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CSLI Calendar, Wednesday, 16 April 2008, vol. 23:30
CSLI CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS
______________________________________________________________________
16 April 2008 Stanford Vol. 23, No. 30
______________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
a subdivision of H-STAR, http://hstar.stanford.edu/
Stanford University, Cordura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4101
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/
____________
ACTIVITIES FROM 16 APRIL 2008 TO 25 APRIL 2008
WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL 2008
3:45pm Psychology Department Colloquium [16-Apr-08]
Jordan Hall 420:041
"Beyond Imitative Learning: The Case for Natural Pedagogy
Evolutionary Mechanisms of Cultural Knowledge Transmission in
Humans"
George Gergely
HAS, Hungary
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_colloquium.html
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [16-Apr-08]
Gates B01
"Spatial Computing in Proto"
Jonathan Bachrach
MIT CSAIL
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
Abstract below
6:00pm Media X Spring Lecture Series [16-Apr-08]
Wallenberg Hall Learning theater (Bldg. 160:124)
"Innovation - the Secret Sauce"
Chuck House
Media X, Stanford
http://mediax.stanford.edu/events_calendar/calendar.html
Abstract below
6:30pm SF Bay ACM TechMaster Talk [16-Apr-08]
Hewlett Packard, Pruneridge and Wolfe, Cupertino, Bldg. 48, Oak Room
"Computing in Transition"
Nick Tredennick
Gilder Publishing
http://sfbayacm.org/
THURSDAY, 17 APRIL 2008
12 noon CSLI CogLunch [17-Apr-08]
Cordura Hall 100
"The Role of Shape in Object Recognition"
Geremy Heitz
Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
http://ai.stanford.edu/~gaheitz/
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
Abstract below
12 noon FCC Public Hearing [17-Apr-08]
Dinkelspiel Auditorium
"Broadband Network ManagementPractices"
aka "Internet Practices"
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280895A1.pdf
4:00pm PARC Forum [17-Apr-08]
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"Freebase: An open database of the world's information"
John Giannendra
Metaweb
http://www.parc.com/forum/
Abstract below
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar [17-Apr-08]
Soda Hall 405 (UC Berkeley)
"Optimization techniques for Support Vector Machines"
Olivier Chapelle
Yahoo! Research
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~rakhlin/cis-seminar
Abstract below
4:00pm Berkeley Institute of Cognitive and Brain Seminar [17-Apr-08]
Tolman 2129 (Berkeley)
"Modeling multisensory interaction in saccadic reaction time"
Hans Colonius
Univ. of Oldenburg
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum [17-Apr-08]
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"Boltzmann Brains"
Leonard Susskind
Physics Department
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
Abstract below
4:15pm Information Systems Seminar [17-Apr-08]
Packard 101
"Programming Informational Molecules: Synthetic DNA Circuits
in a DNA World"
Erik Winfree
Caltech
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
Abstract below
5:15pm CS302: TechLaw with Progressive Minds [17-Apr-08]
Landau Econ 140
"Does Technology Really Matter at a Trial"
Rusty Day
Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder LLP
http://xenon.stanford.edu/~ruchika/
(rsvp requested)
FRIDAY, 18 APRIL 2008
11:00am Berkeley Institute of Cognitive and Brain Seminar [18-Apr-08]
Tolman 5101 (Berkeley)
"Seeing is a verb: a neurologist's perspective on visual awareness"
Robert Rafal
Psychology, Bangor University, Wales
http://www.psychology.bangor.ac.uk/~robert_rafal
http://icbs.berkeley.edu/
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [18-Apr-08]
Gates B01
"The Past Present and Future of Digital Memories"
Steve Whittaker
University of Sheffield, UKPARC
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/stevewhittaker/
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [18-Apr-08]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Spatial Analogies in Thinking about Documentation"
Michael Buckland
"Review and Reflections on Some Recent Meetings"
Clifford Lynch
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i296a-1/s08/schedule.html
3:15pm Friday Cognitive Seminar [18-Apr-08]
Jordan Hall 420:050
Title to be announced
Rui Mata
University of Lisbon and Stanford
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/events_cognitive.html
3:30pm Stanford Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop [18-Apr-08]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
