perm filename E86[JNK,JMC] blob
sn#821858 filedate 1986-07-30 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00722 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00094 00002
C00095 00003 ∂03-Apr-86 1409 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Martin Gardner, Scientific American Trivia Question
C00097 00004 ∂03-Apr-86 1412 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Documenting...
C00104 00005 ∂03-Apr-86 1718 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa new meeting time
C00105 00006 ∂03-Apr-86 1727 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Documenting...
C00107 00007 ∂03-Apr-86 1820 JOCK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA New machines
C00108 00008 ∂04-Apr-86 0820 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA Documenting...
C00114 00009 ∂04-Apr-86 0905 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Two New Books On The History of CS/EE at MIT and IBM
C00116 00010 ∂04-Apr-86 0911 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI: Late Announcement
C00118 00011 ∂04-Apr-86 0915 SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Research Seminar in Computational Geometry
C00120 00012 ∂04-Apr-86 1043 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Net-imagen now available for Symbolics
C00122 00013 ∂04-Apr-86 1301 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA CSL faculty cand--Pingali
C00127 00014 ∂04-Apr-86 1449 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Hardcopy with multiple fonts on Imagen printers
C00128 00015 ∂04-Apr-86 1537 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA DVI previewer now at WR
C00129 00016 ∂05-Apr-86 1042 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00149 00017 ∂05-Apr-86 1205 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00159 00018 ∂05-Apr-86 1520 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Forsythe
C00161 00019 ∂05-Apr-86 2014 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa Forsythe
C00163 00020 ∂06-Apr-86 1658 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH --Martin Abadi
C00166 00021 ∂07-Apr-86 0858 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA Announcement
C00167 00022 ∂07-Apr-86 0924 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Reception for Dr. Abe Peled, May 20
C00169 00023 ∂07-Apr-86 1037 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tues Lunch
C00171 00024 ∂07-Apr-86 1106 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA John Perry's seminar
C00172 00025 ∂07-Apr-86 1121 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Tape cartridges
C00173 00026 ∂07-Apr-86 1126 ROOTH@SU-CSLI.ARPA wedding party reminder
C00175 00027 ∂07-Apr-86 1439 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Symbolics machines
C00177 00028 ∂07-Apr-86 1702 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Phone List
C00178 00029 ∂08-Apr-86 1145 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting
C00179 00030 ∂08-Apr-86 1148 MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Temporary phone number
C00180 00031 ∂08-Apr-86 1228 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Informal talk on static allocation
C00182 00032 ∂08-Apr-86 1238 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Oops -- TUESDAY 4/15 is the date for talk. Sorry!
C00183 00033 ∂08-Apr-86 1421 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Book Sale--Lane Medical Library--April 15th
C00185 00034 ∂08-Apr-86 1434 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Socrates/Folio Accounts--New Students And Faculty
C00187 00035 ∂08-Apr-86 1526 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Colloquium change
C00188 00036 ∂08-Apr-86 1600 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Static allocation talk in afternoon?
C00190 00037 ∂08-Apr-86 1821 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
C00191 00038 ∂09-Apr-86 0602 PATASHNIK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Next AFLB's
C00193 00039 ∂09-Apr-86 1042 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Announcement
C00196 00040 ∂09-Apr-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Stapler/Hole Puncher
C00197 00041 ∂09-Apr-86 1405 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:reuling@su-navajo.arpa Please check your PEDIT entries
C00199 00042 ∂09-Apr-86 1605 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
C00200 00043 ∂09-Apr-86 1722 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 10, No. 11
C00209 00044 ∂10-Apr-86 1056 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA colloquium
C00210 00045 ∂10-Apr-86 1126 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Vladimir Lifschitz
C00213 00046 ∂10-Apr-86 1754 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Type determination in logic programs
C00221 00047 ∂10-Apr-86 1924 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon and L100 manuals.
C00222 00048 ∂10-Apr-86 2008 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Documenting...
C00225 00049 ∂11-Apr-86 0859 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Raymond Reiter
C00226 00050 ∂11-Apr-86 1155 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
C00229 00051 ∂11-Apr-86 1302 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
C00231 00052 ∂11-Apr-86 1341 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
C00234 00053 ∂11-Apr-86 1432 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa 1 more thought on types
C00235 00054 ∂11-Apr-86 1445 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tues Lunch
C00236 00055 ∂11-Apr-86 1559 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Informal talk on Static Allocation
C00238 00056 ∂11-Apr-86 1652 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library Technical Reports and AIList Tech. Rept. List--Comparison
C00241 00057 ∂12-Apr-86 1233 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Reference Materials on Prime Numbers
C00243 00058 ∂13-Apr-86 1829 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Reminder: tomorrow's PLANLUNCH
C00246 00059 ∂14-Apr-86 0034 @SUMEX-AIM.ARPA:vsingh@SRI-KL.ARPA Static Allocation
C00250 00060 ∂14-Apr-86 1420 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa book received
C00251 00061 ∂14-Apr-86 1422 maier%oregon-grad.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA DFA
C00255 00062 ∂14-Apr-86 1420 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Evals
C00258 00063 ∂14-Apr-86 1423 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C00261 00064 ∂14-Apr-86 1424 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science (continued)
C00264 00065 ∂14-Apr-86 1433 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Explorer release
C00266 00066 ∂14-Apr-86 1541 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 22 (B. Libet)
C00270 00067 ∂14-Apr-86 1607 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA S9 to be powered down.
C00272 00068 ∂14-Apr-86 1719 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C00273 00069 ∂14-Apr-86 1817 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2
C00274 00070 ∂14-Apr-86 2009 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Poligon changes and my absense.
C00282 00071 ∂15-Apr-86 0019 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM faculty candidates in theoretical computer science
C00288 00072 ∂15-Apr-86 0739 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Tuesday Lunch
C00289 00073 ∂15-Apr-86 0904 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library--Policy For Electronic Signup For New Books
C00293 00074 ∂15-Apr-86 1642 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa Next BATS: Tuesday, April 29 at Berkeley
C00295 00075 ∂15-Apr-86 1736 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00301 00076 ∂15-Apr-86 1749 PUBLICATIONS@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2
C00302 00077 ∂15-Apr-86 1902 REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty email addresses on Score
C00304 00078 ∂15-Apr-86 2210 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Rebooting Explorers
C00306 00079 ∂16-Apr-86 0551 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB's
C00316 00080 ∂16-Apr-86 0958 JF@su-sushi.arpa Copies of Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing Transparencies
C00318 00081 ∂16-Apr-86 1022 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tom Mitchell
C00321 00082 ∂16-Apr-86 1054 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
C00324 00083 ∂16-Apr-86 1202 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Fernando Pereira
C00328 00084 ∂16-Apr-86 1813 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 1
C00349 00085 ∂16-Apr-86 1911 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 2
C00366 00086 ∂16-Apr-86 2047 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 3
C00383 00087 ∂16-Apr-86 2142 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 4
C00409 00088 ∂16-Apr-86 2251 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 5
C00434 00089 ∂16-Apr-86 2354 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 6
C00461 00090 ∂17-Apr-86 0038 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 7 (and last)
C00479 00091 ∂17-Apr-86 0118 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 17, No. 12
C00487 00092 ∂17-Apr-86 0822 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tau Beta Pi
C00489 00093 ∂17-Apr-86 1015 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting today
C00490 00094 ∂17-Apr-86 1017 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library-Policy On Electronic Services Including Tech. Rept.
C00493 00095 ∂17-Apr-86 1057 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
C00494 00096 ∂17-Apr-86 1549 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Travel to PODC
C00497 00097 ∂18-Apr-86 1922 squires@ipto.ARPA Japanese representative
C00501 00098 ∂18-Apr-86 1925 squires@ipto.ARPA Re: Suggested Japanese representative for Common Lisp
C00503 00099 ∂19-Apr-86 1404 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese representative
C00509 00100 ∂20-Apr-86 0838 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Japanese Representative
C00510 00101 ∂20-Apr-86 0900 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese Representative
C00513 00102 ∂20-Apr-86 1001 RPG Chairman
C00514 00103 ∂20-Apr-86 1231 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Re: Chairman
C00516 00104 ∂20-Apr-86 1256 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Japanese Representative
C00517 00105 ∂20-Apr-86 1652 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA requests from project leaders
C00521 00106 ∂20-Apr-86 1919 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Fernando Pereira
C00524 00107 ∂21-Apr-86 0608 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa AFLB this week
C00532 00108 ∂21-Apr-86 0721 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas): Umesh Vazirani]
C00535 00109 ∂21-Apr-86 0844 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA message from/re Ida
C00542 00110 ∂21-Apr-86 0908 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Chairman
C00543 00111 ∂21-Apr-86 0932 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C00544 00112 ∂21-Apr-86 0939 EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Secretaries
C00545 00113 ∂21-Apr-86 0942 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C00546 00114 ∂21-Apr-86 0949 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA CSL fac cand--Ebeling
C00551 00115 ∂21-Apr-86 1025 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: Chairman
C00554 00116 ∂21-Apr-86 1039 BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA Courses and Degrees
C00556 00117 ∂21-Apr-86 1102 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
C00558 00118 ∂21-Apr-86 1108 RPG Should Mathis ...
C00559 00119 ∂21-Apr-86 1151 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
C00561 00120 ∂21-Apr-86 1155 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA Re: Secretaries
C00562 00121 ∂21-Apr-86 1200 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Candidates
C00564 00122 ∂21-Apr-86 1754 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Mathis as Chairman
C00565 00123 ∂21-Apr-86 1913 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
C00566 00124 ∂22-Apr-86 0540 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp
C00568 00125 ∂22-Apr-86 0732 DLW@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA Lisp conference
C00572 00126 ∂22-Apr-86 0745 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Lisp conference
C00575 00127 ∂22-Apr-86 0841 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
C00582 00128 ∂22-Apr-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
C00586 00129 ∂22-Apr-86 1256 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa Schedule for BATS: Tues. 4/29 at Berkeley
C00597 00130 ∂22-Apr-86 1300 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa BATS: approximate car count?
C00598 00131 ∂22-Apr-86 1335 Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA EuLisp
C00600 00132 ∂22-Apr-86 1336 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
C00601 00133 ∂22-Apr-86 1343 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA
C00602 00134 ∂22-Apr-86 1814 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
C00603 00135 ∂22-Apr-86 2134 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Specification Document
C00612 00136 ∂23-Apr-86 0924 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Specification Document
C00614 00137 ∂23-Apr-86 1121 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:JMC@SU-AI.ARPA Report on Scientific Contributions of Computer Science
C00616 00138 ∂23-Apr-86 1223 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Mailing lists
C00618 00139 ∂23-Apr-86 1359 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting
C00619 00140 ∂23-Apr-86 1442 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Ed Pednault
C00623 00141 ∂23-Apr-86 1451 Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA Specification Document
C00625 00142 ∂23-Apr-86 1813 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 24, No. 13
C00635 00143 ∂23-Apr-86 2243 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00664 00144 ∂24-Apr-86 0915 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
C00667 00145 ∂24-Apr-86 0945 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Socrates/Folio: Accounts and Accessing From Other Computers--New People To Stanford-Read
C00670 00146 ∂24-Apr-86 1033 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Candidates
C00671 00147 ∂24-Apr-86 1037 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Gray Tuesday letters
C00673 00148 ∂24-Apr-86 1155 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA class lists
C00674 00149 ∂24-Apr-86 1414 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
C00675 00150 ∂25-Apr-86 0826 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books-- Computer Science
C00678 00151 ∂25-Apr-86 0859 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
C00682 00152 ∂25-Apr-86 0947 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Logic seminar
C00684 00153 ∂25-Apr-86 1024 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA Re: Chairman
C00686 00154 ∂25-Apr-86 1028 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
C00688 00155 ∂25-Apr-86 1038 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA EuLisp
C00690 00156 ∂25-Apr-86 1315 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Chairman
C00692 00157 ∂26-Apr-86 1659 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Your opinion needed quickly
C00696 00158 ∂26-Apr-86 1906 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa Re: Your opinion needed quickly
C00698 00159 ∂27-Apr-86 1408 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: Your opinion needed quickly
C00700 00160 ∂27-Apr-86 2311 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Ed Pednault
C00704 00161 ∂28-Apr-86 0916 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C00705 00162 ∂28-Apr-86 1000 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Calendar update
C00709 00163 ∂28-Apr-86 1123 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU SESAME Colloquium TODAY (Mon.,4/28): Jean Lave
C00711 00164 ∂28-Apr-86 1437 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA John Batali
C00714 00165 ∂28-Apr-86 1652 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Explorer flavor inspector
C00715 00166 ∂28-Apr-86 1656 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C00716 00167 ∂28-Apr-86 1657 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
C00717 00168 ∂28-Apr-86 1725 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA volleyball
C00719 00169 ∂29-Apr-86 0611 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
C00724 00170 ∂29-Apr-86 0912 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluation results
C00725 00171 ∂29-Apr-86 0912 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluation results
C00726 00172 ∂29-Apr-86 0905 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 29 (Dedre Gentner)
C00731 00173 ∂29-Apr-86 0956 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
C00733 00174 ∂29-Apr-86 1134 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sunrise
C00736 00175 ∂29-Apr-86 1521 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
C00737 00176 ∂29-Apr-86 1536 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa another use for optimization
C00740 00177 ∂29-Apr-86 1601 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meet with AI faculty candidate Yoav Shoham
C00742 00178 ∂29-Apr-86 1622 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
C00745 00179 ∂30-Apr-86 0814 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA FALL RENTAL
C00747 00180 ∂30-Apr-86 1015 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Dr. Peled of IBM
C00749 00181 ∂30-Apr-86 1412 ULLMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA ACM elections
C00751 00182 ∂30-Apr-86 1438 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA exam rooms again
C00753 00183 ∂30-Apr-86 1526 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: student scholarship fund]
C00757 00184 ∂30-Apr-86 1722 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
C00758 00185 ∂30-Apr-86 1722 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Doug Edwards
C00762 00186 ∂30-Apr-86 1803 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 1, No. 14
C00780 00187 ∂01-May-86 0754 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
C00781 00188 ∂01-May-86 1028 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar -- May 6 (Paul Rosenbloom)
C00785 00189 ∂01-May-86 1124 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. Faculty Meeting
C00786 00190 ∂01-May-86 1419 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar updates
C00788 00191 ∂01-May-86 1431 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
C00790 00192 ∂01-May-86 1532 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA two invitations
C00792 00193 ∂01-May-86 1806 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA shoham
C00793 00194 ∂01-May-86 2218 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meet with AI faculty candidate John Batalli Mon. 5/5
C00795 00195 ∂02-May-86 0832 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA John Batali
C00796 00196 ∂02-May-86 0945 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa ACM Doctoral Dissertation competition
C00799 00197 ∂02-May-86 1240 marvit%hplpm%HPLABS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please add me to list
C00801 00198 ∂02-May-86 1500 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Technology Transfer/Japan
C00803 00199 ∂03-May-86 1455 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Computer Science And Engineering Programs: IEEE Publication And Abacus Articles
C00806 00200 ∂03-May-86 1529 squires@ipto.ARPA Japanese representative
C00810 00201 ∂03-May-86 1903 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese representative and other topics
C00815 00202 ∂04-May-86 1851 JOHNSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA Missing books...
C00817 00203 ∂04-May-86 2246 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder : Doug Edwards
C00821 00204 ∂05-May-86 0818 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C00822 00205 ∂05-May-86 0922 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Jean-Claude Latombe
C00823 00206 ∂05-May-86 0934 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI/Robotics Seminar
C00825 00207 ∂05-May-86 1159 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
C00828 00208 ∂05-May-86 1208 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C00831 00209 ∂05-May-86 1217 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Stat/Math
C00833 00210 ∂05-May-86 1615 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
C00834 00211 ∂05-May-86 1925 HCGRS%clemson.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
C00836 00212 ∂06-May-86 0615 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
C00841 00213 ∂06-May-86 1052 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Lisp Standardization
C00843 00214 ∂06-May-86 1137 BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA Summer RAships
C00845 00215 ∂06-May-86 1152 Joseph.Ginder%SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
C00847 00216 ∂06-May-86 1151 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA X3J13 Hull Pounding
C00852 00217 ∂06-May-86 1221 Joseph.Ginder%SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
C00854 00218 ∂06-May-86 1257 ROBINS%USC-ISIB.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
C00855 00219 ∂06-May-86 1505 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Come meet with robotics faculty candidate Jean-Claude Latombe
C00857 00220 ∂06-May-86 1832 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu REMINDER TO REGISTER FOR STOC
C00859 00221 ∂06-May-86 1934 taylor%hpldat%HPLABS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU What I don't understand...
C00862 00222 ∂07-May-86 0710 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Addition to mailing list
C00864 00223 ∂07-May-86 0806 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Parallel processing at Lockheed
C00865 00224 ∂07-May-86 0848 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Honors for Nils' Newsletter
C00867 00225 ∂07-May-86 1200 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Addition to mailing list
C00868 00226 ∂07-May-86 1349 DONOGHUE@SU-SCORE.ARPA My Upcoming Absence
C00870 00227 ∂07-May-86 1454 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jerry Hobbs
C00874 00228 ∂07-May-86 1500 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
C00875 00229 ∂07-May-86 1501 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C00876 00230 ∂07-May-86 1531 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Jean-Claude Latombe
C00878 00231 ∂07-May-86 1601 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Seminar
C00880 00232 ∂07-May-86 1708 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
C00883 00233 ∂07-May-86 1715 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 8, No. 15
C00891 00234 ∂08-May-86 0752 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
C00895 00235 ∂08-May-86 1144 EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Phone Marking
C00897 00236 ∂08-May-86 1224 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLUG Symposium--what do you want to find out?
C00899 00237 ∂08-May-86 1413 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Late Announcement
C00900 00238 ∂08-May-86 1503 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C00901 00239 ∂08-May-86 1529 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
C00902 00240 ∂08-May-86 1559 HOLDEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Stanford Child Language Research Forum
C00903 00241 ∂08-May-86 1603 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C00904 00242 ∂08-May-86 1738 BARWISE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Missing papers
C00905 00243 ∂08-May-86 2338 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C00911 00244 ∂09-May-86 0907 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Psychology Seminar
C00914 00245 ∂09-May-86 1130 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
C00916 00246 ∂09-May-86 1354 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C00917 00247 ∂09-May-86 1358 LINK@SU-CSLI.ARPA Good Bye
C00918 00248 ∂09-May-86 1917 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C00921 00249 ∂09-May-86 2316 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00923 00250 ∂10-May-86 0511 zimmer%LLL-TIS-A.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU genetic manipulation/remove me
C00926 00251 ∂10-May-86 0752 jcm%ORNL-MSR.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Mutant, Manipulated Ideas
C00931 00252 ∂10-May-86 0826 TONG%RED.RUTGERS.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please remove my name from this list
C00932 00253 ∂11-May-86 2210 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Computer Science and Technology Board
C00935 00254 ∂12-May-86 0625 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Vazirani paper
C00937 00255 ∂12-May-86 0907 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tuesday CSD Lunch
C00939 00256 ∂12-May-86 0943 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: Handbook For Writing Technical Proposals That Win Contracts
C00941 00257 ∂12-May-86 1156 rpg%brown.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU HELP!!!!!!
C00944 00258 ∂12-May-86 1215 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C00947 00259 ∂12-May-86 1241 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
C00950 00260 ∂12-May-86 1405 Stroick%HI-MULTICS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please remove me from this list (3rd time)!
C00951 00261 ∂12-May-86 1552 PETERS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Birth Announcement
C00952 00262 ∂12-May-86 1721 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C00955 00263 ∂12-May-86 1930 veach%ukans.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU please remove my name
C00957 00264 ∂12-May-86 2030 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA meet with AI faculty candidate Natarajan Shankar
C00959 00265 ∂12-May-86 2329 BENDA%USC-ISI.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU list maintenance
C00961 00266 ∂13-May-86 0001 AI.DUFFY%R20.UTEXAS.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Stop this nonsense.
C00963 00267 ∂13-May-86 0143 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
C00966 00268 ∂13-May-86 0751 NET-ORIGIN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU This List
C00967 00269 ∂13-May-86 0753 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLBs
C00969 00270 ∂13-May-86 0814 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C00973 00271 ∂13-May-86 0937 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Van Nguyen talk
C00977 00272 ∂13-May-86 1054 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C00978 00273 ∂13-May-86 1109 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Addition to mailing list
C00980 00274 ∂13-May-86 1142 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jock Mackinlay
C00985 00275 ∂13-May-86 1156 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA [Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: TALK BY VAN NGUYEN]
C00989 00276 ∂13-May-86 1406 MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Print Document
C00991 00277 ∂13-May-86 1439 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA copyrights
C00996 00278 ∂13-May-86 1742 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU copyrights
C01001 00279 ∂13-May-86 2220 JMC copyright holder
C01002 00280 ∂14-May-86 0621 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU copyright holder
C01004 00281 ∂14-May-86 0742 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA copyright holder
C01007 00282 ∂14-May-86 0917 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
C01008 00283 ∂14-May-86 0923 RPG Gentlemen,
C01010 00284 ∂14-May-86 1029 DLW@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Gentlemen,
C01012 00285 ∂14-May-86 1155 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Mike Genesereth
C01013 00286 ∂14-May-86 1503 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Sinking Explorer consoles
C01014 00287 ∂14-May-86 1710 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 15, No. 16
C01021 00288 ∂14-May-86 2347 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA WARNING: Free speech may be hazardous to your funding
C01025 00289 ∂15-May-86 0616 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa AFLB-like talk
C01028 00290 ∂15-May-86 0910 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa ACM Dissertation competition reminder
C01030 00291 ∂15-May-86 0958 YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA BIG BIKE ROUND-UP
C01032 00292 ∂15-May-86 1001 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa
C01033 00293 ∂15-May-86 1702 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:jlh@su-amadeus.arpa New Addition to the Faculty
C01035 00294 ∂15-May-86 1704 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 1
C01051 00295 ∂15-May-86 1730 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA shattering old myths
C01054 00296 ∂15-May-86 1751 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 2
C01078 00297 ∂15-May-86 1810 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA Want to advise freshman?
C01080 00298 ∂15-May-86 1900 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 3
C01102 00299 ∂15-May-86 1931 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA iso work on Lisp
C01114 00300 ∂15-May-86 2019 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 4
C01139 00301 ∂15-May-86 2052 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
C01160 00302 ∂15-May-86 2057 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU iso work on Lisp
C01166 00303 ∂15-May-86 2141 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 6
C01192 00304 ∂15-May-86 2210 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 7
C01204 00305 ∂16-May-86 0922 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Calendar update
C01206 00306 ∂16-May-86 1020 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
C01227 00307 ∂16-May-86 1245 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: Videotape Operation--More Classes And Machines
C01230 00308 ∂16-May-86 1451 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Congratulations to John Hennessy
C01232 00309 ∂16-May-86 1503 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Committee on Research Annual Open Meeting
C01235 00310 ∂16-May-86 1507 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: iso work on Lisp
C01237 00311 ∂16-May-86 1544 JJW Ignorant now usable
C01238 00312 ∂16-May-86 1624 BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA reminder: Peterson's Guides
C01240 00313 ∂16-May-86 1638 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * a csli-related event
C01241 00314 ∂16-May-86 1810 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: iso work on Lisp
C01243 00315 ∂16-May-86 1916 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU iso work on Lisp
C01251 00316 ∂16-May-86 2139 RPG ISO Lisp
C01253 00317 ∂16-May-86 2331 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday Reminder
C01254 00318 ∂17-May-86 0741 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU ISO Lisp
C01257 00319 ∂17-May-86 1227 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA 1987 Forsythe Lecture
C01258 00320 ∂17-May-86 1303 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
C01263 00321 ∂18-May-86 2126 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jock Mackinlay
C01268 00322 ∂19-May-86 1017 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General and Sr. Faculty Meetings
C01269 00323 ∂19-May-86 1046 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA AFT meeting
C01270 00324 ∂19-May-86 1104 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C01271 00325 ∂19-May-86 1806 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Reception for Dr. Peled Tuesday, May 20
C01272 00326 ∂19-May-86 1928 HALVORSEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Housing June 1 to June 21 for Jens Erik Fenstad
C01274 00327 ∂20-May-86 0615 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
C01276 00328 ∂20-May-86 1121 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * This friday-may 23rd * 4 o'clock
C01278 00329 ∂20-May-86 1418 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C01282 00330 ∂20-May-86 1433 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
C01286 00331 ∂20-May-86 1551 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar update
C01290 00332 ∂21-May-86 0923 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
C01291 00333 ∂21-May-86 1224 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Book on Deductive DB's
C01293 00334 ∂21-May-86 1252 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA NO PLANLUNCH NEXT MONDAY
C01294 00335 ∂21-May-86 1509 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA PhD Program revision
C01306 00336 ∂21-May-86 1800 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 22, No. 17
C01323 00337 ∂21-May-86 2237 G.MDP@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #14
C01349 00338 ∂22-May-86 0949 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FULLERTON@SU-SIERRA.ARPA Thanks to good donors
C01351 00339 ∂22-May-86 1105 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Brace yourself
C01354 00340 ∂22-May-86 1201 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * THISfriday * 4 o'clock
C01356 00341 ∂22-May-86 1307 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Emma Pease
C01358 00342 ∂22-May-86 1405 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Photocopying Policy
C01365 00343 ∂23-May-86 1139 vardi@su-aimvax.arpa Call for Papers
C01371 00344 ∂23-May-86 1248 YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA HOME-MADE ICE CREAM TODAY
C01373 00345 ∂23-May-86 1920 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Call for Papers
C01380 00346 ∂24-May-86 0008 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #14
C01396 00347 ∂24-May-86 1354 SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA File of drivers/riders for STOC
C01398 00348 ∂24-May-86 1724 JF@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Re: parking
C01400 00349 ∂26-May-86 1049 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Fridaynformation
C01402 00350 ∂26-May-86 1113 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA faculty meetings
C01405 00351 ∂26-May-86 1219 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Honors!
C01407 00352 ∂27-May-86 0605 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [franz!fimass!jkf: Where we stand ]
C01411 00353 ∂27-May-86 0611 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
C01412 00354 ∂27-May-86 0620 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
C01417 00355 ∂27-May-86 1140 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA colloquium
C01418 00356 ∂27-May-86 1154 RPG Mark Your Calendars
C01420 00357 ∂27-May-86 1234 Moon@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Where we stand
C01423 00358 ∂27-May-86 1247 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
C01426 00359 ∂27-May-86 1333 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Cage and Poligon.
C01428 00360 ∂27-May-86 1336 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Splitting the list
C01430 00361 ∂27-May-86 1336 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Splitting the list
C01432 00362 ∂27-May-86 1352 ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Where we stand
C01436 00363 ∂27-May-86 1434 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C01438 00364 ∂27-May-86 1446 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
C01440 00365 ∂27-May-86 1454 DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA Format of manual
C01444 00366 ∂27-May-86 1518 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
C01447 00367 ∂27-May-86 1545 Moon@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Where we stand
C01452 00368 ∂27-May-86 1658 JAR@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU text
C01453 00369 ∂27-May-86 2123 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
C01458 00370 ∂28-May-86 0838 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Top 10 Computer Companies
C01460 00371 ∂28-May-86 0932 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Journal--Discrete & Computational Geometry
C01463 00372 ∂28-May-86 1126 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Final results of Ph.D. admissions
C01474 00373 ∂28-May-86 1144 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA oops!
