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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 25 April 2007, vol. 22:32
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
25 April 2007 Stanford Vol. 22, No. 32
______________________________________________________________________
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 25 APRIL 2007 TO 4 MAY 2007
WEDNESDAY, 25 APRIL 2007
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags [25-Apr-07]
Jordan Hall 420:102
"FYP: Factors affecting how Spanish-speaking children learn
and interpret adjectives in real-time speech comprehension"
Adrianna Weisleder
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_developmental.html
12:30pm Center for Internet and Society Talk [25-Apr-07]
Law School 271
Title to be announced
Tom Rubin
Associate General Counsel at Microsoft
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/
3:30pm UC Berkeley Psychology Colloquium [25-Apr-07]
3105 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"Language and thought: Which side are you on, anyway?"
Terry Regier
University of Chicago
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [25-Apr-07]
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
"IT-based Innovation in the 21st Century"
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
VP, Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
6:00pm Berkeley History and Philosophy of Logic Mathematics, and Science
234 Moses (Berkeley) [25-Apr-07]
"Logic and Modeling Intelligent Interaction"
Johan van Benthem
Stanford University
http://hplms.berkeley.edu/
THURSDAY, 26 APRIL 2007
12 noon CSLI CogLunch [26-Apr-07]
Cordura Hall 100
"Remembering Events Pasts:
Items, Conjunctions, Inference, and Errors in the Human MTL"
Anthony Wagner
Stanford University
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~wagner/
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
12 noon Music 319: CCRMA Hearing Seminar [26-Apr-07]
CCRMA Seminar Room, The Knoll
"Pinna Models and Elevation Cues"
Richard O. Duda
UC Davis
http://ccrma-mail.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/hearing-seminar
Abstract below
12 noon UC Berkeley Sleep & Psychological Disorders Colloquium [26-Apr-07]
5101 Tolman (Berkeley)
"Depression and PTSD: Intrusive memories as a common process"
Michelle Moulds
University of New South Wales, Australia
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
12:15pm Stanford Networking Seminar [26-Apr-07]
Gates 104
"Lessons Learned From The Internet Project"
Douglas Comer
VP of Research, Cisco Systems
http://netseminar.stanford.edu/
4:00pm Stanford Software Seminar [26-Apr-07]
Gates 463A
"Faith, Evolution, and Programming Languages"
Philip Wadler
Theoretical Computer Science, University of Edinburgh
http://theory.stanford.edu/~mhn/sss.html
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum [26-Apr-07]
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Games: The Killer App for Pen Computing?"
Eric Saund
PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture [26-Apr-07]
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"Immediate perception and feedforward models of the ventral
steam in viaual cortex: what is next?"
Tomaso Poggio
Brain Sciences, MIT
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
Abstract below
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum [26-Apr-07]
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"The Ghost of Johannes Brahms"
Jonathan Berger
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
Abstract below
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar [26-Apr-07]
Packard 101
"Economic-based Mechanisms for Dynamic Spectrum Sharing"
Randall Berry
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
Abstract below
5:00pm Opening Ceremony of Tohoku University's US Office [26-Apr-07]
San Mateo Marriott (near SF Airport)
http://www.tohoku-u.us/Forum_Program.htm
Information below under Future Innovation Forum
7:30pm Silicon Valley Shannon Lecture [26-Apr-07]
Bldg. 380:380C
"Dataspaces: The Next Frontier to Data Integration"
Alon Halevy
Google
http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~tylin/ieeesilicon/
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 27 APRIL 2007
all day WCCFL 26 [27-Apr-07]
370 Dwinelle (UC Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/wccfl26
Information below
all day Future Innovation Forum [27-Apr-07]
San Mateo Marriott (near SF Airport)
part of the Tohoku University's US Office opening
http://www.tohoku-u.us/Forum_Program.htm
Information below
11:00am Berkeley International Computer Science Institute [27-Apr-07]
ICSI, Rm 607 (UC Berkeley)
"Articulatory Features for Discriminative Speaker Adaptation"
Florian Metze
Deutsche Telekom Laboratories
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/
Abstract below
11:00am UC Berkeley Cognition, Brain, and Behavior [27-Apr-07]
5101 Tolman (Berkeley)
"Features and objects in visual working memory"
Steve Luck
UC Davis
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
12 noon Logical Methods in the Humanities [27-Apr-07]
Room to be announced
Title to be announced
Alistair Isaac
Stanford University
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [27-Apr-07]
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"Evolving Evaluation from Engineers to Experience:
What History can Teach us About Evaluation in HCI"
Joseph `Jofish'Kaye
Cornell University
http://jofish.com/
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [27-Apr-07]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Report on the Open Archives Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE)
Initiative"
Clifford Lynch
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i296a-1/s07/schedule.html
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium [27-Apr-07]
Bldg. 90:92Q
"Rationality, Reasoning and Group Agency"
Philip Pettit
Princeton University
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
Abstract below
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar [27-Apr-07]
Jordan Hall 420:050
"Neural control of visual spatial attention"
Tirin Moore
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_cognitive.html
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture [27-Apr-07]
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"Mapping the microcircuitry of attention: attentional
modulation varies across cell classes in visual area V4"
John Reynolds
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, UC San Diego
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
Abstract below
SATURDAY, 28 APRIL 2007
all day WCCFL 26 [28-Apr-07]
370 Dwinelle (UC Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/wccfl26
Information below
2:00pm Mind Matters: Exploring the Animal Mind [28-Apr-07]
The Exploratorium, San Francisco
"Exploring the Animal Mind: Animal Personality"
Sam Gosling
http://www.exploratorium.edu/pr/documents/07-4Animal.html
Abstract below
SUNDAY, 29 APRIL 2007
all day WCCFL 26 [29-Apr-07]
370 Dwinelle (UC Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/wccfl26
Information below
MONDAY, 30 APRIL 2007
2:00pm Stanford Phonology Workshop [30-Apr-07]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Geminate Ejectives and Tonal Feet in Yellowknife Dogrib"
Alessandro Jaker
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/pinterest/
12 noon UC Berkeley CPD [30-Apr-07]
3105 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"Human spatial navigation: Neural correlates and sex dimorphism"
Xiaoqian Chai
UC Berkeley
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
3:15pm Logical Methods in the Humanities [30-Apr-07]
Bldg. 300:380D
Title to be announced
Patrick Girard
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/
