Date: Sat, 19 Oct 85 20:08 EST To: irdis at vpi Subject: IRList Digest V1 #15 IRList Digest Saturday, 19 Sep 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: EMAIL - Please Note! Changes at VPI&SU - Funny Story Discussion - Overlap with AIList Announcement - NSF Inf. Science Program Staff Changes - Expanded Inter-net Database Services - ER Approach Advance Program - Seminar: Recognition Algorithms - CSLI Environment Discussions - Posts in Scotland ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Oct 85 18:36:27 edt From: vpivx3::foxea@vpics1.VPI Subject: address changes at VPI This time for real! On October 20, the BITNET node tables will change and addresses VPIVAX3 or VPICS1 will no longer work. For those on BITNET, my preferred address is fox@vtcs1 and alternates are foxea@vtvax3 fox%vpi@csnet-relay.arpa For those on Internet or connecting through it, the preferred address is fox%vtcs1.bitnet@csnet-relay and alternate is foxea%vtvax3.bitnet@csnet-relay Our CSNet connection is via the Phonenet service. Only here can the IRList and IRList-Request addresses be used instead of fox. To Internet users, you can hence send to fox%vpi@csnet-relay (so I can still be reached in CSNet as fox@vpi) Many thanks for your willingness to change! - Ed ------------------------------ From: fox (Ed Fox) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 12:40:56 edt Subject: Electronic mail problems A funny story! When IRList issues are about to be distributed, the 'send' command under VMS is invoked so PMDF can queue and post the message to people on the distribution list. The alias for the distribution list is 'irdis' and when the message is submitted, our VAX-11/785 sits for sometimes 30 minutes checking and transforming addresses. Seeing 'irdis' in the To: field, one contributor sent a message to irdis@vpi. The CSNET relay machine connected, our system tried to check the recipient list, and began expanding 'irdis' whereupon the relay timed out! This event occurred a number of times until wise watchers at CSNET-CIC noticed something amiss. The contributor was sent back the message with suggestion to use 'irlist@vpi' and I ws told to alert other would-be contributors. So, there is a happy ending and we have all learned about another pitfall in working with network distribution lists! Looking foward to many submissions to IRList%vpi@csnet-relay.arpa, Ed ------------------------------ From: Hibbert.pa%xerox.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 17:43:31 PDT Subject: Re: IRList Digest V1 #14 In-Reply-To: "fox@vpi.CSNet's message of Thu, 10 Oct 85 12:55:00 EST" Please stop excerpting stuff from AIList to IRList. I get that as well, and it is not at all usefull to have to read stuff twice. If you absolutely need to re-send that stuff, please segregate it into separate digests, and label them as "containing no new content". Thanks, Chris [Reply: Chris - I will stop direct extracting but will reprint submissions sent from others to both AIList and IRList. I will also reprint excerpts selected by IRList readers and sent to AIList. Thanks for your suggestion - it will make life easier for me! - Ed] ------------------------------ From: Don Date: Thu, 10 Oct 85 08:56:43 cdt To: IRlist@VPI >From LAWS@SRI-AI.CSNET Wed Oct 9 19:59:04 1985 Date: Tue 1 Oct 85 13:50:21-CDT From: ICS.DEKEN@R20.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: Information Science Program at NSF - Staffing Changes Beth Adelson has been appointed to the position of Associate Program Director, Information Science Program, effective August 15, 1985. Dr Adelson has been at Yale University since 1983, as a Research Associate in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Adelson has published numerous articles in the areas of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Recent works include papers on software design <> and the acquisition of categories for problem solving <>. Joseph Deken has been appointed to the position of Program Director, Information Science Program, effective September 3, 1985. Dr. Deken was most recently Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, with a joint appointment in the Department of Business and the Department of Computer Sciences, and taught from 1976 to 1980 at Princeton University. His Ph.D. in mathematical statistics is from Stanford University. Dr. Deken is the author of several books on computing, the most recent of which is <>, which will be Published by Bantam books in January 1986. His other writing includes <> (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1983), <> (William Morrow, 1981), and numerous articles on statistics and statistical computing. Program announcements and other information about the Information Science and Technology programs at NSF are available from: Division of Information Science and Technology National Science Foundation 1800 G St. NW Washington, D.C. 20550 Correspondence may be addressed to the attention of Dr. Adelson or Dr. Deken as appropriate. ------------------------------ From: Henry Nussbacher Return-path: HJNCU%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 09:13 EDT Subject: Announcement of expanded inter-net Database services This is to announce that some new services have been added to the inter-network server running at Bitnic. Certain selected Arpanet digests are now being loaded into a Spires database and are therefore searchable from anywhere as long as you can send RFC822 mail. If you are interested in using this service, send a piece of mail to: DATABASE%BITNIC.