C01475 00374 ∂28-May-86 1236 COLEMAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Summer Housing available
C01477 00375 ∂28-May-86 1325 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: 1985 Alvey Computer Vision and Image Interpretation Meeting
C01479 00376 ∂28-May-86 1446 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluations
C01480 00377 ∂28-May-86 1447 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #15
C01524 00378 ∂28-May-86 1501 keller@utah-cs.ARPA SLP '86 Program
C01551 00379 ∂28-May-86 1544 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH: Charlie Koo
C01555 00380 ∂28-May-86 1723 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tuesday Lunch
C01557 00381 ∂28-May-86 1725 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 29, No. 18
C01562 00382 ∂28-May-86 1746 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #15
C01606 00383 ∂28-May-86 1749 PETERSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA bike bargains - last chance
C01608 00384 ∂28-May-86 2024 TREITEL@su-sushi.arpa trouble
C01610 00385 ∂29-May-86 1027 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Special Talk
C01611 00386 ∂29-May-86 1148 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General Faculty Meeting - June 3
C01612 00387 ∂29-May-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. Faculty Meeting
C01613 00388 ∂29-May-86 1156 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General Faculty Meeting
C01614 00389 ∂29-May-86 1416 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA commencement protocol
C01618 00390 ∂29-May-86 1454 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday meeting to be rescheduled
C01620 00391 ∂29-May-86 1653 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
C01622 00392 ∂29-May-86 1725 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
C01623 00393 ∂29-May-86 2217 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu POPL '87 Call for Papers
C01631 00394 ∂30-May-86 0745 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Foreigners
C01634 00395 ∂30-May-86 0912 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA 86-87 leave information
C01635 00396 ∂30-May-86 1257 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Foreigners
C01638 00397 ∂30-May-86 1318 Moon@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA Foreigners
C01640 00398 ∂30-May-86 1506 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
C01642 00399 ∂30-May-86 1540 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
C01645 00400 ∂31-May-86 1017 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Spring Picnic!
C01650 00401 ∂31-May-86 1927 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Proposed message
C01656 00402 ∂31-May-86 1932 MANCOSU@SU-CSLI.ARPA room for sublet.
C01657 00403 ∂01-Jun-86 1507 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Proposed message
C01659 00404 ∂01-Jun-86 1522 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Proposed message
C01661 00405 ∂01-Jun-86 1929 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tom Mitchell
C01663 00406 ∂01-Jun-86 1934 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA continued
C01665 00407 ∂01-Jun-86 2253 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Charlie Koo
C01669 00408 ∂02-Jun-86 0655 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA more continued
C01670 00409 ∂02-Jun-86 0846 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA [Carl Pollard <POLLARD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>: ESCOL 86]
C01673 00410 ∂02-Jun-86 0908 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
C01675 00411 ∂02-Jun-86 0918 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
C01678 00412 ∂02-Jun-86 1240 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Proposed message
C01679 00413 ∂02-Jun-86 1743 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. fac. mtg
C01680 00414 ∂02-Jun-86 1808 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C01682 00415 ∂03-Jun-86 0132 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic
C01684 00416 ∂03-Jun-86 0614 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
C01688 00417 ∂03-Jun-86 1045 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA two disk (floppy) pc
C01689 00418 ∂03-Jun-86 1151 RPG Japan
C01690 00419 ∂03-Jun-86 1155 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA EQRs
C01691 00420 ∂03-Jun-86 1239 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA [Bob Knight <KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>: [Angie Van Pelt <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>: XEROX DEMONSTRATION]]
C01694 00421 ∂03-Jun-86 1341 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japan
C01696 00422 ∂03-Jun-86 1647 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:LES@SU-AI.ARPA Courtesy Computer Accounts
C01713 00423 ∂03-Jun-86 2209 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic Directions
C01721 00424 ∂04-Jun-86 0902 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting cancelled
C01722 00425 ∂04-Jun-86 1224 RPG Japan
C01724 00426 ∂04-Jun-86 1453 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic -- last message
C01726 00427 ∂04-Jun-86 1502 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japan
C01728 00428 ∂04-Jun-86 1840 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, June 5, No. 19
C01738 00429 ∂05-Jun-86 0941 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Metaphilosophy issue on Computers and Ethics--Where to find on campus
C01741 00430 ∂05-Jun-86 1113 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA pc software
C01742 00431 ∂05-Jun-86 1522 RPG Japanese
C01745 00432 ∂05-Jun-86 1532 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jon Traugott
C01748 00433 ∂06-Jun-86 1252 BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Site Visit
C01752 00434 ∂06-Jun-86 1615 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
C01753 00435 ∂06-Jun-86 1620 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
C01754 00436 ∂06-Jun-86 1655 @su-sushi.arpa:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
C01755 00437 ∂06-Jun-86 1843 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #16
C01794 00438 ∂06-Jun-86 2017 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #16
C01833 00439 ∂08-Jun-86 1130 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
C01835 00440 ∂08-Jun-86 1638 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLUG '86
C01844 00441 ∂08-Jun-86 2058 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jon Traugott
C01847 00442 ∂09-Jun-86 0037 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:LES@SU-AI.ARPA Computer Facilities Policies
C01858 00443 ∂09-Jun-86 0128 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #17
C01898 00444 ∂09-Jun-86 0946 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Freshman Advisors
C01900 00445 ∂09-Jun-86 1022 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa summertime is here
C01902 00446 ∂09-Jun-86 1240 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA AFT meeting
C01904 00447 ∂09-Jun-86 1340 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA two outages
C01906 00448 ∂09-Jun-86 1540 LEORA@SU-CSLI.ARPA ventura printer
C01907 00449 ∂09-Jun-86 1607 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA still need advisors
C01909 00450 ∂09-Jun-86 1709 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C01910 00451 ∂10-Jun-86 0150 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #18
C01956 00452 ∂10-Jun-86 0656 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
C01958 00453 ∂10-Jun-86 0656 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
C01965 00454 ∂10-Jun-86 0735 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
C01966 00455 ∂10-Jun-86 0742 @GUIDO.THINK.COM:gls@AQUINAS.THINK.COM Mailing address
C01967 00456 ∂10-Jun-86 0935 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA Pierre is at LOTS
C01968 00457 ∂10-Jun-86 0943 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
C01970 00458 ∂10-Jun-86 0943 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Plans for Lisp Conference
C01971 00459 ∂10-Jun-86 1229 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Plans for Lisp Conference
C01973 00460 ∂10-Jun-86 1256 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
C01978 00461 ∂10-Jun-86 1316 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
C01980 00462 ∂10-Jun-86 1353 ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
C01982 00463 ∂10-Jun-86 1449 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades (again)
C01984 00464 ∂10-Jun-86 1449 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades (again)
C01986 00465 ∂10-Jun-86 1548 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
C01988 00466 ∂10-Jun-86 1607 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Connection Machine
C01992 00467 ∂10-Jun-86 1907 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
C01994 00468 ∂10-Jun-86 2122 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu MFCS 1986, Bratislava
C02027 00469 ∂10-Jun-86 2303 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:binford@su-whitney.arpa Connection Machine
C02029 00470 ∂11-Jun-86 0135 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #19
C02067 00471 ∂11-Jun-86 1015 DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Plans for Lisp Conference
C02069 00472 ∂11-Jun-86 1137 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH - Matt Ginsberg
C02072 00473 ∂11-Jun-86 1141 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
C02074 00474 ∂11-Jun-86 1409 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Plans for Lisp Conference
C02077 00475 ∂11-Jun-86 1410 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp
C02080 00476 ∂11-Jun-86 1410 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Japanese and European participation
C02083 00477 ∂11-Jun-86 1421 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Xerox Tour/Presentation
C02085 00478 ∂11-Jun-86 1449 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
C02089 00479 ∂11-Jun-86 1537 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, June 12, No. 20
C02092 00480 ∂11-Jun-86 1538 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:Zaenen.pa@Xerox.COM [Zaenen.pa: [jacobs%kbsvax.tcpip@ge-crd.arpa: upcoming talk]]
C02095 00481 ∂11-Jun-86 1539 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Speaker--Petr Sgall--6/17, 2:00
C02099 00482 ∂11-Jun-86 1551 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Japanese and European participation
C02100 00483 ∂11-Jun-86 1632 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades
C02101 00484 ∂11-Jun-86 1632 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades
C02102 00485 ∂11-Jun-86 1637 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA imagen vs. lineprinter
C02104 00486 ∂11-Jun-86 1702 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
C02105 00487 ∂11-Jun-86 2015 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu AEGEAN WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING (AWOC'86) :URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT
C02109 00488 ∂12-Jun-86 0331 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #20
C02152 00489 ∂12-Jun-86 1218 SELLS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Summer Meetings of Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure Project
C02157 00490 ∂12-Jun-86 1302 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Lisp Conference
C02159 00491 ∂12-Jun-86 1515 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM EuLisp
C02161 00492 ∂12-Jun-86 1651 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
C02164 00493 ∂12-Jun-86 1933 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:reid@decwrl.DEC.COM opera reviews
C02166 00494 ∂12-Jun-86 2234 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Common Lisp Meeting]
C02170 00495 ∂12-Jun-86 2236 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [Fahlman: Common Lisp Meeting]
C02177 00496 ∂12-Jun-86 2254 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Programme - ICALP 86
C02196 00497 ∂13-Jun-86 0122 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #21
C02207 00498 ∂13-Jun-86 1007 RPG Use of Lucid Manual
C02209 00499 ∂13-Jun-86 1121 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Use of Lucid Manual
C02213 00500 ∂13-Jun-86 1617 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: Exec Council Meeting]
C02216 00501 ∂13-Jun-86 1621 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA free tech conf registration
C02218 00502 ∂13-Jun-86 2149 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
C02232 00503 ∂14-Jun-86 0655 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp and Boston
C02235 00504 ∂14-Jun-86 1250 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Standards
C02241 00505 ∂14-Jun-86 1556 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Future of CS
C02245 00506 ∂15-Jun-86 2234 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Reminder -- Monday PLANLUNCH -- Matt Ginsberg
C02248 00507 ∂16-Jun-86 0925 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@su-sierra.arpa CSL Faculty candidate--MacQueen
C02250 00508 ∂16-Jun-86 0944 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA reminder
C02251 00509 ∂16-Jun-86 1006 RPG Various Issues
C02255 00510 ∂16-Jun-86 1140 JMC further development of Lisp
C02257 00511 ∂16-Jun-86 1303 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Various Issues
C02263 00512 ∂16-Jun-86 1435 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa CS future
C02272 00513 ∂16-Jun-86 1455 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA spraying for ants
C02274 00514 ∂16-Jun-86 1634 DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Various Issues
C02277 00515 ∂16-Jun-86 1942 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU further development of Lisp
C02280 00516 ∂16-Jun-86 1944 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Various Issues
C02285 00517 ∂16-Jun-86 2136 JF@su-sushi.arpa reprint giveaway
C02287 00518 ∂16-Jun-86 2158 MEGIDDO%IBM.COM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
C02312 00519 ∂16-Jun-86 2335 SELLS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Directed Reading in Government-Binding Theory
C02314 00520 ∂17-Jun-86 0859 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM further development of Lisp
C02318 00521 ∂17-Jun-86 1055 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Various Issues
C02324 00522 ∂17-Jun-86 1459 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Awards
C02326 00523 ∂17-Jun-86 1831 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Technical progress
C02333 00524 ∂17-Jun-86 2140 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
C02336 00525 ∂18-Jun-86 0148 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #22
C02347 00526 ∂18-Jun-86 0410 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C02354 00527 ∂18-Jun-86 0539 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: Standards
C02356 00528 ∂18-Jun-86 0704 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
C02360 00529 ∂18-Jun-86 0810 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Technical progress
C02366 00530 ∂18-Jun-86 0815 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Standards
C02368 00531 ∂18-Jun-86 0916 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
C02371 00532 ∂18-Jun-86 1002 RPG Volunteer
C02372 00533 ∂18-Jun-86 1018 WASOW@SU-CSLI.ARPA golden bicycles
C02374 00534 ∂18-Jun-86 1254 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Technical progress
C02380 00535 ∂19-Jun-86 1036 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA E-Mail
C02381 00536 ∂19-Jun-86 1155 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA Printer usage
C02384 00537 ∂20-Jun-86 0128 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
C02398 00538 ∂20-Jun-86 0139 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Housing Available
C02400 00539 ∂20-Jun-86 0146 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
C02404 00540 ∂20-Jun-86 0154 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C02407 00541 ∂20-Jun-86 0154 gls@Think.COM The Eulisp paper
C02413 00542 ∂20-Jun-86 0219 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where it all lives
C02416 00543 ∂20-Jun-86 0404 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
C02430 00544 ∂20-Jun-86 0517 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
C02444 00545 ∂20-Jun-86 0647 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
C02458 00546 ∂20-Jun-86 0744 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Eulisp paper
C02462 00547 ∂20-Jun-86 1103 TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLP '84
C02464 00548 ∂20-Jun-86 1439 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
C02465 00549 ∂22-Jun-86 1135 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA [Barbara J. Grosz <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>: transitions]
C02468 00550 ∂22-Jun-86 1844 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM The Eulisp paper
C02472 00551 ∂22-Jun-86 1920 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Eulisp paper
C02475 00552 ∂22-Jun-86 2341 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
C02480 00553 ∂23-Jun-86 0140 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #24
C02488 00554 ∂23-Jun-86 2039 JJW Alliant papers
C02489 00555 ∂24-Jun-86 1209 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
C02491 00556 ∂24-Jun-86 1347 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA spraying for ants
C02492 00557 ∂24-Jun-86 1516 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM
C02494 00558 ∂24-Jun-86 1606 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
C02496 00559 ∂24-Jun-86 1615 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 1
C02526 00560 ∂24-Jun-86 1718 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA Re: New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
C02528 00561 ∂24-Jun-86 1732 BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA THANKS
C02530 00562 ∂24-Jun-86 1748 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 2
C02569 00563 ∂24-Jun-86 1904 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol 1., No. 4, part 3
C02599 00564 ∂24-Jun-86 2001 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 4
C02617 00565 ∂24-Jun-86 2114 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 5
C02651 00566 ∂24-Jun-86 2230 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 6
C02680 00567 ∂24-Jun-86 2326 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 7
C02697 00568 ∂25-Jun-86 0831 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:jlh@sonoma.stanford.edu Weise
C02699 00569 ∂25-Jun-86 0954 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM a momentous event (7/1, 2:15 pm, 160-161K)
C02702 00570 ∂25-Jun-86 1140 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH hiatus
C02704 00571 ∂25-Jun-86 1414 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA enrollment
C02705 00572 ∂25-Jun-86 1454 REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA Register classes using LOTS
C02707 00573 ∂26-Jun-86 0341 vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
C02730 00574 ∂26-Jun-86 0810 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
C02732 00575 ∂26-Jun-86 1009 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C02734 00576 ∂26-Jun-86 1011 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C02736 00577 ∂26-Jun-86 1053 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
C02737 00578 ∂26-Jun-86 1055 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Copyright notice
C02740 00579 ∂26-Jun-86 2253 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
C02763 00580 ∂27-Jun-86 1130 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
C02766 00581 ∂27-Jun-86 1204 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C02769 00582 ∂27-Jun-86 1518 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
C02772 00583 ∂27-Jun-86 1641 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Copyrights
C02775 00584 ∂27-Jun-86 1720 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
C02778 00585 ∂27-Jun-86 1752 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Copyrights
C02783 00586 ∂27-Jun-86 1857 CHRIS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Goodbye
C02784 00587 ∂29-Jun-86 2314 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTURE of CS?
C02785 00588 ∂30-Jun-86 1111 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
C02787 00589 ∂30-Jun-86 1214 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C02789 00590 ∂30-Jun-86 1452 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTCS
C02791 00591 ∂30-Jun-86 1617 WESTERSTAHL@SU-CSLI.ARPA Goodbye
C02792 00592 ∂30-Jun-86 1719 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C02793 00593 ∂30-Jun-86 1744 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Message from Nils Nilsson
C02796 00594 ∂01-Jul-86 1115 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu PODC registration reminder
C02808 00595 ∂01-Jul-86 1157 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTCS
C02812 00596 ∂01-Jul-86 1603 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Summer Math seminars
C02814 00597 ∂01-Jul-86 2332 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
C02816 00598 ∂02-Jul-86 0622 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Special AFLB
C02819 00599 ∂02-Jul-86 0958 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:TIMOTHY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Open House at the Medical School Office Building
C02821 00600 ∂02-Jul-86 1032 berman@vaxa.isi.edu Support Proposal
C02876 00601 ∂02-Jul-86 1251 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM Primality testing seminar
C02878 00602 ∂03-Jul-86 0306 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting cancelled
C02879 00603 ∂03-Jul-86 0320 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C02880 00604 ∂03-Jul-86 0334 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
C02881 00605 ∂03-Jul-86 0348 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Special Talk
C02882 00606 ∂03-Jul-86 1316 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
C02883 00607 ∂03-Jul-86 1527 DELAGI@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA 9 July from 9:30 to 11:30
C02884 00608 ∂05-Jul-86 0823 griss%hplmlg@hplabs.HP.COM Manuals and standards hassles
C02890 00609 ∂06-Jul-86 1512 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Manuals and standards hassles
C02895 00610 ∂07-Jul-86 1120 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Results of SDF site visit
C02897 00611 ∂08-Jul-86 1233 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
C02898 00612 ∂08-Jul-86 1938 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Release.
C02907 00613 ∂09-Jul-86 0916 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA salaries
C02910 00614 ∂09-Jul-86 1057 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA inventions
C02912 00615 ∂09-Jul-86 1123 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Executive Council Meeting -- Sunday, Aug 10
C02914 00616 ∂09-Jul-86 1315 OLENDER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH
C02917 00617 ∂09-Jul-86 1412 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AAAI '86
C02918 00618 ∂09-Jul-86 1510 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Stanley Peter's mail address
C02919 00619 ∂09-Jul-86 1536 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meeting
C02922 00620 ∂09-Jul-86 1602 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Meeting
C02924 00621 ∂09-Jul-86 1608 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
C02925 00622 ∂09-Jul-86 1627 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Recursive negation
C02934 00623 ∂10-Jul-86 0156 vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA Negation
C02936 00624 ∂10-Jul-86 1015 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:ISRAEL@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA W.V.O. Quine
C02938 00625 ∂10-Jul-86 1017 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA
C02940 00626 ∂10-Jul-86 1059 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa future of CS
C02942 00627 ∂10-Jul-86 1108 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA modems
C02943 00628 ∂10-Jul-86 1127 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Manual and Release.
C02946 00629 ∂10-Jul-86 1141 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #25
C02958 00630 ∂10-Jul-86 1845 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Negation
C02960 00631 ∂11-Jul-86 1004 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Recursive negation
C02964 00632 ∂11-Jul-86 1006 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Committees
C02975 00633 ∂11-Jul-86 1149 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
C02977 00634 ∂11-Jul-86 1151 Mailer%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
C02979 00635 ∂11-Jul-86 1407 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA re: Recursive negation
C02981 00636 ∂11-Jul-86 1422 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
C02983 00637 ∂11-Jul-86 1507 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD-CF Change
C02986 00638 ∂11-Jul-86 1717 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA talk: program transformation, tuesday
C02991 00639 ∂11-Jul-86 1844 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #26
C03001 00640 ∂12-Jul-86 0727 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU phone lines and the }i
C03002 00641 ∂13-Jul-86 1423 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA lunch mtg Thurs
C03003 00642 ∂13-Jul-86 1427 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA faculty meeting
C03005 00643 ∂13-Jul-86 1429 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA ps
C03006 00644 ∂13-Jul-86 2343 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA reminder -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Kurt Konolige
C03009 00645 ∂14-Jul-86 0048 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #27
C03025 00646 ∂14-Jul-86 0538 KIPARSKY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU phone lines and the }i
C03026 00647 ∂14-Jul-86 0947 EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU [Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: talk: program transformation, tuesday]
C03032 00648 ∂14-Jul-86 1008 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
C03033 00649 ∂14-Jul-86 1438 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA talk, theorem proving, weds, 4:15, ej228
C03039 00650 ∂14-Jul-86 1453 BYRD@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Butterfly documentation
C03041 00651 ∂14-Jul-86 1533 CLT mini seminar series
C03043 00652 ∂14-Jul-86 1734 NUNBERG@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU new address
C03044 00653 ∂14-Jul-86 1853 @sushi.STANFORD.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Seeking roommate for PODC
C03046 00654 ∂15-Jul-86 0059 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #28
C03061 00655 ∂15-Jul-86 1108 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA Possible Appointment
C03066 00656 ∂15-Jul-86 1531 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA French au pair
C03067 00657 ∂15-Jul-86 1557 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA talk moved!
C03069 00658 ∂16-Jul-86 0614 PATASHNIK@sushi.STANFORD.EDU Special AFLB reminder
C03072 00659 ∂16-Jul-86 0851 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: faculty meeting]
C03075 00660 ∂16-Jul-86 0934 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Bill Croft talk
C03076 00661 ∂16-Jul-86 0944 WALDINGER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA reminder: theorem proving talk today at 4:15 in ej228
C03078 00662 ∂16-Jul-86 1126 @sushi.STANFORD.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM Sarnak's primality testing seminar
C03080 00663 ∂16-Jul-86 1324 CLT mini seminar series - revision
C03082 00664 ∂16-Jul-86 1645 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:levenson.pa@Xerox.COM RFH -- "Request For Host" now available for new student lunch
C03085 00665 ∂17-Jul-86 0900 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: lunch mtg Thurs]
C03087 00666 ∂17-Jul-86 1451 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU softball
C03088 00667 ∂17-Jul-86 1501 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU softball
C03089 00668 ∂17-Jul-86 1512 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA The Future of Computer Science
C03090 00669 ∂17-Jul-86 2343 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Power failures at Welch Rd.
C03092 00670 ∂17-Jul-86 2343 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Power failures at Welch Rd.
C03094 00671 ∂18-Jul-86 0114 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #29
C03101 00672 ∂18-Jul-86 1148 TREITEL@Sushi.Stanford.EDU trouble
C03102 00673 ∂18-Jul-86 1320 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA No PLANLUNCH this Monday
C03103 00674 ∂18-Jul-86 1331 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
C03105 00675 ∂18-Jul-86 1448 HANSON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU mysterious keys
C03106 00676 ∂18-Jul-86 1512 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: trouble
C03107 00677 ∂18-Jul-86 1638 glacier!hplabs!seismo!mcvax!crai!sacca@diablo.stanford.edu add me to nail
C03109 00678 ∂18-Jul-86 1824 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Poligon Release.
C03112 00679 ∂19-Jul-86 1108 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Snowbird Meeting
C03116 00680 ∂20-Jul-86 0017 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Computers & Mathematics Conference - Final Conference Announcement
C03133 00681 ∂20-Jul-86 1442 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA committees
C03140 00682 ∂20-Jul-86 1452 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu change of address
C03143 00683 ∂20-Jul-86 1753 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New L100 compiler
C03144 00684 ∂21-Jul-86 1044 BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA RAships
C03146 00685 ∂21-Jul-86 1655 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Getting to Russell from the Tips
C03148 00686 ∂21-Jul-86 1817 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Release.
C03150 00687 ∂22-Jul-86 1243 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Friday softball
C03152 00688 ∂23-Jul-86 1233 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
C03156 00689 ∂23-Jul-86 1339 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
C03159 00690 ∂23-Jul-86 1346 CLT mini seminar series
C03160 00691 ∂23-Jul-86 1409 SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA TI compact power supply
C03162 00692 ∂23-Jul-86 2135 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:NICHOLAS@IBM.COM Primality Testing Seminar
C03164 00693 ∂23-Jul-86 2148 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Call for papers - Workshop on Parallel Algorithms
C03170 00694 ∂24-Jul-86 0058 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #30
C03180 00695 ∂24-Jul-86 0745 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Lunch
C03181 00696 ∂24-Jul-86 0907 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA SOCRATES UPDATE: Technical Reports File--Numerical Analysis, Math, Stat Reports Added
C03185 00697 ∂24-Jul-86 1454 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Softball
C03187 00698 ∂25-Jul-86 0056 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #31
C03195 00699 ∂25-Jul-86 0158 teodor%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
C03208 00700 ∂25-Jul-86 0730 MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU Re: Japanese liaison
C03210 00701 ∂25-Jul-86 0911 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
C03212 00702 ∂25-Jul-86 1026 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM AND SURVEY
C03215 00703 ∂25-Jul-86 1500 JJW New world load for MJH Lisp machines
C03217 00704 ∂25-Jul-86 1518 gls@Think.COM Japanese liaison
C03220 00705 ∂25-Jul-86 1716 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM & SURVEY
C03223 00706 ∂25-Jul-86 1746 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
C03225 00707 ∂25-Jul-86 2219 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu short courses at UCSC
C03243 00708 ∂26-Jul-86 1417 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Back in the Saddle
C03247 00709 ∂26-Jul-86 1452 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
C03253 00710 ∂26-Jul-86 1935 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Lisp Conference handout
C03261 00711 ∂27-Jul-86 2257 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@cottage.wisc.edu TheoryNet strange message - explanation
C03263 00712 ∂27-Jul-86 2350 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
C03267 00713 ∂27-Jul-86 2353 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@cottage.wisc.edu TheoryNet strange message - explanation
C03269 00714 ∂28-Jul-86 0746 gls@Think.COM Japanese liaison
C03272 00715 ∂28-Jul-86 0806 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: fac mtg]
C03275 00716 ∂28-Jul-86 0851 gls@Think.COM The Lisp Conference handout
C03277 00717 ∂28-Jul-86 0912 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu paper received
C03278 00718 ∂28-Jul-86 0926 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu Getting copies of papers
C03280 00719 ∂28-Jul-86 1034 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu publications
C03282 00720 ∂28-Jul-86 1149 OHLANDER@B.ISI.EDU Re: Japanese liaison
C03283 00721 ∂28-Jul-86 1616 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:TAJNAI@Sierra.Stanford.EDU CSD Reunion
C03285 00722 ∂29-Jul-86 0642 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Japanese liaison
C03289 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂03-Apr-86 1409 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Martin Gardner, Scientific American Trivia Question
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Apr 86 14:09:11 PST
Date: Thu 3 Apr 86 13:23:31-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Martin Gardner, Scientific American Trivia Question
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12195958969.26.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
A fellow librarian has passed to me the following question: Martin
Gardner at some point praised Harry Mathews' novel, Tlooth in his
Scientific American column Mathematical Puzzles. Mathew's novel was
published in 1966. Does anyone know which column (volume, year, page)
contains Gardner's remarks abouth Tlooth?
The first one who can give this librarian the right answer will
receive an amnesty on overdue books or two free reservation slots
for the videotapes.
Harry Llull
P.S. Does anyone know how I can make sure this message gets to Don Knuth
and where to send it to Doug Hofstadter?
-------
∂03-Apr-86 1412 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Documenting...
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Apr 86 14:11:30 PST
Date: 3 Apr 1986 14:11-PST
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Documenting...
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 3-Apr-86 14:11:16.MATHIS>
This message is in response to previous messages on the topics of
"Getting things rolling" and "Documenting our decisions"; I raise
three points -- a trip to Paris on May 5 to meet with the EU←LISP
Committee, some information on copyrights and ANSI standards, and
what is the central essence of Common Lisp?
Committee organization -- I think I was drafted to do the
organizational and administrative work associated with the
steering committee. I'll keep doing that. As to a formal
meeting; I don't think one is necessary yet.
I will send out a message requesting (again) the identification
of people and companies participating in this process. This will
probably need to be done two or three more times before the end
of 1986.
