Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws <AIList-REQUEST@SRI-AI>

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 85 07:36:30 edt

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Subject: AIList Digest   V3 #138
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AIList Digest           Wednesday, 9 Oct 1985     Volume 3 : Issue 138

Today's Topics:
  Update - G. Spencer-Brown Seminar,
  Seminars - Robot Legged Locomotion (GMR) &
    What is a Plan? (SRI) &
    Animating Human Figures (UPenn) &
    Inheritance and Data Models (UPenn),
  Conferences - 4th Int. Conf. on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach &
    Symposium on Logic in Computer Science

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 7 Oct 85 11:17:52 PDT
From: Charlie Crummer <[email-masked]>
Subject: G. Spencer-Brown Seminar

Was this some kind if joke?  I could not find any company called UNI-OPS
nor a Walter Zintz at (415)945-0048.  The Miyako Hotel has no
seminar on The Laws of Form, only a management association meeting.
Has someone erased the distinction between G. S.-B.'s existence and
non-existence?

  --Charlie

From: william@aids-unix (william bricken)

No hoax, although a possible unfortunate typo:  the phone number of
UNI-OPS is (415)945-0448.

The seminar was cancelled at the last minute by SB himself (according
to Zintz).  Totally in character.  Thus the existential dilemma.

Zintz is working on re-establishing it, and is compiling a mailing
list of those interested in the Laws of Form.

I have developed an automated theorem prover using SB's stuff, and
am encouraged by its applications to LISP program representation,
optimization, and verification.

William Bricken
Advanced Information & Decision Systems
201 San Antonio Circle, #286
Mountain View, CA  94040
(415) 941-3912

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Oct 85 10:00 EST
From: "S. Holland" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Seminar - Robot Legged Locomotion (GMR)

                General Motors Research Laboratories
                           Warren, Michigan

                           ROBOTS THAT RUN
              BALANCE AND DYNAMICS IN LEGGED LOCOMOTION

                         Dr. Marc H. Raibert
                     Carnegie-Mellon University
                           Pittsburgh,  PA

                      Monday, October 21, 1985

 Balance and dynamics are key ingredients in legged locomotion.  To study
 active balance and dynamics we have built a series of machines that balance
 themselves as they run.  Initial experiments focused on machines that
 hopped on one leg, but later work generalized the approach for two- and
 four-legged machines.  A very simple set of algorithms provides control for
 hopping on one leg, running on two legs like a human, and trotting on four
 legs.  We have begun to use these results from legged machines to improve
 understanding of running in animals.

 Marc Raibert received a B.S.E.E. from Northeastern University in 1973, and
 a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977.  Since 1980
 Professor Raibert has been on the faculty of Carnegie-Mellon University,
 where he is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and a member of the
 Robotics Institute.  He is currently exploring the principles of legged
 locomotion.

-Steve Holland

------------------------------

Date: Tue 8 Oct 85 13:57:58-PDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Seminar - What is a Plan? (SRI)

                           WHAT IS A PLAN?

                             Lucy Suchman
                  Intelligent Systems Lab, Xerox PARC

                11:00 AM, WEDNESDAY, October 9
       SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)

Researchers in AI have equivocated between using the term "plan" to
refer to efficient representations of action, and to the actual data and
control structures that produce behavior.  But while these two uses of
the term have been conflated, they have significantly different
methodological implications.   On the first use, the study of plans, as
internal representations of actions and situations, is an important
companion to the study of situated actions, but essentially derivative.
On the second use, plans as the actual mechanisms that produce behavior
are foundational to a theory of situated actions.

