s systems and changing the nature of science:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the petaFLOP/s"
Mark Seager
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 1 APRIL 2004
12 noon RNI/Stanford Seminar Series on Theoretical Neuroscience
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman Center
"The Cerebral Cortex:
Quantitative Neuroanatomy as a Key to Cortical Function"
Almut Schuez
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
http://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/main/staff.php?user=schuez
http://www.rni.org/seminar2.html
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Apocalyptic Algorithms"
Michael Wilson
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
"On the Choice of Regions for Generalized Belief Propagation"
Max Welling
UC Irvine
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ywteh/cis-seminar
Abstract below
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"All Questions Answered"
Donald Knuth
Computer Science, Stanford University
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Information below
4:30pm Carlos McClatchy Memorial Colloquium
Learning Theater, Wallenberg Hall (Bldg. 160)
"Talking Age & Aging Talk: Cross Cultural Parameters"
Howard Giles
Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/communication/
FRIDAY, 2 APRIL 2004
11:00am UC Berkeley ICBS Colloquium
Tolman 5101 (Berkeley)
"Functional Properties of Neural Circuits for Vision"
Martin Usrey
Center for Neuroscience, UC Davis
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/admin/colloquia.html
12 noon Logic Lunch
Bldg. 100:101K
"Mathematical Objects and Fictional Characters"
Ottavio Bueno, Philosophy, University of South Carolina
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Abstract below
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
"Metadata Creation for Mobile Images"
Marc Davis
UC Berkeley
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
3:15pm Logical Methods in the Humanities
Bldg. 380:383N
"Reflections on `purity of method' in Hilbert's Grundlagen der
Geometrie"
Michael Hallett
McGill University
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"A New Perspective on the Role of Retinal Activity in
Development of the Visual System"
Leo Chalupa
University of California, Davis
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
SUNDAY, 4 APRIL 2004
all day Stanford Community Day
bring the kids
http://communityday.stanford.edu/
MONDAY, 5 APRIL 2004
9:00am Second Language Acquisition Reading Group
CERAS 204
"Second Language Acquisition and Participatory Approaches to
Adult ESL Instruction: Finding Theoretical Connections"
Discussion led by Savitha Moorthy
Education, Stanford
http://www.stanford.edu/~kenro/SLA-RG/
12 noon UC Berkeley Psychology Colloquium
3105 Tolman (Berkeley)
"Learning Probabilistic Languages: Who Learns What, When, and Why"
Carla Hudson Kam
Psychology, UC Berkeley
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/admin/colloquia.html
4:15pm CS528: Broad Area Colloquium in AI,
Geometry, Graphics, Robotics, and Vision
TCSeq 200
"Computer Vision for Mars Exploration"
Larry Matthies
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs528/
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 6 APRIL 2004
3:00pm Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program Seminar
Reuters lounge, Cordura Hall
"Open Knowledge and Heritage:
Moving the Past to the Cultural Commons"
Eric Kansa
Alexandria Archive Institute
http://www.alexandriaarchive.org
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/reuters/cgi-bin/calendar/index.cgi
Abstract below
4:15pm Logic Seminar
Room to be announced
"Logics of Space"
First meeting
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Information below
4:15pm SNRC Industry Seminar
Gates B03 Auditorium
"Why Conservation Among Web Services Matters"
Fabio Casati
HP Labs
http://snrc.stanford.edu/events/industry-seminar/
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 7 APRIL 2004
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags
Bldg. 420:050
"Literacy Development"
Connie Juel
School of Education
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#dev_brownbag
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium
Jordan Hall 420:041
"Inferring the invisible: How children and adults use
contingencies to discover unobserved causal structure"
Alison Gopnik
UC Berkeley
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"The Appliance Model: Uniform approach to scalable, highly
available, commodity architecture"
Brad Porter
TellMe
http://www.tellme.com/
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
THURSDAY, 8 APRIL 2004
12:15pm CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Title to be announced
Michael Strevins
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
2:00pm Stanford Algorithms Seminar (AFLB)
Gates 400 (or Theory Lounge)
"A New algorithm for Knapsack"
T.C. Hu
UCSD
http://theory.stanford.edu/~aflb/
4:00pm Personality Lab
Jordan Hall 420:419
"Feeling and healing: Stress,Emotions and Cancer"
David Spiegel
Psychiatry, Stanford
