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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 27 September 2006, vol. 22:4
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
27 September 2006 Stanford Vol. 22, No. 4
______________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
Stanford University, Cordura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4101
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/
____________
ACTIVITIES FROM 27 SEPTEMBER 2006 TO 6 OCTOBER 2006
WEDNESDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER 2006
12 noon UC Berkeley CITRIS Research Exchange [27-Sep-06]
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building (UC Berkeley)
"Enabling Scientific Workflows in Virtual Reality"
Oliver Kreylos
UC Davis
http://www.citris-uc.org/
Abstract below
12 noon UC Berkeley IPSR colloquium [27-Sep-06]
5101 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"Future Direction for Intergroup Contact Theory and Research"
Thomas Pettigrew
Social Psychology, University of Santa Cruz
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ipsr/colloquium.htm
4:00pm UC Berkeley SIMS Distinguished Lecture Series [27-Sep-06]
202 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Signals, Truth and Design"
Judith Donath
MIT Media Lab
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [27-Sep-06]
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
The Future Evolution of High-Performance Microprocessors
Norman P. Jouppi
Hewlett-Packard
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
6:00pm Berkeley History and Philosophy of Logic Mathematics, and Science
234 Moses, (Berkeley) [27-Sep-06]
"Hilbert, Logicism, and Mathematical Existence"
Jose Ferreiros
University of Sevilla
http://hplms.berkeley.edu/
THURSDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2006
12:30pm CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall 100 [28-Sep-06]
"Detachment, Freedom, and Rationality: Should we Accept
McDowell's claim that we are essentially Rational Animals?"
Hubert L. Dreyfus
UC Berkeley
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
3:00pm Computer Forum talk [28-Sep-06]
Packard 101
"NSF: Speaking of the Next Big Thing Come and learn how the
National Science Foundation can help you get started"
Errol Arkilic, Ian Bennett
NSF
http://cs.stanford.edu/calendar/abstract.php?eventId=1856
Abstract below
4:00pm SRI AI Seminar Series [28-Sep-06]
EJ228, SRI International
"Efficiently Ordering Subgoals with Access Constraints"
Guizhen Yang
SRI
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum [28-Sep-06]
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Exploratorium Science Exhibits from Birth to Death"
Paul Doherty
Exploratorium Teacher Institute
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/pdbiography.htm
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley Cognition, Brain, and Behavior [28-Sep-06]
Beach Room Tolman (Berkeley)
"Data Blitz"
Knight Lab
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
4:00pm Berkeley Working Group in the Philosophy of Mind [28-Sep-06]
234 Moses, (Berkeley)
"Why babies are more conscious than we are"
Allison Gopnik
Psychology, UC Berkeley
http://ihd.berkeley.edu/gopnik.htm
http://neurophilosophy.berkeley.edu/meetings.htm
POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE
5:00pm UC Berkeley SSME Lecture [28-Sep-06]
202 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Services and the Role of Information Search"
Daniel Russell
Google
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/
5:00pm UC Santa Cruz Philosophy Colloquium [28-Sep-06]
Cowell Conference room, Cowell College (UC Santa Cruz)
"Hume's Attack on Newton"
Eric Schliesser
Syracuse University
http://humwww.ucsc.edu/phil/colloquia.html
FRIDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2006
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [29-Sep-06]
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
"Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work"
Wanda Orlikowski
MIT Sloan School
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Stanford Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop [29-Sep-06]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Discourse effects of lexical specification:
The case of the Mandarin aspectual particle -LE"
Shiaowei Tham
Defense Language Institute
Hooi Ling Soh
University of Minnesota/National University of Singapore
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [29-Sep-06]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Interface Development for What, Where, When and Who Searching"
Kim Carl, Ray Larson, Vivien Petras & Jeanette Zerneke
"Visualizing Historical Events Through Interactive Timelines"
Ruth Mostern
UC Merced
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is296a-1/f06/schedule.html
Abstract below
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar [29-Sep-06]
Jordan Hall 420:050
"Preschool children's interpretation of generic sentences"
Andrei Cimpian
Stanford
http://www.stanford.edu/~acimpian/
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_cognitive.html
MONDAY, 2 OCTOBER 2006
10:00am UC Berkeley HWNI Talk
