IRList Digest Sunday, 18 January 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 2 Today's Topics: Announcement - Principles of Database Systems Conference Seminar - Uncertainty in AI: Is Probability Adequate (MIT) COGSCI - A Case Study In Inductive Knowledge Acquisition CSLI - The Semantics of Clocks News addresses are ARPANET: fox%vt@csnet-relay.arpa BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet CSNET: fox@vt UUCPNET: seismo!vtisr1!irlistrq ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Jan 87 12:55:34 est From: fox@vtcs1 [Note: this contribution was received as a BITNET file - Ed] Subject: Principles of Database Systems Conference Sixth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS March 22-25, 1987 San Diego, California INFORMATION LOCATION The technical sessions, business meeting, Sunday evening recep- tion, and lunches will all be at the Bahia Resort Hotel, situated on San Diego's Mission Bay. The Bahia is within walking distance of the beach, recreational facilities (sailing, tennis courts, pool), Sea World, and relaxed boardwalk shops and cafes. Checkout time is 1pm; checkin time is 4pm, or earlier subject to room availability. A block of rooms has been reserved until March 1, 1987. Please reserve a room by using the form provided or by cal- ling 800-821-3619 (800-542-6010 within California). First night's deposit is required. Room rates and availability are not guaranteed past March 1. REGISTRATION Advanced registration is requested using the form provided. Registration rates go up markedly after March 9. A registration desk will be open Sunday night from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and during the day on Monday (8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). Registrants, other than students, receive admission to the technical sessions, one copy of the proceedings, reception, lunches, and a dinner cruise on Tuesday evening. Student registration, available to full-time students only, includes the technical sessions and one copy of the proceedings. Additional copies of the proceedings will be available for sale at the registration desk. TRANSPORTATION There are three choices for ground transportation from the air- port to the hotel. Courtesy airport transportation is provided by the hotel. The Bahia Hotel van leaves the airport every two hours, starting at 7:30am and ending at 9:30pm. The van can also be called outside scheduled times using the free telephone marked "Bahia Hotel" at the hotel reservation desk in the airport ar- rival lounge. Additionally, a regular limousine van is available for $5 (direction Mission Bay). Taxi fare to the hotel is about $10. For participants driving to San Diego on I-5, take I-8 West, then exit at West Mission Bay Drive. The hotel is located on the North side of Mission Bay Drive. CLIMATE The average temperature in March is 60 degrees. Rain is unlikely, but cannot be ruled out. EVENT LOCATION All technical sessions and the business meeting are in the Mis- sion Room. The exhibit program is in the Mission Lounge. Sunday night registration and the reception are in the Del Mar Room. On Tuesday night there will be a dinner cruise with live music around the San Diego Harbor, between 6:30pm and 9pm. Transporta- tion to the harbor will be provided. Buses will leave the hotel at 6pm. TECHNICAL PROGRAM SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 1987 Reception 8:30 pm - 11 pm, Del Mar Room MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1986 Note: All talks will take place in the Mission Room SESSION 1 - 9:00 am - 10:35 am Chair: M.Y. Vardi (IBM Almaden Research Center) Invited Talk: Database Theory - Past and Future, J.D. Ullman (Stanford University) Logic Programming with Sets, G.M. Kuper (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) Sets and Negation in a Logic Database Language (LDL1), C. Beeri (Hebrew University), S. Naqvi (MCC), R. Ramakrishnan (University of Texas at Austin and MCC), O. Shmueli, and S. Tsur (MCC) Coffee Break 10:35 am - 11:00 am SESSION 2 - 11:00 am - 12:15 pm Chair: A.K. Chandra (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) Logical Design of Relational Database Schemes, L.Y. Yuan (Univer- sity of Southern Louisiana) and Z.M. Ozsoyoglu (Case Western Reserve University) On Designing