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#person_lab
4:00pm PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Travelling the Coffee Route in Pursuit of Quality"
Jim Reynolds
Vice President, Peets Coffee
http://www.parc.com/forum/
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"Purity in Mathematics"
Andrew Arana
Philosophy Department
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar
Packard 101
Title to be announced
Prakash Narayan
University of Maryland
http://isl.stanford.edu/groups/seminar/
7:00pm SDForum Distinguished Speaker Series
Panofsky Auditorium, SLAC, 2475 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park
"Making and Measuring Effective Virtual Environments"
Frederick Brooks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.sdforum.org/
(there is a fee)
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 9 APRIL 2004
12 noon UC Berkeley Irvin Rock Memorial Lecture
489 Minor Hall (Berkeley)
"Aspects of the 4-Dimensional Geometry of Visual Object Formation"
Phil Kellman
Psychology, UC Los Angeles
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
Abstract below
(I note that http://optometry.berkeley.edu/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
has this talk listed for 4:00pm but two other pages for 12 noon)
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
"MERBoard: a Multi-mission Platform for Collaborative Mission
Control Applications"
Jay Trimble
NASA Ames
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium
Bldg. 90:92Q
"On Determining What There Isn't"
Michael Devitt
CUNY Graduate Center
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
3:30pm Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
Title to be announced
Manfred Krifka
ZAS and Humboldt University
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
____________
Stanford Blood Center status: Shortage of O-. For an appointment:
http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call 650-723-7831. It only takes
an hour of your time.
____________
COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS
(Note that these may be restricted to registered students)
Ling 136/236. Speech Recognition and Synthesis. Introduction to
automatic speech recognition, speech understanding and speech
synthesis/text-to-speech. Focus on understanding of key algorithms
including noisy channel model, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), A* and
Viterbi decoding, N-gram language modeling, unit selection synthesis,
and roles of linguistic knowledge (esp. phonetics, intonation,
pronunciation variation, disfluencies). Prerequisites: programming
experience. Recommended: basic familiarity with probability. Joint
enrollment in 237/CS224N encouraged. 4 Units, Spr (Jurafsky)
Ling 237 (Same as CS 224N). Natural Language Processing. Algorithms
for processing linguistic information and the underlying computational
properties of natural languages. Morphological, syntactic, and
semantic processing from a linguistic and an algorithmic
perspective. Focus is on modern quantitative techniques in NLP: using
large corpora, statistical models for acquisition, representative
systems. Prerequisites: 138/238 or CS 121/221, and programming
experience. Recommended: basic familiarity with logic and
probability. 3-4 units, Spr (Manning)
Ling 239A. Topics in Computational Linguistics: Parsing and
Generation. Algorithms used for grammar-based parsing and generation
with special attention to unification-based grammars, efficient
chart-based processing techniques, and metrics for performance
evaluation of practical systems. Hands-on programming
exercises. Prerequisite: basic knowledge of Common-Lisp. Recommended:
Ling 239E, general knowledge of another functional programming
language such as C++ or Java, and a willingness to learn Common-Lisp
self-study. 1-4 units, Spr (Flickinger and Oepen)
Ling 239F. Finite State Methods in Natural Language
Processing. Introduction to the theory and available technology for
finite state language processing. The applications range from
tokenization to phonological and morphological analysis,
disambiguation, and shallow parsing. 3-4 units, Spr (Karttunen)
Ling 237D. Readings in NLP: 1 Unit, Spr (King and Uchiyama)
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 31 March 2004, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
"petaFLOP/s systems and changing the nature of science:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the petaFLOP/s"
Mark Seager
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
There are now several practical petaFLOP/s architectures that can be
built in the 2007-2009 timeframe. We discuss several alternative
architectures and the implications for applications development. We
use the IBM BlueGene/L ( http://www.llnl.gov/asci/platforms/bluegenel/
) design and the SRC MAP
http://www.srccomputers.com/HardwareElements.htm#MAPProcessor
designs as starting points for the discussion. In addition, we show
the high-level architecture of a simulation environment being built at
LLNL to support 10s teraFLOP/s, going to 100s teraFLOP/s simulations
and how this might scale to petaFLOP/s.
