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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 7 April 2004, vol. 19:30
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
7 April 2004 Stanford Vol. 19, No. 30
______________________________________________________________________
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 7 April 2004 TO 16 APRIL 2004
WEDNESDAY, 7 APRIL 2004
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
"What Water Tells Us about the Mind:
Psychological Essentialism Refuted?"
Michael Strevins
Philosophy, Stanford
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
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/
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
"3D mapping on-the-fly"
Omead Amidi
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ywteh/cis-seminar
Abstract below
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
Abstract below
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar
Packard 101
"Secret Key Generation and Multiterminal Source Coding"
Prakash Narayan
University of Maryland
http://isl.stanford.edu/groups/seminar/
Abstract below
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/
Abstract below
2:00pm NLP Reading Group
Ventura 17
"Statistical Sentence Condensation using Ambiguity Packing and
Stochastic Disambiguation Methods for Lexical-Functional Grammar"
Stefan Riezler, Tracy Holloway King, Richard Crouch, and Annie Zaenen
Palo Alto Research Center
http://www2.parc.com/istl/members/riezler/PAPERS/NAACL03.pdf
http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/nlpgroup.html
Abstract below
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
"Semantics Below and Above Speech Acts"
Manfred Krifka
ZAS and Humboldt University
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
MONDAY, 12 APRIL 2004
4:00pm UC Berkeley Linguistics Department Colloquium
182 Dwinelle (Berkeley)
"A Paradox in Linguistic Typology,
or What Do Languages Allow Us to Ask?"
Claude Hagege
College de France
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/events.html
4:15pm CS528: Broad Area Colloquium in AI,
Geometry, Graphics, Robotics, and Vision
TCSeq 200
"Polynomials, Circuits and Bayesian Network Inference"
Adnan Darwiche
Computer Science, UCLA
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs528/
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 14 APRIL 2004
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags
Bldg. 420:050
"Understanding auditory perception:
When do children begin to know the role of ears?"
Su-Jeong Ok
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#dev_brownbag
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium
Jordan Hall 420:041
Title to be announced
Lisa Feldman-Barrett
Boston College
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"Model-Driven Software Verification"
Gerard J. Holzmann
NASA/JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
5:00pm UC Berkeley Linguistics Department Colloquium
370 Dwinelle (Berkeley)
"Language and Languages: Between Biology and Sociology"
Claude Hagege
College de France
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/events.html
5:30pm Tanner Lecture I
Bldg. 160:124
"Taking Ourselves Seriously"
Harry Frankfurt
Professor Emeritus, Princeton
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EIS/lectures_tanner_03_04.html
THURSDAY, 15 APRIL 2004
10:00am Tanner Seminar I
Bldg. 160:124
"Taking Ourselves Seriously"
Harry Frankfurt
Professor Emeritus, Princeton
Discussants:
Eleonore Stump, Saint Louis University
Meir Dan-Cohen, University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Law School
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EIS/lectures_tanner_03_04.html
12 noon Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
Title to be announced
Melissa Bowerman
Max Planck Nijmegen
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
3:00pm Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Program Seminar
Reuters lounge, Cordura Hall
"How Social Entrepreneurs Make Change Happen"
David Bornstein
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/reuters/cgi-bin/calendar/index.cgi
4:00pm Personality Lab
Jordan Hall 420:419
"Blow your top or bite your tongue:
Implicit and explicit anger regulation"
Iris Mauss,
Stanford
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#person_lab
4:00pm SRI AI Seminar Series
EJ228, SRI International
"Similar Preferences"
Ha Vu
Information and Decision Technologies, Honeywell International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Carbon Nanotube Based Nanotechnology"
Meyya Meyyappan,
NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.parc.com/forum/
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar
Packard 202
"Rate Control in Random Access Networks"
Peter Marbach
University of Toronto
http://isl.stanford.edu/groups/seminar/
4:40pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"Value Driven Agents and the "Be all you can be" Guarantee"
Daniel Shapiro
ISLE and CSLI
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
Abstract below
(note time change)
6:00pm Tanner Lecture II
Bldg. 160:124
"Getting it Right"
Harry Frankfurt
Professor Emeritus, Princeton
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EIS/lectures_tanner_03_04.html
FRIDAY, 16 APRIL 2004
10:00am Tanner Seminar II
Bldg. 160:124
"Getting it Right"
Harry Frankfurt
Professor Emeritus, Princeton
Discussants
Michael Bratman, Stanford University
Christine Korsgaard, Harvard University
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/EIS/lectures_tanner_03_04.html
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
Gates B01
"Understanding the Requirements for Developing and Designing
Free/Open Source Software"
Walt Scacchi
UC Irvine.