"Maximizing Assertion: The Case of Verbs of Motion in Russian"
Olga Kagan
UCSC
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
Abstract below
MONDAY, 21 APRIL 2008
3:15pm Stanford Phonology Workshop [21-Apr-08]
Linguistics Chair's office, Margaret Jacks Hall
Title to be announced
Jaye Padgett
UCSC
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/pinterest/
4:00pm UC Berkeley Linguistics Department Colloquium [21-Apr-08]
182 Dwinelle (Berkeley)
"Processing Factors in the Study of Island Effects"
Ivan Sag
Linguistics, Stanford
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/events/
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 22 APRIL 2008
4:15pm Mathematical Logic Seminar [22-Apr-08]
Bldg. 80:115
"Review of 'Reasoning with Arbitrary Objects', by Kit Fine: Part II"
David Taylor and Marcello di Bello
Stanford
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/logic-seminar.html
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 23 APRIL 2008
12 noon UC Berkeley IPSR colloquium [23-Apr-08]
5101 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"Like Water, Like Stone: Dialectical Self Views and Their
Psychological Implications in Different Cultural Contexts"
Kaiping Peng
UC Berkeley
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kppeng/
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ipsr/colloquia.html
12 noon Berkeley Redwood Seminar [23-Apr-08]
508-20 Evans Hall (Berkeley)
"Modeling the mechanisms underlying memory-related neural activity"
Mark Goldman
UC Davis
http://redwood.berkeley.edu/seminars.php
4:15pm EE380: Computer Systems Lab Colloquium [23-Apr-08]
Gates B01
Title to be announced
Werner Volgel
CTO, Amazon.com
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
THURSDAY, 24 APRIL 2008
10:10am GTU/Berkeley Working Group on Cognitive Science and Religion[24-Apr-08]
3105 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
"What do theologians and neuroscientists have to talk about?"
Howard Fields
Neurology and Physiology, UCSF
http://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/events/
(contact info is apparently Mark Graves mgraves .. jstb.edu)
Abstract below
12 noon CSLI CogLunch [24-Apr-08]
Cordura Hall 100
"The Composition of Thoughts"
Robert May
Philosophy, UC Davis
http://philosophy.ucdavis.edu/people/may/index.html
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
4:00pm SRI AI Seminar Series [24-Apr-08]
EJ228, SRI International
"The Magitti Activity-Aware Leisure Guide: Opportunity
Discovery, Innovation and New Technology Platform Development
at PARC"
Victoria Bellotti and Bo Begole
Palo Alto Research Center
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
Abstract below
4:00pm PARC Forum [24-Apr-08]
George Pake Auditorium at PARC
"From Here to Sustainability: The Profit (and Pitfalls) of
Green Business Strategies"
Joel Makower
Greenbiz.com & Co-founder of Clean Edge
http://www.parc.com/forum/
4:00pm UC Berkeley CIS Seminar [24-Apr-08]
Soda Hall 405 (UC Berkeley)
Title to be announced
Sanjoy Dasgupta
UCSD
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~rakhlin/cis-seminar
4:15pm SSP10: Symbolic Systems Forum [24-Apr-08]
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
"Exploring Mass End-User Participation in the Design Process"
Mike Krieger
Symbolic Systems Program,
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
FRIDAY, 25 APRIL 2008
12:30pm CS547: Human-Computer Interaction Seminar [25-Apr-08]
Gates B01
"Computational Textiles and the Democratization of Ubiquitous
Computing"
Leah Buechley
University of Colorado
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
Abstract below
3:00pm Berkeley Information Access Seminar [25-Apr-08]
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
"Informatization and Increased Demands on Knowledge and
Subjectivity"
Rudi Schmiede
Darmstadt, Germany
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i296a-1/s08/schedule.html
Abstract below
3:15pm Philosophy Department Colloquium [25-Apr-08]
Bldg. 90:92Q
"The Rationality of Perceptual Judgments"
Anil Gupta
University of Pittsburgh
http://www.pitt.edu/~philosop/people/gupta.html
http://www-philosophy.stanford.edu/ce.html
3:30pm Stanford Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop [25-Apr-08]
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
Title to be announced
Anna Papafragou
Delaware
http://papafragou.psych.udel.edu/
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
____________
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.