5101 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"The Aerodynamics of Canine Olfaction"
Gary S. Settles
Penn State
http://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/events/
TUESDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2006
12 noon Berkeley Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience [3-Oct-06]
3105 Tolman (Berkeley)
"Graded constraints in English word forms"
J. L. McClelland
Mind, Brain & Computation/MBC, Psychology, Stanford
http://redwood.berkeley.edu/seminars.php
Abstract below
2:15pm Stanford Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop [3-Oct-06]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Monotonicity at the lexical semantics--morphosyntax interface"
Andrew Koontz-Garboden
Stanford University
http://www.stanford.edu/~andrewkg/nels06.pdf
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
4:15pm CS309a: Software as a Service [3-Oct-06]
Skilling Auditorium
"Future of software and hardware platforms"
Jonathan Schwartz
CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc
http://cs309a.stanford.edu/
WEDNESDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2006
12 noon UC Berkeley CITRIS Research Exchange [4-Oct-06]
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building (UC Berkeley)
"Modeling of land and water for earthquake engineering"
Nicholas Sitar
Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~sitar/
http://www.citris-uc.org/
4:00pm UC Berkeley SIMS Distinguished Lecture Series [4-Oct-06]
202 South Hall (Berkeley)
"What Price Insularity? Dialogs about Computer Security Failings"
Fred B. Schneider
Cornell University
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/
Abstract below
4:15pm NLaSP Colloquium [4-Oct-06]
room to be announced
"Beyond Search: Proactive Document Recommendation With Bayesian
Graphical Models"
Yi Zhang
UC Santa Cruz
http://nlp.stanford.edu/events.shtml
Abstract below
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [4-Oct-06]
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"The $100 Laptop"
Mark J. Foster
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
http://laptop.org/
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
THURSDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2006
12 noon CSLI CogLunch [5-Oct-06]
Cordura Hall 100
"Poverty of the Stimulus: A Rational Approach"
Amy Perfors
MIT
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
4:10pm UC Berkeley Philosophy Department Colloquium [5-Oct-06]
Howison Philosophy Library, (305 Moses Hall) (Berkeley)
"Decisions, decisions, decisions"
Frank Arntzenius
Rutgers University
http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum [5-Oct-06]
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"What we did this Summer"
SSP Summer Interns
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
FRIDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2006
11:00am Berkeley Institute of Cognitive and Brain Seminar [6-Oct-06]s
Tolman 5101 (Berkeley)
"The constructive nature of scene perception and memory"
Marvin Chun
Vanderbilt University
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/
Abstract below
12 noon Logical Methods in the Humanities [6-Oct-06]s
room to be announced
"Formalizing common sense in mathematical logic"
John McCarthy
Computer Science, Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
Abstract below
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [6-Oct-06]
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
"Finding Balance: Addressing Cognitive Dissonances through Play"
Joe McKay and Greg Niemeyer
UC Berkeley
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [6-Oct-06]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
"A Scalable Front-stage Service Application for a Non-profit
Tutoring Agency"
Lois Wei
"Unprocessed poster collections at UCB and suggestions for
improved access"
Lincoln Cushing
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is296a-1/f06/schedule.html
Abstracts below
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar [6-Oct-06]
Jordan Hall 420:050
"An integrated model of lexical and semantic processing:
Application to deficits in semantic dementia"
Katia Dilkina
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_cognitive.html
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium [6-Oct-06]
Bldg. 90:92Q
"Causation in Psychology"
John Campbell
UC Berkeley
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture [6-Oct-06]
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"Representation of contrast- and texture-defined boundaries in
early visual cortex"
Curtis Baker
Ophthalmology, McGill University, Montreal
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/oxyopia/oxy_current.html
Abstract below
4:10pm UC Berkeley Group in Logic and Methodology of Science [6-Oct-06]
60 Evans Hall (Berkeley)
"Knowledge of Logical Truth"
Sherri Roush
UC Berkeley
http://logic.berkeley.edu/colloquium.html
____________
Stanford Blood Center: Shortage of O+, O-, A+, A-, B-, AB+, and
AB-. For an appointment: http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call
650-723-7831. It only takes an hour of your time and you get free
cookies. Remember most Stanford students are away so aren't donating.