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA or DATABASE%BITNIC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU and have as the first 3 lines of your file (case does not matter): help help arpanet help design The server will send back to you 3 help files describing how to use the internet server, how to search Arpanet digests and how the whole thing was designed. Read over the section on "Signup" carefully before making further use of the Database server. Presently, the following 5 Arpanet forums are being loaded into the Database: Name Retention Period ============= ================ Ai-List 2 months Info-Ibmpc 2 months Info-Mac 2 months Info-Graphics 3 months Info-Nets 3 months The retention period is set for a short duration in order to see if Bitnic can handle the volume of data that needs to be stored in Spires. This service was initialized on October 4th, 1985 so currently there are just a few items available in the Database. Example of search command: FIND TEXT UNIX (IN INFO-IBMPC TABLE would find all entries in Info-Ibmpc that contain the word UNIX. An entry is just the section within a "digested" digest that makes reference to the word UNIX. For further details read over the help files. Henry Nussbacher (Hank@Bitnic.Bitnet) Bitnet Development and Operations Center ------------------------------ From: Ed Fox Date: Sun, 6 Oct 85 13:46 EST Subject: ER Approach Advance Program The 4th International Conference Entity-Relationship Approach October 28-30, 1985 Chicago, Illinois Major Theme: The Use of ER Concept in Knowledge Representation Here are some highlights ... Tuesday, Oct. 29 9-10am keynote address, Roger C. Shank 10:30-12 session IA. Knowledge Representation 1:30-3 sesion IIB. Query and Manipulation Lanaguages I 3:30-5:30 IIIC. Panel - Knowledge Engineering and its Implications 7:30-10 Evening. Micro Databases: How Far Do They Go Wedn., Oct. 30 8:15-10 invited addresses Eugene Lowenthal, Future Directions on Knowledge-Based Management Donald Walker, Knowledge Resource Tools for Information Access 10:30-12:30 session IVA. Expert Systems 1:30-3:30 session VA. Query and Manipulation Languages II For further information contact Prof. Kathi Davis (815) 753-0378 ------------------------------ From: Peter de Jong Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1985 09:45 EDT To: Cog-Sci%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar Monday 7, October 4:00pm Room: NE43- 8th floor playroom VISION SEMINAR Recognition Algorithms for the Connection Machine Anita Flynn MIT Many problems in early vision appear to be inherently local and exploitble on parallel computer architectures. This talk describes a problem in late vision, that of recognizing an unknown object and matching it to a data base model given only sparse sensory data points. The algorithm presently used on a sequential machine is first explined, and then various algorithms for parallel computation are explored. Tradeoffs in space-time efficiency are discussed in terms of implementation on a Connection Machine. The parallel version is shown to run three to four orders of magnitude faster than the sequential one. ------------------------------ From: Ken Laws Date: Thu 10 Oct 85 22:44:52-PDT Subject: Summary of the CSLI Environments Meetings Date: Wed 9 Oct 85 16:51:08-PDT From: Emma Pease Tel: 497-3479 [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter (10.49) by Laws@SRI-AI.] ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING Monday, October 14, noon, Ventura Trailer Classroom David Levy (Xerox PARC and CSLI) will continue to describe his work on a theoretical foundation for document preparation environments. Specifically, he will describe in some detail the theory of marking itself, and its relevance to various computer systems. We will discuss some points that came up in questions, such as the relation of ``indirect marking'' to different kinds of tools, the contrast between a psychological theory (how people think when they use a system) and an ontological account (of the basic objects, actions, and relationships that are available for them to work with), and the problems of multiple levels of representation (e.g., a macro command stands for a sequence of ``characters'' which in turn represent various ``figures'', etc.). See the summary of the meeting on October 7 (later in this newsletter) for more information. SUMMARY OF ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING September 30, 1985 At the first meeting of the environments group we set out the general directions for our discussions. We identified some major dimensions along which to compare and examine environments and made an initial list of examples that might be presented. This list is