____________
NOTE
I'll note the FCC public hearing tomorrow (Thursday) at Dinkelspiel
from noon to 7pm. This hearing will be covering such issues as "Net
Neutrality" and is likely to be controversial
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/03/portfolio_0319
The schedule is
12:00pm - Welcome/Opening Remarks
12:45pm - Panel 1: Network Management and Consumer Expectations
3:00pm - Panel 2: Consumer Access to Emerging Internet Technologies
and Applications
4:30pm - Public Comment
6:30pm - Closing Remarks
7:00pm - Adjournment
seating is first come, first served.
____________
EE380: COMPUTER SYSTEMS LAB COLLOQUIUM
on Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 4:15pm to 5:30pm
Gates B01
http://ee380.stanford.edu/contents.html
"Spatial Computing in Proto"
Jonathan Bachrach
MIT CSAIL
The computational landscape is drastically changing. Processing,
sensing, communication, and actuation are now affordable and
embeddable, allowing us to manufacture myriads of devices that can be
spread through space and placed in the world. The catch is that in
order to manufacture these devices economically in bulk, we must
accept faults, inaccuracies, and communication delays. If we were to
be able to robustly harness these devices, we could economically
develop systems with unparalleled power, grace, fidelity, and
pervasiveness. Example spatial computing domains are sensor networks,
smart materials, swarm robotics, biofilms, and modular robotics, to
name a few. Unfortunately, traditional engineering approaches do not
apply, and we must rethink our computing models, languages, and
practices. Typical solutions entangle robustness with coordination,
producing applications that do not scale well and modules that do not
compose well nor map easily over to other application domains. We
offer an alternate approach whereby the programmer controls a single
virtual spatial computer which fills the environment space. The
computations on this spatial computer are actually performed by a
large number of locally-interacting individual devices. This abstracts
the actual computational hardware behind the spatial computer
interface, and allows the programmer to focus on a single model of
global computation. We achieve this abstraction with two components: a
language that embodies continuous space and time semantics and a
runtime library that implements these semantics approximately. In this
talk, I will introduce our language, called Proto, using examples from
sensor networks, and hint at the generality of the approach, using
examples from distributed robotics.
About the speaker: Jonathan Bachrach is a research scientist at the
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) who
researches programming languages, spatial computing, and
robotics. Before MIT, he held postdocs at Stanford and UC Berkeley,
was a researcher at IRCAM in Paris, developing new musical platforms,
and a principle software engineer at Harlequin Inc (RIP), working on a
compiler and runtime for the Dylan programming language. He studied
cognitive science, computer science, and visual arts, receiving a B.S.
degree from the University of California at San Diego and MS and PhD
degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
____________
MEDIA X SPRING LECTURE SERIES
On Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 6:00pm
Wallenberg Hall Learning theater (Bldg. 160:124)
http://mediax.stanford.edu/
"Innovation - the Secret Sauce"
Chuck House
Media X, Stanford
Innovation, the popular mantra of the day, is more elusive and
ephemeral than the current spate of books would have it. Chuck House
has just completed research for a forthcoming book The HP Phenomenon
that examines closely the consistent innovation patterns of the
world's largest high-tech firm, and comes to some surprising
conclusions for how it has been able to transition itself time and
again into new arenas, and outperforming its chief competitors time
after time. The lessons from this study, applied in succinct form
against Silicon Valley conventional wisdom, are suggestive for 21st
century corporations and innovation in the evolving outsourced,
downsized, offshored world that has been enabled by the rapid adoption
and increasing capability of the WWW.