____________
UC BERKELEY CITRIS RESEARCH EXCHANGE
on Wednesday, 27 September 2006, 12 noon
290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building (UC Berkeley)
http://www.citris-uc.org/
"Enabling Scientific Workflows in Virtual Reality"
Oliver Kreylos
Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing, UC Davis
While immersive and virtual reality (VR) methods offer substantial
benefits for scientific visualization, and the scientific process in
general, scientists have been very reluctant to apply such methods to
their work. We believe there are several reasons for this lack of
acceptance, the most important being low price/performance ratios
caused by the combination of expensive hardware and software that does
not realize the full benefits of VR.
In this talk, we will discuss these reasons in more detail, and
describe how software based on 3D perception and interaction through
direct manipulation -- implemented by programs designed specifically
for VR -- can help integrate immersive visualization into the
scientific workflow. As case studies, we will present geoscience
applications that have recently been encountered in the context of the
UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth
Sciences (KeckCAVES).
About the Speaker: Dr. Kreylos is an assistant project scientist with
the UC Davis Center for Computational Science and Engineering (CSE),
and is affiliated with the Institute for Data Analysis and
Visualization (IDAV) and the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization
in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES). He received a
Dipl.-Inform. [M.S. in Computer Science] from the University of
Karlsruhe in Germany, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from
UC Davis.
His research interests are the development of novel scientific
visualization techniques and new methods of human-computer interaction
in immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, with the overarching
goal of making visualization and visual analysis an integral part of
the scientific process. He has been researching VR at IDAV since 1998,
and has been applying VR methods to molecular biology and
nanotechnology since 2002, mainly in collaboration with UC Berkeley
and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
____________
BERKELEY SIMS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
on Wednesday, 27 September 2006, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
202 South Hall (Berkeley)
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/
"Signals, Truth and Design"
Judith Donath
MIT Media Lab
http://judith.www.media.mit.edu/Judith/
Much of what we want to know about other people is not directly
perceivable. Are you a nice person? Did you really like the cake I
baked? If we got married, would you be a good parent to our children?
Instead, we rely on signals, which are perceivable features or actions
that indicate the presence of those hidden qualities.
Yet not all signals are reliable. It is beneficial for the con-man to
seem nice, for the guest to seem to like the burnt cake, for the
unsuitable suitor to seem as attractive as possible. While these
deceptions benefit the deceiver, they may be quite costly for the
recipient. What keeps signals honest -- and why are some signals more
reliable than others?
Signaling theory provides a framework for understanding these
dynamics. Among other things, it shows how the cost of many seemingly
extravagant displays is not wasteful expenditure, but useful for
ensuring the reliability of the display as a signal.
In this talk I will show how signaling theory can be used for the
design and analysis of social technologies. It is especially well
suited for this domain, for in mediated interactions there are few
qualities that can be directly observed: everything is signal.
About the Speaker: Judith Donath is an Associate Professor at the MIT
Media Lab, where she directs the Sociable Media research group. Her
work focuses on the social side of computing, synthesizing knowledge
from fields such as graphic design, urban studies and cognitive
science to build innovative interfaces for online communities and
virtual identities.
She is known internationally for pioneering research in social
visualization, interface design, and computer mediated interaction.
