Date: Fri 16 Dec 1988 00:29-EST From: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis Reply-To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Us-Mail: MIT LCS, 545 Tech Square, Rm# NE43-504, Cambridge MA 02139 Phone: (617) 253-6524 Subject: AIList Digest V8 #139 To: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Status: R AIList Digest Friday, 16 Dec 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 139 Announcements: ES Shell Newsgroup CFP - INTERFACES: Systems and People Working Together 2nd National Conference on AI and CogSci - Dublin, Ireland CFP - 11th Annual Conference of the CogSci Society - Ann Arbor, Michigan INTERFACE Special Issue on Music and Dynamic Systems Memory/Attention: BBS Call for Commentators Motor Control: BBS Call for Commentators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Dec 88 12:33:37 GMT From: "Bernd Bachmann" Reply-to: "Bernd Bachmann" Subject: Shell Newsgroup AN INFORMAL PROPOSAL FOR A NEWSGROUP ON EXPERT SYSTEM SHELLS Bernd Bachmann, Harold Boley, Norbert Kratz, Robert Rehbold, Michael M. Richter, Peter Spieker, Thomas Wetter Paper address: FB Informatik, Univ. 675 Kaiserslautern, Box 3049, W. Germany Email address: lisplog@uklirb.uucp In previous years 'expert systems' (also known as 'knowledge based systems') have moved from AI laboratories to the marketplace. These XPS are frequently implemented with the aid of expert system shells (abbreviated 'shells' in the following). Due to this fact more and more developers, analysts and users are involved with shells and related fields. Therefore time seems ripe to start a new (moderated) newsgroup, which could discuss and inform about several topics: - Develop a systematic terminology for discussing 'expert systems' and 'expert system shells': Which components should it include? Where are the boundaries between shells and other intelligent (?!) software tools like LISP-PROLOG integrations, database query languages, graphics interfaces etc. - Collect information that helps people in companies and universities to decide which shell or group of shells is most suitable for successful application in their specific domain. While watching the newsgroups already involved in AI one can notice a great interest in this topic, but nevertheless a lack of condensed information on how to select an appropriate shell is obvious. - Inspire developers to take into account the requirements of AI programmers, knowledge engineers and end users, employing the shells. - Discuss existing shells. Very often shells provide a 'glittering' user interface that hides the essential capabilities of the product. Discussing this topic could help to move the point of view from the surface to the 'kernel', which should include the AI methods of knowledge representation schemes and inference or search mechanisms. The above topics only cover a small part of the wide range of the AI subfield of 'expert system shells'. A lot of interesting questions and problems that should be discussed may be found spontaneously. We suggest to install a new newsgroup called comp.ai.shells, which we would be willing to start moderating. In our opinion, moderation is necessary to prevent the newsgroup from being used as an advertising medium and to prevent contributions of limited interest ("Who has the source of shell ... in Palo Alto?"; "Who has worked with shell ... in Kaiserslautern?"; etc.). Nevertheless companies will be invited to participate actively in the discussion, especially if their products contain new aspects or are of academic interest. Additionally our aim is to continue the compilation of a bibliography on 'expert system shells', based on the following procedure: Everybody is invited to email or post appropriate references to us in a format that can be used by the UNIX 'refer' utility (if you are not familiar with 'refer', please consult the UNIX manual). The incremental changes of the bibliography will be periodically posted to the newsgroup. All users on each site can append them as ASCII files to their previously collected references. The bibliography can then be used by UNIX utilities to be 'pretty printed' (in the normal bibliography format) or to be sorted or searched using various keys. If you have any remarks (pros or cons) about the general proposal or its specific topics, please send them to the above email address. In case you need further information, please do include your physical ("paper") address. If the proposal is of common interest we will post a formal call for votes to news.groups and comp.ai.digest. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Dec 88 17:08:08 -0500 From: mitchell%community-chest.mitre.org@gateway.mitre.org Subject: CFP - INTERFACES: Systems and People Working Together ***** CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION ***** 28th Annual Technical Symposium of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the ACM INTERFACES: Systems and People Working Together National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Maryland - August 24, 1989 No computer is an island. Increasingly, systems are being tied together to improve their value to the organizations they serve. This symposium will explore the theoretical and practical issues in interfacing systems and in enabling people to use them effectively. *** SOME TOPICS OF INTEREST FOR SUBMITTED PAPERS *** * HUMAN FACTORS * User interfaces Meeting the needs of handicapped users Conquering complexity Designing systems for people Intelligent assistants The human dimension of information interchange * SYSTEMS INTEGRATION * Communications networks Distributed databases Data standardization System fault tolerance Communications standards (e.g. GOSIP) * STRATEGIC SYSTEMS * Decision support systems Embedding expert systems in information systems Strategic info systems Computer Aided Logistics Support (CALS) * SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION * Quality control and testing Designing a system of systems System management Conversion and implementation strategies Software tools and CASE Identifying requirements thru prototyping * ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR APPLICATIONS PORTABILITY * Ada Database management Open software Open protocol technology Operating systems (e.g., POSIX) ==> DON'T BE LIMITED BY OUR SUGGESTIONS - MAKE YOUR OWN! Both experienced and first-time authors are encouraged to present their work. Papers will be refereed. A length of 10 to 20 double-spaced pages is suggested. Those presenting a paper are entitled to register for the symposium at the early advance registration rate. To propose special sessions or noncommercial demonstrations, please send three copies of an extended abstract to the Program Chairman at the address below. Note: A paper must include the name, mailing address, and telephone number of each author or other presenter. Authors of accepted papers must transfer copyright to ACM for material published in the Proceedings (excepting papers that cannot be copyrighted under Government regulations). The ACM policy on prior publication was revised in 1987. A complete statement of the policy appears in the November 1987 issue of Communications of the ACM. In part it states that "republication of a paper, possibly revised, that has been disseminated via a proceedings or newsletter is permitted if the editor of the journal to which it has been submitted judges that there is significant additional benefit to be gained from republication." *** SCHEDULE *** March 2, 1989 Please send five copies of your paper to the Program Chairman: Dr. Milton S. Hess American Management Systems, Inc. 1525 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, VA 22209 April 13, 1989 Acceptance notification June 22, 1989 Final camera ready papers are due August 24, 1989 Presentation at the symposium If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact: Symposium General Chairman: Charles E. Youman, The MITRE Corporation, (703) 883-6349 (voice), (703) 883-6308 (FAX), or youman@mitre.org (internet). Program Chairman: Dr. Milton Hess, American Management Systems, Inc., (703) 841-5942 (voice) or (703) 841-7045 (FAX). NIST Liaison: Ms. Elizabeth Lennon, National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards), (301) 975-2832 (voice) or (301) 948-1784 (FAX). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Dec 88 09:51:11 GMT From: Gabriel McDermott Subject: 2nd National Conference on AI and CogSci - Dublin, Ireland 2nd National Conference of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science The School of Computer Applications, NIHE Dublin, Ireland, in conjunction with the Artificial Intelligence Association of Ireland (AIAI) are holding the second national conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AI/CS-'89) at the NIHE Dublin from the 14th to 15th September 1989. Contributions are asked for in the following areas (not exclusive): * AI Tools and Technologies. * Natural language, Machine Translation, Speech Understanding and Generation. * Perception, vision, robotics. * Intelligent tutoring systems. * Design, manufacturing and control. * Cognitive modeling. * Common Sense Reasoning. * Knowledge Representation. * Planning, scheduling, reasoning about actions. * Knowledge acquisition, learning, analogy. * Automated deduction. * Philosophical foundations. * Social Implications. When submitting, please include three copies of paper. Your paper should be clearly typed on A4 and length should be no longer than 10 pages. Important Dates Submission Deadline 1 July 1988 Acceptance Notification 1 August 1988. Conference Dates 14-15 September 1989. Send all material to: Alan F. Smeaton, Chairman, AI/CS -- `89, School of Computer Applications, N.I.H.E., Dublin 9, Ireland. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 88 20:59:03 GMT From: visel@csmil.umich.edu (Suzanne Visel) Reply-to: visel@csmil.umich.edu (Suzanne Visel) Subject: CFP - 11th Annual Conference of the CogSci Society CALL FOR PAPERS The Eleventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society August 16-19, 1989 University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan The Eleventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society will be held August 16-19, 1989 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This precedes the IJCAI meeting in Detroit the following week. The Conference will feature symposia and invited speakers on such topics as induction, decision theory, situated cognition, applications of cognitive science, language processing, problem solving, cognitive development and parallel distributed systems. The Conference schedule will include paper sessions, symposia, and a poster session covering the full range of the cognitive sciences. This year, for the first time, a pre-conference tutorial will be offered. Organizing Committee: Gary M. Olson Director, Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory University of Michigan Edward E. Smith Professor of Psychology University of Michigan Call for Papers You are invited to submit papers for paper presentations, symposia and poster sessions. These should cover original unreported theoretical or empirical research related to cognition. All submissions for paper and poster sessions and symposia will be refereed. The Proceedings of the Conference will be published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Send submissions to: Gary M. Olson Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory 701 Tappan Street Graduate School of Business University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234 Inquiries: E-mail address: gmo@csmil.umich.edu Phone: (313) 747-4948 All submitted papers must include the following: Four copies of the full paper (8 pages maximum including tables, figures, references and a 250 word abstract). Preference for poster or paper presentation. Please include your electronic mail address. Important Dates: Submission deadline: March 31, 1989 Acceptance notification: May 1, 1989 Final version due: May 26, 1989 Tutorial: Wednesday, August 16, 1989 Conference: Thursday-Saturday, August 17-19, 1989 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 88 10:46 N From: MUSICO%BGERUG51.