About the Speaker: Chuck House, Executive Director of Media X at
Stanford University, brings a long history of innovation with him to
this role. Participant in creating twelve product lines at HP over a
thirty-year career and leader of the Intel Research Collaboratory
before joining Stanford, he has also been an advisor with 25 start-up
companies. Holder of HP's Medal of Defiance as well as the named Chuck
House Productivity Award, he has been cited by Smithsonian and the
Computer History Museum as one of the top 200 Computer Wizards of
America. House was ACM President from 1996-1998, chairing ACM '01 in
San Jose with Bob Metcalfe in 2001.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 17 April 2008, 12 noon - 1:00pm
Cordura Hall 100
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/events/Coglunch/
"The Role of Shape in Object Recognition"
Geremy Heitz
Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
http://ai.stanford.edu/~gaheitz/
Discriminative tasks, including object categorization and detection,
are central components of high-level computer vision. Shape is one
component of object classes that is often used to recognize or
localize instances from the class in question. Many existing methods
use implicit shape to guide the search for instances from various
object classes. In this talk, I will discuss the role of shape in
high-level computer vision, and in particular will focus on the case
where we are interested in more refined aspects of the object in an
image, such as pose or articulation. In these cases, a more explicit
representation of the shape is preferred. In this talk I will present
a method (LOOPS) for learning a shape and image feature model that can
be trained on a particular image class, and used to outline instances
of the class in novel images. While the training data consists of
uncorresponded outlines, the resulting LOOPS model contains
semantically consistent landmark points that can be localized in an
image. This localization facilitates a number of tasks beyond
localization, including classification along the shape axis, in which
a very small number of training instances are labeled. For example, we
might distinguish between cheetahs that are running and those standing
still. From this small number of labeled instances, we can use our
localized outlines together with a simple nearest neighbor classifier
to label novel test images with the label of interest.
____________
PARC FORUM
on Thursday, 17 April 2008, 4:00pm - 5:00pm
George Pake Auditorium, PARC
(directions at <http://www.parc.com/directions>)
http://www.parc.com/forum/
"Freebase: An open database of the world's information"
John Giannendra
Metaweb
Freebase -- an open database of the world's information -- is built by
a global community and is free for anyone to query, contribute to, and
build applications on. Drawing from large open data sets like
Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, and the SEC, Freebase is curated by a
passionate global community of users and contains structured
information on millions of topics such as music, food ingredients,
rocket engines, stock indices, historical events, and more.
Part of what makes this open database unique is that it spans domains,
but requires that a particular topic exist only once in Freebase --
even if it might normally be found in multiple databases. For
example, Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear in a movie database as an
actor, a political database as a governor, and in a bodybuilder
database as a Mr. Universe. In Freebase, however, there is only one
topic for Arnold Schwarzenegger that brings all these facets
together. The unified topic is a single reconciled identity, which
makes it easier to find and contribute information about the linked
world we live in.
About the Speaker: John Giannandrea co-founded Metaweb Technologies in July
2005. Previously, he was CTO of TellMe Networks, Inc., where he was
responsible for the development and operation of the world's largest
VoiceXML network -- which was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 2007.
Prior to TellMe, John was Chief Technologist of Netscape's Web browser
group. Throughout his career, he has contributed extensively to industry
Internet standards and protocols, including Java, HTTP, SSL, and RDF. John
is originally from Scotland and graduated from Strathclyde University.
____________
UC BERKELEY CIS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 17 April 2008, 4:00pm-5:30pm
Soda Hall 405 (UC Berkeley)
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~rakhlin/cis-seminar
"Optimization techniques for Support Vector Machines"
Olivier Chapelle
Yahoo! Research
I will discuss some optimization methods for Support Vector Machines
(SVMs) and related algorithms with a particular emphasis on large
scale methods. Some standard algorithms such as conjugate gradient,
Newton or stochastic gradient descent turn out to be very efficient in
the context of primal SVM training. I will also present
semi-supervised algorithms with application to web spam detection and
a structured output learning algorithm applied to ranking. Finally, we
will see how these algorithms can easily be extended to non-linear
functions through functional gradient boosting.
