Subject: AIList V6 #47 - Head Count, Image Formats, Chemistry, Law, Logic
From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri 4 Mar 1988 21:22-PST

AIList Digest            Saturday, 5 Mar 1988      Volume 6 : Issue 47

Today's Topics:
  Administrivia - Head Count,
  Queries - CommonLoops & NEXPERT/GOLDWORKS & Arguments Against AI,
  AI Tools - File Formats for Image Data,
  Application - AI in Chemistry & Legal Reasoning,
  Logic - Modal-Logic References,
  Nanotechnology - Picotechnology and Positronic Brains

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Date: Wed, 2 Mar 88 13:24:25 CST
From: Alan Wexelblat <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Head Count Results

There are a number of possible reasons why your survey produced low
numbers.  The simplest is, perhaps, that February is a month with a
comparatively low birthrate.  February births usually indicate
conception in May, which is less common than conception in June.  June
birth rates are also high (I don't know what factors influence this,
though).

Anyway, there are other ways to measure how many readers you have.
Among them is the Arbitron program run by Brian Reid
([email-masked]).  His data for January 88 estimates that
comp.ai.digest (the form of AILIST on USENET) has approximately 8900
readers.

--Alan Wexelblat
ARPA: [email-masked]
UUCP: {harvard, gatech, pyramid, &c.}!sally!im4u!milano!wex

The Pentagon has "fire and forget" systems; I have "file and forget."

  [Great; I may have more friends than I thought!  My attempt
  at a head count was apparently worse than useless.  So --
  I mail to approximatedly 408 individual on the Arpanet and
  CSNet, plus 134 redistributions and bboards.  With the 400
  Bitnet readers and an unknown number reading bboards or on
  other networks (EARNET, JANET, etc.), there are at least
  12000 AIList readers.  That's on the same order as the number
  of AAAI members. -- KIL]

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

Date: Fri 4 Mar 88 12:10:56-PST
From: Wei-Han Chu <[email-masked]>
Subject: CommonLoops

I recently obtained a copy of CommonLoops from Goldhill Computer.
Unfortunately they dont have any documentation on how to use it.
Does anyone has any information on any documentation on CommonLoops.
Goldhill said they obtain this from Xerox PARC, however, I was
not able to get a response from the CommonLoops coordinator at
PARC.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 88 10:34 N
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Experience with NEXPERT / GOLDWORKS ???

Ken,

Could you put the following request in the AIlist digest?

Thanks

Jan Talmon.

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

We are considering to purchase a high-end AI development tool for PC's.
Sofar, we considered NEXPERT and GOLDWORKS.

Are there people in netland who have experience with one or both of
these products and are willing to give us their comments? We are
interested in issues such as quality of documentation, speed, ease
of use, flexibility, ease of interfacing with the outside world (Dbase III,
1-2-3, languages etc).

Thanks for your comments. Please mail me directly. When sufficient replies
come in, I will summarize on the list.

Jan L. Talmon
Dept. of Medical Informatics and Statistics
University of Limburg
Maastricht
The Netherlands

EMAIL: [email-masked]

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Date: Fri, 04 Mar 88 18:09:12 SET
From: "Adlassnig, Peter" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Question on arguments against AI

Is it true that there are two main arguments against the feasibility
of AI?

1) The philosophical and cognitive science argument
   (e.g., Dreyfus, Searle)

2) The computability and complexity theory argument
   (e.g., Lucas(?))

Could someone point out some relevant literature on the second
point, please?

Thank you in advance.

Klaus-Peter Adlassnig
Department of Medical Computer Science
Garnisongasse 13
A - 1090 Vienna, Austria
email: ADLASSNI at AWIIMC11.BITNET

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

Date: 1 Mar 88 17:47:00 GMT
From: [email-masked]  (E. Schwartz group)
Subject: Re: File formats for image data ?