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
2:00pm NLP Reading Group
Ventura 17
Title to be announced
Stephan Oepen
CSLI
http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/nlpgroup.html
3:15pm Logical Methods in the Humanities
Bldg. 90:92Q (Philosophy)
"The Evolution of Syntax in Wittgenstein's Philosophy"
Angela Potochnik
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Abstract below
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar
Jordan Hall 420:050
Title to be announced
Araine Tom
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/news.html#frisem
4:15pm Logical Methods in the Humanities
Bldg. 90:92Q (Philosophy)
"Preservationism meets modal logic; a property based approach
to modal logic"
Patrick Girard and Darko Sarenac
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/Abstracts/Workshop.html#Girard
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
6:45pm Child Language Research Forum
Cordura 100
"Constructions in Acquisition"
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf/
Information below
SATURDAY, 17 APRIL 2004
all day Child Language Research Forum
Cordura 100
"Constructions in Acquisition"
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf/
Information below
____________
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.
____________
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.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 8 April 2004, 12:15pm-1:30pm
Cordura Hall, Room 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
"What Water Tells Us about the Mind:
Psychological Essentialism Refuted?"
Michael Strevens
Philosophy, Stanford
Psychological essentialism is an extremely attractive theory of the
nature of certain concepts that explains a number of interesting facts
about human inference and promises even to contribute to the
philosophical study of the relation between mind and world. Its
central posit is that humans conceive of certain categories as being
characterized by an unobserved central property, or essence. Some
psychologists and philosophers have argued against this thesis of
_psychological essentialism_ by claiming that it cannot explain the
way we think about various substances, including water. Essentialists
have responded to these arguments in a number of interesting ways. The
purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate these arguments. My
conclusion: despite the essentialists' best efforts, water continues
to create significant problems for essentialism.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 8 April 2004, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ywteh/cis-seminar
"3D mapping on-the-fly"
Omead Amidi
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute
I will present my team's on-going aerial robotics work with emphasis
on the 3D mapping aspects. We strive to build systems which can
rapidly fly over an area of interest and build an accurate virtual
model of the area. Such models are useful in a range of applications
from civilian construction and security to military operations and
weaponry. This type of real time mapping is different from the
traditional air data collection where data from surveyed ground
targets and registration marks are extensively used by post-processing
software to create 3D maps. While valuable, the traditional approach
can not aid important applications which need fresh data
on-the-fly. For example, real time mapping can detect lethal holes or
hazards, typically undetectable from the ground, to help guide a team
of unmanned ground vehicles.
I will present the current capabilities of our helicopter systems
which includes 3D mapping of urban and natural terrain as well as
air/ground collaboration to carry out test missions.
About the Speaker: Omead Amidi is a research faculty member at
Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. He is the founder of the
autonomous helicopter lab where for the past 12 years he has developed
and build various unmanned helicopter systems. He has received his
undergraduate (1988), masters (1990), and Ph.D. (1996) degrees from
Carnegie Mellon Electrical and Computer Engineering department.
____________
SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 8 April 2004, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
"Purity in Mathematics"
Andrew Arana
Philosophy, Stanford
A proof of a proposition P is `pure', roughly speaking, if it is
comprised of definitions (including axioms) of terms occurring in P
and deductive consequences of those definitions. A proof of a
proposition regarding prime numbers that uses just arithmetic premises
is pure, while a proof of this proposition using premises from
geometry, or complex analysis, or mechanics, is impure. There has been
an ongoing debate on the value of pure proofs since antiquity, and it
continues today. I will try to give a flavor of what is at stake in
this debate. I'll do so by contrasting some pure and impure proofs,
and then analyzing their differences. What is at stake turns out to be
as much epistemological as mathematical.