4:00pm UC Berkeley Ear Club [30-Apr-07]
3105 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"What the bat's voice tells the bat's brain"
Cindy Moss
Psychology, U. Maryland
http://ear.berkeley.edu/ear-club-schedule.html
4:00pm UC Berkeley Talk [30-Apr-07]
3105 Tolman (Berkeley)
Title to be announced
Monique Ward
Psychology, University of Michigan
Research Interest: Media Influences on Adolescent Decision
Making and Sexuality
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
4:15pm CS528: Broad Area Colloquium [30-Apr-07]
Hewlett Teaching Center 200
Title to be announced
Marc Pollefeys
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~marc/
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs528/
TUESDAY, 1 MAY 2007
12 noon Stanford Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop [1-May-07]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Postposed additive particles as markers of givenness"
Manfred Krifka
Humboldt University of Berlin
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
Abstract below
2:45pm Information Systems Seminar [1-May-07]
Packard 202
"A New Look at Quadratic Gaussian Network Compression"
Aaron Wagner
Cornell University
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
4:45pm Linguistics Talk [1-May-07]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Dynamic Summarization: Exploring New Interfaces for Extracting
Information from Speech and Text"
Steve Whittaker (with Simon Tucker)
University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract below
5:30pm Syntax Workshop [1-May-07]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"A Unified Analysis of Niuean/Tongic (`)Aki"
Douglas Ball
Stanford University
http://stanford.edu/~dball/
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/sssg/
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 2 MAY 2007
all day Berkeley Cognitive Computing 2007 Conference [2-May-07]
Auditorium of the Berkeley Art Museum
http://www.citris-uc.org/CognitiveComputing07
Information below
12 noon Psychology Developmental Brownbags [2-May-07]
Jordan Hall 420:102
"Causal reasoning in children"
Jay McClelland
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_developmental.html
12 noon UC Berkeley Institute of Personality and Social Research Colloquium
5101 Tolman (Berkeley) [2-May-07]
"Mediation in Multilevel Models"
Niall Bolger,
Psychology, Columbia University
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/news/colloquia.html
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium [2-May-07]
Jordan Hall 420:041
Title to be announced
BJ Casey,
Weill Medical College
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_colloquium.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [2-May-07]
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
"Taking Concurrency Seriously:
New Directions in Multiprocessor Synchronization"
Maurice Herlihy
Brown University
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
THURSDAY, 3 MAY 2007
all day Berkeley Cognitive Computing 2007 Conference [3-May-07]
Auditorium of the Berkeley Art Museum
http://www.citris-uc.org/CognitiveComputing07
Information below
3:30pm History of Science Colloquium [3-May-07]
Bldg 200:307 (History Corner)
"Data Extinction: How Does Information Disappear?"
two talks
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/colloquia.html
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum [3-May-07]
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Fuels and Chemicals from Renewable Resources:
An Industrial Renaissance?"
Douglas C. Cameron
Khosla Ventures
http://www.parc.com/forum/
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar [3-May-07]
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
"Apprenticeship learning for robotic control, with application
to autonomous helicopter flight"
Pieter Abbeel
Stanford
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~feisha/cis-seminar
Abstract below
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar [3-May-07]
Packard 101
"Optimization Beyond Optimality: New Trends in Networking Applications"
Mung Chiang
Princeton
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
FRIDAY, 4 MAY 2007
11:00am SRI AI Seminar Series [4-May-07]
EJ228, SRI International
"Hypermedia Discourse: Theory and Technology for the Pragmatic Web?"
Simon Buckingham Shum
The Open University
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [4-May-07]
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
"Knowledge Media to Aid Multimedia Communications and Human Cognition"
Ron Baecker
University of Toronto
http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/rmb/
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [4-May-07]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
Title to be announced
Bernie Hurley
University Library
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i296a-1/s07/schedule.html
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium [4-May-07]
Bldg. 90:92Q
"Politics and the Good: Reflections on Rawls"
Richard Kraut
Northwestern University
Co-sponsor: Classics Department
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar [4-May-07]
Jordan Hall 420:050
"Metaphorical meaning in motion"
Sandra Lozano & Daniel Casasanto
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_cognitive.html
3:30pm SRI CSL Seminar Series [4-May-07]
EK255, SRI International
"From keyword search to concept association:
What does the Web compute?"
Dusko Pavlovic
Kestrel
http://www.csl.sri.com/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley Oxyopia Lecture [4-May-07]
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
"Visual Working Memory: Representation, Process, & Function"
Steven J. Luck
Psychology, Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
Abstract below
____________
Stanford Blood Center: Shortage of O-, A-, and B-. 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.
____________
ANNOUNCEMENT
Eightieth Birthday Celebration
Max Mathews
April 26 and 29, 2007
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/maxfest/
Fifty years ago, in 1957, at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Max Mathews
demonstrated that the digital computer can be used as a fantastic new
music instrument. He created a revolutionary software platform
destined to form the basis of all contemporary digital musical systems
(Music 1--Music 5).
His audacious ideas were driven by the belief that "any sound that the
human ear can hear can be produced by a computer". Mathews's mastery
of this new instrument revealed new musical horizons and sparked a
burgeoning curiosity into the very nature of sound. His comprehension
and elaboration made five decades of art and research possible, laying
the groundwork for generations of electronic musicians to synthesize,
record, and play music.
Today at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and
Acoustics (CCRMA) as a Professor Emeritus he continues not only to
educate students and colleagues, but also to guide and inspire with
his constant inventiveness and pure musical pleasure.
Join us in honoring Max for two evenings of sound, celebration and
discovery of his ideas, works, music, and writings.
____________
UPCOMING CONFERENCE
ICAIL 2007
Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law
Stanford Law School, June 4-8, 2007
http://www.iaail.org/icail-2007/
The biennial ICAIL conference brings together an international and
interdisciplinary group of scholars for a program of research
presentations, invited talks, workshops, and tutorials. Registration
is now open at
http://www.iaail.org/icail-2007/registration/index.html
and reduced rates for early registration are in effect until May 4.
One-day registration is also available.