Using this environment, we have produced simulations in several areas
of Science that have pushed back the boundaries of scientific
knowledge before theory and experiments were able to. With this
experience it occurs to us that the with the advent of 10s --> 100s
teraFLOP/s computing, the nature of science is changing. We review
some of the scientific areas that will be impacted at LLNL by the
BlueGene/L platform.
About the speaker: Dr. Seager received his B.S. Degree in Mathematics
and Astrophysics at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque in
1979 and received his PhD in Numerical Analysis from the University of
Texas at Austin in 1984. Mark started working at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in 1983 and has been working in the field of
parallel processing ever since. He manages the Platforms Program for
the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASCI) Program at LLNL and has
successfully managed partnership to successfully deploy architectures
such as ASCI Blue Pacific (3.9 TF/s in 1998), ASCI White (12.3 TF/s in
2000) and the powerful LLNL Linux clusters (MCR at 11.3 TF/s in 2002
and Thunder at 23 TF/s in 2004). He is currently managing the IBM
contract for ASCI Purple (100 TF/s in 2H05) and BlueGene/L (180/360
TF/s in 1H2005). His current interests include advanced technology and
scalable systems architecture, performance and commodity based high
performance computing.
____________
RNI/STANFORD SEMINAR SERIES IN THEORETICAL NEUROSCIENCE
on Thursday, 1 April 2004, 12 noon - 1pm
Munzer Auditorium, Beckman Center
http://www.rni.org/seminar2.html
"The Cerebral Cortex:
Quantitative Neuroanatomy as a Key to Cortical Function"
Almut Schuez
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tubingen, Germany
http://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/main/staff.php?user=schuez
Nerve cells are both tiny (micrometers) and large (millimeters up to
meters, the range of their ramifications). In the central nervous
system, they are densely packed and their thin processes are
intermingled to form very dense networks. This implies that even
though all the details of a nerve net may be seen on histological
sections, global aspects of connectivity cannot be detected directly
under the microscope. It is possible, however, to derive aspects of
connectivity from statistical measurements of the various components
in the tissue.
About the Speaker: Professor Almut Schuez is a Research Scientist and
co-author, with Valentino Braitenberg, of "Cortex: Statistics and
Geometry of Neuronal Connectivity" (Springer, 1991 & 1998). The book
became a cornerstone of a new research area called quantitative neuro-
anatomy, which forms a bridge between neuroanatomy and computational
brain modeling.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 1 April 2004, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
"Apocalyptic Algorithms"
Michael Wilson
Technology stands accused of removing the physical body from the site
of social exchange and of ordering the body/world through algorithmic
procedures. Most reactions to the alienation of technological
processes and products become religious, even apocalyptic - suspecting
the hand of Satan in bar codes and virtual reality. They stress the
original material "sin" - a narcissistic infatuation with " tools"
that steadily drains the (spiritual) life from the subject. Assuming
that consciousness is rooted in the body, physical manipulations of
consciousness have the potential to disrupt or alter the structure of
the algorithm. Such disruptions might produce an apocalyptic shift in
the constitution of social and cultural reality. The "apocalypse" is
commonly associated with the end of physical reality. It evades
physical description precisely because the apocalypse itself (an
"unveiling" or "revelation") initiates a shift in consciousness.
Apocalypse is a compelling and recurrent narrative because it provides
us with a meta-script - an all-encompassing algorithm whose execution
is the ultimate computation. Perhaps a sustained attempt at producing
signals to trigger the execution of a self-reflexive apocalyptic
algorithm could produce the End in positive and non-absolutist terms:
the end of history as we have inherited it.