____________
INFORMATION SYSTEMS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 8 April 2004, 4:15pm-5:15pm
Packard 101
http://isl.stanford.edu/groups/seminar/
"Secret Key Generation and Multiterminal Source Coding"
Prakash Narayan
University of Maryland
(joint work with Imre Csiszar and Chunxuan Ye)
We address the problem of the generation of "common randomness" by
multiple terminals based on correlated observations by them, and
examine the innate connection which exists between multiterminal
source coding and secret key generation. Applications include coding
in certain communication situations and encrypted communication in
cryptography. In particular, we consider the problem of characterizing
the largest rate at which these terminals can generate a secret key
when each of them observes a distinct component of a set of correlated
signals, followed by public communication among themselves under
secrecy requirements. We explain the relationship between this problem
and a multiterminal version of the Slepian-Wolf source coding problem
sans any secrecy constraints. Our results include the determination of
the largest rate of secret key generation when a set of "user"
terminals devise a secret key with the aid of a set of "helper"
terminals, when an eavesdropper observes the public communication
between the terminals. We also investigate "private" key generation by
the user terminals when the eavesdropper additionally wiretaps some of
the helper terminals from which too the key must additionally be
concealed.
____________
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.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 9 April 2004, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
"The MERBoard:
A Multi-Mission Platform for Collaborative Mission Control Applications"
Jay Trimble
NASA ARC
http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/
The Mars Exploration Rovers are among the most operationally
challenging planetary exploration vehicles ever launched by NASA. Each
day, scientists and engineers collaborate to analyze data, develop
science plans and priorities, and uplink sequences of commands to both
rovers to carry out the instructions of their caretakers on Earth.
The daily science and engineering process is supported by software
tools and operational procedures. In January of 2001, NASA's Ames
Research Center began work on a human centered computing (HCC)
project. The goal of the HCC project was to use observational methods
to assess where the operations team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab could
use new tools and procedures to increase the productivity of the
operations process.
Based on observations of the rover science team operating a field test
rover, and in collaboration with IBM's Blueboard Project, the MER HCC
Project developed the MERBoard, a new class of software platform for
collaborative and group use. The MERBoard software runs on large
touchscreen plasma displays that are situated throughout the MER
Mission Support Areas where the operations teams work. Basic functions
of each board include a whiteboard and drawing tools, remote access
and control, and a web browser for data access. Each board is
customized for the mission environment using plug-ins for specialized
functions, such as flow charting rover strategic plans. Observations
of mission use reveal patterns of use that serve as lessons learned in
the development of future situated display technologies.
About the Speaker: Jay Trimble is Computer Scientist, NASA ARC, Group
Lead of Ubiquitous Computing and User Centered Design Group. Project
Lead for Mission Control Technologies initiative. MCT is a new
framework for the creation of mission systems using collaborative
component technologies. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he was
Operations Director for Shuttle Imaging Radar-C, managed design and
development of mission operations system and payload operations
control center for an Earth Observing Radar that flew two successful
missions on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994. Science support team
member for the Voyager Neptune Encounter in 1989. At NASA Johnson
Space Center he had a payload operations position in the mission
control center.
____________
NLP READING GROUP
on Friday, 9 April 2004, 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Ventura 17
http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/nlp/nlpgroup.html
"Statistical Sentence Condensation using Ambiguity Packing and
Stochastic Disambiguation Methods for Lexical-Functional Grammar"
Stefan Riezler, Tracy Holloway King, Richard Crouch, Annie Zaenen
Palo Alto Research Center
http://www2.parc.com/istl/members/riezler/PAPERS/NAACL03.pdf
We present an application of ambiguity packing and stochastic
disambiguation techniques for Lexical-Functional Grammars (LFG) to the
domain of sentence condensation. Our system incorporates a linguistic
parser/generator for LFG, a transfer component for parse reduction
operating on packed parse forests, and a maximum-entropy model for
stochastic output selection. Furthermore, we propose the use of
standard parser evaluation methods for automatically evaluating the
summarization quality of sentence condensation systems. An
experimental evaluation of summarization quality shows a close
correlation between the automatic parse-based evaluation and a manual
evaluation of generated strings. Overall summarization quality of the
proposed system is state-of-the-art, with guaranteed grammaticality of
the system output due to the use of a constraint-based
parser/generator.
____________
CS528: BROAD AREA COLLOQUIUM FOR
AI-GEOMETRY-GRAPHICS-VISION-ROBOTICS
on Monday, 12 April 2004, 4:15pm
TCSeq 200
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs528/
"Polynomials, Circuits and Bayesian Network Inference"
Adnan Darwiche
Computer Science Department, UCLA
Bayesian networks (and probabilistic graphical models) have become
standard tools for modeling and reasoning under uncertainty in many AI
applications. One of the central computational questions surrounding
these models is that of inference: computing the probability of
various events with respect to the distributions encoded by these
models.