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: INTERFACE Special Issue on Music and Dynamic Systems INTERFACE Call for Commentators and/or Original Contributions. -------------------------- MUSIC AND DYNAMIC SYSTEMS ========================= INTERFACE - Journal of New Music Research - is an international journal published by Swets & Zeitlinger B.V., Lisse, The Netherlands (this year vol. 17). It is devoted to the discussion of all questions which fall into the borderline areas between music on the one hand, physical and human sciences or related technologies on the other hand. New fields of research, as well as new methods of investigation in known fields receive special emphasis. INTERFACE is planning a special issue on MUSIC AND DYNAMIC SYSTEMS. The motivation comes from two sources : First there is the renewed interest in Dynamic Systems Theory from the point of view of massive parallel computing and artificial intelligence research. Massive parallel techniques and technology have very recently been applied to music perception/cognition and to strategies for automated composition. The approach is an alternative to the classical symbol-based approaches to cognition and problem solving and it is believed that it may establish a new paradigm that dominates research for the coming decennia. The second motivation comes from a recently received original contribution to INTERFACE by two Romenian scientists : Cosmin and Mario Georgescu. They propose a system approach to musicology based on the General Systems Theory. The paper ("A System Approach to Music") is challenging in that it raises a number of methodological problems (e.g. problems of verification) in musicology. The authors claim that "The paper should be considered primarily as an exposition of principles and as an argument in favour of the credibility degree of the system approach in musicology. The change of this approach into an effective analysis tool for musical work is a future task that goes beyond the aim of this paper.". However, General Systems Theory is by no means the only possible application of Systems Theory to music. The massive parallel approach in computing and the application of Dynamic Systems Theory to the field of music perception and cognition, automated compositional strategies, or historical musicology allows new insights in our understanding and comprehention of the complex phenomenon which we all admire. How far can we go in modeling the complex dynamics of MUSIC? -------------------------- - Contributions to this special issue of INTERFACE on MUSIC AND DYNAMIC SYSTEMS may be sent to Marc Leman before june 30 (publication of this issue is planned in the fall of 1989). - Commentators interested in the Georgescu's paper (61pp.) may ask for a copy. --------------------------- Please send your correspondence for this issue to : Marc Leman (editor) University of Ghent Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music Blandijnberg 2 B-9000 GHENT Belgium e-mail : musico@bgerug51.bitnet The address of the publisher is : Swets Publishing Service Heereweg 347 2161 CA Lisse The Netherlands ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 88 14:44:02 GMT From: elbereth.rutgers.edu!harnad@rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) Subject: Memory/Attention: BBS Call for Commentators Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator on this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] ____________________________________________________________________ THE ROLE OF ATTENTION IN AUDITORY INFORMATION PROCESSING AS REVEALED BY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS Risto Naatanen Department of Psychology University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland This target article examines the roles of attention and automaticity in auditory processing as revealed by event-related potential (ERP) research. An ERP component called the "mismatch negativity" indicates that physical and temporal features of auditory stimuli are fully processed whether or not they are attended. It also suggests that there exists a mechanism of passive attention switching with changes in repetitive input. ERPs also reveal some of the cerebral mechanisms by which acoustic stimulus events produce and control conscious perception. The "processing negativity" component implicates a mechanism for attending selectively to stimuli defined by certain physical features. Stimulus selection occurs in the form of a matching process in which each input is compared to the "attentional trace," a voluntarily maintained representation of the task-relevant features of the stimulus to be attended. -- Stevan Harnad INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet CSNET: harnad%princeton.edu@relay.cs.net (609)-921-7771 ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 88 15:13:03 GMT From: elbereth.rutgers.edu!harnad@rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) Subject: Motor Control: BBS Call for Commentators Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator on this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] ____________________________________________________________________ ON THE FUNCTION OF MUSCLE AND REFLEX PARTITIONING Uwe Windhorst (Physiology, Gottingen University) Thomas M. Hamm (Barrow Neurological Institute) Douglas G. Stewart (University of Arizona) Localized stretch reflexes, the partitioning of sensory input for muscles, and the partitioning of segmental pathways to motor nuclei have been demonstrated in the mammalian neuromuscular system. This suggests that individual motor nuclei and the muscles they innervate are not homogeneous functional units. Functional analysis of reflex localization and partitioning suggests that segmental control mechanisms are based on subdivisions of motor nucleus/muscle complexes. A partitioned organization of segmental control mechanisms may provide a number of functional advantages for the control of neuromuscular systems with complex structure and organization. -- Stevan Harnad INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet CSNET: harnad%princeton.edu@relay.cs.net (609)-921-7771 ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************