____________
SSP10: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 17 April 2008, 4:15pm
Bldg. 380:380C (Math Corner)
http://symsys.stanford.edu/ssp_events
"Boltzmann Brains"
Leonard Susskind
Physics Department
In 2002, Leonard Susskind co-authored a paper in the Journal of High
Energy Physics titled "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological
Constant". A recent New York Times article
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html> credited this
paper with helping to set off a debate about the concept known as
"Boltzmann brains": free-floating conscious entities arising from
random fluctuations in energy. According to the Times article, the
Boltzmann brain hypothesis "could be the weirdest and most
embarrassing prediction in the history of cosmology, if not science.
If true, it would mean that you yourself reading this article are more
likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and
energy out in space than a person with a real past born through
billions of years of evolution in an orderly star-spangled
cosmos. Your memories and the world you think you see around you are
illusions." In this talk, Professor Susskind, a who is also one of
the fathers of string theory, will discuss the concept of Boltzmann
brains and their role in contemporary physics.
____________
INFORMATION SYSTEMS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 17 April 2008, 4:15pm-5:15pm
Packard 101
http://isl.stanford.edu/colloquium.html
"Programming Informational Molecules: Synthetic DNA Circuits
in a DNA World"
Erik Winfree
Caltech
Information can be stored in molecules and processed by molecular
reactions. Molecular information processing is at the heart of all
biological systems; might it soon also be at the heart of
non-biological synthetic chemical systems? Perhaps yes; one
technological approach comes from DNA nanotechnology and DNA
computing, where DNA is used as a non-biological informational polymer
that can be rationally designed to create a rich class of molecular
systems -- for example, DNA molecules that self-assemble precisely,
that fold into complex nanoscale objects, that act as mechanical
actuators and molecular motors, and that make decisions based on
digital and analog logic. This talk will focus on the design of
DNA-based circuits that may one day provide the general-purpose
information-processing core for programming the behavior of molecular
systems.
About the Speaker: Erik Winfree is an Associate Professor in Computer
Science, Computation & Neural Systems, and Bioengineering at
Caltech. Winfree is the recipient of the Feynman Prize for
Nanotechnology (2006), the NSF PECASE/CAREER Award (2001), the ONR
Young Investigators Award (2001), a MacArthur Fellowship (2000), and
MIT Technology Review's first TR100 list of "top young innovators"
(1999). Prior to joining the faculty at Caltech in 2000, Winfree was a
Lewis Thomas Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Biology at Princeton,
and a Visiting Scientist at the MIT AI Lab. Winfree received a B.S. in
Mathematics w/ Computer Science from the University of Chicago in
1991, and a Ph.D. in Computation & Neural Systems from Caltech in
1998.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 18 April 2008, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
"The Past Present and Future of Digital Memories"
Steve Whittaker
University of Sheffield, UKPARC
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/stevewhittaker/
Recent technical developments have inspired an interest in 'digital
memories': repositories for capturing our entire personal history of
personal and work related information that will substitute for our
fragile organic memories. I will first review the Digital Memories
vision, briefly present various studies that challenge that vision,
moving on to suggest an alternative approach to the topic that is
informed by cognitive science, suggesting that instead of focusing on
exhaustive capture we should be designing prosthetic memory devices
that are (a) synergistic with our organic memories (b) have mechanisms
for selecting and abstracting critical events from the memory record.