On image file formats:
We are using the HIPS system, of Mike Landy and colleagues (NYU Dept. Psych.),
which was described in Comp. Graphics and Image Processing (1985?..).
The original version of this system consists of a large number of
image processing routines ( written in C) and features a well thought
out image header, which includes an executable history of the operations
which have been performed on the given file. The basic system supports
typed images ( BYTE, SHORT, INT, FLOAT, DOUBLE, COMPLEX), and
image sequences. In regard to some of the other requirements mentioned,
we (Computational Neuroscience, NYU MedCtr) have extened the basic
HIPS system to include color maps, non-array image formats (histograms,
sparse images), arbitrary additional data ( pixel size aspect ratio,
and user defined info that needs to accopmany the image), and interactive
window based tools for the SUN environment.
My impression is that essentially all of the requirements listed are
met by the original HIPS implementation and/or our extensions of it.
We have used this system for a number of years in a large computer
aided neuro-anatomy project, and various computational vision applications:
since the basic system is well constructed, it is easy to extend it
to handle new problems, although we have found that the current
implementation has stabilized, and there is little that we need add...
Eric Schwartz
[email-masked]
Computational Neuroscience Labs
NYU Med. Center

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 88 09:22:22 EST
From: "David K. Johnson, Exxon Research & Engineering Co." <DKJOHNS@ERENJ>
Subject: AI in Chemistry

                 [Excerpted from the IRList Digest.]

"Artificial Intelligence Applications in Chemisty"  American Chemical
Society Symposium Series #306; ISBN 0-8412-0966-9; 190th ACS Meeting,
Chicago, 1985; Editors: T. H. Pierce, B. A. Hohne; American Chemical
Society, Washington, D.C. 1986.

I would also suggest that you check the ACS Abstracts of Papers for
the twice-a-year ACS meetings.  There have been a number of papers and
symposia on AI and Expert Systems in Chemistry--particularly
in the Divisions of Chemical Information and Computers in Chemistry.
The ACS journal Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science
may also be useful.

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

Date: 1 Mar 88 18:46:26 GMT
From: [email-masked] (S. H. Schwartz)
Reply-to: [email-masked] (S. H. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: Query: Legal Reasoning in AI

In article <[email-masked]> spp3!gpearson (Glen Pearson) writes:
>I heard of a conference on legal reasoning using AI techniques...

The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law
(ICAIL-1) was held at Northeastern University in May 1987.
Proceedings are available from the ACM Order Department, Baltimore MD:
order number 604870.
--
                     *** QUESTION AUTHORITIES ***
                          Rashi, Rif, Maharal...
S. H. Schwartz       (201) 846-9185  [email-masked]
                     (201) 932-4714  ...rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!shs

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

Date: 29 Feb 88 18:15:31 GMT
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Gordon)
Subject: Re: Query: Legal Reasoning in AI

From article <[email-masked]>, by [email-masked]
(Glen Pearson):
> I heard of a conference on legal reasoning using AI techniques, but
> I don't remember the time or place.  Can anyone out there give me
> details?
>
> Thanks much,
>
> Glen
> [email-masked]
> 1180 Kern Ave.
> Sunnyvale, CA 94086
> (408) 773-5021

The conference you are probably thinking of is the First International
Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, sponsored by the Center
for Law and Computer Science of Northeastern University and held in
Boston in May, 1987.   It was an ACM conference and the proceedings
are available from

        ACM Order Department
        P.O. Box 64145
        Baltimore, MD 21264

order number: 604870.

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

Date: Wed, 2 Mar 88 13:52:41 EST
From: [email-masked]
Reply-to: [email-masked] (David Sherman)
Subject: Re: Query: Legal Reasoning in AI

In article <[email-masked]> spp3!gpearson (Glen Pearson) writes:
>I heard of a conference on legal reasoning using AI techniques, but
>I don't remember the time or place.  Can anyone out there give me
>details?

This was the First International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
and Law, held at Northeastern University in Boston, May 1987.
Carole Hafner of Northeastern was the local organizer. The proceedings
were published by the ACM (they were available for the conference).
Quite a range of papers was presented. (Mine was on programming the
Income Tax Act in Prolog.)

There were also two conferences held at the University of
Houston in 1984 and 1985, called the First and Second Annual
Conferences on Law and Technology.  They were organized by
Charles Walter.  The papers from the first conference were
published by West Publishing Company (St. Paul, Minn.) as
"Computing Power and Legal Reasoning", (Charles Walter, ed.),
1985, 871pp.  The papers from the second conference were never
published and can be found, as far as I know, only in the hands
of the people who attended.  (Some of them are labelled "draft -
not for publication or attribution".)

The West publication and the proceedings of the 1987 conference,
between them, are a pretty thorough overview of what's happening
in the world of AI and law.