I will present in this talk a non-classical formulation of the
inference problem in Bayesian networks and discuss its practical and
theoretical implications. According to this formulation, each Bayesian
network is interpreted as a multivariate polynomial (with an
exponential number of terms), and probabilistic inference is reduced
to a process of evaluating the partial derivatives of this polynomial.
The central computational question is then that of finding a compact
representation of the network polynomial. I will propose arithmetic
circuits for this purpose, together with a specific algorithm for
finding small arithmetic circuits that compute network polynomials. I
will show how this approach for inference subsumes (and provides new
insights on) the standard one, based on jointrees, which has dominated
the inference literature for more than a decade. I will also show how
the new approach allows one to exploit both network connectivity
(global structure) and its parameterization (local structure).
Finally, I will illustrate its performance on very difficult networks,
including those synthesized from relational probabilistic models.
These networks are rich with local structure, yet are too connected to
be within the reach of standard inference methods based on jointrees.
About the Speaker: Dr. Adnan Darwiche is an Associate Professor of
Computer Science at UCLA. His main research interests are in
probabilistic and symbolic automated reasoning and their various
applications, especially to system analysis and
diagnosis. Dr. Darwiche was a program co-chair of the Eighteenth
Conference on Uncertainty in AI (UAI'02), the Eleventh International
Workshop on Principles of Diagnosis (DX'00), and the general chair of
the Nineteenth Conference on Uncertainty in AI (UAI'03). He is
currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Artificial
Intelligence Research (JAIR) and has served on the program committees
of many conferences, including the International Joint Conference on
AI (IJCAI), the National Conference on AI (AAAI), and the Conference
on Uncertainty in AI (UAI). Dr. Darwiche has published more than 50
papers in leading journals and conferences relating to automated
reasoning, diagnosis and AI, and was the recipient of the OKAWA
Foundation Award for research in 2000. Prior to joining UCLA,
Dr. Darwiche was a senior scientist and manager of the department of
diagnostics and modeling at Rockwell Science Center. Dr. Darwiche
received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Stanford
University in 1993 and 1989, respectively.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 14 April 2004, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
NEC Auditorium (B03), Gates Computer Science Building
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
"Model-Driven Software Verification"
Gerard J. Holzmann
NASA/JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software
http://spinroot.com/gerard/
http://eis.jpl.nasa.gov/lars/
The current focus in logic model checking in software verification
targets the elimination of the need for hand-constructed models. In
the FeaVer project we used automated model extraction from C code to
address this problem. In this talk I will describe a new, and possibly
simpler, method, that allows us to link a logic model checker (e.g.,
Spin) directly to unmodified application level code. We now write a
non-deterministic test-harness as a Spin model, to drive the
application through all its relevant states, while the model checker
verifies its logic properties. Notably, the model checker can use
powerful data abstraction techniques in this verification process,
while the application uses only concrete data representations. I'll
give some examples of the application of this method to the
verification of critical pieces of flight software for a recent JPL
mission.
About the speaker: Dr. Gerard J. Holzmann is perhaps best known as the
designer of the Spin model checker, which was recognized in 2001 with
the ACM Software Systems Award. Formerly a Director of the Computing
Principles Research group at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, Holzmann
joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2003 to start a new
Laboratory for Reliable Software. Holzmann holds 7 patents, one of
which received the 2003 Thomas Alva Edison Award in Information
Technology from the Research and Development Council of New Jersey. He
has written several books, including "The Spin Model Checker"
(Addison-Wesley, 2004), "The Early History of Data Networks" (IEEE CS
Press, 1995), and "Beyond Photography: The Digital Darkroom" (Prentice
Hall, 1987).
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Thursday, 15 April 2004, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
EJ228, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
"Similar Preferences"
Ha Vu
Information and Decision Technologies, Honeywell International
Do you prefer Leno to Letterman? Pat Metheny to Kenny G? Basketball to
Baseball? Jodie Foster to Demi Moore? If you answer ``yes'' to all of
these questions, you probably have preferences very similar to mine.
But exactly how similar? How can we define and measure similarity of
preferences, given limited available information? In this talk I will
discuss my experiences in attempting to answer this question. Along
the way, I will show how decision theory, collaborative filtering,
case-based reasoning, Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation, and kernel
methods all have a little something to help me in this effort.