About the Speaker: Michael Wilson is an artist whose work utilizes a
variety of operational contexts in order to explore how cognitive
orientations and social dynamics influence human attitudes and
behavior. He co-founded Laminus - a quasi-fictional
revolutionary/corporate entity that engaged in a series of
performative acoustic interventions at abandoned landmarks throughout
the city of San Francisco; The Post-traumatic Institute for Social
Satisfaction[1], a research institution dedicated to lengthy,
byzantine procedures in pursuit of utopian solutions; and Communitatus
Operatio Militia Apokalypsis (COMA)[2], a secret society/signal corps
dedicated to apocalyptic operations. He is also a member of the new
media collaborative C-level[3]. His work has been shown at The
Kitchen (New York, NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San
Francisco), The Rotterdam Film Festival (Rotterdam, Netherlands),
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts (New York, NY), the Byzantine Museum (Athens,
Greece), Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (Dusseldorf, Germany), RealArtWays
(Hartford, CT), Sandroni-Rey Gallery (Los Angeles) and the Arkansas
Arts Center.
Michael Wilson lives and works in Los Angeles. A native of Arkansas,
he received a BA in Philosophy from Hendrix College, a BFA from the
San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Yale University. He is
currently a lecturer in the art departments at University of
California, Irvine and Otis College of Art & Design. He also lectures
in the cinema department at Pasadena City College.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 1 April 2004, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ywteh/cis-seminar
"On the Choice of Regions for Generalized Belief Propagation"
Max Welling
UC Irvine
Generalized belief propagation (GBP) has proven to be a promising
technique for approximate inference tasks in AI and machine
learning. However, the choice of a good set of clusters to be used in
GBP has remained more of an art then a science until this day. This
paper proposes a sequential approach to adding new clusters of nodes
and their interactions (i.e. "regions") to the approximation. We first
review and analyze the recently introduced region graphs and find that
three kinds of operations ("split", "merge" and "death") leave the
free energy and (under some conditions) the fixed points of GBP
invariant. This leads to the notion of "weakly irreducible" regions as
the natural candidates to be added to the approximation. Computational
complexity of the GBP algorithm is controlled by restricting attention
to regions with small "region-width". Combining the above with an
efficient (i.e. local in the graph) measure to predict the improved
accuracy of GBP leads to the sequential "region pursuit" algorithm for
adding new regions bottom-up to the region graph. Experiments show
that this algorithm can indeed perform close to optimally.
____________
SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 1 April 2004, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
"All Questions Answered"
Donald Knuth
Computer Science, Stanford University
Professor Knuth will kick off this quarter's SSP 10 schedule by
answering questions from all takers.
About the Speaker: Donald E. Knuth is Professor Emeritus of The Art of
Computer Programming at Stanford University. He is the author of
numerous books, including three volumes of The Art of Computer
Programming, five volumes of Computers & Typesetting, and a
non-technical book entitled 3:16 - Bible Texts Illuminated. His
software systems TeX and MF are extensively used for book publishing
throughout the world. He holds honorary doctorates from several
institutions, including Oxford University, the University of Paris,
the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and fourteen colleges
and universities in America.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 2 April 2004, 12 noon
Bldg. 100:101K
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
"Mathematical Objects and Fictional Characters"
Ottavio Bueno
Philosophy, University of South Carolina
In this paper, I highlight some desiderata that an account of
mathematics should meet to make sense of mathematical practice. After
briefly indicating that current versions of platonism and nominalism
fail to satisfy all of the desiderata, I sketch two versions of
mathematical fictionalism that meet them. One version is based on an
empiricist view of science, and has the additional benefit of
providing a unified account of both mathematics and science. The
other version of fictionalism is based on the metaphysics of fiction,
and articulates a truly fictionalist account of mathematics. After
indicating why both versions of fictionalism satisfy all of the
desiderata, I argue that they are best developed if taken together.
As a result, mathematical fictionalism is alive and well.
____________
CS528: BROAD AREA COLLOQUIUM FOR
AI-GEOMETRY-GRAPHICS-VISION-ROBOTICS
on Monday, 5 April 2004, 4:15pm
TCSeq 200
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs528/
"Computer Vision for Mars Exploration"
Larry Matthies
Supervisor, Machine Vision Group
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The JPL Machine Vision Group conducts research under funding from
NASA, DARPA, and the U.S. Army on perception systems for autonomous
navigation of unmanned ground and air vehicles (UGVs and UAVs). In
this seminar, I will concentrate on NASA applications in planetary
exploration, particularly for Mars. I will start by describing our
contributions to the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission now
operating on Mars. For this mission, we developed (1) the Descent
Image Motion Estimation System (DIMES) for estimating horizontal
velocity during terminal descent, which was used in retro-rocket
firing logic, (2) onboard stereo vision and obstacle avoidance
algorithms for rover navigation, and (3) onboard, stereo vision-based
visual odometry algorithms to improve rover position estimation. I
will then outline key directions and results to date in vision systems
for future planetary exploration applications, including pin-point
landing based on recognizing crater landmarks during descent and
autonomous landing hazard avoidance using onboard
structure-from-motion, which we have demonstrated on a robotic
helicopter. Finally, I will show a few highlights from non-NASA work,
particularly vision-based moving object detection on-the-move for
ground robots.
