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AIList Digest Volume 5 Issue 142
AIList Digest Monday, 15 Jun 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 142
Today's Topics:
Program - Cognitive Science at Occidental College,
Seminars - Universal Plans: Emergent Goal Structures (SRI) &
Abductive Reasoning in Multifault Diagnostic Systems (UPenn) &
Potential Histories and Inertial Theories (SU) &
Controlling Execution of Logic Programs (MCC),
Conferences - OOPSLA-87 &
Architectures for Intelligent Interfaces
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Date: 04 Jun 87 09:00:45 PST
From: oxy!traiger@csvax.caltech.edu (Saul P. Traiger)
Subject: Program - Cognitive Science at Occidental College
Occidental College, a liberal arts college which enrolls approximately
1600 students, is pleased to announce a new Program in Cognitive
Science. The Program offers an undergraduate major and minor in Cognitive
Science. Faculty participating in this program include members of the
departments of mathematics, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.
The program is the result of one of the most exciting developments in
higher education today, namely the interaction among philosophers,
mathematicians, psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists. This
interaction is the result of common interests in cognitive science.
Computer architecture is now as likely to be discussed in a philosophy or
psychology seminar as it is in a computer science course. Shared
interests in cognitive science lead to the development and adoption of an
interdepartmental program in cognitive science at Occidental College.
The undergraduate major in Cognitive Science at Occidental College
includes courses in mathematics, philosophy, psychology and linguistics.
Instruction in mathematics introduces students to computer languages,
discrete mathematics, logic, and the mathematics of computation.
Philosophy offerings cover the philosophy of mind, with emphasis on
computational models of the mind, the theory of knowledge, the philosophy
of science, and the philosophy of language. Psychology courses include
basic psychology, learning, perception, and cognition. Courses in
linguistics provide a theoretical foundation in natural languages, their
acquisition, development, and structure.
For more information about Occidental College's Cognitive Science Program
please contact:
Professor Saul Traiger
Cognitive Science Program
1600 Campus Road
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA 90041
ARPANET: oxy!traiger@CSVAX.Caltech.EDU
BITNET: oxy!traiger@hamlet
CSNET: oxy!traiger%csvax.caltech.edu@RELAY.CS.NET
UUCP: ....{seismo, rutgers, ames}!cit-vax!oxy!traiger
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 87 11:29:04 PDT
From: Amy Lansky <lansky@venice.ai.sri.com>
Subject: Seminar - Universal Plans: Emergent Goal Structures (SRI)
EXECUTING UNIVERSAL PLANS:
EMERGENT GOAL STRUCTURES & THEIR USES
Marcel Schoppers (MARCEL@ADS.COM)
Advanced Decision Systems
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 15
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228
``Universal plans'' are designed for execution in unpredictable state spaces,
refusing to over-commit to a specific future course of events, and deliberately
making no assumptions about how situations might follow one another. Instead,
plan synthesis becomes the goal-directed selection of reactions to possible
situations; plans become inherently conditional; and plan execution classifies
the current situation so as to respond with the selected reaction. Consequently
there is no inherent distinction between expected and unexpected events; the
concepts of success & failure are irrelevant for both synthesis and execution;
and "error recovery" needs no special mechanisms beyond those already present
for normal execution.
After introducing the Universal Plan representation, this talk will show how at
any given instant, plan predicates can be interpreted as goals of achievement
or of maintenance, and that this interpretation can be used to reconstruct a
four-fold typing of events (of success, failure, serendipity and sabotage). In
other words, intentions emerge from the interaction of plan with environment
(the environment has a large hand in determining the agent's goals at each
moment), and the notions of success and failure are not primitive but
perceived (relative to the agent's goals).
The Universal Plan representation also indicates precisely which conditions
must be monitored at each instant to enable detection of all events of each
type. Two benefits follow; I will only mention them briefly. First, we can
get complexity estimates for detecting all serendipity and sabotage events,
and can produce informed strategies to alleviate sensing costs. Second, the
goal structure at each moment in time contains all the information required
to choose an appropriate action, thus facilitating incremental synthesis.