About the Speaker: Vu Ha is currently a research scientist at
Honeywell's Information and Decision Technology Center in Minneapolis,
MN. His main research interest is automated decision making, and his
dissertation addresses issues that arise in representing, eliciting,
and reasoning with incomplete preferences. He is also interested in
probabilistic reasoning and statistical machine learning. Vu Ha
obtained a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science
respectively from Kossuth University and Eotvos University in
Hungary. At the age of fifteen, he earned a gold medal at the
International Mathematics Olympiad in Warsaw, Poland.
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SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 15 April 2004, 4:40pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu:8081/ssp-dynamic/servlet/ssp_events
"Value Driven Agents and the 'Be all you can be' Guarantee"
Daniel Shapiro
ISLE and CSLI
Why don't we live in smart houses that automatically brew our coffee
in the morning, and play our favorite music at night? Why don't we
drive on automated freeways that get us there faster, even in rush
hour? Why won't NASA let the Mars rover avoid rocks on its own? Rather
than blame an absence of technology, I treat the issue as a lack of
trust due to poor communication. In this view, the goal is to give an
agent a better appreciation of its user's values, so that its choices
won't have unintended effects.
This talk will introduce a framework for constructing Value Driven
Agents that are guaranteed to maximally please their users within the
limitations of their given skills. I will begin by introducing the
concept of user-agent value alignment, and then outline a design
methodology and an implementation model for creating Value Driven
Agents of this kind.
About the Speaker: Dr. Daniel Shapiro is a Senior Researcher at
Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information and the
Assistant Director of the Institute for the Study of Learning and
Expertise. Dr. Shapiro's current research interests focus on the
design, development, and application of autonomous agents that are
motivated by a core concept of value, as well as on the underlying
technologies of decision theory, reactive computing, and reinforcement
learning.
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LOGICAL METHODS IN THE HUMANITIES
on Friday, 16 April 2004, 3:15pm-4:15pm
Philosophy 90:82Q
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
"The Evolution of Syntax in Wittgenstein's Philosophy"
Angela Potochnik
Stanford
I will examine the shift in Ludwig Wittgenstein's position regarding
the nature and status of logical truth from the Tractatus to the early
1930s, when he was in conversation with Friedrich Waismann and Moritz
Schlick of the Vienna Circle. In the Tractatus, logical truths are
merely tautologous propositions. By 1930, though, Wittgenstein had
significantly expanded his notion of logical truth to include the
relations among senses of words. This changed position regarding the
nature of logical truth seems to force a change in the status accorded
to these truths. Thus the question is raised for Wittgenstein as to
whether logical truth and the syntax comprised thereof is a matter of
convention. In the Tractatus, syntax is far from conventional; logical
truth shows the formal structure of the world. Yet a much-expanded
notion of logical truth brings with it the possibility of different
syntaxes, which in turn raises the question of how syntax is
determined. Given the nature of Wittgenstein's views at the time,
convention seems the natural answer. Characteristically, his remarks
fail to settle the issue explicitly, but they are, of course,
extremely suggestive. He has certainly moved toward conventionalism
since the Tractatus, but at least in some moods he seems hesitant to
embrace a full-blown conventionalism. I suggest that his position
might be seen as an unwillingness to accept the wholly arbitrary
determination of syntax. Instead, he may have in mind a combination
of limitations due in part to the logical properties of the world and
in part to the pragmatic selection of syntax that is nonetheless, on
some levels, a matter of convention.
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CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM
on Friday and Saturday, 16 and 17 April 2004
Cordura 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf/
Constructions in Early Acquisition
* How do children learn constructions -- noun phrases, verb phrases,
and other phrase types? Do they begin with specific lexical items in
a construction, and use only those? To what extent do they build
from 'verb islands' or 'noun islands' in early constructions? Which
constructions emerge first? What criteria should we use in
establishing productivity? What makes constructions easy versus hard
to acquire? Can children's bases for inferences about the relevant
noun or verb meanings be identified? Are there consistent patterns
across children in the acquisition of constructions? Are there
differences from one verb type to another, or from intransitive to
transitive? Are differences attributable to differences in
frequencies in child-directed speech?
* What crosslinguistic comparisons are available? Which
constructions have been considered in studies of children's early
syntactic forms?
____________
END MATERIAL
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