Subject: AIList Digest V5 #160

From: [email-masked]@vtcs1
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 87 08:23:33 edt

Date: Mon 29 Jun 1987 22:17-PDT
From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws <[email-masked]>
Subject: AIList Digest   V5 #160
To: [email-masked]
Reply-to: [email-masked]
US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA  94025
Phone: (415) 859-6467

AIList Digest            Tuesday, 30 Jun 1987     Volume 5 : Issue 160

Today's Topics:
  Queries - Plausible Reasoning &
    Natural Language - Predicate Calculus - Theorem Proving &
    Automatic Programming Bibliographies &
    Frame Matching and Chaining,
  Psychology - Why Did The $6,000,000 Man Run So Slowly?

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Date: Tue, 23 Jun 87 20:57:05 SST
From: Jenny <[email-masked]>
Subject: so what about plausible reasoning ?

As I read articles on plausible reasoning in expert systems, I come to the
conclusion that experts themselves do not exactly work with numbers as they
solve problems. And many of them are not willing to commit themselves into
specifying a figure to signify their belief in a rule. The deductive process
that occurs in their brain can never be replicated by any known plausible
reasoning models. The expert system technology is already a weak one per se,
why introduce further complexity and more bottleneck in the acquisition of
knowledge, knowing fully well that the numbers are probably inconsistent ?
If one obtains two conclusions with numbers indicating some significance,
say 75 % and 80 %, can one say that the conclusion with 80% significance is
the correct conclusion and ignore the other one ? These numbers do not seem
to mean much since they are just beliefs or probabilties.

Lim Eng-Lian
National University of Singapore
-- this opinion is my own and is not influenced by the color of my office

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Date: Wed, 24 Jun 87 16:37:04 SET
From: "Adlassnig, Peter" <[email-masked]>
Subject: natural language - predicate calculus - theorem proving

concerning my ph.d. thesis i would like to know who has dealt
already with the following themes:

1) translation of indefinite pronomina into predicat calculus.
   parsing only simple english sentences (subj pred obj), with
   reference to the distribution and interpretation of wh-words
   and quantifiers. ( a lexicon should be minimized to the syntax
   and not include semantik ambiguities-rules.)

2) representation of quantifiers in frames.

3) automated theorem prover algorith, which is easy to implement
   for first-order predicat-logic.

are logic grammars the right field for 1)?

the aim of the whole system is to implement an expertsystem in logo,
to demonstrate in schools, that computers can "think".

i would be thankful for any help|
which literature would you advice to read?
                                             ruth gruenberger

Please send response to    adlassni%awiimc11.bitnet

                           Thank you Peter Adlassnig

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Date: 29 Jun 87 19:36:07 GMT
From: [email-masked] (Lorien Y. Pratt)
Subject: Request for automatic programming bibliographies

Has anyone recently put together a bibliography of work in automatic
program generation?  I'd appreciate any pointers that you can give me.
   --Lorien Pratt

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Date: 23 Jun 87 21:13:20 GMT
From: [email-masked]  (Mike Paugh)
Subject: Need info on frame matching and chaining

I am looking for good reference material on building expert
systems using frames in Lisp. The environment will be GCLISP.
What I need is a good basic understanding of how to chain
through the frames and do the pattern matching.

I am new to this, so any good pointers will be appreciated.

Mike Paugh
AT&T IS Labs Denver
ihnp4!drutx!mcp

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

Date: 29 Jun 87 12:34:12 GMT
From: [email-masked] 
      (Summer Hire)
Subject: Re: Need info on frame matching and chaining

>
> I am looking for good reference material on building expert
> systems using frames in Lisp. The environment will be GCLISP.
> What I need is a good basic understanding of how to chain
> through the frames and do the pattern matching.
>
> I am new to this, so any good pointers will be appreciated.
>
>
> Mike Paugh
> AT&T IS Labs Denver
> ihnp4!drutx!mcp

 Hi, I am a summer hire from AT&T, and just finished a two term course on
conceptual dependencies (Frame-style inference netting) and pattern matching.
We conducted six member projects on the building of MARGIE.  This Margie  took
an english story and converted it into "Frames" where then it was pattern
matched against set scripts (senerios or events).  From this matching the
system could then construct an infered sequence of actions form the given.
It took about six months to develop.  The book we used as an outline, which
gave us a firm grasp on the basics of the entire system, was Roger Shanks
book named "INSIDE COMPUTER UNDERSTANDING." It gave us a great lead.  We
did vary to a certain extent in actual development, but the basics are still
there.

  I would be glad to aid you in any way for those further developments,
because they provided a more natural way of demonstrating working cognitive
structures. (In theory of course.)  I must say that the book is a must
to get you going.  Another great lead in this search would be to
contact George Stockman, Prof. at Michigan State University.  He was the
developer of our course project and is a biggie on frame representation of
knowledge and expert systems.  (He taught me every thing I know).  Please
contact me if you need any assistance at all.

Dave Bigelow (summer hire and damn well worth it!)

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

Date: 20 Jun 87 15:44:33 GMT
From: [email-masked] (Mario O. Bourgoin)
Reply-to: [email-masked] (Mario O. Bourgoin)
Subject: Re: Why Did The $6,000,000 Man Run So Slowly?

Because it made the special effects scenes last longer.

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Date: Mon 22 Jun 87 10:12:25-CDT
From: Art Flatau <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: why did the $6,000,000 man run so slowly?

I think people have missed the obvious reason that the $6 Meg man ran so
slowly.  To stretch the plots out to fill an hour time slot.