As to ARPA net access; there are some possibilities that people
on the Source or CompUServe or MCI-Mail may be able to
communicate with ARPA net mail in ways similar to USE net or
CSnet. ARPA net access may only be a temporary problem and as
such Steph Squires seemed willing to help with any real needs.
I will probably attend the May 5 meeting of the EU←LISP committee
in Paris. On administrative and standards issues, I feel
prepared; on technical issues, I need some guidance. I talked to
Chailloux this morning and I expect to have a couple of other
discussions before the trip. He always seems reasonable and
willing to talk.
What is the central essence of Common Lisp? If I had a better
understanding of this, I think I could understand the European
"levels" approach better. There is more to it than just the name
given to a particular function or how a particular function is
specified or how it is implemented or made available to a user.
Those kinds of things can be worked out. More difficult are
fundamental things (for example, how scopes are handled). Is
there a list of what the fundamental concepts or approaches are?
This is also linked to the question of validation. What does it
take to be considered a Common Lisp implementation? Is there a
minimal acceptable level?
Are there other things I should consider in meeting with the
EU←LISP group? Does anyone else want to go?
Another issue that has been raised is the copyright and
availability of the final standard. In general ANSI holds the
copyright to their standards. They also want to encourage the
use of their standards and don't want copyright problems to stand
in the way. When something is in the public domain, there is no
control over its use. I think what we are really interested in
is a pre-arranged, royalty-free permission to use.
I talked to Cathy Kachurik of X3 about this copyright situation.
She has already contacted Digital Press and they seem willing to
turn over the right to produce a derived work. That would free
us to use as much or as little from the Steele book as is now
thought appropriate.
We should begin to make a list of the kinds of things we want
people to be able to do with the standard -- provide machine
readable copies with a language processor, incorporate it into
automatic documentation or help systems, reprint sections in
manuals or text books, and so forth. I think it is best that we
come up with such a list and then build it into the overall plan
of work for X3J13. We will also have to arrange for distribution
of any versions other than the ANSI printed one. ISI may be the
best for the "standard" one and CMU for "enhanced or modified or
working" versions.
-- Bob Mathis
∂03-Apr-86 1718 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa new meeting time
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Apr 86 17:13:11 PST
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Thu, 3 Apr 86 17:02:57 pst
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 86 17:02:57 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: new meeting time
To: nail@diablo
The new meeting time has been set at 11AM Thursdays.
If there are any objections, let me know now.
Also, everybody is already 6 hours late for today's meeting.
∂03-Apr-86 1727 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Documenting...
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Apr 86 17:27:23 PST
Date: 3 Apr 1986 17:27-PST
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Documenting...
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA] 3-Apr-86 17:27:08.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 3-Apr-86 14:11:16.MATHIS>
In regards to Arpanet access, ISI is working on a commercial mail
system that will allow access to the Arpanet through commercial
systems such as MCI-mail, Telemail, etc. We already have a
prototype working with quite a few users, including a number of
people from IEEE executive and steering committees. We
expect the final system to be ready within the next 3 months.
Ron Ohlander
∂03-Apr-86 1820 JOCK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA New machines
Received: from [36.36.0.196] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Apr 86 18:20:35 PST
Date: Thu 3 Apr 86 18:21:35-PST
From: Jock Mackinlay <JOCK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: New machines
To: mjh-lispm@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196013230.10.JOCK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Please welcome ludicrous and dubious to MJH. Their faces are in 222 and
248; their brains are in the machine room.
Jock
-------
∂04-Apr-86 0820 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA Documenting...
Received: from GODOT.THINK.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 08:18:37 PST
Received: from katherine by GODOT.THINK.COM via CHAOS; Fri, 4 Apr 86 11:18:56 est
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 86 11:20 EST
From: Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>
Subject: Documenting...
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 3-Apr-86 14:11:16.MATHIS>
Message-Id: <860404112031.3.GLS@THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA>
Date: 3 Apr 1986 14:11-PST
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
...
Another issue that has been raised is the copyright and
availability of the final standard. In general ANSI holds the
copyright to their standards. They also want to encourage the
use of their standards and don't want copyright problems to stand
in the way. When something is in the public domain, there is no
control over its use. I think what we are really interested in
is a pre-arranged, royalty-free permission to use.
I talked to Cathy Kachurik of X3 about this copyright situation.
She has already contacted Digital Press and they seem willing to
turn over the right to produce a derived work. That would free
us to use as much or as little from the Steele book as is now
thought appropriate. ...
I have just spoken with John Osborn of Digital Press on this subject.
He was apparently concerned about whether I was concerned about it--in
other words, the usual problem of obtaining N-person consensus using
only 2-person communications links. I assured him that I wanted the
ANSI committee to be able to use the contents of CLtL unimpeded. He
said that Digital Press is agreeable to an arrangement whereby ANSI
receives permission royalty-free to use any or all contents of CLtL for
the purposes of developing a Common Lisp standard (while Digital Press
retains the right to publish present and future editions of the existing
book). He said Digital Press is still making piles of money on CLtL and
would like to continue to do so, and suggested that future editions
might be more "personal" or "tutorial" or whatever. I pointed out that
that was reasonable, but also that I would likely be involved in the
ANSI effort as well. (I still have some concerns about potential
confusion over which book is the official Common Lisp; if CLtL continues
into future editions, I think it must change its character so as not to
be confusable with the ANSI standard.)
Apparently other parts of DEC (Gary Brown's name was mentioned) are
putting mild pressure on Digital Press to cooperate with ANSI, so maybe
it will all go smoothly after all.
If Lucid is still willing to make its text available, then the committee
will have some useful choices about which text to draw on for what
purposes. (I too would like to see the text, by the way, Dick.)
--Guy
P.S. Lucid's document uses TeX, and I am in process of converting CLtL
from SCRIBE to TeX, so maybe the committee will want to work with TeX
files. I have some nifty macros: all you need to say is
\begin{defun}
complex realpart &optional imagpart
The arguments must be non-complex numbers...
\end{defun}
and the function description headers are formatted (fonts and line
breaks) automatically. There are similar facilities for macros, etc.
--Q
∂04-Apr-86 0905 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Two New Books On The History of CS/EE at MIT and IBM
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 08:52:18 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 08:51:58-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Two New Books On The History of CS/EE at MIT and IBM
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@[36.63.0.171]
Message-ID: <12196171680.35.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
In Math/CS Library, we have received the following two books:
IBM's Early Computers. by Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer,
and Emerson W. Pugh. This is an MIT press publication and is a third title
in a series. The other two titles are: Memoires That Shaped An Industry
by Emerson W. Pugh and Memoirs Of A Computer Pioner by Maurice V. Wilkes.
IBM's Early Computers is on our new books shelf--QA76.8.I1015.I245 1986.
A Century Of Electrical Engineering And Computer Science At MIT, 1882-1982.
by Karl L. Wildes and Nilo A. Lindgren. MIT Press. TK210.M3.W55 1985 c.2
(on our new books shelf, and a copy also is in Green Library) You will
find a very familiar face on page 343.
Harry Llull
-------
∂04-Apr-86 0911 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI: Late Announcement
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 09:05:17 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 09:02:11-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI: Late Announcement
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
The following is a late announcement.
---------------
Seminar in Logic and Foundations of Mathematics
Speaker: Gordon Plotkin, Computer Science, Edinburgh University
Title: Some exercises in Frege structures
Time: Tuesday, April 8, 4:15-5:30
Place: 3d Floor, Mathematics Dept. Lounge 383N, Stanford University
S. Feferman (sf@su-csli.arpa)
-------
-------
∂04-Apr-86 0915 SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Research Seminar in Computational Geometry
Received: from [36.36.0.196] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 08:43:28 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 08:42:11-PST
From: Alejandro Schaffer <SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: Research Seminar in Computational Geometry
To: aflb.su@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, csd@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
cc: guibas@DECWRL.DEC.COM, hershberger@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196169897.17.SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Professor Leo Guibas will be leading a Research Seminar in
Computational Geometry this quarter. The seminar is primarily intended
for students who would like to do research in this fascinating area of
Computer Science. Anyone who has taken Professor Guibas's
Computational Geometry course (CS368, formerly CS268) should be
adequately prepared. The first meeting will be at Building 200
(History Corner), Room 105 at Noon on Friday 11 April; to get to the
room turn right at the first opportunity after entering the building
and walk most of the way down the corridor. We plan to meet at the
same time and place every Friday for the rest of the quarter. I will be
maintaining a mailing list of those who are interested; if you are
interested, send a message to schaffer@sushi.
-------
∂04-Apr-86 1043 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Net-imagen now available for Symbolics
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 10:40:09 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 10:36:48-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Net-imagen now available for Symbolics
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196190763.70.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
The tool NET-IMAGEN now works on the Symbolics machines at WR.
All the normal Symbolics hardcopy facilities seem to work except
SAGE hardcopy. These include the M-X Hardcopy XXX in Zmacs, the
Hardcopy XXX CP commands, the Hardcopy option of the system menu,
Function Q, and the hardcopy functions. Note that, by default,
Symbolics does not pay attention to the font list of a file. You
have to use something like the :FONTS keyword with the Hardcopy
File CP command to get fonts. The fonts available like this are
not exactly the same as the Lisp (TV) fonts. Use FIX10 for CPTFONT,
FIX12 for MEDFNT, FIX6 for TVFONT, etc. Experimentation is in order.
Again, tools can be loaded using LOAD-TOOLS.
-- Rich
-------
∂04-Apr-86 1301 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA CSL faculty cand--Pingali
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 12:20:28 PST
Received: from SU-SIERRA.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 4 Apr 86 12:09:02-PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 11:54:39-PST
From: Sharon Gerlach <CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
Subject: CSL faculty cand--Pingali
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: csl.gerlach@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
Keshav Pingali is a CSL faculty candidate from MIT who will
be interviewing on Thur, April 10. His interests are in functional
languages and architectures and his thesis deals with performing
demand-driven evaluation on dataflow machines.
If you would like to talk with him, we have the following slots
available: 9, 11, 1, 2, and dinner (let me know your preference).
His seminar will be at 4:00 in MJH 352.
Abstract
LAZY EVALUATION ON DATAFLOW MACHINES
K. Pingali
Dataflow machines are designed for data-driven evaluation of functional
language programs. In this paradigm of evaluation, operations can
execute as soon as their inputs are available. While this permits an efficient
uncovering of parallelism in programs, it can generate much computation that
is not needed to produce the output of the program. This problem becomes
critical in implementing functional languages with infinite data objects such
as streams. For such languages, an alternative paradigm of evaluation,
called lazy evaluation, is better since it performs only those
computations which are required to produce the output of the program.
It is commonly thought that lazy evaluation requires a different
model of computation called reduction.
In this talk, we show that dataflow machines can be used in a very natural
way to perform lazy evaluation. The key idea is to transform a functional
program into another functional program so that a data-driven
evaluation of the target program performs precisely those computations
that would have been performed by a lazy evaluation of the source
program. The transformation itself is of some theoretical interest since it
provides a simple denotational characterization of lazy evaluation.
This transformation can be refined to yield a more efficient transformation for
which the target language is a functional language in which data structures
behave like logical variables.
It is possible to apply the transformation to selected
portions of the program. By compiling different target programs,
a dataflow machine can be used to
implement the full range of execution strategies from completely data-driven
to completely lazy evaluation of the source program.
The execution model for this new language sheds
new light on the connections between dataflow and reduction.
-------
-------
∂04-Apr-86 1449 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Hardcopy with multiple fonts on Imagen printers
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 14:45:58 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 14:45:51-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Hardcopy with multiple fonts on Imagen printers
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196236100.56.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I just found out that the Hardcopy-Fonts mode line attribute can be
used on Symbolics machines to specify fonts for printing.
-- Rich
-------
∂04-Apr-86 1537 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA DVI previewer now at WR
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Apr 86 15:37:46 PST
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 15:38:11-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: DVI previewer now at WR
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196245629.70.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
The DVI previewer for Symbolics LispMs is now up at Welch Rd.
Either load the tool DVI or do (make-system 'dvi). This is a
very nice tool for anyone using TeX or LaTeX.
-- Rich
-------
∂05-Apr-86 1042 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
Received: from [36.36.0.196] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Apr 86 10:42:04 PST
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-SUSHI.ARPA with TCP; Sat 5 Apr 86 10:38:18-PST
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Received: from iowa-state by csnet-relay.csnet id ad24664; 3 Apr 86 23:49 EST
Received: by isucs1.UUCP (4.12.01/2.02)
id AA10189; Thu, 3 Apr 86 13:18:36 cst
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 86 13:18:36 cst
From: Alan Selman <selman%iowa-state.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: theory%rsch.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 05 Apr 86 12:00:05 CST (Sat)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Structure in Complexity Theory Conference
MEMO: Registration forms and conference information for the Structure
in Complexity Theory Conference are being mailed by ACM together with
the brochures for STOC. You may not receive these until the middle of
April and so I advise you to register for conference participation
by filling out a facsimile of the registration form to follow.
ADVANCE REGISTRATION FORM
Make checks payable to STRUCTURE CONFERENCE..
Please pay in U.S. funds. (Separate Checks are required
for payment of registration fees for ACM STOC and for
this conference.) Send check and completed form to:
Structure Conference
c/o E.L. Lawler
Computer Science Division
573 Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720
Registration Fees: By May 14 After May 14
Nonstudent $ 75 [ ] $125 [ ]
Student $ 40 [ ] $ 70 [ ]
Preference for lodging at Dwight/Derby:
Dwight/Derby room charges are payable at time of check-in by
cash or check (no credit cards) payable to STRUCTURE CONFERENCE.
Room charges include breakfast each morning; Saturday arrivals
are entitled to Sunday brunch.
Accompanying persons not registered at the conference may wish to
purchase a luncheon ticket good for four days at $30.00. These
will not be available at the conference and must be paid in advance
with this form.
[ ] Single occupancy, arrival Saturday, May 31, $262.50
[ ] Double occupancy, arrival Saturday, May 31, $187.50 per person
[ ] Single occupancy, arrival Sunday, June 1, $218.75
[ ] Double occupancy, arrival Sunday, June 1, $156.25 per person
[ ] Number of luncheon tickets at $30.00 per ticket.
All lodging rates are calculated with Friday, June 6, departure.
Lodging and meals at Dwight/Derby cannot be guaranteed for late
registrants.
I wish to share double occupancy of a room with:
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Name:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
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CONFERENCE INFORMATION
LOCATION: Conference activities will be at the Dwight/Derby
Complex of the University of California at Berkeley.
This is at 2600 Warring St., between Dwight and Derby Sts.,
about a quarter mile southeast of the main campus area.
The Dwight/Derby Complex is the former campus of the
California School for the Deaf and Blind. The buildings
have been recently renovated to provide attractive
and comfortable student housing. On site are a swimming
pool, tennis courts, a running track and a weight room.
A nominal charge for use of athletic facilities can
be paid at the time of the conference.
The housing units offered to participants of this conference
at Dwight/Derby are in the form of suites.
These typically consist of two bedrooms, a living room
and a shared bathroom.
Either one or two persons may occupy a bedroom.
(Only single beds are available.)
Because of contractual agreement with the university,
participants lodging at Dwight/Derby
must elect to arrive Saturday, May 31, or Sunday, June 1,
and must pay to stay through Friday, June 6.
Selection of Saturday arrival is recommended for persons
staying over after the STOC conference.
Rates are indicated on the Advance Registration Form.
Participants should try to check into Dwight/Derby
housing before 9pm, when the entrance to the main
building will be locked. With some inconvenience, it
will be possible to check in at a later hour by calling
the number posted at the entrance. Please indicate
on your advance registration form if you plan to arrive
later than 9pm.
Conference participants will be expected to pay their Dwight/Derby
room charges at the time they check in. Only
cash, personal checks or traveler's checks can be accepted,
since there will be no provision for accepting credit
cards.
ALTERNATIVE HOUSING: Conference participants desiring
the greater flexibility of
hotel housing are advised to make reservations at the
Hotel Durant, 2600 Durant Ave., about a quarter mile
from the Dwight/Derby Complex. A block of rooms has
been reserved at the special conference rate of $62 for single
occupancy and $72 for double occupancy plus 10% tax, provided reservations
are made in advance of May 1.
Continental breakfast is included in the room charge.
Conference participants should
make their own reservations by calling
800-2DURANT, 800-5DURANT, or 415-845-8981 and
informing the hotel that they will be attending the
``Computer Science'' Conference.
TRANSPORTATION: The best way to get to Berkeley
from the San Francisco Airport is by means of
the shuttle service called the Airport Connection,
for a charge of $12, compared with a taxi fare of
$30-35. This service ordinarily stops
at the Hotel Durant, but the driver may be persuaded
to stop at Dwight/Derby. Be sure to make
a reservation in advance of traveling by calling
1-800-AIRPORT.
>From the Oakland airport, one may take either a taxi
directly to Berkeley for about $20, or else take
the shuttle bus from the airport to the Coliseum
station of BART, the BART train to the Berkeley
station, and a taxi from the Berkeley station, for
a total cost of about $6.
REGISTRATION: A registration desk will be open
Sunday night at Dwight/Derby from 6pm to 9pm and
during the day Monday from 8:30am to 12:30pm.
Registration fees for nonstudents and students
include the technical sessions, a copy of the proceedings,
coffee and beverage breaks, the Sunday evening reception,
and lunch Monday through Thursday.
Student registration fees are subsidized with funds provided
by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
RECEPTION: A reception will be held Sunday evening, June 1,
from 8pm to 11pm at the Dwight/Derby Complex.
CLIMATE: The weather will probably be pleasant
and sunny during the day, but cool in the evening.
First time visitors to San Francisco may find the city
surprisingly chilly.
Structure in Complexity Theory Conference
Program
SESSION 1: Monday, June 2, 8:45-12:30 p.m.
Chair: Juris Hartmanis, Cornell University
8:45 a..m. Expanders, Randomness, or Time vs. Space,
M. Sipser, University of California, Berkeley
9:45 a.m. Depth-Size Tradeoff for Boolean Circuits with Unbounded Fan-In,
J. Lynch, Clarkson Univ.
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00 a.m. With Probability One, a Random Oracle Separates PSPACE
from the Polynomial-Time Hierarchy,
J. Cai, Cornell University
11:45 a.m. On Nonuniform Polynomial Space,
J. Balcazar, J. Diaz, and J. Gabarro,
Facultat d'Informatica de Barcelona
SESSION 2: Monday, June 2, 2:00-5:30 p.m.
Chair: Peter Van Emde Boas, Univ. of Amsterdam
2:00 p.m. Bounded Oracles and Complexity Classes Inside Linear Space,
C. Tretkoff, Brooklyn College
2:45 p.m. Two Lower Bound Arguments with ``Inaccessible'' Numbers,
M. Dietzfelbinger, W. Maass, University of Illinois at Chicago
3:30 p.m. Beverage Break
4:00 p.m. Parallel Computation with Threshold Functions,
I. Parberry, G. Schnitger, Penn. State Univ.
4:45 p.m. The Complexity of Optimization Problems,
M. Krentel, Cornell University
SESSION 3: Tuesday, June 3, 8:45-12:30 p.m.
Chair: Alan L. Selman, Iowa State University
8:45 a.m. Diagonalization Methods in a Polynomial Setting,
L. Torenvliet, P. Van Emde Boas, Univ. of Amsterdam
9:45 a.m. The Boolean Hierarchy: Hardware over NP,
J. Cai, L. Hemachandra , Cornell University
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00 a.m. Relativized Alternation,
J. Buss, M.I.T.
11:45 a.m. Parallel Computation and the NC Hierarchy Relativized,
C. Wilson, University of Oregon
SESSION 4: Tuesday, June 3, 2:00-5:30 p.m.
Chair: Michael Sipser, Univ. of California, Berkeley
2:00 p.m. An Optimal Lower Bound for Turing
Machines with One Work Tape and a Two-Way Input Tape,
W. Maass, University of Illinois at Chicago;
G. Schnitger, Pennsylvania State University
2:45 p.m. The Power of Queues,
M. Li, Ohio State;
L. Longpre,U. of Washington;
and P. Vitanyi, Centre for Math. & Comp. Science, the Netherlands
3:30 p.m. Beverage Break
4:00 p.m. What Is a Hard Instance of a Computational Problem?,
K. Ko, U. of Houston;
P. Orponen, U. of Helsinki;
U. Schoning, EWH Koblenz;
O. Watanabe, Tokyo Institute of Technology
4:45 p.m. Resource-Bounded Kolmogorov Complexity of Hard Languages,
D. Huynh, Iowa State University
SESSION 5: Wednesday, June 4, 8:45-12:30 p. m.
Chair: Harry Lewis, Harvard University
8:45 a.m. Localized Nondeterminism and Separation Results,
K. McAloon, Brooklyn College of CUNY
9:45 a.m. The Topology of Provability in Complexity Theory,
K. Regan, Merton College, Oxford
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00 a.m. The Polynomial Hierarchy and Intuitionistic Bounded Arithmetic,
S. Buss, Math. Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley
11:45 a.m. Exponential Time and Bounded Arithmetic,
P. Clote, Boston College;
G. Takeuti, University of Illinois at Urbana
SESSION 6: Wednesday, June 4, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Chair: Kenneth McAloon, Brooklyn College
2:00 p.m. Kolmogorov Complexity and Computational Complexity,
J. Hartmanis, Cornell University
3:00 p.m. Optimal Approximations of Complete Sets,
D. Russo, U. of California, Santa Barbara
3:45 p.m. Beverage Break
4:15 p.m. The Complexity of Sparse Sets in P,
E. Allender, Rutgers University
SESSION 7: Thursday, June 5, 8:45-12:30 p.m.
Chair: Steven Mahaney, AT&T Bell Labs
8:45 a.m. Promise Problems, One-Way Functions, and Public-Key Cryptography,
A. Selman, Iowa State Univ.
9:45 a.m. One-Way Functions and Circuit Complexity,
R. Boppana, M.I.T.;
J. Lagarias, AT&T Bell Labs
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00 a.m. Isomorphisms and 1-L Reductions,
E. Allender, Rutgers Universtiy
11:45 a.m. A Note on One-Way Functions and Polynomial-Time Isomorphisms,
K. Ko, U. of Houston;
T. Long, Ohio State Univ.;
and D. Du, Math. Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley
SESSION 8: Thursday, June 5, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Chair: Paul Young, University of Washington
2:00 p.m. Randomness, Relativizations, and Polynomial Reducibilities,
K. Ambos-Spies, Universitat Dortmund
2:45 p.m. Probabilistic Game Automata,
A. Condon, R. Ladner, University of Washington
3:30 p.m. Beverage Break
4:00 p.m. Probabilistic Quantifiers and Games: An Overview,
S. Zachos, Brooklyn College of CUNY
--------------
TN Message #37
--------------
∂05-Apr-86 1205 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
Received: from [36.36.0.196] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Apr 86 12:05:47 PST
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-SUSHI.ARPA with TCP; Sat 5 Apr 86 12:01:57-PST
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Message-Id: <8604050244.AA15714@rsch.wisc.edu>
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Date: 4 Apr 86 17:55:50 PST
From: HALPERN@IBM.COM
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 05 Apr 86 12:00:50 CST (Sat)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Subject: PODC schedule
5th ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
Program Schedule
Mon., Aug. 11
Session 1
Chair: Nissim Francez, Technion
9:00 - 10:00 - Randomization in Distributed and Parallel Systems
- Michael Rabin, Harvard/Hebrew University
10:00 - 10:30 - Coffee break
Session 2
Chair: David Cheriton, Stanford
10:30 - 11:00 - Correctness Conditions for Highly Available Replicated
Databases
- Nancy Lynch, Barbara Blaustein, Michael Siegel
- MIT and CCA, CCA, Boston University and CCA
11:00 - 11:30 - Highly-Available Distributed Services and Fault-Tolerant
Distributed Garbage Collection
- Barabara Liskov, Rivka Ladin
- MIT
11:30 - 12:00 - Transaction Commit in a Realistic Fault Model
- Brian Coan, Jennifer Lundelius
- MIT
12:00 - 2:00 - Lunch
Session 3
Chairman: Sam Toueg, Cornell
2:00 - 2:30 - Distributing the Power of a Government
to Enhance the Privacy of Voters
- Josh D. Cohen, Moti Yung
- Yale, Columbia
2:30 - 3:00 - A Communication-Efficient Canonical Form for Fault-Tolerant
Distributed Protocols
- Brian Coan
- MIT
3:00 - 3:30 - Asymptotically Optimal Algorithms for Approximate Agreement
- A.D. Fekete
- Harvard
3:30 - 4:00 - break
Session 4:
Chairman: Hector Garcia-Molina, Princeton
4:00 - 4:30 - Optimal Message Routing Without Complete Routing Tables
- G. N. Frederickson and Ravi Janardan
- Purdue
4:30 - 5:00 - On Fault Tolerant Routings in General Networks
- David Peleg and Barbara Simons
- IBM Almaden
5:00 - 5:30 - The Complexity of Using Forwarding
Addresses for Decentralized Object Finding
- Robert J. Fowler
- Washington
Tuesday, August 12
Session 5:
Chairman: Doron Rotem, Waterloo/Lawrence Berkeley Labs
9:00 - 9:30 - Incremental Attribute Evaluation in Distributed
Language-Based Environments
- Simon M. Kaplan, Gail E. Kaiser
- U. Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), Columbia
9:30 - 10:00 - Gap Theorems for Distributed Computing
- Shlomo Moran, Manfred Warmuth
- IBM Yorktown/Technion, Santa Cruz
10:00 - 10:30 - On the Bit Complexity of Distributed Computations in a
Leader with a Ring
- Y. Mansour, S. Zaks
- Technion
10:30 - 11:00 - break
Session 6
Chairman: Michael Merritt, AT&T Bell Laboratories
11:00 - 11:30 - Probabilistic Solitude Verification on a Ring
- Karl Abrahamson, Andrew Adler, Lisa Higham, David Kirkpatrick
- British Columbia
11:30 - 12:00 - The Effects of Link Failures on Computations in
Asynchronous Rings
- Oded Goldreich, Liuba Shrira
- MIT/Technion, Technion
12:00 - 2:00 - Lunch
Session 7
Chairman: Paul Leach
2:00 - 2:30 - Limitations on Database Availability When Networks Partition
- B.M. Oki, B.A. Coan and E.K. Kolodner
- MIT
2:30 - 3:00 - Protocols for Dynamic Vote Reassignment
- Daniel Barbara, Hector Garcia-Molina, Annemarie Spauster
- Princeton
3:00 - 3:30 - Optimistic Concurrency Control for Abstract Data Types
- Maurice Herlihy
- CMU
3:30 - 4:00 - break
Session 8
Chairman: Butler Lampson, DEC
4:00 - 4:30 - Efficient Synchronization of Processors With Shared Memory
- Clyde P. Kruskal, Larry Rudolph, Marc Snir
- Maryland, Hebrew University, Hebrew University
4:30 - 5:00 - Memory Coherence in Shared Virtual Memory Systems
- Kai Li, Paul Hudak
- Yale
6:00 - 8:00 - banquet
8:00 - 11:00 - business meeting, rump session
Wednesday, Aug. 13
Session 9
Chairman: Richard Ladner
9:00 - 9:30 - Reasoning About Networks with Many Identical Finite-State
Processes
- E.M. Clarke, O. Grumberg and M.C. Browne
- CMU,CMU/Technion,CMU
9:30 - 10:00 - What Processes Know: Definitions and Proof Methods
- Shmuel Katz and Gadi Taubenfeld
- Technion
10:00 - 10:30 - The Synthesis of Communication Protocols
- Foto Afrati, Christos Papadimitriou, George Papageorgiou
- National Technical University, Greece
10:30 - 11:00 - break
Session 10
Chairman: Joe Halpern, IBM Almaden
11:00 - 11:30 - Continuous Routing and Batch Routing on the Hypercube
- Yukon Chang, Janos Simon
- Pennsylvania State, Chicago
11:30 - 12:00 - Slowing Sequential Algorithms for Obtaining Fast
Distributed and Parallel Algorithms: Maximum Matching
- Baruch Shieber, Shlomo Moran
- Tel Aviv, IBM Yorktown/Technion
The rump session after the banquet on Tuesday night will consist
of a number of short (5-10 minute) presentations on current
research. These presentations will be chosen by the program
committee on the basis of interest to the community from
abstracts submitted on the first day of the conference. Those
interested in giving a presentation at the rump session are
encouraged to submit an abstract.