She created several of the early social applications for the web,
including the first postcard service ("The Electric Postcard"), the
first interactive juried art show ("Portraits in Cyberspace") and an
early large-scale web event ("A Day in the Life of Cyberspace"). Her
work has been exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in
Boston and in several New York galleries; she was the director of
"Id/Entity", a collaborative exhibit of installations examining how
science and technology are transforming portraiture.
Her current research focuses on creating expressive visualizations of
social interactions and on building experimental environments that mix
real and virtual experiences. She has a book in progress about how we
signal identity in both mediated and immediate situations. Professor
Donath received her doctoral and master's degrees in Media Arts and
Sciences from MIT, her bachelor's degree in History from Yale
University, and has worked professionally as a designer and builder of
educational software and experimental media.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 28 September 2006, 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Cordura Hall 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
"Detachment, Freedom, and Rationality:
Should we Accept McDowell's claim that
we are essentially Rational Animals?"
Hubert L. Dreyfus
UC Berkeley
John McDowell argues that human beings are essentially rational
animals. Their socialization endows them with a second nature, which
enables them to step back from what they are doing, reflect critically
on their current activity, and on their cultural norms, and then
freely act on the basis of reasons. I argue that human beings can
never be radically free in this sense. Rather human beings at their
best are free to let themselves be fully involved in their current
activity and in their culture. In skillful coping detached reflection
usually undermines skillful action, and, in general, one cannot
reflect on ones current activity without transforming it. Moreover,
the norms we are socialized into are not rational and are so pervasive
and embodied that we cannot step back from them completely and subject
them to rational criticism from the ground up. The only way to change
our second nature completely is not to free ourselves from it by
subjecting our customs to detached critical reflection, but by staying
completely involved and going native in another form of life.
____________
COMPUTER FORUM TALK
on Thursday, 28 September 2006, 3:00pm - 6:00pm
Packard 101
http://cs.stanford.edu/calendar/abstract.php?eventId=1856
"NSF: Speaking of the Next Big Thing Come and learn how the
National Science Foundation can help you get started"
Errol Arkilic, Ian Bennett
NSF
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency
created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to
advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the
national defense" With an annual budget of $5.8 billion, NSF is the
funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally-supported
basic research conducted by Americas colleges and universities.
In addition to supporting Academic research, the National Science
Foundation through its Office of Industrial Innovation supports the
small business community with approximately $100 million in seed-stage
funding each year. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and
Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs at NSF support
innovation in five areas: Advanced Materials, Biotechnology,
Chemical-Based Technologies, Electronics and Information Technology.
In this talk, NSF will provide an overview of the federal SBIR/STTR
program and discuss the distinction between the NSFs program and those
of other agencies. We will also cover the differences between an NSF
Academic proposal and SBIR/STTR proposal, highlighting the distinction
in the proposal preparation and review process.
Come learn how you and your startup can effectively use the NSF
SBIR/STTR program to initiate the Next Big Thing.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Thursday, 28 September 2006, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
EJ228, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
"Efficiently Ordering Subgoals with Access Constraints"
Guizhen Yang
Artificial Intelligence Center, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/~yang
Ordering subgoals under binding pattern restrictions is an important
problem of practical significance in information integration and query
answering systems. In this talk, we will study the problem of ordering
subgoals under binding pattern restrictions for queries posed as
nonrecursive Datalog programs. We will show that despite their limited
expressive power, the problem is computationally hard PSPACE-complete
in the size of the nonrecursive Datalog program even for fairly
restricted cases. As a practical solution to this problem, we will
present an asymptotically optimal algorithm that runs in time linear
in the size of the query plan. We will also study extensions of our
algorithm that efficiently solve other query planning problems under
binding pattern restrictions. These problems include conjunctive
queries with nested grouping constraints, distributed conjunctive
queries, and first-order queries.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 28 October 2006, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
"Exploratorium Science Exhibits from Birth to Death"
Paul Doherty
Exploratorium Teacher Institute
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/pdbiography.htm
At the Exploratorium, scientists team with exhibit builders to create
interactive science exhibits for the public. The best exhibits are
enjoyed equally by 4 year-olds and physics professors. I will tell how
several exhibits were made, and how they worked or failed when used by
the public. (Some failed in spectacular ways: burning up, imploding,
or dissolving.) The Exploratorium also has a large web site. Ill
present stories of some of our web programs such as Iron Science
Teacher in which science teachers compete to teach science with simple
materials. I'll illustrate my presentation with demonstrations from
the Exploratorium.