This year's program includes:
Invited speakers
* George Fisher, Judge John Crown Professor of Law, Stanford Law
School - "Argument as Storytelling"
* Deborah L. McGuinness Principal Research Scientist, Stanford
Center for Computers and Law
* Thomas F. Gordon, President, International Association for
Artificial Intelligence and Law and Senior Research Scientist,
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS);
Berlin, Germany
Workshops
http://www.iaail.org/icail-2007/workshops/
* FMEC 2007: Workshop in Formal Modelling for Electronic Commerce
* LOAIT: Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence
Techniques
* DESI: Supporting Search and Sensemaking for Electronically Stored
Information in Discovery Proceedings
* ODR: Fourth International Workshop on Online Dispute Resolution
* SW4Law: Semantic Web and Law
Tutorials
http://www.iaail.org/icail-2007/tutorials/
* Advanced Legal Technology in Practice: An Overview
* Enhanced Dispute Resolution Through the Use of Information
Technology
Registration for the full conference also includes an opening
reception in the Law School's Crocker Garden, the conference dinner at
the Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall, lunch each day, and a
volume of proceedings containing the papers presented.
ICAIL 2007 is sponsored by the International Association for
Artificial Intelligence and Law (IAAIL); the Stanford Law School
Program in Law, Science, and Technology; and Thomson West. It is held
in cooperation with ACM Sigart and the Association for the Advancement
of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
For questions, please contact Anne Gardner, gardner@cs.stanford.edu.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 25 April 2007, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Gates B01 (HP Auditorium)
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
"IT-based Innovation in the 21st Century"
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
VP, Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/
Advances in information technologies, combined with open standards,
and especially the Internet, are helping us build a global
infrastructure with the potential to transform business, society and
its institutions, and our personal lives, not unlike the impact that
steam power had in ushering the Industrial Revolution in generations
past. The resulting environment is characterized by collaborative
innovation and access to information on an unprecedented scale. It
holds the promise to help us apply engineering disciplines, tools and
processes to the design and management of highly complex systems,
including businesses and organizations, as well as to make
applications much more user-friendly through the use of highly visual,
interactive interfaces.
About the speaker: Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger is responsible
for identifying emerging technologies and marketplace developments
critical to the future of the IT industry, and organizing appropriate
activities in and outside IBM in order to capitalize on them. In
conjunction with that, he leads a number of key innovation-oriented
activities and formulates technology strategy and public policy
positions in support of them. As part of this effort, he is also
responsible for the IBM Academy of Technology and the company's
university relations office.
Dr. Wladawsky-Berger's role in IBM's response to emerging technologies
began in December 1995 when he was charged with formulating IBM's
strategy in the then emerging Internet opportunity, and developing and
bringing to market leading-edge Internet technologies that could be
integrated into IBM's mainstream business. He has led a number of
IBM's company-wide initiatives including Linux, IBM's Next Generation
Internet efforts and its work on Grid computing. Most recently, he led
IBM's on demand business initiative.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 12 noon - 1:00pm
Cordura Hall 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
"Remembering Events Pasts:
Items, Conjunctions, Inference, and Errors in the Human MTL"
Anthony Wagner
Stanford University
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~wagner/
Declarative memory permits an organism to bridge the past with the
present, providing information about prior events that serves to
inform present decisions and action. Declarative memory critically
depends on the medial temporal lobe (MTL), which is composed of the
hippocampal formation and the surrounding entorhinal, perirhinal, and
parahippocampal cortices. Though decades of research have aimed to
characterize the role of MTL in declarative memory, fundamental
questions remain regarding the functional contributions of specific
MTL substructures. In this talk, I will discuss fMRI and MEG data
bearing on the relative contributions of hippocampus and the
surrounding MTL cortices. These data support three central
conclusions. First, a functional gradient exists within the MTL
circuit, wherein memory for items and memory for conjunctions
differentially depend on processes within MTL cortex and hippocampus,
respectively. Second, the conjunctive memories built by hippocampus
are flexibly addressable, enabling memory-based inferences. Third, the
circuitry of the hippocampus enables it to signal novelty via the
detection of conjunctive prediction errors. Through its role in
multiple forms of learning and remembering, the MTL not only empowers
organisms to learn from the past to predict the present, but also to
acquire new knowledge when its predictions are violated.
____________
MUSIC 319: CCRMA HEARING SEMINAR
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 12 noon
CCRMA Seminar Room, The Knoll
http://ccrma-mail.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/hearing-seminar
I'm happy to announce that our very own Dick Duda will be talking
about his work on how our pinna help us tell the elevation of a sound.
We all know that our two ears can use intensity and timing differences
to tell us from which direction a sound is coming from. But there are
a whole cone of sounds, the cone of confusion, that share the same
timing cues. How is that we tell how high the sound is coming from?
Dick has been a long-time attendee of the Hearing Seminar, but he
hasn't talked about his work lately. I'm looking forward to hearing
an update. --Malcolm Slaney
"Pinna Models and Elevation Cues"
Richard O. Duda
UC Davis
It has long been known that the outer ears or pinnae provide the
primary static acoustic cues for elevation. This has driven numerous
efforts at measuring and modeling individualized HRTFs. However,
despite considerable research, the exact nature of these cues is not
well understood. Furthermore, there are other cues for elevation, and
in some circumstances they can dominate pinna cues. We will review
the state of knowledge in this area, and describe a simple model that
appears to be capable of fitting experimental data.
____________
STANFORD SOFTWARE SEMINAR
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Gates 463a
http://theory.stanford.edu/~mhn/sss.html
"Faith, Evolution, and Programming Languages"
Philip Wadler
Theoretical Computer Science, University of Edinburgh
Faith and evolution provide complementary--and sometimes
conflicting--models of the world, and they also can model the adoption
of programming languages. Adherents of competing paradigms, such as
functional and object-oriented programming, often appear motivated by
faith. Families of related languages, such as C, C++, Java, and C#,
may arise from pressures of evolution. As designers of languages,
adoption rates provide us with scientific data, but the belief that
elegant designs are better is a matter of faith. This talk traces one
concept, second-order quantification, from its inception in the
symbolic logic of Frege through to the generic features introduced in
Java 5, touching on features of faith and evolution. The remarkable
correspondence between natural deduction and functional programming
informed the design of type classes in Haskell. Generics in Java
evolved directly from Haskell type classes, and are designed to
support evolution from legacy code to generic code. Links, a successor
to Haskell aimed at AJAX-style three-tier web applications, aims to
reconcile some of the conflict between dynamic and static approaches
to typing.