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 87 14:13:25 EDT
From: tim@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Tim Finin)
Subject: Seminar - Abductive Reasoning in Multifault Diagnostic
Systems (UPenn)
ABDUCTIVE REASONING in MULTIPLE-FAULT DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS
Gary Morris
Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA
Abductive reasoning involves generating explanations for observed
facts or symptoms -- i.e. diagnosis. Diagnosis is more difficult,
both theoretically and practically, when more than one disorder or
fault may occur simultaneously in the system beign diagnosed. Five
approaches to this problem are reviewed and contrasted:
- Binary Choice Bayesian (Ben-Bassat: the MEDAS system)
- Sequential Bayesian (Pople: INTERNIST)
- Causal Model Reasoning (Patil: ABEL)
- Parsimonious Set Covering (Reggia & Nau: various systems)
- "Diagnosis From First Principles" (Reiter, deKleer: various)
Finally, an emerging convergence of these methods is described.
Friday, June 12, 3:30 pm
Room 554 Moore
------------------------------
Date: 01 Jun 87 1605 PDT
From: Vladimir Lifschitz <VAL@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Seminar - Potential Histories and Inertial Theories (SU)
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard.]
Yoav Shoham asked me to send a nice little poem to this mailing list:
With logics that are monotonic
Relations are nice but platonic
It's when you permit
Just models that fit
That things become most erotonic
Yoav will also speak at our seminar on a related subject:
POTENTIAL HISTORIES AND INERTIAL THEORIES
Yoav Shoham
Thursday, June 4, 4:15pm
Bldg. 160, Room 161K
In previous talks I never managed to get to my solution to the
extended-prediction problem (which is my name for the problem
subsuming the frame problem, a name that, shall we say, never
quite caught). I'll describe the intuitive concept of a potential
history, which has a strong McDermott-like persistence flavor.
I'll then embed the concept formally within the logic of
chronological ignorance. I'll identify a class of theories, called
inertial theories, which extend causal theories, and yet which
a. are expressive enough to capture the notion of potential
histories, and b. have the "unique model" and easy computability
properties.
My intention is this time to go into some detail. I'm still
not sure I have enough material for an hour, and if I don't
I'll ask the audience some questions on TMS's.
------------------------------
Date: Mon 1 Jun 87 11:04:12-CDT
From: Ellie Huck <AI.ELLIE@MCC.COM>
Subject: Seminar - Controlling Execution of Logic Programs (MCC)
Madhur Kohli
Department of Computer Science
University of Maryland
June 4 - 10:30am
ACA Conference Room 2.806
Controlling the Execution of Logic Programs
The performance of a logic programming system is dictated by the
control strategy of its problem solving component. This talk
describes a methodology for the specification and utilization of
control knowledge for logic programs.
We describe a control specification system developed as an
experimental tool for the study of control issues in problem
solving. Analysis of the control behavior of several sequential
problem solvers and PRISM, a parallel logic programming system, is
used to identify parameters to express control decisions and points
at which they apply. These results form the basis for the
definition of a control language to specify the control behavior of
problem solvers. The language is expressive enough to specify many
general and specialized top-down execution schemes for both
sequential and parallel problem solvers. A compiler has been
developed to generate an interpreter which implements the specified
control strategy. Experimental results show that the generated
interpreters provide an order of magnitude improvement over
meta-interpretation of the control specification.
Madhur Kohli
June 4 - 10:30
ACA Conference Room 2.806
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 87 18:50:31 GMT
From: ut-sally!home.csnet!im4u!ti-csl!fordyce@seismo.CSS.GOV (David
Fordyce)
Subject: Conference - OOPSLA-87
Article-I.D.: home.444
OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE WORKSHOP: Implementation Aspects
To be held in conjunction with the
Object-oriented Programming Systems,
Languages and Applications (OOPSLA-87) Conference
October 5, 1987
Orlando, Florida
Object-oriented database systems combine the streangths of
object-oriented programming systems and data models, and database
systems. This half-day workshop will be held on Monday morning, October
5, 1987. The goal of the workshop is to study the implementation
aspects of object-oriented database systems. The workshop will focus on
issues such as object fault management, storage management (buffering,
prefetching, clustering, etc.), object persistence, object sharing,
transactions on objects, concurrency control, recovery, and performance
issues.