About the Speaker: In 1986, I came to the Exploratorium Teacher
Institute and began my exhibit-based explorations in science. I became
the co-director of the Teacher Institute in 1990 and the founding
director of the Center for Teaching and Learning in 1992. Since 1997 I
have been a senior staff scientist at the Exploratorium. I am also a
visiting scientist at Tom Tits Experiment in Sweden and an adjunct
professor of physics at San Francisco State University. In 1999 I
received the "Administrator of the Year" award from the California
Science Education Advisory Council for my work directing teaching
programs at the Exploratorium. In 2002 I was awarded the Distinguished
Teacher Award by the American Association of Physics teachers,
Northern California Section. In 2003 I was given the NSTA's Faraday
Award for excellence as a science communicator.
As an author, I have written over three dozen articles for Exploring
magazine. For the Exploratorium Press I have have co-authored the
Exploratorium Science Snackbook, and the book Square Wheels with Don
Rathjen. For Klutz Press I have co-written the Explorabook which has
sold over a million copies, and also the Book of Magnetic Magic, the
Zap book, and Glove Compartment Science. For Chronicle Press with Pat
Murphy I have written: The Color of Nature and Traces of Time. I am a
regular science columnist for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction. Recently I wrote three articles for Muse magazine: one on
Color with Pat Murphy, one on singing corrugated pipes, and one on
great adventure books.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 29 September 2006, 12:30pm-2:00pm
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
"Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work"
Wanda Orlikowski
MIT Sloan School
Over the years, research studies into the relationship between humans
and information technology have generated important insights into the
powerful effects of technology as well as their social consequences.
But because they have often emphasized either one side or the other of
the relationship, such studies have tended to overlook the important
ways in which people and tools are inextricably entangled. Developing
a perspective that takes such entanglement seriously, may thus afford
some novel and valuable insights into relations between technologies
and humans. In this talk, I will discuss a way of doing this --
through the notion of sociomaterial practices -- which emphasizes the
reciprocal and temporally emergent interactions of humans and
technology, as these are realized in different contexts and over time.
I will draw on some empirical research to illustrate how my colleagues
and I have been using such a sociomaterial perspective in our field
studies of technology in organizations.
About the Speaker: Wanda J. Orlikowski is the Eaton-Peabody Chair of
Communication Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and a Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies
at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Her primary research interest
focuses on the dynamic relationship between organizations and
information technologies, with particular emphases on organizing
structures, cultural norms, communication genres, and work
practices. She is currently leading a 5-year NSF project on the social
and economic implications of Internet technologies within
organizations. She has served as a senior editor for Organization
Science, and currently serves on the editorial boards of Information
and Organization, Information Technology & People, Organization
Science, and the Reflections Journal.
____________
STANFORD SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS WORKSHOP
on Friday, 29 September 2006, 3:00pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
"Discourse effects of lexical specification:
The case of the Mandarin aspectual particle -LE"
Shiaowei Tham
Defense Language Institute
Hooi Ling Soh
University of Minnesota/National University of Singapore
We propose that the Mandarin aspectual particle "-le" in post verbal
position (verbal "-le") marks by default the sentence it occurs in as a
Narrative. We argue this effect arises from its lexical semantics:
verbal "-le" marks a transition between two eventualities which occurs in
the past relative to some reference time. We show how this meaning
converges with two defining characteristics of Narrative discourse.
This approach, combined with assumptions about an inference available
from sentences that describe a dynamic event, is applied to account for
the felicity conditions of activity verbal "-le" sentences.