--------------
TN Message #38
--------------
∂05-Apr-86 1520 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Forsythe
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Apr 86 15:20:37 PST
Date: Sat 5 Apr 86 15:20:52-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Forsythe
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196504621.17.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Here are some possible candidates for a Forsythe Award Speaker next
January (following the tradition of inviting one of our graduates
who made good): Robert Tarjan, Bob Sproull, Bob Sedgewick,
Ira Pohl, Robert Cartwright, Ruzena Bajcsyova. Any other suggestions
or comments? Previous speakers were: Wilkinson, Rabin, Gordon Bell,
Saltzer, Reddy, Rivest, Alan George, and Liskov. -Nils
-------
∂05-Apr-86 2014 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa Forsythe
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Apr 86 20:14:29 PST
Received: from su-navajo.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Sat 5 Apr 86 20:14:14-PST
Received: by su-navajo.arpa with Sendmail; Sat, 5 Apr 86 20:14:16 pst
Received: by coraki.uucp (1.1/SMI-1.2)
id AA00786; Sat, 5 Apr 86 20:11:53 pst
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 86 20:11:53 pst
From: coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa (Vaughan Pratt)
Message-Id: <8604060411.AA00786@coraki.uucp>
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Subject: Forsythe
That list should do. My preference in decreasing order would be
Bajcsyova (currently chairperson at U. Penn.)
Sproull (very influential in the graphics world)
Pohl
Sedgewick
Tarjan (wait a bit longer)
Cartwright
-v
∂06-Apr-86 1658 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH --Martin Abadi
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Apr 86 16:58:01 PST
Date: Sun 6 Apr 86 16:52:52-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Monday's PLANLUNCH --Martin Abadi
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
TEMPORAL THEOREM PROVING
Martin Abadi (MA@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 7
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In spite of the wide range of applications of temporal logic,
proof techniques (especially for first-order temporal logic (FTL))
have been quite limited up to now. We have developed a proof system R
for FTL. The system R is based on nonclausal resolution; proofs are
natural and generally short. Special quantifier rules, unification
techniques, and a resolution rule are introduced. The system R is
directly useful for such tasks as verification of concurrent programs
and reasoning about hardware devices. Other uses of temporal resolution,
such as temporal-logic programming, are currently being considered.
We relate R to other proof systems for FTL and discuss completeness issues.
In particular, one variant of R is ``as complete as'' an extension of Peano
Arithmetic. We also describe resolution systems analogous to R for other modal
logics. In fact, the resolution techniques and the corresponding completeness
arguments apply to a large class of modal logics.
-------
∂07-Apr-86 0858 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA Announcement
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 08:58:01 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 08:54:44-PST
From: Ingrid Deiwiks <INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Announcement
To: Bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA, Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
LATE ANNOUNCEMENT
-----------------
Peter Ludlow, of Honeywell Inc. will be visiting CSLI this week. He
will give a talk, "The Semantics of Referential Attitudes", on
Wednesday, April 9, 12:00, in the Ventura Conference Room.
-------
∂07-Apr-86 0924 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Reception for Dr. Abe Peled, May 20
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 09:24:04 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 09:24:37-PST
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Reception for Dr. Abe Peled, May 20
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, srstaff@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196964055.16.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Dr. Abe Peled of IBM Yorktown Heights will present the CS500
Colloquium on Tuesday, May 20, 1986, Skilling Auditorium.
Dr. Peled will speak on "Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
in Computer Science."
Prof. Nils Nilsson cordially invites you to attend a wine and cheese
reception in the Red Lounge of the Faculty Club immediately following the
Colloquium.
-------
∂07-Apr-86 1037 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tues Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 10:37:26 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 10:36:46-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tues Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196977188.44.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will have as our guest at the faculty lunch
Dr. Y. T. Chien of the Intelligent Systems Program at NSF. Since I
must be away during lunch tomorrow, I have asked Gio Wiederhold to
host Dr. Chien at lunch and to introduce him. Perhaps Y.T. will be
able to describe how things are at NSF these days. He will be having
appointments with several of us throughout the day. -Nils
-------
∂07-Apr-86 1106 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA John Perry's seminar
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 11:06:01 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 10:59:35-PST
From: Ingrid Deiwiks <INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: John Perry's seminar
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, Bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
John Perry's seminar "Topics in Language and Information -- Stalnaker's
`Inquiry'" starts today at 1:15, Building 90-92Q.
Ingrid
-------
∂07-Apr-86 1121 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Tape cartridges
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 11:21:41 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 11:20:21-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Tape cartridges
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12196985122.13.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Someone has been walking off with my supply of spare cartridge tapes.
This is not good. Please ask before taking any tapes from my office
so that I don't have to start locking them up. This means you, too,
Byron.
-- Rich
-------
∂07-Apr-86 1126 ROOTH@SU-CSLI.ARPA wedding party reminder
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 11:26:40 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 11:19:34-PST
From: Mats Rooth <rooth@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: wedding party reminder
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA
It's at 4:00 pm today (monday) on the deck by Ventura. Dress is
informal for you; we'll appear in our approximation to wedding attire.
For those of you who can make it to the rather mundane ceremony, its
at the superior court, room B, 401 Marshall St., Redwood City (near
the intersection of Broadway and Middlefield; Marshall is a block
north from Broadway) at 2:15 today.
-- Dorit and Mats
-------
∂07-Apr-86 1439 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Symbolics machines
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Apr 86 14:39:02 PST
Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 14:40:02-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Symbolics machines
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197021476.13.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
After talking to numerous AAP people I've setup S9 and S10 to be
"simulation machines". Thus they have fairly large address spaces
(47.5M pages -vs- 75Mpages on S6), files systems just large enough to
hold an experiment's files, and several incremental world loads. It
isn't clear what should go into these world loads since it isn't clear
what the usage pattern will be over the coming months. However, these
are rather easy to set up. Currently there are worlds containing 6.1,
XCare on 6.1, and 256 grid circuit on XCare. If these worlds fall out
of date, or have something that takes a long time to load that you'd
like to make a world out of, please let me know and I'll try to help
you setup what you need.
-- Rich
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∂07-Apr-86 1702 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Phone List
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Date: Mon 7 Apr 86 16:53:36-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Phone List
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Jamie has updated the phone list again and it is now located in
<csli>phone.list on CSLI. Please take a look at it and send
me any corrections that need to be made.
I hope to produce a printed version shortly.
Emma Pease
-------
∂08-Apr-86 1145 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 11:45:23 PST
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Tue, 8 Apr 86 11:36:55 pst
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 86 11:36:55 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting
To: nail@diablo
Remember our new meeting time, 11AM THURSDAY.
We meet in 301 MJH, as usual
There has been a request for an open discussion of
code optimization techniques as they might apply to
logic programs, and this will be the topic unless
something else more pressing surfaces.
---jeff
∂08-Apr-86 1148 MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Temporary phone number
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 11:48:46 PST
Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 11:43:40-PST
From: Marjorie Maxwell <MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Temporary phone number
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
If you've been calling my number (3-9030) in hopes of reaching the Computer
staff, it is not that I have been away but that my phone is out of order
(hopefully for a short time). You can reach me at 3-2658 in the meantime.
Thanks,
Marjorie
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∂08-Apr-86 1228 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Informal talk on static allocation
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 12:28:20 PST
Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 12:29:42-PST
From: Nakul P. Saraiya <SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Informal talk on static allocation
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197259892.62.SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I am trying to set a date for Vineet Singh to talk to us on some work
he has done on the static allocation of tasks to processors. As of
now, the talk is scheduled for Tuesday 4/17 at 11:00 am. If you would
like to attend but have a conflict, please let me know and I'll try
to accommodate you.
Nakul
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∂08-Apr-86 1238 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Oops -- TUESDAY 4/15 is the date for talk. Sorry!
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 12:37:26 PST
Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 12:38:50-PST
From: Nakul P. Saraiya <SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Oops -- TUESDAY 4/15 is the date for talk. Sorry!
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197261554.62.SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
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∂08-Apr-86 1421 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Book Sale--Lane Medical Library--April 15th
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 14:21:43 PST
Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 14:22:05-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Book Sale--Lane Medical Library--April 15th
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197280352.13.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The Lane Medical Library will hold a booksale on Tuesday, April 15, 1986.
The price schedule will be:
8:00am to noon--$2.00
12:30pm to 3:30--$1.00
Rare books and more recent textbooks are individually priced.
Location: Sherman Fairchild Auditorium Lobby Stanford University Medical
Center
Proceeds will go toward new library acquisitions.
H. Llull
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∂08-Apr-86 1434 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Socrates/Folio Accounts--New Students And Faculty
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 86 14:34:19 PST
Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 14:26:12-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Socrates/Folio Accounts--New Students And Faculty
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197281099.13.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
For anyone new this quarter, Socrates is the online catalog for the Stanford
University Libraries. Socrates is the major database on the Folio system.
Free accounts are available to search Socrates and other Folio databases.
To get an account, one needs to fill out a form. We have those forms in
the Math/CS Library (other libraries should also have the forms). Feel free
to come by anytime to fill out your form and get your own personal account.
H. Llull
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∂08-Apr-86 1526 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Colloquium change
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Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 15:18:48-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Colloquium change
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
The CSLI colloquium this week by Richard Southall (Thursday, 4:15) will
be in Turing Auditorium not in the Trailer Classroom as announced in
last week's calendar.
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∂08-Apr-86 1600 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Static allocation talk in afternoon?
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Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 16:01:10-PST
From: Nakul P. Saraiya <SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Static allocation talk in afternoon?
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
cc: SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197298389.62.SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Concerning Vineet's talk on TUESDAY 4/15 (not 4/17!) :
Some people seem unable to make the 11:00am time, but can make it at
2:00pm on the same day (the only remaining slot, unfortunately).
Would anyone else object to rescheduling for that time?
I'll post a confirmatory message by week's end.
Nakul
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∂08-Apr-86 1821 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
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Date: Tue 8 Apr 86 18:17:10-PST
From: Mary Dalrymple <DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: happy hour
To: linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
It is our pleasant duty to announce the second weekly gala
Spring Happy Hour, this Friday at 4:00 in the Greenberg Room
(as usual).
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∂09-Apr-86 0602 PATASHNIK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Next AFLB's
Received: from [36.36.0.196] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Apr 86 06:02:51 PST
Date: Wed 9 Apr 86 06:03:15-PST
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: Next AFLB's
To: aflb.all@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197451686.7.PATASHNIK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
There will be no AFLB this week. There will be one next week and,
because of the many faculty candidates visiting, three the following
week (the two special ones will probably be at 1:15 on Tuesday and
at 11am on Friday). Here's next week's talk:
----------------------------------------------
17-Apr-86 : Donald Allison (IBM Palo Alto)
On Computing Optimal Rectangles
(I'll send the abstract next week)
***** Time and place: April 17, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Not all time slots for this academic year
have been filled. The file [SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains
more information about future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
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∂09-Apr-86 1042 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Announcement
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Date: Wed 9 Apr 86 10:39:22-PST
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Announcement
To: Research@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Susan Stucky has been appointed to a new position, Special Assistant
to the Director.
In this position she will help the Director and Assistant Director
with temporary (although sometimes long-term) projects of various
sorts. Susan will remain a 50% Research Associate, so periods of
intensive administrative activities will alternate with periods of
intensive research activity. Make sure you know which mode Susan is
in before attempting to interact with her.
Susan has been doing much of this sort of work for some time, as you
know. Codifying her exact role is part of the preparations we will be
going through as we approach a period during which the demands of
approaching SDF meetings, short and long-term fund raising, and, if
we are lucky, building planning will put heavy demands on the central
administration of CSLI.
For the next three months, a large part of Susan's job will be to work
with Betsy, the Principal Investigators, myself, and others in
preparing the Third Year Report for SDF and for attendant site visits.
Her main responsibility will be to help the PI's in preparing a report
of our research accomplishments.
John
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∂09-Apr-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Stapler/Hole Puncher
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Apr 86 11:53:25 PST
Date: Wed 9 Apr 86 11:50:36-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Stapler/Hole Puncher
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197514919.15.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Would the person that *borrowed* the big stapler and the hole puncher from
the Dover room on the second floor of MJH please return it? We miss it!
-------
∂09-Apr-86 1405 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:reuling@su-navajo.arpa Please check your PEDIT entries
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Apr 86 14:05:06 PST
Received: from su-navajo.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 9 Apr 86 13:54:04-PST
Received: by su-navajo.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 9 Apr 86 13:53:56 pst
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 86 13:53:56 pst
From: John Reuling <reuling@su-navajo.arpa>
Subject: Please check your PEDIT entries
To: instructors@score
Please make sure that your office is correctly listed in PEDIT.
This is especialliy important for those of you in MJH 030e.
The building maps and directories for Margaret Jacks are generated
from PEDIT. In order to appear there, you must have an office listed
in PEDIT.
For more info, type HELP PEDIT on Score or Sushi. If you don't have
an account on Score or Sushi, connect to SAIL (SU-AI.ARPA) and type
FIND <lastname> example: FIND reuling
This will display your pedit info. If there is no office listed, and
you don't have an account on Score or Sushi, send mail to
PEDIT-CHANGES@score.
∂09-Apr-86 1605 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Apr 86 16:05:17 PST
Date: Wed 9 Apr 86 16:00:26-PST
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Philosophy Department Colloquium
To: bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
David Wiggins, from Oxford University and visiting at the Center for
Advacnced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, will speak on Friday, April
l8, in the Philosophy Seminar Room, 92Q, at 3:15. Title of the talk:
"A Sensible Subjectivism?".
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∂09-Apr-86 1722 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 10, No. 11
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Apr 86 17:22:31 PST
Date: Wed 9 Apr 86 17:07:58-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, April 10, No. 11
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
April 10, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 11
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, April 10, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Interpreted Syntax
Conference Room by Susan Stucky
Discussion led by Mats Rooth (Rooth@su-csli)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Representation: Foundations of Representation
Trailer Classroom Ken Olson (Olson.pa@xerox)
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Turing Auditorium Information Flow in the Design and Production of
Printers' Type: Problems of Computerizing a
Traditional Craft
Richard Southall
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, April 17, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Understanding Computers and Cognition
Conference Room by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores
Discussion led by Brian Smith (Briansmith.pa@xerox)
(abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Representation: On Stitch's Case Against Belief
Trailer Classroom John Perry (John@su-csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Turing Auditorium Intention, Belief and Practical Reasoning
Hector-Neri Castaneda, Indiana University
(Abstract on page 2)
--------------
ANNOUNCEMENT
Please note that the colloquia for this week and next week are both in
Turing Auditorium.
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar April 10, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
THIS WEEK'S SEMINAR
Representation: Foundations of Representation
Ken Olson (Olson.pa@xerox)
What is it for a thing to represent another? Answers that rely in
any simple way on resemblance and causality are easily dismissed.
Peirce thought that representation was an irreducibly three-place
relation between a sign, an object, and what he called an
interpretant. But while Peirce's view has much to recommend it, the
notion of an interpretant seems to introduce an unwelcome mentalistic
element. At least it is unwelcome if we wish to account for mental
representation as one species of the more general notion instead of
giving it privileged status. I claim, however, that the notion of
interpretant does not presuppose a full-fledged mind. Other ideas of
Peirce's also deserve attention. Situation theory may finally be the
proper medium in which to realize his goal of a general theory of
signs.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Understanding Computers and Cognition
by Terry Winograd
Discussion led by Brian Smith (Briansmith.pa@xerox)
For some time, Terry Winograd has believed that the general semantical
and theoretical approaches embodied in current AI systems are
inadequate for dealing with human language and thought. What
distinguishes his views from those of various other AI critics is the
scope of what he takes to be the problem. In particular, as he argues
in his new book, he is convinced that that nothing within what he
calls the ``rationalistic tradition''---in which he would presumably
include most CSLI research---will overcome these inherent limitations.
In this TINLunch we will discuss the argument presented in the
book, try to separate the various threads that lead to Terry's
conclusion, and assess its relevance to the CSLI research program.
(The book, which is not difficult to read, should be available at
local bookstores; some selected portions will be made available in the
usual places.)
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Intention, Belief and Practical Reasoning
Hector-Neri Castaneda, Indiana University
There is a special element in the representation of intentions that
is not present in the representation of belief. This element is
fundamental and characteristic of the practical contents of thinking.
This element is essentially involved in volition and the causation of
intentional action. Any AI representation of intentional action
should include this special element.
--------------
LOGIC SEMINAR
Varieties of Algebras of Complexes
Prof. Robert Goldblatt, University of New Zealand
Tuesday, April 15, 4:15-5:30
Math. Dept. 3d floor lounge (383 N), Stanford
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∂10-Apr-86 1056 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA colloquium
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Apr 86 10:54:47 PST
Date: Thu 10 Apr 86 10:47:23-PST
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: colloquium
To: bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Hector-Neri Castaneda from Indiana University will give a talk on Thursday,
April 17 at 4:15 p.m. in Turing Auditorium. Title: "Intention, Belief and
Practical Reasoning."
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∂10-Apr-86 1126 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Vladimir Lifschitz
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Apr 86 11:26:50 PST
Date: Thu 10 Apr 86 11:23:55-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Vladimir Lifschitz
To: planlunch.dis: ;
Note to visitors: SRI now has stricter security rules and won't allow
people to just walk up to the AIC. If you have any problems being admitted,
please call either me (Amy Lansky -- x4376) or Margaret Olender (x5923).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS THE INVERSE METHOD?
Vladimir Lifschitz (VAL@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 14
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In 1964, the same year when J. A. Robinson introduced the resolution rule,
a Russian logician and philosopher, Sergey Maslov, published his four-page
paper, "An Inverse Method of Establishing Deducibility in Classical
Predicate Calculus". Maslov's method is based on a major discovery in
proof theory which has remained largely unnoticed by logicians. The method
does not require that the goal formula be written in clausal or even
prenex form, and there may exist a possibility of applying it to
non-classical systems (e.g., modal). Computer programs based on the
inverse method are reported to be comparable, in terms of efficiency, to
those using resolution. The inverse method has been also applied to solving new
special cases of the decision problem for predicate logic, and it can serve as
a uniform approach to solving almost all known solvable cases.
In this talk I explain the idea of the inverse method on a simple example.
-------
∂10-Apr-86 1754 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Type determination in logic programs
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Apr 86 17:53:08 PST
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Thu, 10 Apr 86 17:38:46 pst
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 86 17:38:46 pst
From: Allen VanGelder <avg@diablo>
Subject: Type determination in logic programs
To: nail@diablo
TYPE DETERMINATION IN LOGIC PROGRAMS ~avg/nail/typedet.doc
Today in our meeting Jeff talked about data flow analysis of logic programs,
and I took the devil's advocate position. One conclusion of the discussion
was that type determination could be useful, but having the correct
collection of types was crucial. Jeff's goodlist example ran aground
by not having the right collection. He mentioned that compiler
designers have to decide on the collection and that this is a matter
of judgement, based on looking at the language being compiled.
Another important consideration is judging what constructs will occur
in practice with sufficient frequency to justify checking for them.
E.g., in optimizing C, they look for pointer-pointer-integer, but
don't look for pointer-pointer-pointer-integer, according to Jeff.
Let me suggest a schema for collections of types that I think is
appropriate for logic programming. For simplicity, I will not
distinguish between types and subtypes. Thus {0} is a type and
``integer'' is a type that is a superset of {0}. I am calling this
a schema because its exact form depends on the logic program.
Also, let us assume that each function symbol that occurs in the program
has aunique arity; i.e., we do not have both f(X) and f(X, Y).
(This is no loss of generality, as renaming can bring this about.)
Again for simplicity, let us assume there are no built-in predicates
such as ``is'' and ``succ,'' that produce new integers, or other new
atomic symbols. If ``succ'' is present we assume there is an
infinite set of facts defining it, {succ(0,1), succ(1,2), ...}.
Then the Herbrand universe of the logic program
represents a sort of universal type. We are interested in identifying
subsets of this universe that are useful. Here are the subsets I
propose.
SCALAR TYPES:
- Singleton types: one for each constant appearing.
- integer.
- atom: as defined in Prolog - e.g., [], jones, '1a', etc.
an integer is NOT an atom.
- atomic: as in Prolog, the union of integer and atom.
(For simplicity again, let us ignore the type ``real.'')
BOUNDED TYPES
- Each scalar type is a 0-bounded type.
- For each function symbol f of arity k,
If S1, ..., Sk are scalar types,
then f(S1, ..., Sk) is a 1-bounded type.
- For each function symbol f of arity k,
If S1, ..., Sk are either scalar or 1-bounded types,
at least one being 1-bounded,
then f(S1, ..., Sk) is a 2-bounded type.
RECURSIVE TYPES
- For each function symbol f of arity k,
If S1, ..., Sk are bounded types, and $1 \le i \le k$,
then f←i(S1, ..., Sk) is an i-recursive type.
The type f←i(S1, ..., Sk) is defined to be the set of values such that
- Si is a subset of f←i(S1, ..., Sk)
- f(S1, ..., S{i-1}, f←i(S1, ..., Sk), S{i+1}, ..., Sk) is a subset
of f←i(S1, ..., Sk). In other words f←i is recursive on its
i-th argument, and on no other argument.
- Nothing else is in f←i(S1, ..., Sk).
- The types f←{ij}(S1, ..., Sk) are defined analogously. They allow recursion
on both the i-th and j-th arguments.
- The types f←{any subset} could also be defined, but it is probably not
worth it from an engineering point of view, and they give no greater
generality in theory.
Notice that we do not look at double recursion such as f(g(f(X,Y)) ,Z)
as a set of interesting types -- we just lump such things into our
universal type. Such double recursion could arise in and-or structures,
so maybe this is not a good decision. However, the delineation I set
forth above seems sufficiently rich to get started.
Now let's try to do some type determination on the goodlist example.
goodlist([]).
goodlist(X|Y) :- good(X) & goodlist(Y).
good(g).
We are using ``|'' as a binary function symbol and infix operator.
Our scalar types are: {[]}, {g}, {[], g}=atom.
The bounded types are constructed with ``|'' in the obvious way.
The recursive types are ``|←1'', ``|←2'', and ``|←{12}''.
Lemma: good(X) iff X is type {g}.
Lemma: Suppose goodlist(X) iff X is type T. Then T contains {[]}.
Theorem: Suppose goodlist(X) iff X is type T.
Then T = ``|←2(g, [])''.
I claim these leemas and theorem can be derived mechanically.
∂10-Apr-86 1924 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon and L100 manuals.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Apr 86 19:24:46 PST
Date: Thu 10 Apr 86 19:26:22-PST
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Poligon and L100 manuals.
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12197860033.63.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Poligon manual v4.2 and L100 manual v4.0 are now available.
Rice.
-------
∂10-Apr-86 2008 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Documenting...
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Apr 86 20:08:38 PST
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 10 Apr 86 23:09:21-EST
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1986 23:09 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12197867848.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Documenting...
In-reply-to: Msg of 4 Apr 1986 11:20-EST from System Files <SYS at SU-AI.ARPA>
I have just spoken with John Osborn of Digital Press on this subject.
...
He said that Digital Press is agreeable to an arrangement whereby ANSI
receives permission royalty-free to use any or all contents of CLtL for
the purposes of developing a Common Lisp standard (while Digital Press
retains the right to publish present and future editions of the existing
book).
This is great news. We will want to go over the current manual very
carefully, and maybe change its format, on the way to a standard, but
the ability to use chunks of the Digital Press text verbatim along with
parts of the Lucid version will save a lot of work.
(I still have some concerns about potential
confusion over which book is the official Common Lisp; if CLtL continues
into future editions, I think it must change its character so as not to
be confusable with the ANSI standard.)
I don't think that this will be a problem. All future Digital Press
editions should explicitly state that the ANSI standard, once adopted,
is definitive, and the ANSI version should have eagles and other
Official Looking Stuff on the cover.
-- Scott
∂11-Apr-86 0859 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Raymond Reiter
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Apr 86 08:55:51 PST
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 11 Apr 86 08:43:37-PST
Date: 11 Apr 86 0838 PST
From: Vladimir Lifschitz <VAL@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Raymond Reiter
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Raymond Reiter from the University of Toronto will visit Stanford on Thursday,
April 17. He will give a talk on "A Theory of Diagnosis from First Principles"
at 4pm (MJH 252).
Vladimir Lifschitz
∂11-Apr-86 1155 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
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Date: Fri, 11 Apr 86 11:42:13 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Re: Type determination in logic programs
To: avg@diablo, nail@diablo
I think Allen's suggestion for a type system for Prolog is
definitely in the right direction. Possibly only experience
will show what types we really need to distinguish and which
can be blended, but his set has the right "feel".
I also need to apologise for my weak algorithm for inferring types.
Harry M. was absolutely right: in ordinary languages the berst thing
seems to be:
1. An independent forward and backward pass, each yielding possible
types.
2. Intersect the two initial passes to get a starting solution.
3. Iteratively apply impossibility laws to remove possible
types, using both forward and backward inference, until no
more possible types can be removed.
I'll bet that in Prolog, it's exactly the same, but for forward/backward
read "top-down/bottom-up".
Also, let me mention one other application of data-flow analysis
besides the ones from yesterday (finding independent variables,
bound/free determination, useless rules):
If we know at compile time the type of a predicate, then
a compiler can generate code that unifies occurrences of this predicate,
a big win over having the interpreter call a general unification routine.
That's what code optimization is all about folks!
---jeff
∂11-Apr-86 1302 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
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Date: Fri, 11 Apr 86 12:50:32 pst
From: Allen VanGelder <avg@diablo>
Subject: Re: Type determination in logic programs
To: nail@diablo
> From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
>
> Harry M. was absolutely right: in ordinary languages the best thing
> seems to be:
>
> 1. An independent forward and backward pass, each yielding possible
> types.
>
> 2. Intersect the two initial passes to get a starting solution.
>
> 3. Iteratively apply impossibility laws to remove possible
> types, using both forward and backward inference, until no
> more possible types can be removed.
>
> I'll bet that in Prolog, it's exactly the same, but for forward/backward
> read "top-down/bottom-up".
I think we should distinguish between possible goal types and
possible derived-fact types. The intersection would really be a pruning
of these two sets. Cf. making relations pair-wise consistent.
Question: What are ``impossibility laws?''
∂11-Apr-86 1341 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Type determination in logic programs
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From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Re: Type determination in logic programs
To: avg@diablo, nail@diablo
By an impossibility law, I mean something like this:
if the only rule for p is p(X,Y) :- q(X,Y),
and we have already established that it is impossible for the first
argument of q to be a term of the form f(a,Z), where a is an atom
and Z a variable, then it is also impossible for the first argument
of p to be of that form.