In this talk I will argue in support of the first use of "plans," to
refer simply to efficient representations of actions.  Situated actions,
on this view, are the phenomena to be modelled, whereas the function of
plans in the generation of situated actions is taken to be an open
question.  The interesting problem for a theory of situated action is to
find the mechanisms that bring efficient representations and particular
environments into productive interaction.   The assumption in classical
planning research has been that this process consists in filling in the
details of the plan to some operational level.  In contrast with this
assumption, I will present evidence in support of the view that situated
action turns on local interactions between the actor and contingencies
of his or her environment that, while they are made accountable to a
plan, remain essentially outside of the plan's scope.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 8 Oct 85 12:12 EDT
From: Tim Finin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Seminar - Animating Human Figures (UPenn)

    ANIMATING HUMAN FIGURES IN A TASK-ORIENTED ENVIRONMENT: AN EVOLVING
   CONFLUENCE OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH

                               Norman I. Badler
                       Computer and Information Science
                          University of Pennsylvania

                  Tuesday, October 8, 1985 Room 216 Moore

A  system  called  TEMPUS is outlined which is intended to graphically simulate
the activities  of  several  simulated  human  agents  in  a  three-dimensional
environment.    TEMPUS  is  a  task  simulation  facility  for  the  design and
evaluation of complex working environments.   The  primary  components  of  the
TEMPUS   system  include  human  body  specification  by  size  or  statistical
population, 3-D  environment  design,  a  human  movement  simulator  and  task
animator,  a  user-friendly  interactive system, real-time motion playback, and
full 3-D color graphics of bodies, environments, and task animations.  Research
efforts  in  human  dynamics  control  and  natural  language  specification of
movements will also be described.  Recent efforts to link computer graphics and
artificial  intelligence will be discussed, especially as they relate to future
plans of NASA and the Space Station.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 8 Oct 85 12:12 EDT
From: Tim Finin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Seminar - Inheritance and Data Models (UPenn)

                    INHERITANCE, DATA MODELS AND DATA TYPES

                                 Peter Buneman
                       Computer and Information Science
                          University of Pennsylvania

                   Thursday, October 10, 1985, 216 Moore

The  notion  of  type  inheritance (subsumption, ISA hierarchies) has long been
recognised as central to the development of  programming  languages,  databases
and  semantic  networks.  Recent work on the semantics of programming languages
has shown that inheritance can be cleanly combined with functional  programming
and can itself serve as a model for computation.

Using  a  definition of partial functions that are well behaved with respect to
inheritance, I have been investigating a new characterization of the relational
and  functional  data models.  In particular, I want to show the connections of
relational database  theory  with  type  inheritance  and  show  how  both  the
relational  and  functional  data  models  may  be better integrated with typed
programming languages.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 2 Oct 85 17:30:00 cdt
From: Peter Chen <[email-masked]>
Subject: 4th Int. Conf. on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach

Title of the Conference:
     4th International Conference on Entity-Relationship (ER) Approach
     (See advertisement in Communications of the ACM, Sept. 1985
          or the IEEE Computer Magazine, Sept. 1985)

Major Theme:
     The use of entity/relationship concept in knowledge representation

Sponsor:
     IEEE Computer Society

Date:
     October 28-30, 1985

Location:
     Hyatt Regency Hotel at O'Hare airport, Chicago
     (312) 696-1234, $74 Single, $84 Double

Keynote Address:
     Roger Schank, Yale

Invited Addresses:
     Donald Walker, Bell Comm. Research
     Eugene Lowenthal, MCC

Tutorial Sessions (on the first day -- Monday):
     1. ER Modeling: A tool for analysis
     2. AI and Expert systems
     3. The Analyst's Round Table
     4. Database Design

Paper Sessions (on the next two days):
     Knowledge representation, database design methods,
     Query and manipulation languages, Entity-Relationship analysis,
     expert systems, modeling techniques, integrity theory, etc.

Panel Sessions:
     1. Mapping Specifications to Formalisms:
        Leader:   John Sowa, IBM
        Panelist: Sharon S. Salveter, Boston Univ.
                  Roger Schank, Yale
                  Peter Freeman, UC-Irvine
                  Peter Chen, Louisiana State Univ.