About the Speaker: Philip Wadler is Professor of Theoretical Computer
Science at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a Royal
Society-Wolfson Research Merit Fellowship and is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Previously, he worked or studied at Avaya Labs,
Bell Labs, Glasgow, Chalmers, Oxford, CMU, Xerox Parc, and Stanford,
and has visited as a guest professor in Paris, Sydney, and
Copenhagen. Prof. Wadler appears at position 70 on Citeseer's list of
most-cited authors in computer science; is a winner of the POPL Most
Influential Paper Award; and sits on the ACM Sigplan Executive
Committee. He contributed to the designs of Haskell, Java, and XQuery,
and is a co-author of XQuery from the Experts (Addison Wesley, 2004)
and Generics and Collections in Java (O'Reilly, 2006). He has
delivered invited talks in locations ranging from Aizu to Zurich.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 2 April 2007, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
http://www.parc.com/forum/
"Games: The Killer App for Pen Computing?"
Eric Saund
PARC
Because of the lack of compelling applications, relatively few people
are attracted to pen computing hardware like the TabletPC. And without
sufficient hardware adoption rates, few application vendors are
investing heavily in applications that take full advantage of the
drawing, writing, and direct manipulation capabilities of the
electronic stylus on a screen. The question arises, "What will be the
killer app for pen computing?"
One possible answer is, a hit game. Poker, Monopoly, Scrabble, Pong,
Pictionary, Tetris, Rubik's Cube, the Sims, were (are) all phenomena
in their time. The Playstation, XBox, and Gamecube prove that games
drag specialized and expensive hardware. Games can come from out of
the blue to strike it big. New platforms are rare opportunities. This
talk will discuss the new possibilities that pen computing offers for
games, and suggest criteria that must be met to create a "killer app"
game compelling enough to drive adoption of pen computing hardware so
that serious applications will have a place to go.
I will demonstrate a few example games that may be cute but are not
good enough. The audience will be challenged to do better.
About the Speaker: Eric Saund is manager of the Perceptual Document
Analysis area in the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the Palo Alto
Research Center. His research is in the field of computational vision,
specializing in perceptual organization in the domain of document
images. Applications of this work include ubiquitous document imaging,
diagrammatic user interfaces, and perceptually-supported image
editing, as well as classical document recognition. Dr. Saund received
a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from the California
Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds 28 patents to date,
and currently serves as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on
Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 4:00pm
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
"Immediate perception and feedforward models of the ventral
steam in viaual cortex: what is next?"
Tomaso Poggio
Brain Sciences, MIT
Understanding the processing of information in our cortex is a
significant part of understanding how the brain works and of
understanding intelligence itself, arguably one of the greatest
problems in science today. In particular, our visual abilities are
computationally amazing and we are still far from imitating them with
computers. Thus, visual cortex may well be a good proxy for the rest
of the cortex and indeed for intelligence itself. But despite enormous
progress in the physiology and anatomy of the visual cortex, our
understanding of the underlying computations remains fragmentary.
I will briefly review hierarchical feedforward quantitative models of
the ventral stream which, heavily constrained by physiology and
biophysics, are surprisingly successful in explaining several
physiological data and psychophysical results in scene categorization.
I will then focus on the limitations of such models for object
recognition, suggesting specific questions about the computational
role of attention and about recognition tasks beyond scene
classification.
____________
SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
"The Ghost of Johannes Brahms"
Jonathan Berger
Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford
A tantalizing and frustrating audio recording of Johannes Brahms
performing at the piano is analyzed and reconstructed to reveal the
composer's performance traits which depart surprisingly from
tradition. From a symbolic systems standpoint the work involves a
method of segregating noise from coherent (music) signal, a glimpse at
historical performance practice and its departure from the symbolic
representation of the musical score, and computational aspects of
stylistic reconstruction.
____________
INFORMATION SYSTEMS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 4:15pm-5:15pm
Packard 101
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
"Economic-based Mechanisms for Dynamic Spectrum Sharing"
Randall Berry
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University
It is becoming widely recognized that current approaches for
allocating wireless spectrum can result in highly inefficient usage.
Moreover, advances in technology, such as software-defined radio,
offer the promise of implementing new more flexible spectrum sharing
paradigms. These include the use of trading spectrum access on
secondary markets or allowing for more various forms of open access.
In this talk, we describe some simple economic-based mechanisms for
such spectrum sharing approaches. We will consider both the case where
a spectrum manager regulates access to a given band as well as the
"open access" case where there is no manager. In the first case, we
study various auction-mechanisms which the manager may use to allocate
spectrum usage. In the second case, we give a distributed algorithm
which the users must implement to manage spectrum access.
This is joint work with Jianwei Huang and Michael Honig.
About the Speaker: Randall Berry received the B.S. degree in
Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1993
and the M.S. and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and
2000 respectively. He is currently an associate professor in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
Northwestern University. During the summer of 2000 he was a
postdoctoral associate in the Laboratory for Information and Decision
Systems at MIT. In 1998 he was on the technical staff at MIT Lincoln
Laboratory in the Advanced Networks Group. His primary research
interests include wireless communication, data networks, and
information theory. He is the recipient of a 2003 NSF CAREER award and
the Best Teacher award for the 2001/2002 academic year from the ECE
Department at Northwestern University.
____________
SILICON VALLEY SHANNON LECTURE
on Thursday, 26 April 2007, 7:30pm
Bldg. 380:380C
http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~tylin/ieeesilicon/
"Dataspaces: The Next Frontier to Data Integration"
Alon Halevy
Google
Data integration is a pervasive challenge faced in applications that
need to query across multiple autonomous and heterogeneous data
sources. Data integration is crucial in large enterprises, large-scale
scientific projects, and government agencies. Data integration also
holds the promise of fueling the next revolution of data content on
the Web. This talk will review some the impressive progress on data
integration made in research and in industry, but will argue that
despite the progress, data integration is either still too hard for
most users or does not address the real needs in applications. I will
describe a new abstraction, dataspaces, that attempts to address these
two challenges. I will give examples of data management at Web-scale
at Google that motivate the need for dataspaces.