Obviously, we can develop similar laws when p has more than one rule.
While I'm thinking of it, Allen made another comment yesterday that
is superficially valid, but may miss an important point.
Yes, DFA can be viewed as a special kind of resolution theorem proving,
as can most anything you name. however, there is a body of specialized
techiniques that has grown up in DFA that may be valuable for the
optimization of Prolog or NAIL!, but which don't have much
interest in general theorem proving.
For example, DFA algorithms are tailored to the notion that
we are proving (or trying to prove) lots of similar facts all at once.
For that matter a similar remark could be made that tableau operations,
e.g., minimization, are explained simply in terms of resolution.
Absolutely true. Yet the technology that has grown up is handy,
e.g., very fast algorithms for this specific case of resolution,
or notions like simple tableaux that are uninteresting in general
theorem proving but mean a lot in terms of natural database queries.
---jeff
∂11-Apr-86 1432 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa 1 more thought on types
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From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: 1 more thought on types
To: nail@diablo
I think we need to do more than think of types as sets of values.
It might me very interesting to know about the possibility or
impossibility of types like:
f(integer,X) [X is a variable]
f(integer,X,X)
f(X,"term involving X")
---jeff
∂11-Apr-86 1445 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tues Lunch
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Date: Fri 11 Apr 86 14:39:18-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tues Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198069917.37.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We are fortunate to have two distinguished guests for our lunch
on Tues April 15--Bob Taylor of DEC/SRC and Saul Amarel, Director
of DARPA/IPTO. Maybe we'll talk a bit about DARPA--past and
present (Bob Taylor was a DARPA/IPTO Director several years ago).
-Nils
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∂11-Apr-86 1559 SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Informal talk on Static Allocation
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Date: Fri 11 Apr 86 15:59:47-PST
From: Nakul P. Saraiya <SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Informal talk on Static Allocation
To: AAP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
cc: SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198084569.36.SARAIYA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Who Vineet Singh
When Tuesday 4/15/86 11:00am
Where Welch Rd. Conference Room
What Static allocation of tasks to processors
I do not have a more detailed description of the talk; however, Vineet
may send out a short abstract next week.
Nakul
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∂11-Apr-86 1652 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library Technical Reports and AIList Tech. Rept. List--Comparison
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Date: Fri 11 Apr 86 16:52:12-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library Technical Reports and AIList Tech. Rept. List--Comparison
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198094110.33.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Many of you have sent me messages concerning the technical reports listst
being routed on AIList and other Arpanet discussion group lists. It is
also my understanding that some researchers are attempting to accumulate
these lis.
You need to be aware that the Math/CS Library, its new technical reports
list, and the Technical Reports file in Socrates already includes many
of these series of reports. In addition, if we do not get the series
and you think it is important, we can investigate setting up an exchange
agreement.
I have the feeling people are being bombarded with duplicate/old information
concerning technical reports. Srching the Technical Reports file in
Socrates should give you an idea of what we are collecting by subject and
organization. If you want to see if we have a particular series you can
serch with the O-organization index. Some series we get selectively and
others we receive all reports.
Harry Llull
-------
∂12-Apr-86 1233 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Reference Materials on Prime Numbers
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Date: Sat 12 Apr 86 12:30:41-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Reference Materials on Prime Numbers
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: : ;
Message-ID: <12198308647.10.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I didn't see the original messages on prime numbers but you should be
aware that we have Lehmer's List of Prime Numbers from 1 to 10,006,721.
We also have Lehmer's Factor Table for the first ten millions containing
the smallest factor of every number not divisible by 2,3,5,or 7 between
the limits 0 and 10017000.
These books are in poor condition and are kept in the back office. In
addition not many of our student staff would know about these materials
so you should ask either me, Larry, or Richard about them. In addition
as I saw in one message, various mathematical handbooks would also have
limited tables of prime numbers.
Harry Llull
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∂13-Apr-86 1829 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Reminder: tomorrow's PLANLUNCH
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Date: Sun 13 Apr 86 18:27:04-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Reminder: tomorrow's PLANLUNCH
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
WHAT IS THE INVERSE METHOD?
Vladimir Lifschitz (VAL@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 14
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In 1964, the same year when J. A. Robinson introduced the resolution rule,
a Russian logician and philosopher, Sergey Maslov, published his four-page
paper, "An Inverse Method of Establishing Deducibility in Classical
Predicate Calculus". Maslov's method is based on a major discovery in
proof theory which has remained largely unnoticed by logicians. The method
does not require that the goal formula be written in clausal or even
prenex form, and there may exist a possibility of applying it to
non-classical systems (e.g., modal). Computer programs based on the
inverse method are reported to be comparable, in terms of efficiency, to
those using resolution. The inverse method has been also applied to solving new
special cases of the decision problem for predicate logic, and it can serve as
a uniform approach to solving almost all known solvable cases.
In this talk I explain the idea of the inverse method on a simple example.
-------
∂14-Apr-86 0034 @SUMEX-AIM.ARPA:vsingh@SRI-KL.ARPA Static Allocation
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Date: Sun 13 Apr 86 13:11:58-PST
From: Vineet Singh <vsingh@SRI-KL>
Subject: Static Allocation
To: aap%SUMEX-AIM@SRI-KL
cc: vsingh@SRI-KL
I'll describe some work in progress on statically allocating resources
for the following scenario.
The execution model underlying the computation is dataflow*.
Dataflow*, as I define it, is a strict superset of dataflow. The
additional features that are allowed are local state and indeterminate
merge. (I've shown in previous work that Logic Programming falls in
this category. Digital hardware falls in this category, too. We can
discuss whether event-driven simulation of such artifacts a la Helios
falls in this category.)
For the dataflow* computation graph, it should be possible to make
good estimates of the amount of work to be done at each node and the
amount of communication along the arcs.
The dynamic computation graph may be quite different from the static
computation graph due to recursive clauses/procedures. The
information described in the two previous points should be applicable
to the dynamic computation graph if parallelism due to recursive
clauses/procedures is to be exploited.
The multiprocessor is a set of processor-memory elements. There is no
shared memory resource and all communication is by messages.
The processor-memory elements are connected with some arbitrary
topology. There is no separate network other than the communication
links between the processor-memory elements.
(CARE and FAIM-1 satisfy the architectural requirements. The Cosmic
Cube from Caltech fits the requirements as well. More generally,
Seitz describes a class of architectures called ensemble architectures
that fit our scenario.)
I don't have a polished talk on this subject. Your questions will
determine how much time I spend on different parts of the talk.
Vineet
-------
∂14-Apr-86 1420 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa book received
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Date: Mon, 14 Apr 86 11:52:36 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: book received
To: nail@diablo
Logic Programming: Functions, Relations, and Equations
(Degroot & Lindstrom, eds.)
∂14-Apr-86 1422 maier%oregon-grad.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA DFA
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id AA14642; Mon, 14 Apr 86 09:42:47 pst
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 86 09:42:47 pst
From: "Prof. David Maier" <maier%oregon-grad.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Message-Id: <8604141742.AA14642@ogcvax.OGC.EDU>
To: nail@su-aimvax.ARPA
Subject: DFA
An elaboration on one of Jeff's recent remarks. What Prolog compilers do
is exactly what he said about specializing the unification routine.
Those compilers in essence symbolically evaluate the unification routine
when one argument is known (the head of a clause). Thus, in something
like r(X, f(Y), X) :- ..., you can lay down code to bind the first X
to whatever is in the same position in the matching goal literal, and
for f(Y), you first check for a variable in the matching position; if none,
you check for a term with functional symbol f. You lay down code to
bind Y to the argument of the other term if true. The second X requires
a call to the general unifcation algorithm. There's a limit to how
much you unwind the unifcation algorithm (this time savings costs space!).
In something like r(X, f(f(f(f(Y)))), X), most compilers only go down
two levels on the f-term before dropping into general unification. The
two-levels is an empirical figure, according to DHD Warren, but backs up
AVGs stopping at 2-bounded.
Typing would of course give you information about the second argument
that would let you generate even more specific code.
Also, the indexing technique in DHD Warren's thesis is another kind of
data flow analysis, I think. For a predicate defined as
r(a, X) :- ...
r(a, Y) :- ...
r(b, Z) :- ...
r(b, W) :- ...
r(Y, Y) :- ...
the code for the predicate knows to only try the 1, 2, and 5 clauses when
matching a goal like r(a, T), and the 3, 4 and 5 clauses for r(b, T), and
everything for r(T, U). However, his analysis only deals with first
arguments.
D Maier
∂14-Apr-86 1420 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Evals
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Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 11:51:53-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Evals
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198825872.17.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I will be negotiating with the deanery about faculty salaries in
the next few weeks. I have faculty reports from several (maybe all)
of you, but it would be helpful to have a somewhat more "crisp"
opinion on how each of you thinks he is doing. At the risk of being
over-numerical, here is what would be most helpful: On a scale of
0 to 100 (with, say, 75 being the department median) how do you think
you compare with the rest of our CSD faculty regarding:
1) research (defined here as "individual" research)
2) teaching (classes, directed reading, ms projects--but not PhD advising)
3) PhD advising (taking into acct. both quality and quantity)
4) service to the dept, the school, the univ.
5) overall prestige (a weighted average, I suppose, of mainly 1 & 3 over
the past several years)
So, an absolutely brilliant teacher would give himself, say 95, on that
item. Someone with very few (say, 1) PhD research students ought not
to claim he is doing better than about 50 or so, say. Anyway, you get
the point.
Anyone who cares to send me via private hard-copy mail such a summary
on each of these 5 items, please do. I'll treat them confidentially,
of course, and use them mainly in case my perception differs wildly
from your own. Self-given scores much over 75 are presumed to have
considerable objective justification lurking somewhere in the
background (justification not needed now--just the numbers).
(I know it's difficult to brag--or to be overly modest--but there
is nothing wrong with having an honest self-image!)
-Nils
-------
∂14-Apr-86 1423 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Apr 86 13:29:04 PST
Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 13:28:17-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12198843422.42.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Real-Time Systems Symposium. IEEE Proceedings. December 1985. San Diego,
Ca. QA76.54.R42 1985.
Workshop On Computer Vision: Representation And Control. Proceedings of
the Third. Oct. 1985. Bellaire, Mich. TA1632.W66 1985.
First International Conference On Supercomputing Systems. IEEE Proceedings.
Dec. 1985. St. Petersburg, Floriday. QA76.5.I543 1985.
Supercomputers Applications. edited by Robert W. Numrich.
QA76.5.S8944 1984A
1985 Softfair II A Second Conference On Software Development Tools, Techniques
and Alternatives. IEEE. December 1985. San Francisco. QA76.6.S5988 1985.
IEEE 1985 International Conference On Computer-Aided Design ICCAD-85. IEEE
November 1985. Santa Clara, Ca. Digest of Technical Papers.
TA174.I12 1985.
Local Network Equipment. IEEE. by Harvey A. Freeman and Kenneth J. Thurber.
TK5105.7.L59 1985.
Graphs, Networks, And Algorithms. by M.N.S. Swamy and K. Thulasiraman.
QA166.S88 c. 2
Computer Security: A Global Challenge. IFIP edited by J. H. Finch and
E. G. Dougall. QA76.9.A25I45 1984.
Software Specification Techniques. by Narain Gehani and Andrew McGettrick.
QA76.6.S6437 1986.
Scientific Reasoning And Epistemic Attitudes. by Laszlo Harsing. Budapest
1982. Q175.H3287 1982 c.2
Qualitative Reasoning About Physical Systems. edited by Daniel G.
Bobrow Q
-------
∂14-Apr-86 1424 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science (continued)
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Apr 86 14:24:36 PST
Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 13:41:20-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science (continued)
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12198845797.42.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Qualitative Reasoning About Physical Systems. edited by Daniel G.
Bobrow. Q335.5.Q35 1985.
Mentality And Machines. 2nd ed. by Keith Gunderson. BF431.G844 1985 c.2
Computers In Language Reseach 2:Part I Formalization In Literary And
Discourse Analysis Part II Notating The Language Of Music, And the
(Pause) Rhythms of Speech. edited by Walter Sedelow Jr and Sally
Sedelow. P98.C6129 1983 c.2.
The Emerging Network Marketplace. by Herbert Dordick, Helen Bradley, and
Burt Nanus Z674.4E47 c. 2
Introduction To UNIX System V. by Robert Byers. QA76.8.U65B84
PostScript Language; Tutorial and Cookbook. Adobe Systems Incorporated.
QA76.73P67P68 1985.
Data Structures On The IBM PC. by Steve Roski. QA76.8.I2594R665 1985.
Programmer's Guide To The IBM PC. by Peter Norton. QA76.8.I2594N68 1985.
Macintosh Pascal. by Lowell Carmony and Robert Holliday. QA76.8.M3C37 1985
Macintosh Graphics and Sound. by David Kater. (8600431)
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To Artificial Intelligence. Applesoft Basic
Version. by Richard Forsyth and Chris Naylor. Q336.F67 1985.
Science Observed; Essays Out Of My Mind. by Jeremy Bernstein.
Part 1 includes Mind and Machine: Profile of Marvin Minsky.
Q175.3.B476 c.2
Harry Llull
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∂14-Apr-86 1433 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Explorer release
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Apr 86 14:32:38 PST
Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 14:20:47-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Explorer release
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198852977.19.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've been testing the official release 2 of Explorer system
software (which we've been beta testing for some time), and have
seen no significant problems with it. I plan on putting it up
on the pool machines tomorrow. I would like everyone to start
using this as soon as possible as all bug reports to TI will
have to be based on this release. If you have an Explorer in
your office, please let me know what LOD and MCR bands (1 or 2)
you would like me to put this on. There is also a set of release
notes with the release that I will put into the pool binders and leave
next to office consoles.
Please respond.
-- Rich
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∂14-Apr-86 1541 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 22 (B. Libet)
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id AA24970; Mon, 14 Apr 86 14:58:30 PST
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 86 14:58:30 PST
From: admin%cogsci@berkeley.edu (Cognitive Science Program)
Message-Id: <8604142258.AA24970@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
To: allmsgs@cogsci.berkeley.edu, cogsci-friends@cogsci.berkeley.edu,
seminars@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 22 (B. Libet)
Cc: admin@cogsci.berkeley.edu
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Spring 1986
Cognitive Science Seminar - IDS 237B
Tuesday, April 22, 11:00 - 12:30
2515 Tolman Hall
Discussion: 12:30 - 1:30
3105 Tolman (Beach Room)
``Cortical activity required for a conscious sensory experience,
with cognitive implications''
Benjamin Libet
Physiology, UC San Francisco
Abstract
Experiments involving direct electrical stimulation and
recordings in the cerebral somatosensory system of awake human
patients have indicated that a substantial period of activity
(up to 500 msec+/-) is required to elicit a sensory experience.
More indirect evidence supports this requirement for brief
peripheral inputs as well. However, subjective timing of the
experience is "antedated" back to the time of the initial
fast-arriving signal. This hypothesis of "neuronal delay plus
subjective antedating" for a conscious sensory experience has
important implications for the processing of conscious and
unconscious sensory functions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING TALKS
Apr 29: Dedre Gentner, Psychology, University of Illinois
at Champaign-Urbana
May 6: Paul Rosenbloom, Computer Science and Psychology,
Stanford
∂14-Apr-86 1607 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA S9 to be powered down.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Apr 86 16:07:43 PST
Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 16:05:48-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: S9 to be powered down.
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198872096.50.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Due to the resurgence of the old air conditioning capacity problem,
which is still being worked on vigorously, S9 will spend most of its
time powered down. If there are no other Symbolics machines available,
please come see me and I will bring it up for you since it can be run
for a few hours with no problems.
Apologies for the bother,
-- Rich
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∂14-Apr-86 1719 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Date: Mon, 14 Apr 86 17:02:43 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Traversal Recursion" by Rosenthal,Heiler, DAyal, and Manola (CCA).
∂14-Apr-86 1817 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2
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Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 17:22:52-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Will be sent out on Wednesday. It is larger than the first issue
so be warned.
Emma Pease
ps. Like the first issue it will be sent out in parts (probably 8).
-------
∂14-Apr-86 2009 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Poligon changes and my absense.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Apr 86 20:06:19 PST
Date: Mon 14 Apr 86 20:08:27-PST
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Poligon changes and my absense.
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12198916269.23.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
As I have said I do not intend to put any changes into Poligon before
I leave for Blighty, however I have a number of changes batched up,
which will be released when I return. This message documents them and
tells you how to load them up if they seem to provide functionality
that you might need. Warning - These should be debugged but I make no
promises. N.B. These changes include the hooks needed for the graphics
subsystem being worked on by Mr Nayak.
i) How to load the changes.
Load up Poligon/Poligon compiler as normal.
Load the following files in the specified order:-
"x6:Rice.Work;Actions"
"x6:Rice.Work;Compiler-Extensions"
"x6:Rice.Work;Oligon-Extensions"
ii) The changes themselves.
a) The grammar has changed for set constructions. Instead of saying
For Which @ Fred = 42 you now say For Which Element @ Fred = 42.
b) The grammar of L100 and its derived languages has been extended
to allow the prefix use of operators. For instance, if you should
so wish you can say " +(1, 2, 3, 4) " instead of 1+2+3+4.
c) A new data type has been defined, called True-Set. True-Sets are
just like Bags only they can have no duplicate elements.
d) The following new functions have been defined to support True-Sets.
i) True-Set(&Rest args) -> a true set with those elements.
ii) Is-A-True-Set(x) -> t if x is a true-set, else nil.
e) The following new functions are now defined for all collections.
(A Collection is, at present, a list, a lazy list, a bag or a true-set)
i) Cardinality-Exceeds(collection, n) -> t if the cardinality of
collection > n.
ii) Collection-Is-Empty(collection) -> t if collection has no
elements.
iii) Collection-is-not-Empty(collection) -> t if collection has
any elements.
iv) Copy-Collection(collection) -> a copy of collection, which
is the same type as collection.
v) Collection-Difference(a, b) -> like set-difference only it
acts on collections. The value has as its type the type of
a.
vi) Collection-Intersection(a, b) -> like set-intersection only it
acts on collections. The value has as its type the type of
a.
vii) Collection-Union(a, b) -> like set-union only it
acts on collections. The value has as its type the type of
a.
ix) Is-a-collection(x) -> t if x is a collection, otherwise nil.
x) As-Type(collection, type) -> coerces collection into a
collection of type Type.
f) The following system defined slot has been provided:
Number-of-Supersystems
This is analogous to Number-of-Subsystems
g) The following field selection type operators are provided:-
Is-Not-Empty, Is-Not-Undefined and Is-Not-Undefined-or-Empty.
These are the logical inverses of Is-Empty, Is-Undefined and
Is-Undefined-or-Empty.
h) Three new change types are provided. These are :-
i) Change Type : Link Subsystem x To y
{ Makes x a subsystem of y }
ii) Change Type : UnLink Subsystem x From y
{ Stops x from being a subsystem of y }
iii) Change Type : Unlink x From y
Link : name-expr
{ Deletes a link called name-expr between x and y }
i) Eager evaluation is now distinct from Forced evaluation. Eager
starts off computation, Force starts off computation and waits until
the value is fully defuturable. An example of this construct is :-
Action Part :
Definitions : a == 42
b == 200
c == 300
Eager : a, b
Force : c
This will eagerly evaluate a, b and c and will wait for c.
j) The following changes have been introduced/features defined to
support the graphics package.
i) tv:coerce-poligon-value(something) -> a value which has had
all Poligon related internal data structures unwrapped
from it. The only exception to this is if something is
or contains an unsatisfied future.
ii) tv:extract-a-slot-from-a-node(node, :slot-name) -> the values
in the slot denoted by the KEYWORD slot-name in the node
denoted by Node. This value is represented by the three-list
(:slot-name node value).
iii) tv:extract-all-slots-from-a-node(node) -> a list of three-lists
like those in ii) denoting all of the readable slots in Node.
iv) tv:poligon-graphics-pane() -> the graphics pane in the Poligon
control frame.
v) If the flavor 'tv:Graphics-display-pane is defined when
Poligon creates its control frame then this will be the
graophics pane. If it is not then a little dummy pane will
be put at the bottom of the right column.
Rice.
-------
∂15-Apr-86 0019 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM faculty candidates in theoretical computer science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 00:17:38 PST
Received: from decwrl.DEC.COM by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 15 Apr 86 00:16:30-PST
Received: from magic.ARPA (magic) by decwrl.DEC.COM (4.22.03/4.7.34)
id AA09581; Tue, 15 Apr 86 00:09:19 pst
Received: by magic.ARPA (4.12/4.7.34)
id AA06131; Tue, 15 Apr 86 00:10:47 pst
From: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas)
Message-Id: <8604150810.AA06131@magic.ARPA>
Date: 15 Apr 1986 0010-PST (Tuesday)
To: faculty@score
Cc: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM, phy@sail, ashok@sushi, patashnik@sushi,
thsch@navajo
Subject: faculty candidates in theoretical computer science
The theory search committee has invited three candidates to visit and
interview with our department during the course of next week, April 21
to 25. The three candidates are Bob Wilber from CMU, Raimund Seidel
from Cornell, and Andrew Goldberg from MIT. The schedule is as follows:
Bob Wilber, on Tuesday, April 22
Raimund Seidel, on Thursday, April 24, and
Andrew Goldberg, on Friday, April 25.
I would like to encourage you to sign up and talk to them -- recruiting
new faculty is one of our most important activities. Phyllis Winkler
will be maintaining the schedules, so please send her mail (phy@sail)
if you are interested. I have summarized below the research interests of
the candidates. A separate message will contain the talk time and topic of
each of the three.
Bob Wilber got his Ph.D. from CMU in 1985, with a thesis entitled "A
Comparison of the Black and Black-White Pebble Games." The results of this
thesis solved a long-standing open problem in the sense that it showed that
there are straighline programs for which nondeterminism is asymptotically
better (wrt. space) than deterministic evaluation.
Before that, Bob did some work on languages random with respect to some given
complexity classes, shedding more light on the structure of languages in
exponential time that are random wrt. poly time computations.
More recently, he has started work on binary search trees, in particular the
self-adjusting trees of Sleator/Tarjan. Bob Wilber's areas of interest
are analysis of algorithms, combinatorics, and complexity theory.
Raimund Seidel is getting a Ph.D. this year from Cornell. He has worked
extensively in the field of computational geometry, and especially in
the computation of convex hulls and Voronoi diagrams. His thesis
contains an impressive array of results on geometric algorithms whose
performance is sensitive to the output size. This is a new and a useful
complexity measure in an area where different instances of a problem
with the same input size can have widely different output sizes. An
example of such a result is a method for computing convex hulls in high
dimensions at a logarithmic cost per face. The results are also of
interest to researchers in operations research.
Goldberg is graduating in fall, and will be available Jan. 87.
His interests include algorithms and complexity theory, with applications
to supercomputers, parallel computation, and VLSI design automation.
He has publications in combinatorial algorithms, probabilistic analysis of
algorithms, complexity theory, VLSI testing, and silicon compilation.
∂15-Apr-86 0739 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Tuesday Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 07:35:43 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 07:35:25-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Tuesday Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199041327.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The guests at today's lunch will be Saul Amarel of DARPA and Bob Taylor of
DEC at 12:15 in MJH 146.
-------
∂15-Apr-86 0904 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library--Policy For Electronic Signup For New Books
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 09:04:14 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 08:55:44-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library--Policy For Electronic Signup For New Books
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA,
msgs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12199055950.26.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
In the Math/CS Library, we display recently received new books and new
journals on the first table to your right as you walk into the library.
The front end of the table has the math/stat new books and journals and
the far end of the table has the new computer science books and journals.
Both materials are out on the table for a week. The new books can not
be checked out during that week but there is a signup list in the back
of the book for interested people to sign their names and we will notify
you when the book can circulate. Books with more then one name on the
list will only circulate for two weeks until all the people on the list
have had a chance to see the book.
I post on the bulletin board weekly lists of new books. I don't include
all of the new books but I do include most of the computer science books
on the cs list and most of the statistics books and many of the math books
on the stat/math list. If you are interested in any of the books on a
list, respond as soon as you see the list with the call number, title and
author of the book, your name, physical address and electronic address.
We will list your name in the back of the book on the waiting list. When
it is your turn to see the book, we will notify you (most likely by electronic
mail since that is the media I am addressing here).
When you make a request like this or use our other services electronically,
you can assume that you have been signed up, a book has been renewed etc.
If after a passage of time the material has not made it to you, you can
double check and see if something got misplaced. Generally we will respond
back to you on an individual basis only if there is some problem with the
request.
Harry Llull
-------
∂15-Apr-86 1642 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa Next BATS: Tuesday, April 29 at Berkeley
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 16:42:40 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 16:42:02-PST
From: BATS Coordinator for Stanford <HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next BATS: Tuesday, April 29 at Berkeley
To: aflb.su@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12199140836.10.HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
BATS will be held 29 April in Sibley Auditorium on the UC Campus.
The speakers will be:
R. Karp (UC Berkeley)
R. Fagin (IBM Almaden)
M. Manasse (DEC-SRC)
Y. Brandman (Stanford)
Titles and abstracts will follow when they are all available.
-------
∂15-Apr-86 1736 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 17:36:04 PST
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by su-sushi.arpa with TCP; Tue 15 Apr 86 17:33:48-PST
Received: from rsch.wisc.edu by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 15 Apr 86 17:33:03-PST
Received: by rsch.wisc.edu; Tue, 15 Apr 86 19:01:04 CST
Message-Id: <8604151011.AA13294@rsch.wisc.edu>
Received: from CS.COLUMBIA.EDU by rsch.wisc.edu; Tue, 15 Apr 86 04:11:55 CST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 05:11:50-EST
From: Zvi Galil <GALIL@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
To: theory@RSCH.WISC.EDU
Status: RO
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 15 Apr 86 18:51:06 CST (Tue)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Hi!
I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is that the last issue of
(your favorite magazine) SIGACT News has been delayed
and you'd get it only after mid May (with luck before STOC).
The good news is that there is something to do in the meantime
(until you get it). Pls read the algorithm below and try to
check how good it is in practice. (Asymptotically it is optimal.)
You can give it as a project in your course.
--------------
yum!
---------------
fyi....someone out here did try it, and reported it made very good
cookies. i can't believe they would sell the recipe...maybe the
mormons needed some quick cash.
rich
---------------
The following was forwarded to me by a friend from a bboard at Yale.
The story sounds dubious, but I will save judgement until someone actually
tries it....
----------------
Someone at PG&E called the Mrs. Fields Cookie office
and requested the recipe for her cookies. They asked
her for her charge card number, and she gave it to them
thinking the cost would be $15 to $25. It turned out
to be $200!
Therefore, this person is giving the recipe to anyone
and everyone she knows (and doesn't know) so that
someone can get use of her $200. Anyway, just keep
passing it on.
Cream together: 2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar
Add: 4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
Mix together in
separate bowl: 4 cups flour
5 cups oatmeal (put small
amounts of oatmeal in blender until it turns to
powder. Measure out 5 cups of oatmeal and only
"powderize" that, NOT 5 cups "powderized" oatmeal)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
Mix: All of the above
Add: 24 oz. bag of chocolate chips and
1 finely grated 8 oz Hershey bar (plain)
Add: 3 cups chopped nuts (any kind)
Bake on greased cookie sheet (make golf ball sized balls) and
bake about two inches apart. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 - 10
minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Makes 112.
Fri 4-Apr-1986 09:39 EDT
-------
We hope to taste the first samples later
this week at Columbia's eighth TheoryDay. The winners will be
asked to serve us at STOC.