____________
BERKELEY INFORMATION ACCESS SEMINAR
on Friday, 29 October 2006, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is296a-1/f06/schedule.html
"Interface Development for What, Where, When and Who Searching"
Kim Carl, Ray Larson, Vivien Petras & Jeanette Zerneke
A two-year project, Support for the Learner: What, Where, When,
and Who is nearing completion. It is based on the ideas that
understanding requires knowing context, that network resources ought
to be as easy to search and use as resources in a library reference
collection, and that a structured approach based on the four facets
WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO, respecting the special characteristics of
each, would be an effective approach. The interface designed for this
purpose, involving maps and timelines as well as text will be
described and demonstrated in searches of the Library of Congress
catalog, the Wikipedia, the Metropolitan Museum website, U.S. Census
data, and other diverse resources. See http://ecai.org/imls2004/ .
"Visualizing Historical Events Through Interactive Timelines"
Ruth Mostern
UC Merced
History textbooks are filled with timelines and temporal thinking is
critical for history and other disciplines besides. But visualizing
time in an interactive and digital environment has received little
attention. With Ian Johnson (Univ. of Sydney), I am developing a
timeline builder allow seamless moves among temporal scales from
individual battles to geological time, and to relate individual events
to complex phenomena. I will review existing timeline visualizations,
discuss the nature of temporal information, the requirements for
temporal data models, and introduce specifications for the timeline
builder system.
____________
BERKELEY REDWOOD CENTER FOR THEORETICAL NEUROSCIENCE SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 3 October 2006, 5:00pm
5101 Tolman (Berkeley)
http://redwood.berkeley.edu/seminars.php
"Graded constraints in English word forms"
J. L. McClelland
Mind, Brain & Computation/MBC, Psychology, Stanford
http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/
I will a describe graded constraint theory of English word forms that
addresses the distribution of forms in the lexicon, the goodness
judgments given by native speakers of nonwords as candidate wordforms,
and the pattern of errors seen in language impaired individuals
including dysfluent aphasics and individuals with specific language
impairment. The theory is applied to the rhymes of English
monosyllabic monomorphemes (items like 'cat', 'hold' and 'clamp').
Within a template specifying possible rhymes, a number of graded
constraints are identified. For example, in rhymes containing at least
one stop consonant, there is a graded constraint favoring short
vowels, a graded constraint favoring unvoiced vs voiced obstruents, a
constraint favoring coronal articulation, and a constraint against
added embellishments such as a nasal, fricative, liquid, or second
stop consonant (as in 'apt'). Each constraint affects the goodness of
a rhyme type in a graded, cumulative fashion. Occurrence rates of
different types of rhymes in the language conform closely to the
predictions of both non-parametric and parametric versions of the
theory. By adding a cut-off threshold, the theory can explain with
good accuracy which types of rhymes occur at all and which do not
occur, although both linear and interaction terms are necessary to
give a complete account. The theory also accounts well for native
speaker's judgments of the relative goodness of different rhyme types,
although there are subtle differences between the patterns of
occurrence and the patterns of judgments.
____________
BERKELEY SIMS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
on Wednesday, 4 October 2006, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
202 South Hall (Berkeley)
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/dls/
"What Price Insularity? Dialogs about Computer Security Failings"
Fred B. Schneider
Cornell University
It is risky for technologists to ignore the non-technical context in
which their systems will be deployed, just as it is risky for policy
makers to ignore the limits and potential of technology. Yet such
insularity is all too common. The results are unfortunate but not
surprising. This lecture explores the structure dialogs take to bring
about what might be termed "security failings" by revisiting: identity
theft, electronic voting, digital right management, and the overall
vulnerabilities of today's deployed software.
About the Speaker: Fred B. Schneider is a professor at Cornell's
Computer Science Department, director of the AFRL/Cornell Information
Assurance Institute, and chief scientist of the NSF "TRUST" (Team for
Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology) Science and Technology
Center, a collaboration of UC Berkeley, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell,
Stanford, and Vanderbilt.