About the Speaker: Steve Whittaker is Chair in Information Studies at
Sheffield University. Previously he worked in industrial research at
HP, Lotus/IBM and AT&T Bell Labs. His research interests are in the
theory, design and evaluation of collaborative systems, multimedia
retrieval, and personal information management. In the past he has
designed and built many novel HCI and CSCW systems: one of the first
IM clients, shared workspaces, social email clients, meeting capture
systems, personal memory and various tools for accessing and browsing
speech. He has co-authored over 100 refereed journal or conference
papers (excluding workshop papers) which have been cited over 4000
times. He is holder of 11 US and UK patents, and is currently working
on digital tools that help us remember and share our memories. He was
recently elected to the CHI Academy.
____________
STANFORD SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS WORKSHOP
on Friday, 18 April 2008, 3:30pm
Margaret Jacks Hall 460:126
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/
"Maximizing Assertion: The Case of Verbs of Motion in Russian"
Olga Kagan
UCSC
The purpose of this talk is to provide a formal semantic analysis for
the determinate/indeterminate contrast exhibited by verbs of manner of
motion in Russian. The paper focuses on imperfective verbs.
Sentences with determinate verbs denote a single event of motion in a
single direction, without entailing that the event reaches its natural
endpoint. I provide an analysis of determinate aspect based on Dowty's
(1979) intensional approach to the English progressive, adapting it in
order to account for certain properties of determinate verbs.
Sentences with indeterminate verbs can get an iterative or generic
reading, or encode movement in multiple directions. It seems that
they cannot be used to encode a single event of motion in one
direction. These facts lead Forsyth to claim that indeterminate verbs
lack a unified semantics. Alternatively, one could propose that the
indeterminate aspect entails some kind of iterativity, which is
revealed either as a repetition of events or as a series of movements
in different directions.
I argue, however, that indeterminate aspect is, in fact, compatible
with the "single event of motion in a single direction"
interpretation. I propose that indeterminate aspect should be
analyzed as an identity function. A sentence with an indeterminate
verb means that the event property specified by the predicate is
instantiated, without further semantic restrictions. I further show
that the usage of this aspect is restricted by an independently
motivated pragmatic constraint.
____________
UC BERKELEY LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Monday, 21 April 2008, 4:00pm
182 Dwinelle Hall (Berkeley)
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/events/
"Processing Factors in the Study of Island Effects"
Ivan Sag
Linguistics, Stanford
Processing Factors in the Study of Island Effects Competence-based
theories of island effects are abundant in generative grammar, yet the
graded nature of many syntactic islands (Ross 1986; Deane 1991;
Kluender 1992) has never been properly accounted for. We argue that
this is primarily because the processing (performance) factors that
interact with the grammar of filler-gap constructions have never been
properly controlled in the datasets island theories seek to explain.
Processing factors are known to play a significant role in the
perception of (un)acceptability (Miller & Chomsky, 1963; Bever 1970;
Osterhout, Holcomb, Swinney, 1994) -- an excessive sentence processing
load can lead to lower acceptability, as well as slowed reading times,
slowed response times, and decreased response accuracy.
We have examined the role of processing factors in a range of
CNPC/`Subjacency'/Wh-island and Superiority effects. I will summarize
data from self-paced reading-time experiments and controlled
acceptability studies that isolate the effects of various factors that
have not been properly controlled in generative research. Most
notable among these is the informativity of the filler (which-NP
vs. who/what). Other factors include the accessibility of referential
elements intervening between the filler and the gap, the finiteness of
intervening verbs, lexical frequency effects, and various semantic and
pragmatic issues that contribute to processing difficulty.
We argue that once these diverse effects are properly isolated,
competence grammars have no need for such principles as CNPC,
Subjacency, WH-Island Condition, Superiority or the Minimal Link
Condition. This `minimalist' approach truly simplifies grammar, while
maximizing the explanatory effect of factors known independently to
contribute to processing difficulty, some of which may ultimately be
derived from more general considerations of processing architecture
(e.g. Gibson 2000) or memory (Hofmeister 2007).