By the way has anybody read the P=NP paper? Earlier this year there
was a similar rumor from Germany. The claim was that NTIME(n) is contained
in DTIME(n↑(2↑64)). I already did my share, I read a paper claiming that
graph isomorphism is in P and found the mistake on page 31.
See you on Friday, Zvi
--------------
TN Message #39
--------------
∂15-Apr-86 1749 PUBLICATIONS@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 17:49:31 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 17:42:53-PST
From: PUBLICATIONS@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Is in
<csli>csli-monthly.04-86 on Turing
The online version will be mailed out tomorrow and the hardcopy
should be available on Thursday.
People with CSLI accounts will NOT receive the online mailing.
-Logos
-------
∂15-Apr-86 1902 REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty email addresses on Score
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 19:02:51 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 19:01:49-PST
From: John Reuling <Reuling@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty email addresses on Score
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: 246 Margaret Jacks Hall, Stanford; 415/725-5555
Message-ID: <12199166283.14.REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There are now mail aliases on Score for all CSD Faculty by LAST NAME.
Mail to <last←name>@Score should work for ALL CSD faculty.
Examples: McCarthy@Score -> JMC@Sail
Nilsson@Score -> Nilsson@Score
Guibas@Score -> Guibas@Navajo
Information for those who didn't already have mail aliases on Score
was taken from the CSD PEOPLE database.
-J
-------
∂15-Apr-86 2210 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Rebooting Explorers
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Apr 86 22:10:11 PST
Date: Tue 15 Apr 86 21:57:50-PST
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Rebooting Explorers
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199198327.12.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've noticed that many people do not shut down Explorers before
booting them. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, run (SI:SHUTDOWN) before
rebooting! This function:
- Does a LOGOUT (ie. no need to also do (LOGOUT))
- Closes server connections gracefully
- Shuts down the files system **IMPORTANT**
- Halts Lisp.
Not using this function can cause damage to the file system, and
you wouldn't want to lose all your files, would you?
-- Rich
-------
∂16-Apr-86 0551 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB's
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 05:51:44 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 05:50:22-PST
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB's
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12199284348.7.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Here are the AFLB talks for the next two weeks. Note the nonstandard
times for next week's two special AFLBs.
-------------------------------
17-Apr-86 : Donald Allison (IBM Palo Alto)
On Computing Optimal Rectangles
Two problems of interest in computational geometry are: (1) Given
a set S of n points in the plane, find the minimum area rectangle
enclosing the set S. (2) Given a set S of n points within a
rectangle, find the maximum area rectangle, similar to the given
rectangle, that doesn't contain any points of S in its interior.
An O(n log n) algorithm for Problem 1 and an O(n log↑3 n) algorithm
for Problem 2 will be described along with strategies for solving a
related problem---finding the maximum area rectangle that will fit
inside a rectilinear polygon. This latter problem has several
interesting practical applications. One of these will be discussed
in some detail along with a simple and elegant algorithm.
***** Time and place: April 17, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
22-Apr-86 (Tuesday) : Robert Wilber (IBM Almaden)
White Pebbles Help
The black pebble game is played by placing black pebbles on, and removing
them from, the vertices of a directed acyclic graph in a way that models
the deterministic evaluation of a straight-line program. The number of
pebbles required to play the game is equal to the number of registers
needed to evaluate the straight-line program. The black & white pebble
game is an extension of the black pebble game that models nondeterministic
evaluations. I show that for arbitrarily large N there is a dag with
vertex indegrees bounded by 2 such that the necessary and sufficient
number of pebbles needed to pebble the dag using the rules for the black &
white pebble game is N whereas the number of pebbles needed using the
rules for the black pebble game is Theta(N log N / log log N). This shows
that nondeterminism reduces the number of registers needed to evaluate
certain straight-line programs by a factor of Theta(log N / log log N).
***** Time and place: April 22, 1:15 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
24-Apr-86 : Raimund Seidel (Cornell)
Constructing Higher-Dimensional Convex Hulls at Logarithmic Cost Per Face
The convex hull problem, finding the smallest convex set containing a finite
point set in R↑d, has been a prominent problem in computational geometry.
For d<=3 this problem has been thoroughly studied and efficient algorithms
are known. For d>3 the problem is complicated by the fact that for a
convex hull of m points in R↑d the number of faces, F, can be anywhere between
OMEGA(1) and O(m↑floor(d/2)). It is thus extremely desirable that the
running time of an algorithm for constructing convex hulls depends not
only on the input size m, but also on the output size F.
The best previously known algorithm of this type is due to Chand-Kapur.
It is based on the "gift-wrapping" principle and has running time O(Fm).
I will present an algorithm whose time complexity for fixed dimension d
is O(m↑2 + Flogm).
It is worth pointing out that a dual version of the convex hull problem
is the problem of enumerating all basic feasible solutions of a linearly
constrained set. In this context "gift-wrapping" is the dual notion of
"pivoting." The new algorithm shows how one can solve this enumeration
problem efficiently without pivoting.
***** Time and place: April 24, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
25-Apr-86 (Friday) : Andrew Goldberg (MIT)
A New Approach to the Maximum Flow Problem
The Maximum Flow problem has many applications in the fields of
combinatorics and operations research. The first algorithm for the
problem was discovered in 1956 by Ford and Fulkerson, and a number of
algorithms have been proposed since then. However, all previously
known max-flow algorithms worked by finding augmenting paths, either
one path at a time or all shortest augmenting paths at once (by using
the level network technique of Dinic).
The previously known algorithms give an O( min (n↑3, n↑(5/3) m↑(2/3),
nm log n)) upper bound on the problem; the upper bound is achieved by
a combination of three algorithms due to Karzanov, Galil, and Sleator
& Tarjan. The only previously known parallel max-flow algorithm, due
to Shiloach & Vishkin, runs in parallel time O(n↑2 log n) and requires
OMEGA(n) memory for each edge of the network.
We propose a method for computing max-flow without finding augmenting
paths explicitly. A sequential algorithm based on this method runs in
time O(n m log(n↑2 / m)). This bound is better then the previously
known bound, and it is achieved by a single algorithm. A parallel
algorithm based on the method runs in time O(n↑2 log n) using a
constant amount of memory per edge of the network; this makes the
implementation of the algorithm much more feasible (compared with
the Shiloach & Vishkin algorithm).
This has been a joint work with Robert E. Tarjan.
***** Time and place: April 25, 11:00 am in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Not all time slots for this academic year
have been filled. The file [SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains
more information about future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂16-Apr-86 0958 JF@su-sushi.arpa Copies of Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing Transparencies
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 09:58:12 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 09:57:33-PST
From: Joan Feigenbaum <JF@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Copies of Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing Transparencies
To: su-bboards@su-sushi.arpa
cc: aflb.su@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12199329345.8.JF@su-sushi.arpa>
Last month, I went to a workshop on fault-tolerant distributed computing.
Theory meets Practice (and grave disappointment is experienced all around).
Anyway, I just received copies of the transparencies, which I will be happy
to let you xerox. These are just lecture-transparencies, not formal papers
or even abstracts. However, if you see something that intrigues you, I will
(probably) be able to point you toward the author so that you can get a copy.
I'm here in 325.
-Joan
-------
∂16-Apr-86 1022 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tom Mitchell
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 10:22:19 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 10:09:58-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tom Mitchell
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199331605.8.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Tom Mitchell will be visiting our department on April 21 and April 22.
While here, he will be giving a talk as follows:
DAY: April 22, 1986
EVENT: CS 520 AI Seminar
PLACE: Terman Auditorium
TIME: 11:00
TITLE: Learning Apprentice Systems
PERSON: Tom Mitchell
FROM: Rutgers University
Abstract:
This talk introduces a class of knowledge-based systems called
Learning Apprentices: systems that provide interactive aid in solving
some problem and acquire new knowledge by observing the actions of
their users. The talk focuses on a particular Learning Apprentice,
called LEAP, which is presently being developed in the domain of
digital circuit design. By analyzing circuit fragments contributed by
its users, LEAP infers rules that allow it to recommend similar
circuits in subsequent cases. We discuss the type of problem solving
architecture, knowledge organization, and learning methods required to
support such learning apprentices in a variety of domains.
-------
∂16-Apr-86 1054 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 10:53:03 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 10:34:32-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Meeting
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199336080.13.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There will be a special (one-time only) general faculty meeting
at 3:00 p. m. Wednesday, April 23 to consider two new faculty
appointments. Place: MJH 146.
As you know, the CSL has been interviewing candidates for new positions
made available by the Dean. Their search committee has done an
outstanding job and is recommending two candidates, Anoop Gupta and
Doug Tygar. Both candidates have said that if they do join CSL they
would like to join it as members of the CSD. Our procedure in this
case (as I understand it) is to hear the report of the CSL search
committee, review the papers of the candidates, and then meet to
consider recommending the candidates to excomm of the School of
Engrg. We are distributing papers of these candidates to all CSD
faculty members today. I would appreciate it if you could look these
over carefully before the meeting, gather whatever additional background
material you might need to before the meeting, so that our meeting
can be short and decisive. Both candidates would come at the Asst.
Professor level. People who cannot attend the meeting can notify
me (with cc's to Betty Scott) via electronic mail or memo about how
they would vote if they were at the mtg.
I am returning from Dayton about noon on Wed. so I should be here
in plenty of time for the mtg. (If for some reason I'm delayed,
I'll ask John Hennessy to open the mtg, make a verbal report
about the candidates, open the mtg for discussion and
then decision.)
-Nils
-------
∂16-Apr-86 1202 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Fernando Pereira
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 12:01:52 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 11:59:17-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Fernando Pereira
To: planlunch.dis: ;
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes before the seminar (10:55), as
you must now be escorted from the reception desk. If you arrive
late, you will probably miss the beginning of the talk!
------------------------------------------------------------------
A LOCALIZED MODEL OF CONCURRENCY
Fernando Pereira (PEREIRA@SRI-AI)
SRI International, AI Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 21
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In this talk I will give an informal overview of a structural theory
of concurrency that I have been developing with Luis Monteiro. The
main goal of our theory is to model the way in which local
interactions between components of a system lead to global behavior.
The theory, which is based on the mathematical concept of sheaf,
allows us to model precisely the idea of processes interacting
through common behavior at shared locations. In contrast to
behavioral models, ours keeps track of the individual contributions
of subsystems to overall system behavior, allowing a finer-grained
analysis of subsystem interactions.
From event signatures that specify relations of independence and exclusivity
between events, we construct spaces of locations where activity may occur.
Behaviors are then modeled as elements of sheaves of monoids over those
spaces and processes as certain sets of behaviors. The construction of the
model, and in particular its avoidance of interleaving, gives it very
convenient mathematical properties --- sheaves of behavior monoids are to
event signatures what free monoids are to alphabets. The theory also allows
us to identify on purely structural grounds event signatures with a
potential for deadlock.
Time permitting, I will engage in rambling speculation as to possible
applications of the theory.
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∂16-Apr-86 1813 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 1
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 18:00:52 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:19:54-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 1
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
C S L I M O N T H L Y
------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 15, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A monthly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
---------------------
CONTENTS
Halfway Between Language and Information: The Role of Representation
at CSLI by Brian Smith --Part 1
Report from Japan by Jon Barwise --Part 2
Project Reports --Parts 3,4,5,6
Representation and Reasoning (R&R) --Part 3
Situated Automata Theory (SA) --Part 4
Discourse, Intention, and Action (DIA) --Part 4
Foundations of Grammar (FOG) --Part 5
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) --Part 5
Computational Models of Spoken Language (CMOSL) --Part 6
New Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Major --Part 6
CSLI Postdoctoral Fellows --Part 6
CSLI Snapshots --Part 6
CSLI Visiting Scholars --Part 7
New CSLI Publications --Part 7
Letters to the Editor --Part 7
---------------------
HALFWAY BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION:
THE ROLE OF REPRESENTATION AT CSLI
Brian C. Smith
If you look back to the original CSLI research program, you can
find a tension between two important themes.
On the one hand, there was a *semantic* orientation -- a concern
with connection to the world. Tremendous emphasis, for example, was
(and still is) placed on the notion of information content, viewed as
arising from correlations among situations or states of affairs in a
constrained, regular world. This general insight, emphasized by
Dretske, has led people to develop theories of meaning that apply to
smoke's meaning fire, as well as to sentences meaning, say,
propositions. A focus on a semantic notion of information clearly
characterizes much CSLI work, including situation semantics, situation
theory, situated automata, and various other projects. It also
underlies some of the criticisms that have been voiced around CSLI to
the "purely formal" methodological stance towards mind, computation,
etc.
On the other hand, there has also been a strong *linguistic* theme.
A deep concern about the nature of language and linguistic structures
permeates the early proposals, and continues in a great deal of our
current work. Furthermore, there is more to language than
information, in the sense that language is a more specific phenomenon.
Linguistic structures can of course be used to carry or convey
information, but, as the smoke example illustrates, they are not
unique in this respect. Rather, languages possess a cluster of
additional properties: they are used for communication among agents;
they typically have an inductively specified compositional structure;
they seem to make explicit reference to concepts or types; they have
sophisticated mechanisms for exploiting circumstantial relativity;
etc. Some people view the communicative function as primary; others
highlight the compositional. There may be no fact of the matter to
settle such debates, since human language is almost certainly a
mixture of several intersecting properties. Nonetheless,
language-like structures clearly appear in a variety of places: in
programs and other computer languages; in formal theories generally;
and so on.
These two themes are directly reflected in CSLI's name. And the
relations between them are a subject of constant interest. The
tension alluded to above, however, has only recently begun to receive
explicit attention. It stems from two facts: (a) the ubiquity of
information, and (b) the specificity of language. For a variety of
reasons spelled out below, a notion is needed that is narrower and
more restrictive than information in general, but at the same time is
broader than language. This, at least as I see it, is the function
that representation might serve.
To get at it, note that the information theories of the sort suggested
by Dretske, Barwise and Perry, Rosenschein, and others, claim that
there is a tremendous amount of information around. In fact, if they
are right, the world is quite drenched in the stuff. The
counter-intuitive aspect of this claim has been explained by saying
that, in order to process or reason about information, an agent must
"know" or be "attuned" to the regularity it is based on. I.e.,
whereas a telephone cable can carry all sorts of information, we
wouldn't say that a cable processes the information it carries. A
person, however, or perhaps a computer or information processor, can
not only carry information, but can also process it, by being attuned
to its underlying regularities, or recognizing it as such. The
problem is that this notion of attunement hasn't yet been adequately
spelled out.
One place to search for an explanation of attunement, and of
information processing in general, is to look back to language. But,
especially if you take the communicative nature of language seriously,
that just seems wrong: language is a very particular phenomenon, that
has presumably developed to play a communicative function among agents
of a certain sort. Rather, what seems to be needed is a more general
notion, that would include language as a specific variety, but that
would encompass within its scope a much wider range of possibilities.
Representation seems the ideal candidate. For one thing,
non-linguistic representations are familiar: mathematical quadruples
to represent Turing machines; numbers and other mathematical
structures to represent distances, physical magnitudes (literally,
ratios of magnitudes), and scientific phenomena in general; sets of
sets to represent numbers; etc. And then there are photographs,
blueprints, musical scores, gestures, maps, balsa models, equations,
recipes, icons, ... the list goes on and on. Even Dreyfus admits that
minds, too, are representational, in a general sense, since we all
clearly represent the world around us in a thousand ways. And yet at
the same time it seems right to say that language, at least in some of
its functions, is a species or kind of representation.
It is not my intent here to try to say what representation is; that
is the job of (among others) the Representation and Reasoning project
(see report in this issue). Rather, my goal is only to place it on
the table as a subject deserving its own intellectual inquiry.
Furthermore, it is a subject that affects us all, as even a quick
survey demonstrates:
1. Linguistics
Linguists, in accounting for the regularities of language, use all
sorts of representational structures: parse trees, feature analyses,
information-structures such as LFG's C- and F-structures, phonetics
representations such as those discussed in the CMOSL report in this
issue, grammars and grammatical formalisms, etc. Although these
structures aren't full-fledged languages, it is being increasingly
realized that they are definitely representational, and as such
deserve their own semantical analysis. See for example work by
Shieber and Pereira on semantics for grammatical formalisms, the FOG
and HPSG reports in this issue, and Stucky's recent paper on
"Interpreted Syntax".
2. Logic
It is distinctive of the model-theoretic approach to semantics to use
mathematical structures to model the interpretation or content of
sentential and other linguistic forms. Etchemendy and Barwise, in a
seminar to be presented later this month, will analyze this tradition
from a representational point of view. Although it would be odd to
call a model linguistic, it seems quite appropriate to take "model" to
be a species of representation, which enables one to ask about the
further semantical relation between the model and the world being
modelled.
3. Artificial Intelligence
Although knowledge representation is recognized in AI as a central
issue, most explicit theorizing has been about the nature and
structure of knowledge, not representation. Nonetheless, the
representational aspect of the project seems equally important,
especially for computational purposes. A theory of representation
might allow otherwise unanalyzed proposals to be assessed and
compared. For example, much of the difference between logical and
frame or network systems has to do with important differences in
representation that aren't captured in model-theoretic content.
Similarly, we should be able to reconstruct persistent intuitions
about analog, propositional, and imagistic representations.
4. Computer Science
Computational practice is full of representational structures: data
structures, data bases, programs, specifications, declarations, etc.
Several years ago some of us argued for a linguistic analysis of such
constructs, but again -- especially with the hindsight obtained by
working with real linguists -- this seems too specific. Furthermore,
there are competing traditions within computer science; the abstract
data type tradition, for example, argues explicitly against a
linguistic analysis of computational processes, instead classifying
their structure in terms of mathematical models. But however it is
analyzed, there is no doubt that our current systems embody a wealth
of representational relations. Consider a text editor like EMACS or
TEdit, for example: there is the text being edited, the presentation
on the screen, the internal "text" stream or document representation,
the internal program that describes the editor, the "language" of
interaction made of keystrokes and mouse-buttons, etc. This domain
provides a rich source of examples and tests for any proposed theories
of representation.
5. Philosophy
It has been a pervasive intuition in the philosophy of mind that
mental operations must in some way be representational. Even on a
relatively narrow conception of that notion, such writers as Block,
Dennett, Fodor, Newell, Pylyshyn, Rey, and Stich will sign up. As the
notion broadens, other theorists will start to agree -- Perry and
Barwise, for example, even Dreyfus. Rather than taking the
"representational" thesis as a binary yes/no question, a more
sophisticated theory of representation might allow finer distinctions
among these writers to be articulated and explained.
In closing, it is worth pointing out a distinctive aspect of CSLI's
particular approach to representation. Several years ago, we were
very careful to insist that "information" was a semantic, not a
formal, notion -- as opposed to the way it was treated, for example,
in Shannon's theory of information capacity. I.e., rather than
rejecting information, the proposal was to reconstrue it in a way that
got more directly at its essential properties. My suggestion is that
we apply the same medicine to received views of representation. For
example, many readers of Barwise and Perry's "Situations and
Attitudes" found the authors to take an anti-representational view of
mind. In retrospect, it seems as if this bias arose from a failure to
discriminate between *formal* theories of representation, and
representation as a more general, semantic, phenomenon. What we need
is a theory of representation that can do justice to this fuller
notion.
Various projects are already working towards this goal. For
example, the Situated Automata project (see report in this issue) can
be viewed as an exploration of (a) how much information processing can
be embodied in a non-representational agent, and (b) what kinds of
representation, other than of the formal, linguistic variety, are
useful in developing agents able to successfully cope with their
embedding circumstances. Similarly, in my own work on the foundations
of computation, I am attempting to erect a theory of computation on a
representational but non-formal base. By freeing representation from
its purely formal heritage, there is at least a chance that we will
uncover a notion that can resolve the initial tension, and
successfully occupy a middle ground between language and information.
---------------------
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∂16-Apr-86 1911 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 2
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 19:07:06 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:20:41-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 2
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
REPORT FROM JAPAN
Jon Barwise
I have just returned from a fascinating two weeks in Japan. One
week was spent at an International Symposium on Language and
Artificial Intelligence. The other was spent partly in sightseeing,
in giving lectures in Tokyo, and in visiting the Natural Language
Processing Group at ICOT, hosted by Dr. Kuniaki Mukai, leader of that
group.
The symposium was the first event completely sponsored by the new
International Institute for Advanced Studies, to be part of the new
Science City, in Kyoto Prefecture, near Kyoto. The meeting was
planned by a committee chaired by Prof. M. Nagao, from Kyoto
University. It consisted of four busy days of closed meetings,
followed by an afternoon public session. There were 20 invited
speakers, 10 from Japan, and 10 from other countries, including
Barbara Grosz and myself from CSLI. (Since this is a report about
work in Japan, I will limit my discussion below to a few of the talks
given by the Japanese speakers.) In addition, there were 10 more
invited participants and 20 observers, all from Japan. My rough count
of the public session put the number at around 1200, with people
traveling hours from all over Japan to attend.
Both the meeting and the astounding attendance at the public
session show the keen interest in Japan in the area of natural
language and AI. My sense is that this interest stems from three
sources. One is just the natural fascination of language to the
Japanese people, for reasons anchored in the history and structure of
their own language. A second is the problems faced by the Japanese in
terms of communication with the rest of the world. While they are one
of the world powers, economically, they speak a language that no one
else in the world uses. Thus basically everything written needs to be
translated either into Japanese or from Japanese into a host of other
languages. Finally, there is the Japanese determination to stay at
the forefront of research and productivity in computer science.
A number of things struck me in the invited addresses given by the
Japanese participants, as well as in discussions in Kyoto and Tokyo.
One was that they are much more aware of the overriding importance of
circumstantial facts of discourse and context in the interpretation of
utterances than the typical researcher in the US (outside the Bay
Area, of course). For example, the overriding importance of context
was emphasized in a very interesting paper on future prospects in
machine translation, by Prof. J. Tsuji-i, of the Electrical
Engineering Department of Kyoto University. Partly this concern comes
from the heavy use of "elipsis" in Japanese, partly from the role
played by honorifics and by tags that indicate the speaker's attitude
toward his own "assertion". Similarly, several talks stressed the
role of emotional factors in interpretation in Japanese. (Prof. Y.
Anzai gave a talk called "Towards emotional architecture for natural
language processing", but he observed that his title was partly
intended to be a pun.) I suspect that the importance of context in
Japanese is one of the things that attracts many Japanese students of
language to situation semantics, since it is a theory where context
plays a much bigger and more flexible role than traditional semantic
accounts.
Another thing that struck me was the extent to which Japanese
researchers are on top of theoretical developments from CSLI: LFG,
GPSG, PATR, and situation semantics, in particular. For example,
Prof. T. Gunji, from Osaka University, also head of an ICOT working
group, gave a very interesting paper taking off from Carl Pollard's
Head Grammar, generalizing it to allow "Subcat" to take a partially
ordered set of features in a way that gave a very elegant treatment of
a number of puzzles in Japanese syntax and semantics. This work is
part of the JPSG grammar of Japanese being developed at ICOT.
Similarly, the group at ICOT has worked through the latest things on
situation semantics, even things that are not yet finished. Barbara
Grosz and I were also struck with how important various problems that
we have been wrestling with here at CSLI are in a wide range of
applications, especially issues in representation -- mental and
otherwise. Unfortunately, this is one area where progress made here
has not been written up in any one place, so the ideas have not
reached the outside yet.
The public session was hosted by the chairman of the planning
committee, Prof. H. Yoshizawa. He stressed the importance of
theoretical, basic research, and that, while the new Institute is
being supported by business and industry, it is to be devoted to such
basic research. It is to have no fixed staff or subject matter, but
will support various theoretic projects, for different periods of
time. Language and AI is one of the areas they currently plan to
support. If the planning and execution of the symposium are any
indication, they will do a splendid job.
In Tokyo, I lectured to the Logic and Linguistics Society of Japan,
a thriving group with several hundred members throughout Japan. About
100 or so came to my talk. I noted there that there is no similar
organization in this country, or the world, as far as I know. It
seems to be a very happy collaboration. However, there are apparently
very few philosophers interested in natural language in Japan. While
some people in this country might wish that there were fewer
philosophers in the field, in Japan this shortage is seen as a
problem.
My talk to this group was on recent developments in situation
semantics. I borrowed freely from Gunji's paper and from LFG notation
to give the semantics of a small fragment of Japanese, one where I
tried to indicate the interaction of the discourse, grammatical,
background, and described situation. Before going to Japan, I had
been warned that Japanese audiences consider it impolite to ask
questions. So contrary to what I expected, there was a lot of
discussion, both here and at the symposium, and the discussions were
very productive.
My final full day in Japan was spent at ICOT. There I heard reports
from the members of the Natural Language Processing Group on JPSG,
situation semantics, and the aims of their particular project. I was
struck by how theoretical it was, contrary to a widespread view of
what is going on at ICOT. They see their project as basically a
bridge between theory and the academic world, on the one hand, and
implementation and the industrial world, on the other, a bridge that
allows a two-way-flow of ideas. In this regard, it is much more
similar to CSLI (though much smaller) than I had expected. I also
discovered that some of the ideas currently being developed in the
STASS group (for example, Susan Stucky's view of interpreted syntax)
are implicit in some of Dr. Mukai's work.
I had lunch with members of this group and Dr. K. Fuchi, the
director of ICOT. I found his view of ICOT much the same as that
depicted by the NLP group earlier. I also found him very interested
in cooperation with scientists from CSLI. I don't know if there has
been a shift in perspective at ICOT, or if the hysteria in the US over
the 5th generation work has given us a warped perspective, but again I
sensed much more in common between their perspective and ours here at
CSLI than I had foreseen. Both at ICOT and at the symposium I found
the researchers keenly aware of the deep theoretical difficulties that
lie ahead, and so much more interested in long-term basic research
than I had been led to expect.
In the afternoon, I saw a demo of a natural language discourse
system, DUALS, on the new PSI machine, with a frank appraisal of the
strengths and weaknesses of the DUALS system. This was followed by a
two-and-a- half-hour discussion session with about 30 people from
ICOT, and from industrial and academic institutions around Tokyo, who
had prepared detailed questions about situation semantics. Again, I
found them very well informed and far from reticent about asking tough
questions. It was a very thought-provoking afternoon.
In fact, it was a very thought provoking trip in many ways. One
thing that people told me repeatedly was how much they envied people
at CSLI for being able to interact across disciplines and institutions
so easily. Many of them would love to spend some time here. Of
course, the interactions here may not be as easy for us as they
imagine, but it certainly is much easier than for them. They have all
our problems, and more. For example, to get together in Tokyo, people
usually commute for an hour or two in each direction, in addition to a
similar commute to and from home. The same problem was mentioned in
Kyoto. Also, while we think we are short of space, it is nothing
compared to the space situation there. All in all, I came away with a
real admiration for the work the Japanese are doing, but also with a
fuller appreciation of the CSLI environment.
finally, i would add that my hosts in japan could not have been
more thoughtful. not only was the trip very productive for me,
scientifically, it was also thoroughly enjoyable. i returned with a
richer sense of the international character and importance of the
research we are engaged in here at csli.