Schneider has a Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook, and a D.Sc. [honoris
causa] from the Univ of Newcastle upon Tyne ('03). He is a fellow of
AAAS and ACM, and was named Professor-at-Large at University of Tromso
(Norway) in 1996.
In addition to chairing the National Research Council's study
committee on information systems trustworthiness and editing Trust in
Cyberspace, Schneider has written a graduate textbook on concurrent
programming and an undergraduate one on logic and discrete
mathematics.
His research addresses problems associated with making distributed and
concurrent systems trustworthy. His early work was in formal methods
and methodologies for concurrent programming and in protocols for
fault-tolerance. More recently, his attention has turned to topics in
computer security.
____________
NLASP COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 4 October 2006, 4:15pm - 5:30pm
room to be announced
http://nlp.stanford.edu/events.shtml
"Beyond Search:
Proactive Document Recommendation With Bayesian Graphical Models"
Yi Zhang
UC Santa Cruz
When a user has a long term information need, search engines may not
be the best solution. An alternative is a personal filtering system, a
proactive document recommendation system that learns from the user and
pushes relevant documents to the user in a dynamic environment. To
develop an intelligent personal filtering system, the biggest
challenge is to adaptively learn user profiles from limited user
supervision. If we ask a human agent to solve this problem, he/she may
consult with domain experts, borrow information from other users,
integrate the content of each document with other forms of evidence to
infer about the user's information needs, and do active learning by
carefully picking the right questions to ask the user so that the
answer can provide the most valuable information. Motivated by this, I
will present a set of solutions that enable a filtering system behave
similar to a human agent based on Bayesian Theory and Graphical
Models.
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CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 5 October 2006, 12 noon - 1:00pm
Cordura Hall 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
"Poverty of the Stimulus: A Rational Approach"
Amy Perfors
MIT
http://www.mit.edu/~perfors/
The Poverty of the Stimulus (PoS) argument holds that children do not
receive enough evidence to infer the existence of core aspects of
language, such as the dependence of linguistic rules on hierarchical
phrase structure. We reevaluate one version of this argument using a
Bayesian model of grammar induction, and show that a rational learner
faced with typical child-directed input and without any initial
language-specific biases could learn this dependency. This enables the
learner to master aspects of syntax, such as the auxiliary fronting
rule in interrogative formation, even without having heard directly
relevant data ( e.g., interrogatives containing an auxiliary in a
relative clause in the subject NP). The hierarchical Bayesian
framework is also applicable to other innateness questions involving
core aspects of linguistic structure.
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BERKELEY INSTITUTE OF COGNITIVE AND BRAIN SEMINAR
on Friday, 6 October 2006, 11:00am
Tolman 5101 (Berkeley)
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/
"The constructive nature of scene perception and memory"
Marvin Chun
Vanderbilt University
To perceive and remember a continuous visual world from discontinuous,
fragmented views, cortical mechanisms actively fill-in missing
information. I will report functional magnetic resonance imaging
evidence for "filling-out" of scene layout information beyond what was
physically presented, an illusion known as boundary extension. Two
cortical areas important for scene processing, the parahippocampal
cortex and retrosplenial cortex, represented more information than was
physically presented. Earlier visual brain regions such as the lateral
occipital complex and retinotopic cortex did not reveal such
extrapolation. A second experiment demonstrated that retrosplenial
cortex plays a further role in stitching discontinuous views into a
continuous, panoramic representation of the local environment. These
results demonstrate that scene layout representations are extrapolated
beyond the confines of the perceptual input, providing neural evidence
for the constructive nature of scene perception and memory.