____________
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC SEMINAR
on Tuesday, 22 April 2008, 4:15pm
Bldg. 80:115
http://www-logic.stanford.edu/logic-seminar.html
"Review of 'Reasoning with Arbitrary Objects', by Kit Fine: Part II"
David Taylor and Marcello di Bello
Stanford
Review of the book Reasoning with Arbitrary Objects by Kit Fine. The
book describes modification of familiar semantics for first order
logic suitable for systems with existential instantiation rule: >From
(Ex)A(x) infer A(b). The modification looks complicated, but can be
clarified by connecting with Skolem functions and epsilon symbols. We
hope to discuss philosophical implications of this semantics and its
possible connections with other work by Kit Fine.
____________
BERKELEY GTU/UCB WORKING GROUP ON COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RELIGION
on Thursday, 24 April 2008, 10:10am
3105 Tolman Hall (Berkeley)
http://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/events/
"What do theologians and neuroscientists have to talk about?"
Howard Fields
Neurology and Physiology, UCSF
http://www.galloresearch.org/site/fieldslab/
1) Evidence that Brain Activity Causes Conscious Activity: Is it a two
way street?
2) The role of expectancy in perception
3) Meaning in neuroscience and religion
Responding briefly to Howard Field's presentation are:
Kelly Bulkeley, Religion & Psychology Area, Graduate Theological Union (GTU)
Oliver Putz, Jesuit School of Theology, Graduate Theological Union (GTU)
Kelly Bulkeley teaches in the Religion & Psychology area at GTU and
is author of Wondering Brain: Thinking about Religion With and
Beyond Cognitive Neuroscience (Routledge 2004) and editor of Soul,
Psyche, Brain: New Directions in the Study of Religion and Brain-
Mind Science (Palgrave 2005).
Oliver Putz holds a Ph.D. in biology from the Freie Universitat
Berlin, Germany, and has worked as a research biologist in the field
of reproductive and evolutionary biology both in Europe and in the
United States. He is currently working on a Ph.D. in systematic and
philosophical theology at GTU. His research focuses on the doctrine of
the imago Dei ("created in the image of God") vis-a-vis current
evolutionary and behavioral biology.
____________
SRI AI SEMINAR SERIES
on Thursday, 24 April 2008, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
EJ228, SRI International
http://www.ai.sri.com/seminars/
"The Magitti Activity-Aware Leisure Guide: Opportunity
Discovery, Innovation and New Technology Platform Development
at PARC"
Victoria Bellotti and Bo Begole
Palo Alto Research Center
In this presentation, we describe a project undertaken at PARC for Dai
Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., to assist them in developing a new business
opportunity beyond their traditional printing. The solution, codenamed
Magitti, was designed to be synergistic with DNPs existing strengths
in the publishing industry whilst incorporating the latest in context-
and activity-aware computing techniques to recommend published
content. We cover market and opportunity discovery fieldwork, as well
as the system components and user experience and, very briefly, an
early field evaluation in which users tested a prototype in Palo Alto
and surrounding neighborhoods in California.
Magitti is an electronic mobile leisure guide for when you are out and
about and want to know what a neighborhood has to offer. It presents
options for things to do, filtered by how well they match your current
activity and interests. You don't have to tell Magitti what you are
doing; it uses an inference engine to figure this out for itself. Your
interests are then inferred from your time, location, past behavior
and predicted activity type (i.e., dining, shopping, seeing or
doing). Taste profiles and preferences can be dynamically adjusted if
you wish to improve the recommendations further. For example, you can
tell Magitti that you prefer vegetarian food in general, but right now
you are looking for fast food. Each recommendation comes with user
reviews and ratings which also determine how likely it is that an item
will be recommended. Magitti always assumes that you want to see the
best offerings in each category first and over time it learns from
your behavior so that recommendations keep getting better.
About the Speakers: Victoria Bellotti is a Principal Scientist and
manager of the Socio-Technical and Interaction Research (STIR) group
at PARC. She studies people to understand their practices, problems
and requirements for future technology. She also designs and analyzes
systems, focusing on user needs and experience and is an inventor on
multiple patents and pending patent applications. Her past work
encompasses domains such as transportation, process control,
computer-mediated communication, collaboration and ubiquitous
computing. Victoria is best known for her research on personal
information management and task management. However, more recently,
she has been focusing on user-centered design of context- and
activity-aware computing systems.