Database Schemes Bounded or Constant-Time Maintain- able with Respect to Functional Dependencies, E.P.F. Chan and H.J. Hernandez (University of Alberta) Computing Covers for Embedded Functional Dependencies, G. Gottlob (CNR, Italy) SESSION 3 - 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Chair: R. Fagin (IBM Almaden Research Center) Dynamic Query Interpretation in Relational Databases, A. D'Atri (Universita "La Sapienza" di Roma), P. Di Felice (Universita dell'Aquila), and M. Moscarini (CNR, Italy) A New Basis for the Weak Instance Model, P. Atzeni (CNR, Italy) and M.C. De Bernardis (Universita "La Sapienza" di Roma) Answering Queries in Categorical Databases, F.M. Malvestuto (Italian Energy Commision) Coffee Break 3:15 pm - 3:45 pm SESSION 4 - 3:45 pm - 5:25 pm Chair: U. Dayal (CCA) Nested Transactions and Read-Write Locking, A. Fekete (Harvard University), N. Lynch (MIT), M. Merrit (AT&T Bell Laboratories), and W. Weihl (MIT) Transaction Commitment at Minimal Communication Cost, A. Segall and O. Wolfson (Technion) The Precedence-Assignment Model for Distributed Databases Con- currency Control Algorithms, C.P. Wang and V.O.K. Li (University of Southern California) A Knowledge-Theoretic Analysis of Atomic Commitment Protocols, V. Hadzilacos (University of Toronto) Business Meeting: 8:30 pm - 10:00 pm, Mission Room TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1986 Note: There will be exhibits in the Mission Lounge SESSION 5 - 9:00 am - 10:35 am Chair: T. Imielinski (Rutgers University) Invited Talk: Perspectives in Deductive Databases, J. Minker (University of Maryland) Maintenance of Stratified Databases Viewed as a Belief Revision System, K. Apt (Ecole Normal Superieure and Universite Paris 7) and J.M. Pugin (BULL Research Center) Specification and Implementation of Programs for Updating Incom- plete Information Databases, S. Hegner (University of Vermont) Coffee Break 10:35 am - 11:00 am SESSION 6 - 11:00 am - 12:15 pm Chair: H. Korth (University of Texas at Austin) Operation Specific Locking on B-Trees, A. Billiris (Boston University) Concurrency Control in Database Structures with Relaxed Balance, O. Nurmi, E. Soisalon-Soininen (Universitat Karlsruhe), and D. Wood (University of Waterloo) Performance Results on Multiversion Timestamping Concurrency Con- trol with Predeclared Writesets, R. Sun (Iona College) and G. Thomas (Clarkson University) SESSION 7 - 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Chair: V. Vianu (University of California at San Diego) Decomposing an N-ary Relation into a Tree of Binary Relations, R. Dechter (Hughes Aircarft Company and University of California at Los Angeles) Formal Bounds on Automatic Generation and Maintenance of Integri- ty Constraints, J.P. Delgrande (Simon Fraser University) Relative Knowledge in a Distributed Database, T. Imielinski (Rutgers University) Coffee Break 3:15 pm - 3:45 pm SESSION 8 - 3:45 pm - 5:25 pm Chair: M. Yannakakis (AT&T Bell Laboratories) The Parallel Complexity of Simple Chain Queries, F. Afrati (Na- tional Technical University of Athens) and C. Papadimitriou (Stanford University and National Technical University of Athens) Bounds on the Propagation of Selection into Logic Programs, C. Beeri (Hebrew University), P. Kanellakis (Brown University), F. Bancilhon (INRIA and MCC), R. Ramakrishnan (University of Texas at Austin and MCC) A Decidable Class of Bounded Recursions, J.F. Naughton (Stanford University) and Y. Sagiv (Hebrew University) Decidability and Expressiveness Aspects of Logic Queries, O. Shmueli (Technion and MCC) Dinner Cruise: 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1986 SESSION 9 - 9:00 am - 10:35 am Chair: P.A. Larson (University of Waterloo) Invited talk: Chickens and Eggs - The Interrelationship of Sys- tems and Theory, P. Selinger (IBM Almaden Research Center) Axiomatization and Simplification Rules for Relational Transac- tions, A. Karabeg, D. Karabeg, K. Papakonstantinu, and V. Vianu (University of California at San Diego) A Transaction Language Complete for Database Update and Specifi- cation, S. Abiteboul (INRIA) and V. Vianu (University of Califor- nia at San Diego) Coffee Break 10:35 am - 11:00 am SESSION 10 - 11:00 am - 12:15pm Chair: Y. Sagiv (Hebrew University) On the Power of Magic, C. Beeri (Hebrew