About the Speaker. Alon Halevy is a member of technical staff at
Google Inc. Before joining Google, Alon was a professor of Computer
Science at the University of Washington, Seattle. Alon is the founder
of two data integration companies, Nimble Technology and Transformic
Inc. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for
Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and a 10-year Best Paper Award at
the International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2006) for
his work on data integration. In 2006, Alon was elected Fellow of the
ACM.
____________
WCCFL 26
on Friday-Sunday, 27-29 April 2007, all day
370 Dwinelle (UC Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/wccfl26
26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
Registration is $35 for Students ($45 on the day), $50 for
non-students ($60 on the day).
Invited speakers:
Adam Albright, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lyn Frazier, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Manfred Krifka, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin and Zentrum fur
Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin
____________
FUTURE INNOVATION FORUM
on Friday, 27 April 2007, all day
San Mateo Marriott (Near SF Airport)
http://www.tohoku-u.us/Forum_Program.htm
Registration needed
Dear Friends of Tohoku University,
We are pleased to extend our invitation to you to the OPENING CEREMONY
OF TOHOKU UNIVERSITY US OFFICE AND 1st TOHOKU UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL
INNOVATION FORUM to be held at the Marriott San Mateo at San Francisco
Airport on Thursday and Friday, April 26 - 27, 2007.
In May 2006, as Tohoku University's global strategy for academic
network development, Tohoku University established its US Office in
Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. To inaugurate
the establishment of the US office and the annual International
Innovation Forum series, Tohoku University will hold a grand opening
ceremony followed by a reception on Thursday, April 26. The First
Tohoku University International Innovation Forum will be held the
following day, Friday, April 27, 2007.
The two day event will feature over 50 world renowned experts in their
fields speaking on a broad spectrum of science and technology issues
including Nobel Laureate Roger Kornberg, Stanford University
Professor, speaking on "The Gene Reader in Our Cells." A
representative from California Governor Schwarzenegger's office is
expected to present the opening keynote address.
To hold a seat to this exciting event, please apply to register via
http://mail_service.tohoku-u.us/forum/regfif.php
For program information:
http://www.tohoku-u.us/Forum_Program.htm
Press Release:
http://www.tohoku-u.us/Opening_Ceremony_Press_Release.htm
Contact Information
Name: Nahoko Shanahan
Tohoku University US Office
Email: shanahan@tohoku-u.org
Phone: 650.947.0664
____________
BERKELEY INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTITUTE
on Friday, 27 April 2007, 11:00am
Main Lecture Hall, ICSI, 1947 Center Street, Sixth Floor, Berkeley
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/
"Articulatory Features for Discriminative Speaker Adaptation"
Florian Metze
Deutsche Telekom Laboratories
This talk presents a way to perform speaker adaptation for automatic
speech recognition using the stream weights in a multi-stream setup,
which included acoustic models for "Articulatory Features" (AFs) such
as "Rounded" or "Voiced". We present supervised speaker adaptation
experiments on a spontaneous speech task and compare the above
stream-based approach to conventional approaches, in which the models,
and not stream combination weights, are being adapted. In the approach
we present, stream weights model the importance of features such as
"Voiced" for word discrimination, which offers a descriptive
interpretation of the adaptation parameters. We also present results
on ASR using AFs on the RT-04S "Meeting" task.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 27 April 2007, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
"Evolving Evaluation from Engineers to Experience:
What History can Teach us About Evaluation in HCI"
Joseph `Jofish'Kaye
Cornell University
http://jofish.com/
Human-Computer Interaction sits at the boundary between technical and
social practice. Unlike entirely technical disciplines, we cannot
always evaluate our work on clearly defined criteria such as
bits-per-second or megahertz. Unlike social science disciplines, our
focus on the /building /of novel technology requires evaluation to
determine what (intended and unintended) effects are induced by that
particularly technology. Over the history of HCI, different criteria
have been key for evaluation, and these criteria have changed and
shifted over time. In this talk, I'll discuss the evolution of HCI's
notion of evaluation, and redefinitions over time of what HCI
considers valid knowledge. I culminate with case studies showing how
this understanding may be of use in light of current questions about
the evaluation of experience-focused rather than task-focused HCI
About the Speaker: Joseph `Jofish'Kaye is a Ph.D Candidate in
Information Science at Cornell University. He recently spent six
months as a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and
has also worked with the Domestic Design & Technology Research Group
at Intel and several startups. His work includes ethnographic,
cultural, critical and technological studies of, among other topics,
academics' archiving practices, couples in long distance relationships,
affective computing, ubiquitous computing, social networking, and
smart homes and kitchens. He has a B.S. in Cognitive Science from MIT,
and Masters degrees in Media Arts & Sciences from MIT and Information
Science from Cornell.
____________
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 27 April 2007, 3:15pm
Building 90, room 92Q
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
"Rationality, Reasoning and Group Agency"
Philip Pettit
Princeton University
The rationality of individual agents is secured for the most part by
their make-up or design. Some agents, however - in particular, human
beings - rely on the intentional exercise of thinking or reasoning in
order to promote their rationality further; this is the activity that
is classically exemplified in Rodin's sculpture of Le Penseur. Do
group agents have to rely on reasoning in order to maintain a rational
profile? Recent results in the theory of judgment aggregation show
that they do. In a slogan: group agents are made, not born.
About the Speaker: Philip Pettit is L.S.Rockeller University Professor
of Politics and Human Values, and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy,
at Princeton University. He works in moral and political theory and on
background issues in philosophical psychology and metaphysics. His
single-authored books include The Common Mind (OUP 1996),
Republicanism (OUP 1997), A Theory of Freedom (OUP 2001) and a
selection of his papers, Rules, Reasons and Norms (OUP 2002). He is
the co-author of Economy of Esteem (OUP 2004), with Geoffrey Brennan;
and Mind, Morality and Explanation (OUP 2004), a selection of papers
with Frank Jackson and Michael Smith. A new book, Made with Words:
Hobbes on Language, Mind and Politics is forthcoming with Princeton
University Press and he is currently working on a book on Group Agents
with Christian List, LSE.