     2. Knowledge engineering and Its Implications
        Leader:     Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
        Panelists:  Amil Nigan, IBM
                    Earl Sacerdoti, Tecknowledge

     3. Microcomputer DBMS Derby
        Leader: Rod Zimmerman, Standard Oil of California

     4. Practical Applications of ER Approach
        Leader:     Martin Modell, Merrill Lynch
        Panelists:  Suresh Gadgil,   "      "
                    Tom Meurer, ETA International
                    Harold Piskiel, Goldman Sachs
                    Elizabeth White

For more information, contact the registration chairperson:
     Prof. Kathi Davis
     Computer Science Department
     Northern Illinois University
     Dekalb, IL 60115
     (815) 753-0378

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1985  21:12 EDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Symposium on Logic in Computer Science

                        Announcement and Call for Papers

                                  Symposium on
                           Logic in Computer Science

                   Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 16-18, 1986

          THE CONFERENCE  will cover a  wide range of  theoretical and
          practical issues in Computer Science that relate to logic in
          a   broad  sense,   including   algebraic  and   topological
          approaches.  To  date, many of  these areas have  been dealt
          with in separate conferences and  workshops.  It is the hope
          of the Organizing Committee that bringing them together will
          help stimulate further research.

          Some suggested,  although not  exclusive topics  of interest
          are:   abstract data  types,  computer  theorem proving  and
          verification, concurrency, constructive  proofs as programs,
          data   base  theory,   foundations  of   logic  programming,
          logic-based  programming  languages,   logic  in  complexity
          theory, logics of programs,  knowledge and belief, semantics
          of programs, software specifications, type theory, etc.

                              Organizing Committee
               J. Barwise           E. Engeler           A. Meyer
               W. Bledsoe           J. Goguen            R. Parikh
               A. Chandra (Chair)   D. Kozen             G. Plotkin
               E. Dijkstra          Z. Manna             D. Scott

          The conference  is sponsored  by the IEEE  Computer Society,
          Technical   Committee   on   Mathematical   Foundations   of
          Computing,  and  in  cooperation  with ACM  SIGACT  and  ASL
          (request pending).

          PAPER  SUBMISSION.   Authors  should  send 17  copies  of  a
          detailed abstract (not a full paper) by Dec. 23, 1985 to the
          program committee chairman:
                    Albert R. Meyer - LICS Program
                    MIT Lab. for Computer Science
                    545 Technology Square, NE43-315
                    Cambridge, MA 02139.
                    (617)  253-6024,  ARPANET: MEYER at MIT-XX
          The  abstract must  provide sufficient  detail to  allow the
          program  committee to  assess the  merits of  the paper  and
          should include  appropriate references and  comparisons with
          related  work.    The  abstract   should  be  at   most  ten
          double-spaced typed  pages.  The time between  the paper due
          date and  the program  committee meeting  is short,  so late
          papers  run  a  high  risk  of  not  being  considered.   In
          circumstances where adequate reproduction facilities are not
          available to the author, a  single copy of the abstract will
          be accepted.

          The program committee consists of R. Boyer, W. Damm, S. German,
          D. Gries, M. Hennessy, G. Huet, D. Kozen, A. Meyer, J. Mitchell,
          R. Parikh, J. Reynolds, J. Robinson, D. Scott, M. Vardi, and
          R. Waldinger.

          Authors will be notified of  acceptance or rejection by Jan.
          24, 1986.  Copies of accepted papers, typed on special forms
          for  inclusion in  the  symposium proceedings,  will be  due
          March 31, 1986.

          The general chairman is A.  K. Chandra, IBM Thomas J. Watson
          Research Center,  P.O. Box 218, Yorktown  Heights, NY 10598,
          tele: (914) 945-1752, CSNET: ASHOK.YKTVMV at IBM.  The local
          arrangements  chairman is  A. J.  Kfoury, Dept.  of Computer
          Science, Boston  University, Boston,  MA 02215,  tele: (617)
          353-8911, CSNET: KFOURY at BOSTONU.

------------------------------

End of AIList Digest
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