very sketchy---the random result of what happened to come up in conversation. We are eager for further details and suggestions (either systems for general consideration, or about which specific people would like to talk): Programming environments: Interlisp, Smalltalk, Cedar, [all 3 Xerox], (Linton) [Berkeley/Stanford], Gandalf [CMU], Mentor [INRIA], ZetaLisp [Symbolics], Kee [Intellicorp], HPRL, HPLisp [last 2 Hewlett-Packard] Grammar development environments: LFG [CSLI], HPSG [HP], BLT [CSLI], Specification environments: Aleph [CSLI], (Balzer)[ISI] Language development environments: MUIR [CSLI] Document preparation environments: (Levy) [CSLI], Notecards [Xerox] Data access and manipulation environments: Mathematical and logical deduction environments: MACSYMA [MIT], FOL [Stanford] There is a variety of application areas not as central to CSLI concerns, but in which environments are built. These include VLSI design, CAD/CAM, image manipulation, mail systems, etc. In addition, most operating systems take on the functions of an environment, either for use outside of applications programs or as a base within them. So-called ``intelligent agents'' are one attempt to provide a uniform environment for a particular user interacting with multiple systems. For each kind of environment there are specific problems dealing with the particular structures being worked with (programs, proofs, grammars, formatted documents, etc.). There is also a framework of common problems having to do with the basic structure of items being manipulated (text, trees, databases, etc.), their representation on a screen or hardcopy, interfaces for operating through that representation, storage on one or more devices, consistency between aspects (e.g., source and compiled code, specifications and proofs), change over time (versions, releases, etc.), coordination of access among a group, etc. Our plan is to address the basic conceptual issues by looking at one particular environment or group of related environments in each session. SUMMARY OF ENVIRONMENTS GROUP MEETING October 7, 1985 David Levy gave an overview of his work on a theoretical basis for document preparation environments. He demonstrated the problems with existing ``marking environments'' which combine conflicting approaches to text layout, drawing, and window placement. The failure to generalize the common elements in all of these leads to greater complexity and to blind spots that create difficulty in maintaining, documenting, and using such systems. Many of the relevant issues apply to older marking technologies, but the computer has two novel properties that demand a clear and explicit theory. First, marking is indirect---the linkage between human physical action and what appears on the screen (or paper) is mediated by linguistic or quasi-linguistic commands. Second, there is a clear distinction between the surface presentation (what you see) and the internal representation (its underlying structure). The computer, unlike earlier forms, lets you manipulate the underlying structure directly, with possibly complex and distributed consequences to the surface presentation. He then showed how we might begin to develop a theory of marking with a coherent ontological basis. For example, we need to look at something as mundane as the ``carriage return'' as having distinct and sometimes confused aspects: it is a character (in the standard representation), it denotes an area of non-marked space on a page, it indicates a possible place to split a line in normal formatting, etc. By carefully delineating the concepts involved in these different aspects, we can produce systems that are simpler, easier to understand, and more amenable to generalization. ------------------------------ From: Derek Sleeman Date: Sat 12 Oct 85 14:10:29-PDT Subject: Faculty & research openings To: ai-ed%sumex-aim.arpa@CSNET-RELAY COME TO BONNIE SCOTLAND FOR A WHILE......!!! Univerity of ABERDEEN (Scotland) DEPARTMENT of COMPUTING SCIENCE A major new initiative results in the following posts: 1 Senior Lecturer/Reader 3 or 4 Lecturers 4 or 5 Research Fellowships/Research Assistants/Programmers Majority of appointments to be made in the area of AI/Knowledge Engineering/Cognitive Science. Candidates from other areas are invited to apply. Further the department is anxious to receive applications for Visitors (at all levels) and postgraduate students - primarily in these areas. We expect to be able to provide financial support for both visitors and postgraduate students. The initial closing date is in October - but interested persons are encouraged to apply at any stage as it is not anticipated that all the advertized posts will be filled immediately. Interested persons are encouraged to get in touch with Derek Sleeman (SLEEMAN@SUMEX, +1 415 497 3257) who can also provided a set of further particulars. (Sleeman will be head of Computing Science at Aberdeen from summer '86.) Completed applications should be returned to the Personnel Officer, University Office, The University, Old Aberdeen, Scotland AB9 1FX. ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************