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Friday, 27 April 2007, 4:00pm
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
"Mapping the microcircuitry of attention: attentional
modulation varies across cell classes in visual area V4"
John Reynolds
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, UC San Diego
Cortical neurons differ from one another in important ways, including
their neurochemical properties, patterns of connectivity, laminar
distribution, gene expression patterns and developmental
origin. Previous studies of attention have not sought to distinguish
among different classes of neurons. We therefore know almost nothing
about the complex circuitry that transforms attentional feedback
signals into improved visual processing. Studies in the slice and in
anesthetized animals find that parvalbumin expressing GABA-ergic
interneurons with the morphologies of basket and chandelier cells have
short duration action potentials, whereas most excitatory cell classes
have longer duration action potentials, a difference that is due to
expression of different classes of sodium and potassium channels. We
thus examined differences in attentional modulation across visual area
V4 neurons classified on the basis of action potential width. The
distribution of action potential widths in our sample of 179 neurons
was clearly bimodal. Broad spiking neurons made up ~80% of our sample
and exhibited markedly lower levels of spontaneous activity and weaker
stimulus-evoked responses than narrow spiking neurons. Narrow spiking
neurons showed a median increase in firing rate that was more than
five times larger than the increase that was observed among broad
spiking neurons. Attention also reduced response variability, as
measured by the Fano factor. This reduction was significantly larger
among narrow than broad spiking neurons. We also examined the
spike-field coherence (SFC), a measure of response synchronization.
Consistent with earlier studies, we find that high frequency SFC is
increased with attention, but this increase was observed only for
narrow spiking neurons. Both classes of cells showed significant
attention-dependent reductions in low frequency SFC. These findings
lead to the surprising conclusion that attention has a more pronounced
influence on local inhibitory interneurons than on pyramidal neurons.
____________
MIND MATTERS: EXPLORING THE ANIMAL MIND
on Saturday, 28 April 2007, 2:00pm
The Exploratorium, San Francisco
http://www.exploratorium.edu/pr/documents/07-4Animal.html
"Exploring the Animal Mind: Animal Personality"
Sam Gosling
Consistent, individual differences in personality have been identified
in numerous non-human species, ranging from guppies and octopi to
hyenas and chimpanzees. Drawing from his research on spotted hyenas,
dogs, chimpanzees, squid, and humans, Dr. Sam Gosling examines the
ways in which personality can be measured in non-human animals. He
also considers the implications of this work in science (e.g.,
understanding the genetic bases of personality) and applied settings
(e.g., identifying dogs best-suited to explosive-detection).
This is part of a three-program Spring lecture series that
investigates the latest research and knowledge about how non-human
animals' minds are similar to and different from human minds. This
series anticipates a new exhibit section Mind: Attention, Emotion, and
Judgment, scheduled to open at the Exploratorium in October 2007. All
talks are included in the price of admission to the Exploratorium, and
are made possible with the support of the National Science Foundation.
The other two talks are
Saturday, May 5, 2pm
Exploring the Animal Mind: Orangutan Communication
With Dr. Rob Shumaker
Join Dr. Rob Shumaker, lead scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa,
and learn about the behavior and mental abilities of orangutans the
only Asian great ape. Dr. Shumaker works with orangutans as research
partners and collaborators, not as subjects. His presentation includes
a discussion of the ways in which this philosophy affects research
design and implementation.
Saturday, June 9, 1pm
Exploring the Animal Mind: Enriching Animals in Captivity
With Kelly Gomez and Mikel Delgado
Environmental enrichment enhances the overall well-being of captive
animals by providing for their physical and psychological needs. To
learn about the San Francisco Zoos Enrichment Program, join zookeeper
Kelly Gomez and learn about a variety of enrichment activities and
live animal demonstrations.
Following Kellys presentation, SPCA Cat Behavior Specialist Mikel
Delgado discusses interactive toys, food puzzles, cat furniture, and
other ways to keep your housecat happy, as well as the benefits of
keeping cats indoors
____________
STANFORD SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS WORKSHOP
on Tuesday, 1 May 2007, 12 noon
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
"Postposed additive particles as markers of givenness"
Manfred Krifka
Humboldt University of Berlin
Many languages have postposed additive particles (PAPs) like too that
occur after the constitutent they relate to and carry the main accent,
as in Mary will come, too. This is in sharp contrast to restrictive or
scalar particles like only and even, which do not occur in this
configuration. In previous work I have argued that PAPs are the main
focused items and require that their associate constituent is a
contrastive topic. While this can explain some properties of PAPs in
an elegant way, it is doubtful that their associate constituents
indeed have to be contrastive topics. In this talk I will explore a
quite different account: PAPs mark the predicative constituent they
c-command to be contextually or situationally given. In this sense,
they have a function similar to definite articles for referential
constituents. It will be shown that this fits nicely into an
explanation of default accent rules (that accent is realized on the
argument), and it may also explain why PAPs are acquired much earlier
than true focus particles.
____________
LINGUISTICS TALK
on Tuesday, 1 May 2007, 4:15pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Dynamic Summarization: Exploring New Interfaces for Extracting
Information from Speech and Text"
Steve Whittaker (with Simon Tucker)
University of Sheffield, UK
The success of search on the web means that today’s users have
access to unprecedented numbers of documents and yet we lack good end
user tools to rapidly skim and extract key information from within
those documents. Text summarization is one technique that might
support these extraction processes. However traditional approaches to
summarization are static and do not allow users to directly control
either the amount of compression or the manner of information
presentation in the summary. In contrast, we describe a dynamic
approach for extracting important text or speech information, that
allows users to control the level and presentation of the summary,
e.g. by exploring browsable visualizations showing the relative
importance of different elements of the text. We present four
experiments that develop and evaluate multiple dynamic summary
techniques applied to both text and speech data collected from
meetings. Our evaluations demonstrate: (a) the value of interactive
control over summaries; (b) presentation techniques that remove
information perform better than other summary methods that preserve
complete textual records but highlight important information. These
results have architectural implications; arguing for summary
techniques that allow real-time computation of different levels of
summary, as well as techniques that preserve continuity across those
different summary levels.
____________
SYNTAX WORKSHOP
on Tuesday, 1 May 2007, 5:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/sssg/
"A Unified Analysis of Niuean/Tongic (`)Aki"
Douglas Ball
Stanford University
http://stanford.edu/~dball/
The first part of this talk will focus on the instrumental "particle"
aki in the Polynesian language Niuean (a dry run for my AFLA 14 talk).