____________
LOGICAL METHODS IN THE HUMANITIES
on Friday, 6 October 2006, 12 noon
Room to be announced
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/seminars.html
"Formalizing common sense in mathematical logic"
John McCarthy
Computer Science, Stanford AI Lab
Leibniz hoped to devise a mathematical logic adequate for human
affairs. Since the 1950s progress has been made in formalizing
limited common sense domains in first order logic for the purposes of
artificial intelligence (AI). However, we argue that extensions to
the reasoning methods of first order logic are need to reach
human-level common sense. These include nonmonotonic reasoning,
reasoning with approximately (or partially) defined entities,
reification of propositions and individual concepts, reification of
contexts. Even these extensions are probably insufficient.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 6 October 2006, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/cs547/
"Finding Balance: Addressing Cognitive Dissonances through Play"
Joe McKay and Greg Niemeyer
UC Berkeley
Can games make us better humans? In their talk, Joe McKay and Greg
Niemeyer will present brief overviews of their respective creative
work to date, the nature of their collaboration, and the feelings they
wish to elicit with their current joint project, Balance. They will
also demonstrate the current version of their Balance game. The game
interface consists of a displacement sensing tile and video graphics
which allow players to refine their sense of balance with adaptive
feedback optimizations. Niemeyer and McKay hope to show that their
game can help especially senior citizens maintain and improve their
sense of balance.
About the Speakers: Joe McKay is a graduate student in art at UC
Berkeley
Born in Switzerland in 1967, Greg Niemeyer studied Classics and
Photography. He started working with new media when he arrived in
the Bay Area in 1992 and he received his MFA from Stanford
University in New Media in 1997. At the same time, he founded the
Stanford University Digital Art Center, which he directed until
2001, when he was appointed at UC Berkeley as Assistant Professor
for New Media. At UC Berkeley, he is involved in the development of
the Center for New Media, focusing on the critical analysis of the
impact of new media on human experiences. His creative work focuses
on the mediation between humans as individuals and humans as a
collective through technological means, and emphasizes playful
responses to technology. His most recognized projects were Gravity
(Cooper Union, NYC, 1997), PING (SFMOMA, 2001), Oxygen Flute (SJMA,
2002), Organum (Pacific Film Archive, 2003), Ping 2.0 (Paris, La
Villette Numerique, 2004), Organum Playtest (2005), and Good
Morning Flowers (SFIFF 2006, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt,
2006).
____________
BERKELEY INFORMATION ACCESS SEMINAR
on Friday, 6 October 2006, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is296a-1/f06/schedule.html
"A Scalable Front-stage Service Application for a Non-profit
Tutoring Agency"
Lois Wei
An initial progress report on designing and implementing an ideal
front end application that provides an optimal service experience for
handling online appointment scheduling, student enrollment, and
payment reminder. The application will also provide business
intelligence service such as business progress tracking, data and
trend analysis, and dynamic report generation. Such an application
will be designed specifically for a local tutoring agency that is in
the process of expanding to several locations.
"Unprocessed poster collections at UCB and suggestions for
improved access"
Lincoln Cushing
The UC Berkeley libraries have many significant collections of 20th
century poster art, yet most of them remain virtually inaccessible to
the public. This is partly due to technological barriers and partly
due to lack of institutional will. Cushing will make a case for the
academic value of these materials, review some example collections,
and offer an alternative model for improved processing and
access. More at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~lcushing/Bancroft/UC_unprocessed.html
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Friday, 6 October 2006, 4:00pm
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
"Representation of contrast- and texture-defined boundaries
in early visual cortex"
Curtis Baker
Ophthalmology, McGill University, Montreal
In the natural world we routinely perceive objects which are
distinguished from their backgrounds by global differences in local
luminance, contrast, texture, etc. Visual cortex mechanisms selective
to luminance-defined oriented contours are well known, but only
recently have we begun to understand a parallel set of mechanisms
sensitive to differences of contrast or texture.
Neurophysiological studies in early visual cortex reveal that many
single neurons are selective to both local textural and global contour
attributes of visual stimuli, while optical imaging demonstrates
coarse-scale anatomical compartments for contour properties which are
largely invariant to texture attributes. Computational analyses of
natural image statistics, based on models derived from
neurophysiology, indicate scale-invariance of textural information in
natural images, and its co-occurrence with luminance-defined
information.
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____________