Art

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

Date: Mon, 22 Jun 87 09:47:32 PDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Why did $6M man run so slowly?

Re: Why did $6M man run so slowly?

Why would a producer use slow motion to depict very fast movement?  I suggest
the following reasons be added to the list:

1. ACHIEVE THE TECHNICAL EFFECT.  The slow motion points out to the viewer the
fact that the flow of time is different.  The context around the slow-motion
scene makes the magnitude and direction of this change obvious.  This is all
the viewer really needs to sense the effect that the $6M man is moving much
faster than normal.

2. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE VIEWER'S IMAGINATION.  The slow motion gives the
viewer's mind time to realize that fast motion is being represented, and to
appreciate the non-triviality of it (unlike a realtime presentation which
would tend to make it seem easy). It allows the viewer's imagination to be
creative, to draw on previous experience, and to construct the concepts and
images necessary to represent something so complex and
magnificently-engineered happening so fast.  This increases the impact on the
viewer by enhancing appreciation of the $6M man's feats.  Indeed, it can give
the viewer an experience far beyond what the producer can actually achieve on
the screen.

3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE VIEWER'S INTEREST IN LEARNING ABOUT HIMSELF.   The
viewer is treated to a slow-motion presentation of human qualities difficult
or impossible to observe at normal or faster speeds. This allows him to learn
new things about the actor, himself, and other humans.

4. ACHIEVE ARTISTIC EFFECT.  The producer also achieves beautiful artistic
effect by allowing viewing of the visible signs of forces and motion,
observation of facial expressions, and contemplation of the beauty of the $6M
man's athletic qualities such as speed, power, grace, and coordination.

[email-masked] (David R. Lambert)

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

Date: Mon, 22 Jun 87 16:38:32 PDT
From: "William J. Fulco" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Slow-motion / $6E6 man

[email-masked]:
> ....
> I suspect what is happening is that this is analogous to the focusing
> of attention on the events which happened in a real moving image
> memory.  That is, if one attempts to reconstruct an event that
> happened very quickly in real time after the fact, one will
> artificially create something like slow motion.

This "slo-motion" effect of perception also appears to work in real-time.
A good everyday example of this is (for people that play sports)
a pass or "drive" in basketball, a volly in tennis or hitting a baseball.

Professional baseball players talk about learning to see the ball they are
trying to hit.  They say that they actuall see the ball - an object the size
of an orange, traveling at 90+ mph from 66 feet away.

I used to think that this wasn't really what was happening, but I have
been involved in basketball games where, for less than 1 second,
(real-time) I have had an open lane to the basket, or an oportunity to
make a pass.  The perceived time was far slower, on the order of several
seconds.

During these perceived seconds, I had time to "think" about my options -
actually make verbal & image (mind's eye) judgments about what to do or
not to do, commit and make or skip the play.

One case of this that really stands out: playing basketball several weeks
ago I was left wide open for drive to the basket.  I remember that
I couldn't beleive I was left this wide open and I started to think
"what's the catch".  I then remember thinking that "I don't have time to
be thinking about thinking about what I should be doing - I should just go",
and with this I drove down the key (-: missed the shot :-).

The point is, I had time to "argue" with myself, "verbally", in my mind
before I took action, but in real-time no more that a second passed.

The first time you notice this effect it is truly erie.

(bill)

  [Yup.  It happened to me once, in 1962, as I was jumping out of a
  swing into a sandlot.  I had done this (at full speed from maximum
  height) hundreds of times, and did so again afterwards, but only
  this once did time slow to about 1/4 speed.  I wonder if a similar
  effect might be a part of the "born again" religious conversion
  that is sometimes hits people during routine activities.  -- KIL]

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Date: 27 Jun 87 13:41:23 GMT
From: [email-masked] (Unix Chit-Chat at
      winfree.n3eua.cos.ampr.n3eua.cos.ampr)
Subject: Submission for comp-ai-digest

Path: winfree!hp-lsd!hpldola!ben
From: [email-masked] (Benjamin Ellsworth)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Why Did The $6,000,000 Man Run So Slowly?
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Jun 87 20:42:14 GMT
References: <[email-masked]>
Organization: HP Logic Design Oper. -ColoSpgs
Lines: 15

>From my film classes at school, I had gathered that the reason that the
action sequences in Kung Fu were slowed down for emphasis.  When you
slow a scene down, whatever the content, you emphasize the action of
that scene.  This is especially effective for violent action.  Any good
anti-hunting film will slow down any shots of an actual Bambi kill.
The effect of slowing is to force the viewer to perceive the action in
more detail (and hence with greater emphasis) than he/she could view it
at normal speed.  Speeding up a scene has the opposite effect.

Benjamin Ellsworth
hplabs!hpldola!ben

*** This posting is about the use of temporal distortion in film
    making, not a statement regarding the morality of hunting.

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Date: 24 Jun 87 21:34:36 GMT
From: [email-masked]  (Elizabeth)
Subject: Re: Why did the six-million dollar man run so slowly?

/ nucsrl:comp.ai / [email-masked] (Tim Finin) / 11:47 pm  Jun 11, 1987 /
Why did the six million dollar man run so slowly?

The guy moves slowly in the same way that a car accident happens "slowly".
Slow motion simulates the increase in attention to detail and reaction
times which go with an increase in adrenaline.  This makes slow motion,
oddly enough, exciting.

The thing with the cougar is right on because the pedator in the hunt
is just the sort of thing for which adrenaline evolved.

M. E. Corey

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End of AIList Digest
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