Although at first glance aki appears to be a preposition, it,
exceptionally among prepositions, has some verbal properties. Among
these include governing the absolutive case, appearing in the verbal
complex and licensing a second absolutive (which also behaves as an
absolutive), and having an null argument realization at the foot of an
unbounded dependency (contrasting with the prepositional norm of a
resumptive pronoun). I will present an analysis, starting from
insights by Massam (1998, 2006), that ties these properties together
within HPSG, proposing that this pattern is a consequence of aki's
dependency potential.
The second part of this talk will focus on the cognate of aki in
Niuean's sister language, Tongan: `aki. I will discuss how Niuean and
Tongan are similar and differ, as well as additional Tongan data
(presently unavailable for Niuean) that further illuminate the nature
of the aki-related phenomenon. I will finally consider how the above
analysis needs to be different and augmented to handle the Tongan
data.
References
Massam, Diane. 1998. Instrumental Aki and the Nature of Niuean
Transitivity. Oceanic Linguistics 37: 1228.
---. 2006. Neither Absolutive nor Ergative is Nominative or
Accusative. In Alana Johns, Diane Massam, and Juvenal Ndayiragije,
eds., Ergativity: Emerging Issues. pgs. 27-46. Kluwer: Dordecht.
Seiter, William. 1980. Studies in Niuean Syntax. New York: Garland
Publishing.
____________
BERKELEY COGNITIVE COMPUTING 2007 CONFERENCE
on 2, 3 May 2007, all day
Auditorium of the Berkeley Art Museum
http://www.citris-uc.org/CognitiveComputing07
registration required but free
"A Multi-disciplinary Synthesis of Neuroscience, Computer Science,
Mathematics, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Information Theory"
WHAT IS COGNITIVE COMPUTING? Cognitive Computing is when computer
science meets neuroscience to explain and implement psychology.
We have, in the brain and nervous system, an information processing
system unrivalled by artificial means. While it trails machines in
accuracy and mathematical computation, it wins on adaptability,
flexibility, functionality, and parallelism. The ultimate goal is to
reverse engineer enough of this system so that the design principles
can be applied to building robust and adaptable computer systems.
Cognitive Computing is different from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Neural Networks (NN). From the outset, AI ignored neurobiology. While
neural networks started from biological motivation, they too quickly
discarded biological plausibility. In both cases, the approach has
been to focus on a suitable problem, and to offer a "symbolic" or
"neural network" solution to it. The brain, however, works in exactly
the opposite fashion, it has evolved a solution that allows it to deal
with problems as they arise.
AI and NN technologies take one or more cognitive phenomena exhibited
by the brain as a starting point and then try to replicate that
capability by inventing algorithms/learning rules. In contrast, CC is
about learning how the brain operates, about algorithms, about
diligent reverse engineering and testing plausible models.
Cognitive Computing is about engineering the mind by reverse
engineering the brain.
____________
HISTORY OF SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM
on Thursday, 3 May 2007, 3:30pm
Bldg. 200:307 (History)
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/colloquia.html
"Data Extinction: How Does Information Disappear?"
"Disappearing Data: Incentives, Disincentives, and Neglect"
Christine L. Borgman
Information Studies, UCLA
While a central goal of cyberinfrastructure and e-Science is to
improve the use and reuse of research data, massive amounts of
research data cease to exist each year. The disappearance of data
represents not only the loss of expensive intellectual resources, it
represents a huge opportunity cost for comparative and longitudinal
research. Relatively little is understood about the scholarly
practices associated with data that lead to use and reuse. The talk
will present several scenarios of unintentional data loss, mostly in
the sciences, discussing situations in which data are lost due to
incentives not to maintain them, to the lack of incentives to maintain
them, or due to neglect (benign and otherwise).
"Disappearance and Reality: The Practice of Forgetting"
Geoffrey Bowker and Dianne McKenna
Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University
Analyzes various modalities of forgetting used in science and business
and their relationship to information infrastructure.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 3 May 2007, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Soda Hall 310 (UC Berkeley)
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~feisha/cis-seminar
"Apprenticeship learning for robotic control, with application
to autonomous helicopter flight"
Pieter Abbeel
Stanford
Many problems in control have unknown, stochastic, and highly
non-linear dynamics, and offer significant challenges to classical
control methods. Some of the key difficulties in these problems are
that (i) It is often hard to write down, in closed form, a formal
specification of the control task (for example, what is the objective
function for "driving well"?), (ii) It is difficult to learn good
control---as opposed to merely descriptive---models of the dynamics
(cf. the "exploration problem" in reinforcement learning), and (iii)
It is expensive to find closed-loop controllers for high dimensional,
highly stochastic domains. In this talk, I will present formal
results showing how these problems can be efficiently addressed in the
apprenticeship learning setting, in which expert demonstrations of the
task are available. I will also present an application of our ideas
to autonomous helicopter flight. Our results significantly extend the
state of the art in helicopter control, and include the first
successful completion of the following four aerobatic flight
maneuvers: in-place forward flip and sideways roll, nose-in funnel,
and tail-in funnel.
About the Speaker: Pieter Abbeel is a PhD student in Prof. Andrew Ng's
group at Stanford University. His research interests include machine
learning, robotics, and control.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Friday, 4 May 2007, 11:00am
EJ228, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
"Hypermedia Discourse: Theory and Technology for the Pragmatic Web?"
Simon Buckingham Shum
The Open University
The Hypermedia Discourse research programme is investigating theory
and technology at the nexus of these two fields, building and
evaluating tools for contesting ideas as networks grounded in
discourse schemes. Were striving for representations that are both
cognitively and computationally tractable: fluid enough to serve as
augmentations to group working memory, yet structured enough to
support long term memory. I will describe how such networks can be (i)
mapped by multiple analysts to visualize and interrogate the claims
and arguments in a literature, and (ii) mapped in real time to manage
a teams information sources, competing interpretations, arguments and
decisions, particularly in time-pressured scenarios where harnessing
collective intelligence is a priority. Ill include case studies from
the NASA Mobile Agents project, and personnel recovery in a
DARPA-PMESII exercise. I then reflect on the emergence of interest in
Pragmatic Webs where context, conversation and commitment are of
central importance. Hypermedia Discourse may exemplify how web
pragmatics complement social web semantics.