Victoria received a B.S. in Psychology in 1982, an M.S. in Ergonomics
in 1983 from University College, London UK and a Ph.D. in Human
Computer Interaction from Queen Mary and Westfield College, London UK
in 1991.
Bo Begole is Manager of the Ubiquitous Computing Research Area at
PARC. He is an applied computer science researcher who invents
technologies for novel user-level applications. His past work includes
systems that provide synchronous collaboration of single-user
applications, computer-mediated communication, distributed
interpersonal awareness, sensor-based interruptibility detection,
temporal pattern modeling and prediction, media device
interoperability, and context-aware mobile systems. He is a co-Chair
of the 2008 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW
2008 http://www.cscw2008.org/), to be held in San Diego, CA, USA on
8-12 Nov 2008.
Bo received a B.S. in 1992 in Mathematics from Virginia Commonwealth
University, an M.S. in 1994 and a Ph.D. in 1998 in Computer Science
from Virginia Tech. Prior to his studies, Bo served in the US Army as
an Arabic language translator specializing in Egyptian, Libyan and
Iraqi dialects.
____________
CS547: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION SEMINAR
on Friday, 25 April 2008, 12:30-2:00pm
Gates B01
http://hci.stanford.edu/cs547/
"Computational Textiles and the
Democratization of Ubiquitous Computing"
Leah Buechley
University of Colorado
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/
Computational textile researchers weave, solder and sew electronics
into cloth to build soft, flexible and wearable computers.
Computational textiles or "e-textiles" is a young discipline, and
developments in the field have so far been relegated almost
exclusively to research labs in industry and academia. This talk will
present advancements that make the designing and building of e-
textiles accessible to new audiences, describing developments in
engineering, design and applications that are helping to democratize
creative ubiquitous computing. It will:
* detail techniques that enable researchers (and others) to integrate
electronics with cloth, including a method for creating printed
circuit boards on fabric
* provide demonstrations of several novel e-textile designs, including
a programmable beaded bracelet, and
* discuss educational applications of e-textiles.
The discussion of educational e-textiles will focus on the development
of the commercially-available LilyPad Arduino, a construction kit that
enables novices to build their own soft computers by sewing
microcontroller, sensor, and actuator modules together with conductive
thread. The construction kit was developed through an iterative design
process that involved several user studies, and preliminary results
indicate that the kit could provide a powerful means to engage diverse
audiences in ubiquitous computing, and computer science and electrical
engineering more generally.
About the Speaker: Leah Buechley received her PhD in Computer Science
from the University of Colorado at Boulder in December 2007 and is
currently a postdoctoral researcher there, where she works with the
Craft Technology group. Her research explores the intersection of
ubiquitous computing, human computer interaction and education. It
investigates these topics primarily through computational textiles or
e-textiles--soft, flexible, fabric-based computers. Her work was the
recipient of the best paper award at the 2006 International Symposium
on Wearable Computers and has been featured in Popular Science, the
Boston Globe, CRAFT Magazine, the Journal of Architectural Design, the
Denver Post, and the Taipei Times. She holds MS and PhD degrees in
Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BA
in Physics from Skidmore College.
____________
BERKELEY INFORMATION ACCESS SEMINAR
on Friday, 25 April 2008, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
107 South Hall (Berkeley)
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i296a-1/s08/schedule.html
"Informatization and Increased Demands on Knowledge and Subjectivity"
Rudi Schmiede
Darmstadt, Germany
Informatization and the increased role of knowledge in modern
processes of production or organization are often equalized or seen as
two successive stages of development as might be seen in the usage of
the terms "informations society" and "knowledge society". I want to
argue the thesis that the two relate to each other in a complex
relationship of complementarity and contradiction.
____________
END MATERIAL
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