---------------------
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∂16-Apr-86 2047 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 3
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 20:28:32 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:26:45-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 3
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
PROJECT REPORTS
REPRESENTATION AND REASONING (R&R)
Brian C. Smith
Project Participants: Ivan Blair, Carol Cleland, John Etchemendy,
David Levy, Ken Olson, Brian Smith (Project
Leader), Lucy Suchman, Terry Winograd
So far, the Representation and Reasoning project has only been
responsible to the first half of its name. Our present aim is to
develop a comprehensive theory of representation and modeling, able to
explain the pervasive role these notions play in language,
computation, mind, and general information processing. But even this
is far too large a goal to tackle directly, so within that general
framework we've identified four slightly more manageable projects:
1. Developing a typology of the various kinds of "correspondence"
relations that can hold between A and B, when A represents B
2. Analyzing the philosophical foundations of representation --
particularly of *acts* of representation ("represent",
after all, is a verb)
3. Examining the notion of models and modeling (viewed as a
species of representation), with specific reference to their
use in the model-theoretic approach to semantics
4. Constructing a new theory of computation and information
processing, based on a foundation of embodied representational
processes
This report will focus on only the first two of these, since they have
received the bulk of our attention.
1. Categories of Correspondence
Consider photographs, sentences, balsa airplane models, computer screens,
Turing machine quadruples, architectural blueprints, set-theoretic models
of meaning and content, maps, parse trees in linguistics, and so on and
so forth. Each is a representation -- a complex, structured object --
that somehow stands for, or corresponds to, some other object or
situation (or, if you prefer, is "taken by an interpreter* to stand for,
or correspond to, that represented situation -- see below). Our first
task, in trying to make sense of this wide variety of representation
relations, has been to identify the ways in which the structure or
composition of a representation can be used to signify or indicate what
it represents.
It is striking that received theoretical practice has no vocabulary
for such relations. On the contrary, standard approaches generally
fall into one of two camps: those (like model-theory, abstract data
types, and category theory) that identify two objects when they are
roughly isomorphic, and those (like formal semantics) that take the
"designation" relation -- presumably a specific kind of representation
-- to be strictly non-transitive. The latter view is manifested, for
example, in the strict hierarchies of meta-languages, the notion of a
"use/mention" confusion, etc. Unfortunately, the first of these
approaches is too coarse-grained for our purposes, ignoring many
representational details important for computation and comprehension,
while the latter is untenably rigid -- far too strict to cope with
representational practice. A photographic copy of a photograph of a
sailboat, for example, can sometimes serve perfectly well as a photo
of the sailboat. Similarly, it would be pedantic to deny, on the
grounds of use/mention hygiene, that the visual representation `12' on
a computer screen must not be taken to represent a number, but rather
must be viewed as representing a data structure that in turn
represents a number. And yet there are clearly times when the latter
reading is to be preferred. In practice, representational relations,
from the simplest to the most complex, can sometimes be composed,
sometimes not. How does this all work?
Our approach has been to start very simply, and to identify the
structural relations that obtain between two domains, when objects of
one are used to correspond to objects of the other. For example, we
call a representation "iconic" when its objects, properties, and
relations correspond, respectively, to objects, properties, and
relations in the represented domain. Similarly, a representation is
said to "absorb" anything that represents itself. Thus the grammar
rule, EXP -> OP(EXP1,EXP2), for a formal language of arithmetic,
absorbs left-to-right adjacency; model-theoretic accounts of truth
typically absorb negation; etc. A representation is said to "reify"
any property or relation that it represents with an object. Thus
first-order logic reifies the predicates in the semantic domain, since
they are represented by (instances of) objects -- i.e., predicate
letters -- in the representation. A representation is called "polar"
when it represents a presence by an absence, or vice versa, as for
example when the presence of a room key at the hotel desk is taken to
signify the client's absence. By developing and extending a typology
of this sort, we intend to categorize representation relations of a
wide variety, and to understand their use in inference, their
composition, etc.
Even this much discussion suggests how wide a variety of examples
are relevant to this analysis of correspondence, but we have found the
domain of visual representations on computers to be a particularly
rich source of both insights and constraints. In simple cases of
computerized editing, for example, a user must understand the
relations among a whole host of representational structures: visual
figures on the screen, document representations in the computer
memory, printed presentations of documents, documents themselves
(whatever they are), "languages" of interaction (mouse clicks,
keyboard commands, etc.), visual annotations representing formatting
parameters of the document (TEX commands, style sheets, etc.). In
developing our theory of correspondence, therefore, we are working
closely with the Analysis of Graphical Representation project. Our
connections with other CSLI groups are also strong, particularly with
the STASS, Embedded Computation, and Situated Automata groups, each of
which is wrestling with the role of representation in computation,
information processing, and inference. In part we view these other
groups as potential "customers" for any theories we develop.
2. The Foundations of Representation
There is clearly more to representation than correspondence. For one
thing, representation, at least in general, is apparently asymmetric,
whereas correspondence -- especially when viewed in the very general
way suggested above -- would seem to be a symmetric relation.
Secondly, representation seems to require some sort of causal,
intentional, or at least counterfactual supporting connection, whereas
two structures might end up in a correspondence relation for purely
accidental reasons. Finally, there is surely *too much*
correspondence in the world (such as, famously, between the suicide in
France rate and the price of bananas in the 1920s). While
representation may often involve correspondence, it also involves a
great deal more, and seems therefore to be a much rarer commodity.
In assessing the foundations of representation, we have been drawn
into a variety of metaphysical and methodological concerns, and have
been motivated to look at writers ranging from Goodman to Peirce to
Brower to Bohr, as well as those within the standard "linguistic"
traditions. While it is too early to report on any of these
intellectual forays, the group does seem to agree on at least
something like the following program:
To start with, we have come to use the term "registration" for the
process whereby an agent "parses" the world, thereby carving it into
objects, properties, substances, relations, whatever. The group is by
no means agreed on such metaphysical issues as realism, anti-realism,
etc. (i.e., on whether the world comes registered in advance, whether
the constraints on registration are solely the individual's or
community's concern, or whether the process is one of negotiation
between the agent, community, and embedding situation). Nonetheless,
there does seem to be some agreement, at least in terms of conceptual
foundations, that the following three subjects must be studied
together: acts of representation, acts of interpretation (i.e., where
an intentional agent takes A to represent B), and acts of
registration. Furthermore, it is also clear, in many paradigmatic
cases of representation, that the connection between representation
and represented, whatever it is, need not be one of nomic coupling.
On the contrary, most if not all representational relations are
characterized by a certain degree of "disconnection", so that how the
world is, and how the representation represents it as being, need not
be the same.
In investigating these issues we have discussed such examples as:
1. Spinach reacting to salt water (which seems to involve no
representation, registration, or interpretation)
2. The Count of Monte Cristo's recognizing that he has been thrown
into the sea (which seems at least to involve registration;
there is room for debate on the other two)
3. Helen Keller's saying "Water!", when her hands were held under
the faucet, and the word was repeatedly pronounced for her
4. A computer system's internal structures or states that
correspond to the presence of water, as for example in a
computerized fluoridation plant
5. The occurrence on a map of an icon or symbol representing water
Needless to say, we have not yet produced anything like a coherent
story that can deal with all these issues. We do believe, however,
that they get at questions relevant throughout CSLI research. Two
clear examples are (a) the notion of "attunement" to, or "recognition"
of, a constraint, as used by Barwise and Perry to explain how
information can be processed; and (b) the representational foundations
of computation, as being explored in the Embedded Computation project.
-------
∂16-Apr-86 2142 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 4
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 21:31:45 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:27:55-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 4
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
SITUATED AUTOMATA THEORY (SA)
Stan Rosenschein
Project Participants: Todd Davies, Doug Edwards, Haim Gaifman, Leslie
Kaelbling, Fernando Pereira, Stan Rosenschein
(Project Leader)
The main goal of the Situated Automata project is to investigate
informational properties of computational systems embedded in larger
physical or computational environments. Our long-term activities fall
into three areas: (1) developing a mathematical theory of how the
structure of a machine and its coupling to the environment determine
its informational characteristics, (2) developing formal design
methods for building systems with complex informational properties,
and (3) applying the design methodology to robots, natural language
systems, and other computational systems that perceive conditions in
their environment and act intelligently on it.
In the situated-automata approach, information content is analyzed
in terms of correlations of state between a system and its environment
over time. A machine (or machine component) x is operationally
defined to carry the propositional information that p in a given state
v if its being in state v is systematically correlated with p's being
true in the world. This definition provides a concrete model for
well-known epistemic logics and can be directly applied to actual
computer systems. Much of the work of the project has to do with how
different conceptions of correlation, machine, and proposition give
rise to different perspectives on the analysis and synthesis problems.
During the past few months we have been concentrating our efforts
on two major areas: machines with composite structure and
informational aspects of perception. Each of these will be described
in turn.
1. Extending situated automata theory to machines with composite
structure
In practice, complex machines are constructed of many connected
components which can be modeled at several levels of abstraction. One
important research problem is to understand the localization of
information within components of such a machine. Stan Rosenschein is
attempting to analyze machine inference in terms of information flow
among components of a complex machine, using the correlational model
of information as the basis for the analysis.
As a practical outgrowth of some of this work, Leslie Kaelbling and
Stan Rosenschein have been designing a language, Rex, in which complex
machines can be specified in a way that allows compositional reasoning
about the propositional content of the machine states without assuming
a conventional "language of thought" approach, i.e., the approach
which views an agent's mental state as consisting of representations
having the structure of interpreted linguistic expressions.
Experiments are currently under way that use this language to control
Flakey, SRI International's robot. In addition, Leslie has been
exploring how issues of cognitive architecture (e.g., the
modularization of perception and action, hierarchical control, and
planning) are most naturally formulated in the situated-automata
framework.
At a more abstract level, Fernando Pereira, in joint work with Luis
Monteira, has been using the theory of sheaves to model located
concurrent processes and their information content using the
conceptual tools of abstract algebra.
2. Developing a rigorous informational theory of machine perception
Perception is a challenging test case for situated automata theory.
In trying to analyze information content at the lowest level of
perception, we were reluctantly led to the conclusion that low-level
perceptual information is largely statistical in character. This
caused us to explore a probabilistic version of the theory, which we
probably would not have done in the absence of the robot-perception
application. While the fundamental ideas of situated automata theory
are easily carried over to the probabilistic domain, this move
introduces considerable complexity into the design of practical
systems.
The difficulty stems from the difference in how "correlation" is
operationalized in the probabilistic vs. non-probabilistic versions of
the theory. In the non-probabilistic case, correlation is modeled
using implication: element x carries the information that p (written
K(x,p)) if x's being in its current state implies that p is currently
true. Because of the nature of implication, this version of the
theory satisfies a strong "spatial" monotonicity property: K(x,p) &
K(y,q) --> K([x,y],p&q). This allows us to describe the information
carried by structured objects [x,y] dire c tly in terms of the
information carried by their components x and y, leading naturally to
hierarchically structured designs that can be reasoned about
compositionally.
Unfortunately, in the probabilistic case, where correlation of
conditions is most naturally operationalized in terms of conditional
probabilities, spatial monotonicity fails. The conditional probability
of p&q given the joint state of x and y bears only a weak relationship
to the probabilities of p and q given the states of x and y
individually. This rules out naive approaches to hierarchical design,
and we are therefore exploring constrained design disciplines that
will allow us to reason hierarchically about information content while
retaining an underlying probabilistic definition of information.
In related work, we are developing a logic of perceptual information
to serve as the metalanguage for specifying the information content of
states of the perception module. In this language the designer can
make assertions about probabilities of certain physical conditions
holding of the environment given internal states of the robot and vice
versa. The goal is to be able to specify physical conditions in a
sublanguage expressive enough to describe the world of everyday
experience and precise enough to allow rigorous reasoning about their
relation to machine states.
The perception work has begun only very recently and is being carried
out by a working group consisting of all the project members, with
Haim Gaifman playing a particularly active role on the logic of
perceptual information.
DISCOURSE, INTENTION, AND ACTION (DIA)
Phil Cohen, Doug Appelt, and Amichai Kronfeld
Project Participants: Doug Appelt, Herb Clark, Phil Cohen (Project
Leader), Barbara Grosz, Jerry Hobbs, Amichai
Kronfeld, Ray Perrault, John Perry, Martha
Pollack, Heather Stark, Susan Stucky, Deanna
Wilkes-Gibbs, Dietmar Zaefferer
This quarter, the Discourse, Intention, and Action group
concentrated on the relationship of theories of rational interaction
to theories of illocutionary acts, and to theories of referring. They
discussed in detail proposals by Phil Cohen (in collaboration with
Hector Levesque from the Department of Computer Science, University of
Toronto), Doug Appelt, and Amichai Kronfeld.
Cohen and Levesque's work shows how many illocutionary acts can be
defined in terms of rational interaction. They argue that
illocutionary acts are "attempts", actions done with certain beliefs
and goals/intentions. The speaker need not achieve the intended
effects directly, but may achieve them mediated by a chain of
entailment, the elements of which are justified by the theory of
rational interaction.
Cohen and Levesque's theory of illocutionary acts has three
components:
1. A theory of rational interaction that shows how agents' beliefs,
goals, intentions, and actions are related, both within and
across agents
2. A (simplistic) theory of sincerity (in which sincere agents
do not try to bring about false beliefs in other agents)
3. A characterization of the effects of uttering sentences with
certain "features" (a la Grice), such as a given syntactic mood
With these three sub-theories, they show how Searle's felicity
conditions (preparatory, sincerity, essential/illocutionary point,
etc.) can be derived from the initial characterization of uttering
sentences in a given syntactic mood. Moreover, the expected success
of performative uses of various illocutionary verbs can be derived.
Here, they basically follow a Bach/Harnish analysis of performatives
as indicative mood utterances, but treat such utterances as stating
that the very utterance event is one characterized by the mentioned
illocutionary verb. Hence, since the illocutionary verb names an
"attempt", the speaker only had to have the right beliefs and goals.
To the extent that Cohen and Levesque's analysis is on the mark,
the subject of illocutionary acts is in some sense less interesting
than it has been made out to be. That is, the interest should be in
the nature of rational interaction and in the kinds of reasoning
(especially nonmonotonic) that agents use to plan and to recognize the
plans of others. Many illocutionary acts are derived from such a
pattern of reasoning, and constraints on their use in conversation
follow from the underlying principles of rationality, not from a list
of sequencing constraints (e.g., adjacency pairs).
At the level of rational interaction, Cohen and Levesque argue that
the concept of intention is composite (or molecular) -- agents are
both directed (at something) and persistent. Persistent goals are
ones the agents will keep (and in most cases, try to achieve), even
after numerous failures. Agents can only give up their persistent
goals under certain circumstances. Minimally, such goals can be given
up only if they are achieved or believed to be impossible. The notion
of persistence is particularly useful in that it shows why agents need
not intend all of the expected consequences of their intentions.
Simply, they are not persistent with respect to expected side effects.
A useful extension of the concept of persistent goal is the
expansion of the conditions under which an agent can give up his/her
goal. When necessary conditions for an agent's dropping a goal
include his/her having other persistent goals (call them
"supergoals"), the agent can generate a chain of goals such that if
the supergoals are given up, so may the subgoals. If the conditions
necessary for an agent's giving up a persistent goal include his/her
believing some other agent has a persistent goal, a chain of
interlinked goals is created. For example, if Mary requests Sam to do
something and Sam agrees, Sam's goal should be persistent unless he
finds out Mary no longer wants him to do the requested action (or, in
the usual way, he has done the action or finds it to be impossible).
Both requests and promises are analyzed in terms of such
"interpersonally relativized" persistent goals.
It was pointed out by Perrault and Clark that the theory proposes
an implausible effect to the uttering of ironic utterances. For
example, in analyzing the imperative "Jump in the lake", the theory
(initially) proposes that after uttering it, the hearer thinks it is
mutually believed that the speaker wants it to appear that (formalized
as "the speaker wants the hearer to think/believe that") he wants the
hearer to jump in the lake. At this point, one could reason that the
speaker wants the hearer to believe something that both parties
mutually know the speaker does not want the hearer to know.
Derivation of a true request would be blocked here, as desired.
However, the counter argument is that even that weak effect should not
hold for ironic imperatives. The problem, it is argued, is
symptomatic of the need for nonmonotonic inference. Cohen and
Levesque agreed, and lacking a theory of nonmonotonic inference for
modal logics, they may substitute inferences employing negated modal
operators (where various conditions are stated in the form
~Mutual-Belief ~p). Whether this will be adequate remains to be
investigated. In future meetings, Perrault will present the beginning
of a nonmonotonic theory of speech acts.
Cohen and Levesque are (still) writing a paper presenting a formal
theory of these concepts entitled "Communication as Rational
Interaction". It should be available soon.
Doug Appelt and Amichai Kronfeld have been developing a theory of
referring as rational action. They have developed a theory of beliefs
about material objects in which it is possible to represent the
aspects of an agent's beliefs that are relevant to referring.
According to this theory, agents acquire representations of physical
objects through actions of perception and communication, and they
describe how beliefs about what these representational objects denote
change over time. When a speaker utters a referring expression, s/he
intends the hearer to invoke some set of these representational
objects, all of which denote the same thing. This action is currently
called "concept activation". As part of his/her communicative
intentions, the speaker places conditions on what kinds of
representational objects this active set should contain.
One important application of this model is the ability to represent
"identification conditions". Appelt and Kronfeld view the intention
that the hearer identify the referent as placing certain constraints
on the hearer's activated concept. If the hearer's active concept
satisfies the speaker's identification conditions, s/he is said to
have "identified" the referent of the speaker's description. Clearly,
different identification conditions are relevant in different
contexts. One identification condition might be that the active
concept contain a perceptual representation of the object referred to.
This is about as close to absolute identifcation as one can come
within this theory. A much weaker identification condition is that
the active concept contain a representational object resulting from a
previous communicative act, which amounts to the simplest case of
coreference resolution. For example, a perceptual identification is
necessary to carry out a request that involves physical manipulation
of the object referred to. Thus, "Replace the 200 ohm resistor"
requires perceptual identification, but "Tell me the voltage drop
across the 200 ohm resistor" requires identification only if the
voltage is to be measured by connecting a voltmeter to the circuit.
If the hearer is providing his/her answer from his/her general
knowledge about the circuit that is being repaired, s/he could answer
without perceiving the referent at all. Several other possibilities
are under study. What is important is that the identification
conditions follow from the recognition of the speaker's intentions
about what the hearer is to do or to believe. It is not necessary to
hypothesize any explicit act of identification as part of the meaning
of a referring expression. We have been able to construct an example
that illustrates how a plan for perceptual identification is
formulated by a hearer who understands a speaker's request to
manipulate a physical object.
Future sessions of DIA will include discussions of the relationship
of nonmonotonic reasoning to illocutionary acts and plan-recognition,
and the relationship of intentions and illocutionary acts to
discourse.
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∂16-Apr-86 2251 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 5
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 22:47:26 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:29:25-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 5
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
FOUNDATIONS OF GRAMMAR (FOG)
Lauri Karttunen and Stuart Shieber
Project Participants: Roland Hausser, Mark Johnson, Ron Kaplan, Lauri
Karttunen (Project Leader), Martin Kay,
Fernando Pereira, Carl Pollard, Ivan Sag,
Stuart Shieber, Hans Uszkoreit, Tom Wasow,
Dietmar Zaefferer
General Issues
The Foundations of Grammar project has been concerned overall with
elucidating the various foundational bases of grammar. These include
the *mathematical*, *computational*, and *empirical* foundations of
grammar. We have been particularly concerned with those grammar
formalisms in prevalent use at CSLI, which might go under the term
"Unification Grammars" (UGs). In grammars of this type, syntactic
rules and lexical entries can be expressed as sets of attribute-value
pairs. The value of an attribute can itself be a set of attributes
and values and, because the value at the end of one path of attributes
can be shared by another path, the structures that these grammars
generate can be thought of as directed graphs. Unification is the key
operation for constructing such graphs.
During this past fall and winter quarters, the FOG group has joined
forces with the HPSG project in holding weekly meetings to discuss
issues of common interest. A continuing theme in our meetings has
been the comparison and synthesis of various of the UGs, culminating
in a joint paper (with HPSG) presented at the West Coast Conference on
Formal Linguistics in which our collective view of the common
foundations of the UGs was put forward. As will be seen below, the
meetings have been devoted, as well, to the comparative study of a
variety of foundational and practical issues pertinent to the
unification-based formalisms.
Mathematical Foundations of Grammar
The focus of the mathematical effort is to develop a good general
account of the semantics of grammar formalisms. The empirical
predictions and the mathematical and computational properties of a
linguistic theory depend crucially on the form of the rules and the
conventions on their interpretation. In this vein, Shieber presented
recent work drawing an analogy between the semantics for grammar
formalisms and the type-theoretic semantics for programming languages
seen in work in computer science. This view of "parsing as type
inference", extending earlier work on denotational semantics for
grammar formalisms by Pereira and Shieber, and the parsing as
deduction view espoused by Pereira, produces a rich metaphor with
ramifications in the areas of formalisms for linguistics and
programming language design.
The FOG Colloquium speaker, William Rounds, has also recently
undertaken work in the semantic foundations of unification-based
systems. He presented his semantics based on a new logical calculus
for linguistic feature structures at the colloquium and worked with
various members of the project on such semantic issues.
Other work of the group centered on the mathematical properties of
extensions to simple UGs. For instance, the issue of monotonicity of
formal constructs is an interesting and difficult one, raising not
only mathematical questions, but closely related computational and
empirical questions as well. Because unification is associative and
commutative, in a pure unification-based grammar all statements are
order-independent and neutral with respect to parsing and generation.
This gives pure UGs a monotonic character. A series of meetings was
devoted to comparing the approaches of various theories to the problem
of nonmonotonicity, and to the actual linguistic motivation for such
nonmonotonic constructs.
Another difficulty with simple UGs, first pointed out by Mark
Johnson, is that simple versions of UGs cannot account for certain
types of constructions with multiple filler-gap dependencies. One
solution to this and a host of related problems was presented by
Ronald Kaplan in his talk on "functional uncertainty". The
mathematical and implementation issues related to Kaplan's idea are
currently being explored.
Computational Theory and Practice
The study of computational aspects of linguistic formalisms can be
pursued along two lines. First, there are questions of the abstract
computational characterization of the UGs. Some of the formal issues,
for example, the question of whether constructs in the formalisms are
monotonic, have significant ramifications in the area of computational
characterization.
Second, more practical questions of implementation of parsers or
generators for grammar formalisms are pertinent, both for their
intrinsic practical benefit, and for the insight that such efforts
provide into the more theoretical aspects of the grammatical
enterprise. A series of meetings was devoted to a discussion of the
current state of the craft of implementation of unification and
unification-based grammar formalisms. New implementations including
the Basic Linguistic Tools (BLT) and D-PATR (formerly known as HUG)
were described and compared.
The BLT project, headed by Martin Kay, has developed a set of tools
for the construction of parsers in the context of the object-oriented
programming environment called Loops. A complementary effort, to
provide the CSLI community with an efficient implementation of a
simple unification-based grammar formalism, called PATR, was
undertaken by Lauri Karttunen. A paper describing the system
("D-PATR: A development environment for unification-based grammars")
will appear shortly as a CSLI report. D-PATR is currently being used
for grammar development at SRI International and Xerox PARC. It has
also been distributed to researchers at several American and foreign
universities. D-PATR runs on Xerox 1100 series machines. A Common
Lisp implementation of PATR is being considered.
David Israel and Lauri Karttunen gave a report on new ways of
encoding semantic information using the PATR formalism. The topic of
the talk was the interpretation of complex noun phrases in the context
of situation theory. The report covered adjectives, prepositional
phrases, and relative clauses of considerable complexity, e.g., "the
company [the histogram of whose production she wants to display]".
Empirical Motivation
The entire set of issues raised by the FOG group rests upon the
actual requirements placed upon grammar formalisms by the grammatical
information they are intended to convey. Thus, the question of the
empirical motivation for various formal constructs is a crucial one.
As a prerequisite to determining the empirical motivation for a
construct, it is necessary to be able to distinguish it not only
"notationally", but "notionally" from its alternatives. Thus, much of
the effort in providing explicit semantics for formalisms can aid in
this effort as well, and FOG meetings have discussed such issues of
notational and notional comparison of formalisms. Meetings comparing
PATR and HPSG, and the nonmonotonic extensions of various theories are
specific examples. Especially in the latter case, the empirical
motivation for nonmonotonicity in its several guises was pursued,
whereas the distinctions among the various particular nonmonotonic
devices were shown to be more or less notational.
HEAD-DRIVEN PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR (HPSG)
Ivan Sag and Carl Pollard
Project Participants: Lewis Creary, Mary Dalrymple, Elisa Finnie,
Lyn Friedman, Jeff Goldberg, David Gurr,
David Israel, Mark Johnson, Godehard Link,
John Nerbonne, Carl Pollard, Mats Rooth,
Ivan Sag (Project Leader), Peter Sells,
John Stonham, Tom Wasow, Leora Weitzman,
Dietmar Zaefferer, Annie Zaenen
During the winter quarter, the work of the Head-Driven Phrase
Structure Grammar project has proceeded in close consultation with
that of the related FOG project. This integration has been reflected
both by the decision to combine the regular meetings of the two groups
into a single weekly joint meeting, and by the presentation at the
recent West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics of a paper entitled
"Unification and Grammatical Theory" jointly authored by members of
the FOG group and members of the HPSG group (Lauri Karttunen, Martin
Kay, Stuart Shieber, Carl Pollard, Ivan Sag, Ron Kaplan, and Annie
Zaenen).
Throughout the last nine months, the HPSG group has held a number
of research meetings addressing various issues pertaining to the
syntax-semantics interface, such as agreement phenomena in languages
with so-called "grammatical gender", whether to treat infinitives and
gerunds without overt subjects as sentences denoting propositions or
as verb phrases denoting properties, and differences between
constructional and quantifier phrase "binding".
The principal goal of the HPSG project has been to develop an
information-based theory of natural language syntactic and semantic
structure capable of integrating and synthesizing insights and results
produced by a variety of current syntactic-semantic approaches,
including Categorial Grammar, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar,
Lexical-Functional Grammar, Situation Semantics, and Discourse
Representation Theory. In common with computational linguistic
formalisms such as Martin Kay's Functional Unification Grammar and SRI
International's PATR-II, HPSG describes linguistic structures
declaratively, in terms of an information domain consisting of sets of
features with their associated values (which may themselves be complex
linguistic structures). These may be represented by directed graphs
or attribute-value matrices (AVMs) whose principal combinatory mode is
the recursive information-merging operation called "unification".
HPSG work in the past quarter falls roughly into the areas of
research, pedagogy, and implementation.
Recent HPSG research has focused upon foundational issues, including:
o The mathematical, computational, and semantic properties of the
AVM formalism in terms of which the theory is couched
o The precise theoretical status of lexical entries,
grammar rules of particular languages, and principles
of universal grammar
o The prospects for bringing HPSG theory within the
compass of current efforts (by members of a semigroup
within the STASS project) to provide axiomatic foundations
for situation theory
The fundamental assumption about the semantics of the HPSG formalism
(which also underlies PATR-II) is that attribute-value matrices denote
types of linguistic objects. Given the close formal analogy between
AVMs and record types in programming languages, it is possible to
bring to bear upon the subject matter of HPSG (and FOG) research the
results of much recent work on the logic, semantics, and type theory
of computation, such as that of Dana Scott (on information systems),
Hassan Ait-Kaci (on the semantics of type structures), and William
Rounds (on the logic of record structures).
In HPSG, where the principle objects of study are taken to be
linguistic data structures called signs, the significance of the AVMs
(or directed graphs, or feature bundles) that a lingist writes down
can be described roughly as follows:
1. A grammar for a given natural language denotes a
disjoint set of types that form a partition of the nonlexical
sign in that language.