About the Speaker: Simon Buckingham Shum is a Senior Lecturer at the
UK Open University's Knowledge Media Institute, and leads the
Hypermedia Discourse project. With a background in Cognitive
Ergonomics (UCL) and HCI (York), he has worked on visual hypertext for
mapping argumentation since his PhD work on Design Rationale at Xerox
EuroPARC in 1990. "Visualizing Argumentation" (Springer, 2003) brought
together leading figures in argument mapping, and "Knowledge
Cartography" (2007) expands this. He is a PI/CI on several US/UK
sensemaking technology projects, and is a co-founder of the Compendium
Institute, with his group leading development of the Compendium tool
for Conversational Modelling. He is Co-Chair of the 2nd Int. Conf. on
the Pragmatic Web.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 4 May 2007, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B03 (NEC Auditorium)
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
"Knowledge Media to Aid Multimedia Communications and Human Cognition"
Ron Baecker
University of Toronto
http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/rmb/
Knowledge media were anticipated although not named as such in seminal
papers by Vannevar Bush in 1945 and JCR Licklider in 1960. This talk
reviews 40 years (1966-2006) of my work in the design of knowledge
media for multimedia communications, and previews 40 years (2001-2041)
of work in the design of knowledge media that aid human cognition.
The review of tools for multimedia communications begins with a
seminal interactive computer animation system, digresses to a landmark
example of algorithm animation, returns to the main thread with tools
for creating and publishing structured digital videos (including our
current ePresence Interactive Media system), and concludes with an
attempt to abstract lessons learned.
I will then describe current work (funded by the Alzheimer's
Association) in the participatory design of DVD-based multimedia
biographies for individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mild
cognitive impairment (MCI) and their families. Result from this last
project are aids to cognition, specifically, the memory process of
reminiscence by AD or MCI individuals.
Since demographers forecast significant increases in the numbers of
senior citizens and in the prevalence of cognitive impairments caused
by afflictions such as AD, it is compelling to consider how
information technology, and especially advances in mobile, ubiquitous,
and multimedia computing, could allow us to create powerful new aids
to cognition. I have therefore begun a research programme to
envision, prototype, design, construct, and evaluate powerful and
flexible electronic cognitive aids. These should help people,
including individuals who are aging and who have cognitive
impairments, carry out activities of daily living; remember names,
faces, and appointments; find objects of importance, such as glasses,
wallets, and keys; understand and remember procedural instructions,
such as taking medications; reminisce about their lives; and
communicate with distant loved ones.
I shall then describe one other current project, the work of PhD
student Mike Wu with individuals who have anterograde amnesia and
their families, and conclude with mention of several projects that
illustrate different points in the design space of technological aids
to cognition. Of particular interest is whether the technology is
intended as a prosthesis, or as an aid to rehabilitation, or most
ambitiously as a mechanism for prevention, e.g., helping to delay
cognitive decline.
About the Speaker: Ron Baecker is Professor of Computer Science, Bell
University Laboratories Chair in Human-Computer Interaction, founder
and Chief Scientist of the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the
University of Toronto, and Affiliate Scientist with Baycrest's
Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit. Baecker is Principal
Investigator of the Canada-wide Network for Effective Collaboration
Technologies through Advanced Research (NECTAR), has been named one of
the 60 Pioneers of Computer Graphics by ACM SIGGRAPH, has been elected
to the CHI Academy by ACM SIGCHI, and has been awarded the Canadian
Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. He has
published over 125 papers and articles, is author or co-author of 4
books, and has founded and run 2 software companies. His current
University of Toronto "entrepreneurial" venture ( http://epresence.tv/ )
develops and distributes the open source ePresence Interactive Media
system.
____________
SRI CSL SEMINAR SERIES
on Friday, 4 May 2007, 3:30pm-4:30pm
EK255, SRI International
http://www.csl.sri.com/
"From keyword search to concept association:
What does the Web compute?"
Dusko Pavlovic
Kestrel
While the Web is usually modeled as a large distributed database, and
analyzed in terms of information retrieval and information supply, its
large scale traffic flows, and the social interactions that it
supports, also generate and process vast amounts of new
information. In this talk, I shall explore the idea that the Web can
be modeled as a computer, rather than a database, and that its
dynamics can be analyzed as computation. The difficult problems
arising from security and management of Web applications seem to call
for such investigations. On the other hand, the general modeling
technique also applies to other network structures, with different
dynamics.
Implicitly, the idea that the Web generates information is already
present in the current search paradigm, based on the notion of
rank. The search rankings are extracted from the structure and the
dynamics of the Web, i.e. from the information generated on the Web,
rather than entered into it. I describe two possible extensions of
search rank: the notions of path rank, and contract rank. They capture
two views of the distribution of Web's computation paths, like search
rank captures the distribution of Web's outputs. They are a sample
from a putative toolkit of ranking techniques, needed to analyze the
Web as an information processing plant. While path rank can be used to
detect traffic flow biases, contract ranking plays a role in
clustering and concept associations that emerge through information
processing.
____________
UC BERKELEY OXYOPIA LECTURE
on Friday, 4 May 2007, 4:00pm
489 Minor Hall (UC Berkeley)
http://optometry.berkeley.edu/opt_txtpp/ce/oxyopias.html
"Visual Working Memory: Representation, Process, & Function"
Steven J. Luck
Psychology, Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis
Visual working memory is a short-term storage system that allows
visual information to be buffered briefly in the service of cognitive
tasks. I will describe our research addressing the nature of the
representations that are stored in this system, the processes that
create and use these representations, and an example of an important
but underappreciated real-world visual task that makes use of this
system. Specifically, I will discuss evidence indicating that
integrated objects (or object parts) are the fundamental storage units
in visual working memory and evidence indicating that the process of
creating representations is highly resource-demanding, whereas the
process of comparing these representations with new sensory
information is fast and highly efficient. I will also describe studies
showing that this memory system plays an important role in the control
of eye movements, allowing us to rapidly recover from the errors that
commonly occur as we try to fixate objects in the periphery. Finally,
I will provide psychophysical evidence concerning the resolution of
these representations.
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END MATERIAL
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