About the Speaker: Larry Matthies received a PhD in computer science
from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989 and has been at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory since then. He has led the Machine Vision Group
there since it was formed in 1997. His research interests are in
perception for autonomous navigation of unmanned ground and air
vehicles, including 3-D perception, motion estimation, and terrain
classification for day/night, all-terrain, all-weather operation. He
participated in development of the structured light range-finding
system that was used in the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission and he
developed the stereo vision and visual odometry algorithms that are in
use on Spirit and Opportunity in the 2004 Mars Exploration Rover
mission. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science
Department at the University of Southern California.
____________
REUTERS FOUNDATION DIGITAL VISION PROGRAM SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 6 April 2004, 3:30pm-5:00pm
Cordura Second Floor
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/reuters/cgi-bin/calendar/index.cgi
(note space is limited)
"Open Knowledge and Heritage:
Moving the Past to the Cultural Commons"
Eric Kansa
Our cultural heritage represents humanity's collective memory. The past
provides people with a rich tapestry of motifs, stories, and places
that help shape and bind communities. This inheritance is a vital
source of wonder, creativity, and innovation, and even a foundation
for economic growth. We therefore have a responsibility to act as
stewards of the past for future generations. In working towards this
goal, the Alexandria Archive Institute (www.alexandriaarchive.org)
works to build an open knowledge, Internet-based system to preserve
and provide universal access to primary information about the past.
Given the accelerating pace of heritage destruction, this effort is a
race against time. Sustaining this effort involves significant
technological, financial, legal, and political challenges that I will
outline in this lecture.
____________
LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 6 April 2004, 4:15pm-5:30pm
Room to be announced
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
The theme of Stanford Logic Seminar in spring quarter is Logics of
Space. There will be occasional special presentations by visitors.
In the first two talks (by Grisha Mints and Johan van Benthem) we
begin with preliminaries: modal logic and the topological
interpretation up to Tarski's Theorem on completeness of the real line
for S4. At the beginning we discuss organizational questions.
____________
SNRC INDUSTRY SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 6 April 2004, 4:15pm
Gates B03
http://snrc.stanford.edu/events/industry-seminar/
"Why Conservation Among Web Services Matters"
Fabio Casati
HP Labs
Despite the great interest and the enormous potential, Web services,
and more in general service-oriented architectures (SOAs), are still
in their infancy. The speed at which software vendors have released
middleware and development tools for Web services is unprecedented,
but their level of maturity is still far from their counterparts in
conventional middleware. This is only natural and common to any novel
technology, and will be corrected over time, as more users adopt this
technology and provide feedback on what the actual needs are.
Despite the young age, there are a few significant trends that are
emerging in terms of middleware support for Web services. In
particular, the interesting aspect of Web services is that they have
characteristics that differ from services in conventional middleware,
and that can take service development and management tools to a new
dimension.
One of the key differences is the conversational nature of Web
services and the consequent need for extending "traditional", IDL-like
interface specifications with the indication of the business protocols
that a service supports. In this talk we will examine the motivation
and needs for business protocols in Web services and the benefits that
providing such specifications can offer in terms of automated
development and runtime support. We will also describe the different
possible protocol models, along with their advantages and limitations.
Another significant aspect of Web services and of the research in this
field is the significant interest in service composition
technologies. Service composition is the dual aspect of protocols:
protocols refer to the external specifications, while composition
refers to the internal implementation of a service, achieved by
composing other services. In the talk we will elaborate on composition
technologies in Web services, discussing why they are applicable in
spite of earlier failures in conventional middleware (workflows), what
is the benefit they provide, and what is their relationship with
business protocols.