University) and R. Ramak- rishnan (University of Texas at Austin and MCC) Efficient Evaluation for a Subset of Recursive Queries, G. Grahne (University of Helsinki), S. Sippu (University of Jyvaskyla), and E. Soisalon-Soininen (University of Helsinki) Worst-Case Complexity Analysis of Methods for Logic Query Imple- mentation, A. Marchetti-Spaccamella, A. Pelaggi (Universita "La Sapienza" di Roma), and D. Sacca (CRAI, Italy) SESSION 11 - 2:00 pm - 4:35pm Chair: P. Kanellakis (Brown University) On the Expressive Power of the Extended Relational Algebra for the Unnormalized Relational Model, D. Van Gucht (Indiana Univer- sity) Safety and Correct Translation of Relational Calculus Formulas, A. Van Gelder (Stanford University) and R. Topor (University of Melbourne) Safety of Recursive Horn Clauses with Infinite Relations, R. Ramakrishnan (University of Texas at Austin and MCC), F. Ban- cilhon (INRIA and MCC), and A. Silberschatz (University of Texas at Austin) Coffee Break 3:15 pm - 3:45 am One-Sided Recursions, J.F. Naughton (Stanford University) Optimizing Datalog Programs, Y. Sagiv (Hebrew University) _________________________________________________________________ CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION Sponsors: SIGACT, SIGMOD, and SIGART. Executive Committee: A.K. Chandra, S. Ginsburg, A. Silberschatz, J.D. Ullman, and M.Y. Vardi. Chairman: Ashok K. Chandra, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, P.O.Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, (914) 945-1752, ashok@ibm.com, ashok@yktvmv.bitnet Program Chairman: Moshe Y. Vardi, IBM Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Rd., San Jose, CA 95120-6099, (408) 927-1784, vardi@ibm.com, vardi@almvma.bitnet Local Arrangements: Victor Vianu, Dept. of Electrical Engineer- ing and Computer Science MC-014, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, (619) 534-6227, vianu@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu Program Committee: U. Dayal, T. Imielinski, P.K. Kanellakis, H. Korth, P.A. Larson, K.J. Raiha, Y. Sagiv, M.Y. Vardi, M. Yan- nakakis. _________________________________________________________________ ADVANCE REGISTRATION FORM, ACM-PODS Please send this form or a facsimile along with a money order or check (payable to 6th ACM SYMPOSIUM ON PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS) to: ACM-PODS Registration c/o Victor Vianu EECS Department, MC-014 Univ. of California at San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 (Before Mar. 9) (After) ACM and SIG member $165 $225 ACM member only $175 $235 SIG member only $175 $235 Nonmember: $205 $275 Student: $50 $60 Requests for refunds will be honored until March 9, 1987. Name___________________________________________________________ Affiliation____________________________________________________ Address________________________________________________________ City_________State________Zip__________________________________ Country_________Telephone______________________________________ Net Address____________________________________________________ Check here if confirmation of registration is required. Dietary restrictions: Kosher Vegetarian Special meals can be guaranteed only for those who register in advance. _________________________________________________________________ HOTEL RESERVATION FORM, ACM-PODS Please mail this form or a facsimile (being sure to mention the ACM-PODS Conference) by March 1, 1987 to: Bahia Resort Hotel 998 W. Mission Bay Dr. San Diego, CA 92109 Tel: (619) 488-0551 Accommodations desired: Single $68 Double (1 bed) $72 Twin (2 beds) $72 Triple $76 Quad $80 Children under 12 stay free when occupying same rooms as parents. Accomodation prices do not include 7% city hotel tax. Arrival date_______________________Time_____________________________ Departure date_____________________Time_____________________________ Name________________________________________________________________ Sharing room with___________________________________________________ Address_____________________________________________________________ City__________State_______Zip_______________________________________ Country____________________________Telephone________________________ First night deposit is required. First night's deposit enclosed: $_________________________________ Credit card: VISA, Mastercard, Amer. Express Other credit card: ________________________________________________ Credit card number_________________________________________________ Exp. Date__________________________________________________ Signature__________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Dec 86 02:14:58 EST From: "Steven A. Swernofsky" Subject: Seminar - Uncertainty in AI: Is Probability Adequate (MIT) [Copied from NL-KR which Excerpted from AIList] UNCERTAINTY IN AI: IS PROBABILITY EPISTEMOLOGICALLY AND HEURISTICALLY ADEQUATE? MAX HENRION Carnegie Mellon ABSTRACT New schemes for representing uncertainty continue to proliferate, and the debate about their relative merits seems to be heating up. I shall examine several criteria for comparing probabilistic representations to the alternatives. I shall argue that criticisms of the epistemological adequacy of probability have been misplaced. Indeed there are several important kinds of inference under uncertainty which are produced naturally from coherent probabilistic schemes, but are hard or impossible for alternatives. These include combining dependent evidence, integrating diagnostic and predictive reasoning, and "explaining away" symptoms. Encoding uncertain knowledge in predictive or causal form, as in Bayes' Networks, has important advantages over the currently more popular diagnostic rules, as used in Mycin-like systems, which confound knowledge about the domain and about inference methods. Suggestions that artificial systems should try to simulate human inference strategies, with all their documented biases and errors, seem ill-advised. There is increasing evidence that popular non-probabilistic schemes, including Mycin Certainty Factors and Fuzzy Set Theory, perform quite poorly under some circumstances. Even if one accepts the superiority of probability on epistemological grounds, the question of its heuristic adequacy remains. Recent work by Judea Pearl and myself uses stochastic simulation and probabilistic logic for propagating uncertainties through multiply connected Bayes' networks. This aims to produce probabilistic schemes that are both general and computationally tractable. HOST: PROF. PETER SZOLOVITS ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jan 87 11:41:59 est From: DEJONG%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar Date: Friday, 9 January 1987 12:03-EST From: AHAAS at G.BBN.COM Subject: ai seminar Wednesday, 14 January 2:00pm Room: BBN 3rd floor conference room 10 Moulton Street BBN AI SEMINARS A Case Study In Inductive Knowledge Acquisition Ross Quinlan New South Wales Institute of Technology and MIT. A very successful expert system for the diagnosis of thyroid disease has been in daily use at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, for over two years. This system was constructed using the "interview" technique in which human experts interacted with a knowledge engineer to formalise the knowledge base. In a recent series of experiments, an expert system addressing substantially the same task was generated inductively from Garvan archives. This talk will overview the inductive machinery used and present results from a comparison of the two systems. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 11:29:29 est From: EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Subject: CSLI Calendar, January 15, No.12 NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR The Semantics of Clocks Brian Smith January 22 Clocks participate in their subject matter. Temporal by nature, they also represent time. And yet, like other representational systems, clocks have been hard to build, and can be wrong. For these and other reasons clocks are a good foil with which to explore issues in AI and cognitive science about computation, mind, and the relation between semantics and mechanism. An analysis will be presented of clock face content and the function of clockworks, and of various notions of chronological correctness. The results are intended to illustrate a more general challenge to the formality of inference, to widen our conception of computation, and to clarify the conditions governing representational systems in general. ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************