The workshop panel will consist of: Timothy Andrewes (Ontologic), Umesh
Dayal (Computer Corporation of America), Prof. David Maier (Oregon
Graduate Center and Servio Logic), Patrick O'Brien (Digital Equipment
Corporation), Prof. Lawrence Rowe (University of California at
Berkeley), Prof. Alfred Spector (Carnegie-Mellon University), David
Wells (Texas Instruments), and Prof. Stan Zdonik (Brown University).
In the first 90 minutes, each panel member will present his position.
This will be followed by questions from the workshop participants and
discussions.
To encourage vigorous interactions and exchange of ideas between the
participants, the workshop will be limited to 50 qualified participants.
If you are interested in attending the workshop, please submit three
copies of a single page abstract to the workshop chairman describing
your work related to the implementation issues of object-oriented
database systems. The workshop participants will be selected based on the
relevance and significance of their work described in the abstract.
There will be no proceedings for the workshop.
Abstracts should be submitted to the workshop chairman by August 1,
1987. Selected participants will be notified by September 1, 1987
Workshop Chairman:
Dr. Satish M. Thatte
Manager, Database Systems Branch
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Texas Instruments Incorporated
P.O. Box 226015, M/S 238
Dallas, TX 75266
Phone: (214)-995-0340
CSNet: Thatte@TI-CSL
--
Regards, David
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 87 09:42:22 PDT
From: wiley!sherman@lll-lcc.ARPA (Sherman Tyler)
Subject: Conference - Architectures for Intelligent Interfaces
Call for Participation
Workshop on
Architectures for Intelligent Interfaces:
Elements and Prototypes
March 29 - April 1, 1988, Monterey, California
Sponsored by AAAI
Objective: The term ``Intelligent Interface'' characterizes the set
of computer-human interfaces which employ AI to enhance the
transactional nature of the interface. The goal of the workshop is to
explore ways in which AI techniques (e.g., knowledge representation,
inference mechanisms, and heuristic search) can be used to provide the
adaptability and reasoning capabilities required for a more
intelligent human-machine interaction.
Some possible areas for focused discussions might include:
* Models (user, system, task) - adapting the dialogue to the
current context of the interaction, considering the
particular user, the target system, and the high-level task
under execution;
* Channels of Communication - allowing users to communicate
intentions with a minimum of learning and effort, using
Natural Language, Graphics, and the integration of mixed
modalities of input;
* Planning - for recognizing user plans and their implied
goals, generating plans to meet those goals, and planning how
to best display the resulting information to communicate the
result of the executed action;
* Interface-Building Tools - using artificial intelligence
techniques to support developers in designing and
constructing interfaces.
Attendance: In order to provide an intellectually stimulating
environment conducive to interaction and exchange of ideas, the
attendance will be limited to approximately 35 participants. The
ideal participant is an individual who is actively addressing
theoretical, research, and/or implementation issues relevant to
Intelligent Interfaces (with a bias toward those who have dealt with
implementation issues at some level). Limited financial assistance
will be available for graduate students who are invited to
participate.
Review Process: The submitted abstracts and autobiographies will be
reviewed by the program committee. Invitation will be based upon
relevance of the work to the goals of the workshop, and on the basis
of significance, originality, and scientific quality.
Workshop Organization: The workshop organizers are J. Sullivan
(Lockheed AI Center) and S. Tyler (Lockheed AI Center). The program
committee consists of J. Mackinlay (Xerox PARC), R. Neches
(USC Information Sciences Institute), E. Rissland (University of
Massachusetts), and N. Sondheimer (USC Information Sciences Institute).
Submission: A detailed eight page abstract and a one page
biographical sketch (six copies of each) should be submitted by
September 1, 1987. Invitations for participation will be extended by
October 16, 1987, with complete papers due by December 18, 1987.
Publication of the proceedings is planned, therefore the quality of
the papers is important.
Submit abstracts to: Joseph W. Sullivan or Sherman W. Tyler,
O/90-06 B/259, Lockheed AI Center, 2710 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA
94025, (415) 354-5200, wiley!joe@lll-lcc.arpa or
wiley!sherman@lll-lcc.arpa
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End of AIList Digest
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