The combination of conversational and compositional aspects in Web
services is one of the key aspects that will enable an evolutionary
technology (such as that of Web services) to bring revolutionary
changes in terms of application development, deployment, and
management.
About the Speaker: Fabio Casati is a senior researcher at HP Labs,
Palo Alto. He got his PhD from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in
1999. His research interests include business processes, web services,
and business-driven application management. He has led the development
of several applications in this space and he is author of more than 50
papers in international conferences and journals. Fabio has also
served as officer in many conferences.
____________
PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 7 April 2004, 3:45pm
Jordan Hall, Room 420:041
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
"Inferring the invisible: How children and adults use
contingencies to discover unobserved causal structure"
Alison Gopnik
UC Berkeley
In scientific theories we characteristically make causal inferences
about things that we do not directly observe. We make claims about the
causal powers of distant planets, microbes, genes and so on.
Similarly, even preschool children seem to have a great deal of causal
knowledge about unobserved entities, encoded in their naive
theories. These unobserved causes include mental states, innate
biological potential, or "essences". How can we learn about causal
structure that we don't see from events that we do see? I will
describe two series of experiments with children and adults that
explore inferences of this kind. In the first set of studies, children
use assumptions about causal determinism, the idea that every effect
has a cause, and every cause deterministically brings about its
effects, to infer unobserved causes and to draw conclusions about the
nature of those causes. In the second set of studies, adults and
children use information about the outcomes of interventions to infer
whether two correlated events have an unobserved common cause. These
results pose problems for both associationist and mechanistic accounts
of causal learning. However, they can be well characterized using the
causal Bayes net formalism.
____________
SDFORUM DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER SERIES
on Thursday, 8 April 2004, 7:00pm
(Registration and Networking, 6:00pm)
Panofsky Auditorium, SLAC, 2475 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park
http://www.sdforum.org/
(there is a fee)
"Making and Measuring Effective Virtual Environments"
Frederick Brooks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/
In this talk, Dr. Brooks will discuss his current work in virtual
environments. The Effective Virtual Environments project at Chapel
Hill is trying to determine which technological factors are crucial,
which important, and which are negligible in making virtual
environments illusions effective. Says Brooks, "We have studied eight
different factors so far, with interesting and sometimes surprising
results. I shall briefly describe the experiments and the chief
findings."
About the Speaker: Fred Brooks is a legendary figure in computing. He
led the development of the IBM System 360, wrote "The Mythical
Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering", and founded the Computer
Science department at the University of North Carolina. His many
awards include the National Medal of Technology, the A.M. Turing
award of the ACM, the Bower Award and Prize of the Franklin Institute,
and the John von Neumann Medal of the IEEE.
Cost: $10 for pre-registered members of SDForum, ACM SF Bay Chapter,
ACM BayCHI, and Computer History Museum, $20 for all others. ($15/$25
at the door.)
____________
UC BERKELEY IRVIN ROCK MEMORIAL LECTURE
on Friday, 9 April 2004, 12 noon
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
I'll note that two Berkeley page states this talk is at 12 noon and
one states it is at 4:00pm. However that page is also the only one
with an abstract.
"Aspects of the 4-Dimensional Geometry
of Visual Object Formation"
Philip J. Kellman
University of California, Los Angeles
Host: Stephen Palmer
A basic challenge for human visual perception is obtaining
representations of the connectivity and shapes of objects from
fragmentary input. Most research investigating how the visual system
connects parts of objects across gaps in the input has focused on
static, two-dimensional (2D) relations. In this talk, I consider
recent research that extends phenomena and models of unit formation to
three-dimensional (3D) and dynamic (spatiotemporal) relationships. A
simple piece of geometry, termed contour relatability, accounts for
many aspects of 2D object formation. I will discuss research that
suggests that closely related geometric constraints provide formal
accounts of 3-D and dynamic object formation. Evidence from a separate
line of research indicates that interpolation processes based on
relatability geometry are distinguishable from higher level influences
involving global symmetry. I will consider implications of these
several lines of research for geometric and neural models of object
perception.
____________
END MATERIAL
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