David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
--
{ uunet!mnetor  pyramid!utai  decvax!utcsri  ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave

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

Date: 2 Mar 88 12:18 PST
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Funny Logics and AI: references

Try looking through  `Logics for Artificial Intelligence' by Raymond Turner,
Ellis Horwood series in AI, John Wiley 1984.  He does a pretty good survey of a
whole lot of odd logics with bibliographical sumaries at the end of each
chapter.

Pat Hayes

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

Date: Wed,  2 Mar 88 23:09:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Leslie Burkholder <[email-masked]>
Subject: modal logic references

Try
Introductory Modal Logic, K Konyndyk, U of Notre Dame Press, 1986.

LB

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

Date: Fri, 04 Mar 88 10:48:30 HNE
From: Spencer Star <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: AIList V6 #45 - Logic, RuleC, Methodology, Constraint

Paul Creelman notes in the Feb 28th AIList that Speigelhalter says that
probabilities are not the right way to represent uncertainty in expert
systems, and then goes on to list a number of reasons why.  I found this
somewhat surprising since Speigelhalter uses probabilities in his work
on uncertainty in expert systems.  Where does he make all these nasty
comments.

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

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 88 17:00:55 EST
From: George McKee <[email-masked]>
Subject: picotechnology & positronic brains

I think the recent speculations about learning about natural
intelligence by simulating the brain in a nanotechnological device
aren't looking carefully enough at the problem.  If the brain is
anything like the immune system, the source of the changes in neural
structure that lead to learning, thought, and behavior are in the
genome itself.  If you recall the biomedical "breakthroughs" of just
a few months ago, you'll know that the source of the immune system's
ability to recognize new information is in "variable sequences" in
part of the genome that codes for antibodies.  Given the way
genetic crossover can transfer enzymatic networks from one system
to another, there's little reason to believe something similar
doesn't work in the nervous system.  It would help explain why
the brain has a higher rate of protein synthesis than almost anywhere
else in the body, and that blocking protein synthesis blocks some
kinds of learning (G.Ungar's work years ago).  You might argue that
the protein synthesis is just making new synapses, but that fails
to explain why more than 40% of the genome is expressed in the brain.
There's alot more than just modification of synaptic efficiency
(connection weights) going on there.

If modifications in DNA sequences, or for that matter any molecular
structure, play any significant role in the function of the nervous
system in vivo, then those nanotechnologists that think they can do AI
by building complete human brains "in calculo" are working at the wrong
level of detail.  Not only will they have to simulate neurons and synapses,
but they'll have to simulate the molecules that control and form the
structure of those synapses.  What they ought to be doing is worrying about
creating devices functionally equivalent to macromolecules in which the
components have the same stability properties as real molecules, but the
components are smaller, faster, and less noisy.  Any technology that
can get inside of molecules will of course be called "picotechnology."
One way towards this is to use matter composed of other subatomic
particles than electrons, protons, and neutrons.  Looking at the
subject line above, you can see where this leads...

If you were trying to make devices out of positronium, you might
attempt to stabilize them with a ceramic matrix like that of the high-
temperature superconductors, but carrying electron-positron pairs
rather then the superconductors' electron-electron pairs.  It's true that
the platinum-iridium sponge that forms the matrix for the creation and
destruction of positrons in the "positronic brains" that power Asimov's
robot stories contains rare-earth metals just like the high-temp
superconductors, but I think that was just luck, and that Dr.A. chose
that alloy simply because it was shiny and expensive.

There can be no doubt about the success of R.Daneel Olivaw as an AI
artifact, but of course this whole microtechnological exercise ignores
the really interesting part of AI, namely the programming, not to
mention the robopsychology.

        - George McKee
          College of Computer Science
          Northeastern University, Boston 02115
CSnet: [email-masked]
Phone: (617) 437-5204
Usenet: in New England, it's not unusual to have to say
                "can't get there from here."

p.s. I should add that I happen to be on David Baltimore's side of the
debate whether or not to have a big project to sequence the entire
human genome.  Without going into a long discussion that's really
irrelevant here, I think that a "big science" sequencing project will
lead to a myopic focusing of attention on the mere task of sequencing,
rather than the broader and harder to predict/manage task of
understanding how 1-dimensional sequences become 3-dimensional proteins
and organisms.  Alas, it's characteristic of the adversarial nature of
the political process to end up with only one golden egg in the funding
basket. I wouldn't like to see a genome sequencing project end up like
the Apollo or Space Shuttle projects have, but I'd bet that the
probablity of such an outcome is directly proportional to the size of
the project budget.

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End of AIList Digest
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