2. A hierarchical lexicon such as that employed by HPSG (or the set
of lexical templates in a PATR-II grammar) denotes a set of lexical
sign types (partially ordered by type subsumption). Individual lexical
entries (at the bottom of the hierarchy) then denote minima with
respect to that ordering, i.e., they reflect the finest lexical
distinctions made by the theory (intuitively, lexical items).
3. As Rounds shows, we can view AVMs as terms in a propositional
logic. Principles of universal grammar can then be regarded as
nonlogical axioms which necessarily hold in all natural language sign
systems.
The connection with axiomatic situation theory then arises as follows.
There is a rather natural way in which certain objects in situation
theory called (parametrized) states of affairs can be regarded as
situation types. But again there is a close formal similarity of
(parametrized) states of affairs to (parametrized) record types in
computation. And the relation theory of meaning advocated by
situation semantics makes it possible to view signs as nothing more
than types of linguistic situations. It is therefore interesting to
consider the possibility that much of linguistic theory might fall
within the scope of a suitably axiomatized situation theory. The HPSG
project will continue to explore these and related issues.
HPSG pedagogical efforts have centered on the development of a two-
quarter sequence of core graduate linguistic courses (L221, L230)
(taught by Carl Pollard, Ivan Sag, and Mats Rooth, with the assistance
of Jeff Goldberg) which presents a unified and information-based
account of the syntax and semantics of a number of centrally important
linguistic phenomena, including features and categories,
subcategorization, lexical structure and lexical rules, agreement,
control, quantification, unbounded dependencies, and anaphora. The
course material will be made available in the form of a CSLI Lecture
Notes volume and a volume of readings to be published in the fall.
HPSG implementation has proceeded on two fronts. Development of the
existing implementation at Hewlett-Packard Labs (by Susan Brennan,
Lewis Creary, Dan Flickinger, Lyn Friedman, Dave Goddeau, John
Nerbonne, and Derek Proudian) has focused largely upon expansion of
grammatical coverage, including coordination, reflexive pronouns, and
a number of comparative constructions. At the same time, preparations
are under way for a new HPSG implementation here at CSLI, including
the delivery of the first of twenty Bobcat workstations provided to
CSLI under Hewlett-Packard's University Grant Program, and ongoing
consultation with members of the FOG group on prospects for hosting
the new implementation within a version of the D-PATR (formerly known
as HUG) development environment; actual development is expected to
begin during spring quarter.
-------
∂16-Apr-86 2354 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 6
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Apr 86 23:44:04 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:30:30-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 6
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE (CMOSL)
Meg Withgott
Project Participants: Marcia Bush, Daniel Huttenlocher, Stuart
Shieber, Meg Withgott (Project Leader)
The fall and winter research of the CMOSL group has concentrated in
large measure on the relationship between linguistic representation
and computational analysis of speech.
We started by observing that abstract representational units (such
as syllables and phonemic segments) appear useful for speech modeling,
even though such linguistic representations have -- at best -- an
indirect realization in the physical signal. These units can be used
to partition a large lexicon for word-candidate hypothesization, or to
specify phonetic deletion and modification sites. Yet it has proven
difficult to build acoustic classifiers reflecting such
representations, and recognition systems generally use less abstract
units.
We explored the argument that the difficulty of classifying
abstract units does not preclude using them in recognition. In
particular, constraint-based systems provide a mechanism for
exploiting abstract linguistic knowledge at the acoustic level. Since
constraint-based models can be used to specify what acoustic
information is consistent with a given abstract unit, they are a
convenient formalism for expressing such knowledge. (This is in
contrast to transformational systems wherein recognition is a
derivation accomplished by mapping between sequences of abstract
representations presupposing a reliably classified signal.)
Constraint-based models appear to provide a simple means for
expressing partial and redundant information. This ability to express
multiple degrees of specificity means the classifier can be allowed to
perform only that classification it can do reliably, while still
maintaining a lexicon based on abstract representational properties in
the model.
Pushing this notion of a classifier "doing only as much as it can",
we conducted a series of experiments to test the reliability with
which arbitrary pieces of the physical signal (we used
vector-quantized LPC spectra) can be mapped to various sets of
abstract linguistic units (acoustic-phonetic classes). The database
for the experiments consisted of approximately 130,000 spectra from a
pre-labeled corpus of 616 connected 5-digit strings, and
classification was performed on the basis of a maximum likelihood
decision rule. Classification accuracy for individual spectra (thus
using no contextual information) ranged from 94.0% for a simple
voiced-voiceless distinction to 42.7% for a set of 45
acoustic-phonetic classes when the same database was used for training
and testing.
We concluded that multidimensional ("cross-classified") abstract
units are desirable as a basis for classification systems in automatic
speech recognition. This is because the identity and grain-size of
the classes can be determined freely, both by what features are the
most useful for discriminating lexical items, and by what classes
prove to be the least confusable for a particular classifier. Such
flexible classification is interesting from the perspective of how
linguistic-phonetic information might be filled in when listening to
ordinary speech.
We have started using the insights from this work in designing a
constraint-based computational model of speech and language.
Reflecting the composition of the group, the CMOSL work is being
carried out in collaboration with the MIT AI lab and Schlumberger Palo
Alto Research.
---------------------
NEW INTERDISCIPLINARY UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR
Stanford is starting a new undergraduate major with intellectual
and institutional links to CSLI. Entitled "Symbolic Systems", the
program will emphasize issues having to do with the representation of
information and its processing by minds and machines.
The Symbolic Systems curriculum includes a required set of core
courses: four in computer science, two in logic, two in philosophy,
two or three in linguistics, and one in psychology. Each student will
also be required to complete a concentration consisting of at least
four additional courses; concentrations may be individually designed
(in consultation with an advisor) or may be selected from the
following list: artificial intelligence, cognitive science,
computation, logic, natural language, philosophical foundations,
semantics, and speech. Several new courses will be developed for the
major, including undergraduate offerings in the philosophy of
language, computational linguistics, the semantics of programming
languages, and ethical issues in the uses of symbolic systems.
Planning for the new program began last summer. A proposal was
drawn up by a committee consisting of Jon Barwise, Herb Clark, John
Etchemendy, Nils Nilsson, Helen Nissenbaum, Stuart Reges, Ivan Sag,
and Tom Wasow. The proposal was approved by the Faculty Senate in
March. Financial support during the planning process was provided by
the Provost's Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. The
School of Humanities and Sciences has made a five-year-commitment for
modest financial support, and potential outside sources of funding are
now being explored.
The Symbolic Systems program committee and affiliated faculty
consist largely of individuals involved in the work at CSLI. They
include all of the members of the planning committee, plus: Phil
Cohen, Solomon Feferman, David Israel, Ron Kaplan, John McCarthy, Ray
Perrault, John Perry, Stanley Peters, Paul Rosenbloom, Stan
Rosenschein, Brian Smith, and Terry Winograd.
---------------------
CSLI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
-------------
Editor's note
Current CSLI Postdoctoral Fellows are: Ivan Blair, PhD from the School
of Epistemics, University of Edinburgh; Carol Clelend, PhD in
Philosophy from Brown University; Mark Gawron, PhD in Linguistics from
the University of California, Berkeley; Helene Kirchner, PhD in
Computer Science from University of Nancy; Christopher Menzel, PhD in
Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame; Mats Rooth, PhD in
Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts; Peter Sells, PhD in
LInguistics from the University of Massachusetts; Edward Zalta, PhD in
Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts.
Three of these fellows are introduced below; the others will be
introduced in following issues.
-------------
CAROL CLELAND
While completing her graduate work at Brown, Cleland was referred
to as the "odd philosopher who was interested in computer science."
Along with her graduate work she was a systems programmer for Prof.
Jim Anderson in connection with his work on neural models, and
designed and taught a course called "Minds and Machines". She heard
rumors that "something funny" was going on at Stanford, and after
looking for a niche in the Wheaton philosophy department and in a
small software company, she called Julius Moravcsik. She was
surprised to learn that at CSLI there were, in fact, a number of
philosophers interested in representation and the nature of
computation and a number of computer scientists interested in
philosophy.
Subsequently, she accepted a CSLI postdoctoral fellowship and began
a year of commuting to CSLI from Santa Rosa -- an hour and forty-five
minutes each way. "That's real dedication", she says.
She found CSLI to be "...like the Tower of Babel with all the
different fields trying to talk to each other". As she hoped,
informal discussions in this environment and participation in various
project meetings (in particular the Representation group and the
Situated Engine Company, a subgroup of STASS) helped develop her
understanding of the nature of computation. For example, she is
currently generalizing her philosophical work on the nature of events
to an account of change, with particular emphasis on the nature of
computational processes. She is also teaching a revised, but again
well-received, version of "Minds and Machines". A CSLI-inspired
project she intends to pursue in the next year is an account of the
nature of representation; since coming here she has changed her mind
and now suspects that computation probably does presuppose
representation.
Later this summer, Cleland will be leaving CSLI to accept a tenure
track position in the department of philosophy at the University of
Colorado, Boulder. She feels this is an ideal position for her -- one
that will allow her to continue her research among a group of
colleagues with similar interests.
IVAN BLAIR
Blair received his PhD from Edinburgh University's School of
Epistemics, which has recently been renamed the Centre for Cognitive
Science; thus an interdisciplinary environment was not new to him.
His view was that the goal of understanding systems of communication,
including natural language, might best be reached by beginning with
systems where separation of the form and content of information has
not progressed to the degree it has in the case of natural language.
He felt that ecological psychology would provide an obvious point of
departure, and detected some sympathy with this point of view in the
work of Jon Barwise, John Perry, and Brian Smith.
During his time at CSLI, Blair has conducted research on
intentionality, broadly construed. He has approached this topic from
the perspective of a (critical) realism, and sought to understand what
a satisfactory account of intentionality that rejects emergent
materialism, reductionist physicalism, or some form of dualism, would
look like. The main focus of his research has been to elucidate the
relation between syntax and semantics (or matter and meaning). He has
studied the work of Howard H. Pattee on symbol-matter systems and
read widely in Gibsonian or ecological psychology.
He enjoys discussions with the other CSLI researchers interested in
philosophical foundations of a theory of information or
intentionality. Blair is a member of the Representation and Reasoning
project and, along with Carol Cleland and Meg Withgott, organized a
reading and discussion group on representation and perception. He
also taught a course in logic for the philosophy department. He feels
he has gained an appreciation of the issues involved in understanding
the nature of intentionality, and of the virtues and problems of
various approaches that have been proposed. He believes that much
more research than is currently underway is required on the
foundational issues germane to the study of cognition, meaning, and
information. Blair considers his own research as a part of this
larger task and as complementing the work of other philosophers at
CSLI on these topics.
Blair plans to return to the United Kingdom to look for an academic
home. He wants to continue thinking through the foundational,
philosophical questions in this interdisciplinary field, so that more
specialized research may have a philosophically sound basis to rest
on.
CHRIS MENZEL
Menzel came to CSLI after completing his doctorate in philosophy at
the University of Notre Dame. He applied for a postdoc at the
suggestion of Howard Wettstein, who had been a visiting scholar in
Stanford's philosophy department, and with whom he had been having
regular meetings to discuss a broad constellation of issues in
metaphysics and the philosophy of language.
His work at CSLI has centered on a number of traditional issues in
the philosophy of logic and mathematics. The major focus of his
research has been the development of a version of the "type-free"
conception of properties and relations so prominent in recent
metaphysics, including, e.g., situation theory. Over the past year he
has developed a complete logic based on this conception (to appear
shortly as a CSLI report), and he is currently applying the logic to
the philosophical issue of the nature of number, and to the semantics
of numerical expressions in English. Other papers completed at CSLI
are: "On the Iterative Explanation of the Paradoxes", Philosophical
Studies 49, (1986), 37-61; "Paradoxes, Large Sets, and Proper
Classes", delivered at the Eastern Meeting of the APA, December 1985;
and "On Set Theoretic Possible Worlds", forthcoming in "Analysis".
Menzel has taught two courses at Stanford during his tenure at
CSLI. In 1984-85, he taught an introductory course on the theory of
computability. In 1985-86, at the behest of Stanford's philosophy
department chairman, who wished to take advantage of Menzel's eclectic
philosophical interests, he taught an undergraduate course entitled
"Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Belief".
Menzel is most enthusiastic about the opportunities he has had to
work with researchers he previously assumed he would know only through
publications. He feels his research has taken turns it could not have
taken in a non-interdisciplinary environment or without the
computational equipment and large blocks of research time CSLI has
provided. He looks forward to beginning an assistant professorship in
the philosophy department of Texas A&M University this fall,
where, in addition to his teaching duties, he plans to continue his
research -- the next chunk being problems of modality in logic,
semantics, and situation theory.
---------------------
CSLI SNAPSHOTS: PAT HAYES
CSLI's research is greatly enhanced by the participation of
scholars and scientists employed by Bay Area institutes other than its
"founding" institutions: SRI International, Stanford, and Xerox PARC.
Someday CSLI may get around to formalizing criteria for membership
that clarify the value placed on the participation of folk not
officially included in current CSLI grants. That this participation
should be valued is obvious, since among these folk are some of the
most exciting and interesting members of the worldwide "information
and cognition" community, such as Pat Hayes.
Hayes is a member of the technical staff at Schlumberger. He
arrived last summer from the University of Rochester where he was the
Henry E. Luce Professor of Cognitive Science. While he enjoyed the
support of an interdisciplinary environment at Rochester, he was
attracted by what appeared from a distance to be vast amounts of work
in AI going on in several Bay Area locations. The Bay Area, and CSLI
in particular, "seemed unique in securing the commitment of lots of
good researchers from a variety of disciplines to talk to each other".
He has found that his view from a distance was accurate. He says that
each week contains one-and-a-half weeks worth of events which it would
be unthinkable to miss in any other location -- even if it meant
driving an hour or so each way.
Hayes' research goal is to formalize a commonsense physical
knowledge base, i.e., a knowledge base of "naive physics". He wanted
to expand the theoretical aspects of his research in the context of
applied products, and has found environments for exactly that at
Schlumberger and CSLI. At Schlumberger he is working on a project to
design an interactive knowledge base of theorems and metatheorems of
different aspects of the everyday physical world. At CSLI, he is
participating in the Rational Agency and SEC (Situated Engine Company,
a subgroup of STASS) groups, discussing questions of representational
foundations and their semantics.
One of the special side benefits of Hayes' presence at CSLI is the
"unexplained" appearance now and then of wonderful portraits of CSLI
researchers. These may be on paper cups or any other handy medium.
Hayes' portraits capture the essence of the researchers just as his
comments and questions capture the essence of the issues under
discussion as the sketch is being completed.
---------------------
-------
∂17-Apr-86 0038 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 7 (and last)
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Apr 86 00:38:03 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 16:31:06-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 2, part 7 (and last)
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
CSLI VISITING SCHOLARS
CSLI benefits from the active participation of a number of visiting
scholars from all parts of the world. These visitors may stay a few
weeks or as much as a year or more. Typically, there are a dozen on
site at any one time. The following scholars were on site during
March and April:
Dorit Abusch
Lecturer at Tel Aviv University
Dates of visit: Summer, 1985, and February - August, 1986
Abusch is participating in several of the syntax and semantics groups
and is completing a paper on the semantics of tense and aspect.
Peter Aczel
Professor of Mathematics
Manchester University
Dates of visit: Winter quarter of 1984/85, and March, 1986
Aczel visited for a quarter last year, when he presented his lectures
on the anti-foundation axiom in set theory, and related work on
processes in computer science. He returned this year to prepare the
notes for these lectures for a CSLI Lecture Notes volume, and to work
on a paper with Barwise on the mathematics of shared information.
Haim Gaifman
Professor of Mathematics
Hebrew University
Dates of visit: Academic year, 1985/86
Gaifman is working on many issues in the logic of computer science,
and is also involved with the Situated Automata project. He has
lectured on a new approach to a truth definition for circularity, one
that he calls the logic of pointers, and on a hierarchy in inductive
definability on finite structures, where one keeps track of the number
of parameters and variables in the definitions.
Claudia Gerstner
University of Munich
Dates of visit: Academic year, 1985/86
Gerstner is pursuing research in theoretical linguistics, in
particular, in universal aspects of generic constructions in language;
and is translating Situations and Attitudes into German.
Roland Hausser
Privatdozent at the Institut fur Deutsche Philologie
University of Munich
Dates of visit: Fall and spring quarters, 1984/85, fall and
spring quarters, 1985/86
Hausser has been working a left-associative approach to the syntax and
semantics of natural language, and is completing a manuscript to
appear soon in Springer-Verlag's series, "Lecture Notes in Computer
Science".
Jens Kaasboll
Research Associate in Computer Science
University of Oslo
Dates of visit: Winter quarter, 1986
Kaasboll came to CSLI to further his research in the SYDPOL (System
Development and Profession-Oriented Languages) project by learning
about the linguistic approaches to system description being developed
here, and to provide CSLI with his insights into actual system
settings (such as a nursing ward, where he did his dissertation
study).
Birgit Landgrebe
Mathematics Department
Aarhus University
Dates of visit: December, 1985 - July, 1986
Landgrebe is pursuing her study of language development environments
through participation in the Semantics of Computer Languages project
where she is developing and integrating an attribute evaluation module
for its MUIR system.
Godehard Link
Professor of Philosophy
University of Munich
Dates of visit: Academic year, 1985/86
Link's current research project, "Algebraic Semantics", is closely
related to some basic questions about the nature of information. He
says that CSLI's strong emphasis on foundational issues in the field
of semantics has led him to rethink some methodological problems
concerning language and information, and to put his own semantical
work in a broader perspective.
Kim Halskov Madsen
Computer Science Department
Aarhus University
Dates of visit: March - July, 1986
Madsen is working on systems description languages and the
identification of structured domains. He is collaborating with Terry
Winograd and is in the process of writing a paper tentatively
entitled, Breakthrough by Breakdown: Structured Domains, Metaphors,
and Frames.
Kurt Normark
Computer Science Department
Aarhus University
Dates of visit: Academic years, 1984/85 and 1985/86
Normark's research interest is in program development tools,
especially on graphical workstations and in man/machine interactions
on workstations with pointing devices. Currently, he is participating
in the Semantics of Computer Languages project, and is especially
interested in semi-automatic and interactive tools for program
creation from specifications.
Gordon Plotkin
Professor of Computer Science
University of Edinburgh
Dates of visit: January, 1984 - January, 1985, and Spring quarter, 1986
Plotkin is working on applications of Aczel's notion of Frege
Structure, and, with Carl Pollard, on applications of domain theory to
model certain axioms of situation theory.
Chris Swoyer
Professor of Philosophy
University of Oklahoma
Dates of visit: Spring quarter, 1986
Swoyer has been working on properties and their role in accounts of
measurement, information, supervenience, and in the philosophy of mind
and in the semantics of natural language. He feels his work on
properties has turned out to be quite compatible with a number of
aspects of situation theory.
Dag Westerstahl
Professor of Philosophy
University of Goteborg
Dates of visit: September, 1985 - February, 1986
Westerstahl's field of research includes abstract model theory,
generalized quantifiers, natural language semantics, and processing.
He came to CSLI to become better acquainted with the notion of
"situated language", and has been running the AFA (Anti-Foundation
Axiom) seminar which has been discussing Aczel's Notes and Barwise and
Etchemendy's monograph on the Liar Paradoxes. "I already knew that
situation theory interested me before I came here, but there are so
many aspects and nuances of a developing field of research that you
can only perceive if you're on the spot. Obviously my stay here has a
great influence on my work in natural language semantics and
processing, both with respect to specific research problems and
methods, and the general outlook on language".
Dietmar Zaefferer
Professor of Linguistics
University of Munich
Dates of visit: April, 1984 - March, 1986
Zaefferer has been working on the philosophy of language,
investigating the semantics of declaratives and exclamatories. He
recently summarized some aspects of his work in a CSLI seminar
entitled "The Structural Meaning of Clause Type: Capturing Cross-modal
and Cross-linguistic Generalizations".
---------------------
NEW CSLI PUBLICATIONS
Reflecting the research that has been done at the Center, nearly 50
CSLI Technical Reports, four titles in the Lecture Notes series, and
five titles in the Informal Notes series have been published to date.
The most recent Reports are listed below; the Reports and a complete
list of publications can be obtained by writing to Trudy Vizmanos,
CSLI, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305, or Trudy@su-csli.
46. Constraints on Order
Hans Uszkoreit
47. Linear Precedence in Discontinuous Constituents:
Complex Fronting in German
Hans Uszkoreit
The titles in the Lecture Notes Series are distributed by the
University of Chicago Press and may be purchased in academic or
university bookstores, or ordered directly from the distributor at
5801 Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. The most recent publication in
this series is:
Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic Theories
Peter Sells Paper $12.95 Cloth $23.95
---------------------
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CSLI MONTHLY I AND THE DELICATE ART OF CARICATURE
Madame editor:
Thurber tells us a lot about language and information. For instance,
he reminds us of E. B. White's comment that "...humorous writing, like
poetical writing, has extra content. It plays, like an active child,
close to the big hot fire which is Truth." So it is not surprising
that there were a few scorched highbrows after collective perusal of
the first CSLI Monthly, especially the part after the section on the
"convergence of theories and ideas":
Imagine a typical philosopher, a typical linguist, and a typical
computer scientist. The philosopher is happy with low-key funky
surroundings, and can't be bothered with machinery, relying
instead on books, paper, and number 2 pencils. The linguist is
accustomed to low-key funky surroundings, and is content in any
setting where there are other linguists, coffee, and devices
(blackboards, whiteboards, or computers) that can handle trees or
functional diagrams. The computer scientist has become part of
the wonderful new technology s/he has helped to develop, to the
extent that s/he can't even imagine how to communicate with the
person at the next desk when the computer is down.
Folks said to themselves, "Gee, since I always believe E. B. White,
and since this is humorous, it must be true." This caused undue
consternation, not to mention identity crises.
Not to worry. We have learned that this humorous writing was
propagated by a philosopher. Paraphrasing Thurber (at least his
syntax): Since the nature of humor is obviously anti-philosophic, just
as the nature of philosophy is anti-humor, such philosophical penning
amounts, in effect, to anti-humorous humorous writing.
So E. B. White stands, and we can sit down and relax. (But the part
about the number 2 pencils remains as good advice to philosophers,
given that pencils' delete-functions work even during power failures.)
(Signed)
A Computational Linguist-Philosopher
-------------
We asked the author of the offending paragraph for a reply, which he
wrote, and then erased. --ed.
-------------
To the editor:
I have enjoyed getting CSLI's publications, though I seldom have time
to devour them. But I especially liked the format and contents of the
new CSLI Monthly.
Keep up the good work --
James Rosse
Provost, Stanford University
---------------------
--Elizabeth Macken
Editor
-------
∂17-Apr-86 0118 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 17, No. 12
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Apr 86 01:16:59 PST
Date: Wed 16 Apr 86 18:18:59-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, April 17, No. 12
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
April 17, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 12
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, April 17, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Understanding Computers and Cognition
Conference Room by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores
Discussion led by Brian Smith (Briansmith.pa@xerox)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Representation: On Stich's Case Against Belief
Trailer Classroom John Perry (John@su-csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Turing Auditorium Intention, Belief and Practical Reasoning
Hector-Neri Castaneda, Indiana University
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, April 24, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall No TINLunch this week
Conference Room
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Models, Modelling, and Model Theory
Trailer Classroom John Etchemendy and Jon Barwise
(Etchemendy@su-csli, Barwise@su-csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Lexical Rules and Lexical Representations
Trailer Classroom Annie Zaenen (zaenen.pa@xerox)
(Abstract on page 2)
--------------
ANNOUNCEMENT
Please note that the colloquium for this week is in Turing Auditorium.
Note also that there is no colloquium for next week, but that the
seminar originally scheduled for March 6 will take place instead.
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar April 17, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
THIS WEEK'S SEMINAR
Representation: On Stich's Case Against Belief
John Perry (John@su-csli)
This Fall I gave a seminar on Steven Stich's book, ``From Folk
Psychology to Cognitive Science''. I have quite a bit of material
from the seminar, which had the active participation of a number of
members of the representation group. I am having a little bit of a
problem deciding what to present tomorrow. The criticisms of Stich
tend to be definitive (I think), but perhaps not of such wide general
interest. There are also a number of sketchy positive ideas, much
less definitive but probably of wider interest, mainly on the issue of
what sort of attributions of content to minds require attribution of
representations. The seminar will deal either with criticisms of
Stich, or the sketchy ideas, or some combination of the two, or
something new that crops up between now and then. I will do my best
to make it either polished and definitive or sketchy but provocative,
but I doubt that I will manage to do both.
--------------
CSLI SEMINAR
Lexical Rules and Lexical Representations
Mark Gawron, Paul Kiparsky, Annie Zaenen
4:15 p.m., April 24, CSLI Trailer Classroom
This is the third of a series of talks reflecting the ongoing
elaboration of a model of lexical representation. In the first, Mark
Gawron discussed a frame-based lexical semantics and its relationship
to a theory of lexical rules. In the second, Paul Kiparsky proposed a
theory of the linking of thematic roles to their syntactic realizations,
emphasizing its interactions with a theory of morphology; and in this
one, a sub-workgroup of the lexical project will sketch a unification
based representation for the interaction of the different components
of the lexical representation and both syntax and sentence semantics.
This seminar was originally scheduled for March 6.
--------------
AFT TALK
On Belief Context and Identity
Nathan Salmon, UCSB
Ventura Conference Room
11 a.m. - 1 p.m., Tuesday, April 22
-------
∂17-Apr-86 0822 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tau Beta Pi
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Apr 86 08:21:34 PST
Date: Thu 17 Apr 86 08:20:54-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tau Beta Pi
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199573895.9.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As part of their annual initiation activities, Tau Beta Pi sponsors a
spring banquet to which all of their new initiates are invited. In
addition, they would also like to invite any of the professors in our
department who may be interested in attending.
The banquet will be held on May 13 at the Stanford Faculty Club. The
banquet will start with a reception at 5:30 p.m., shortly after the
initiation scheduled for that Tuesday afternoon. Dinner will be served
at 6:30 p.m. This event will feature Carl Moyer as their guest speaker.
In order that they may plan for this event, they have requested that I
fill out the invitation response which Nils received and return to them
by April 21.
Those wishing to attend, please let me know by return e-mail.
Thanks,
Anne
-------
∂17-Apr-86 1015 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting today
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Apr 86 10:15:13 PST
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Thu, 17 Apr 86 09:51:12 pst
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 86 09:51:12 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting today
To: nail@diablo
We'll meet at 11AM as usual; probably we'll continue a discussion
of "code optimization" as it applies to logic programming.
∂17-Apr-86 1017 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library-Policy On Electronic Services Including Tech. Rept.
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Apr 86 10:17:15 PST
Date: Thu 17 Apr 86 10:15:58-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library-Policy On Electronic Services Including Tech. Rept.
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, yan@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
Message-ID: <12199594842.24.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Someone asked if our policy for signing up for new books applied to technical
reports also. Yes it does with one qualification. If you think you are
interested in a lot of techical reports (I don't like to set limits but for
now anything around 10 reports), you probably need to come by the library,
look at the reports, and then sign up for the ones you really need. What
we can not handle is long lists of requests that fall in the range "I might
be interested" and then when the user comes to pick them up looks at them
and decides he does not want the report.
As a user of the Math/CS Library you need to be aware that we have a large
community we are serving. We are attempting to offer good, efficient and
effective services equally to everyone. As long as most users exercise
good judgement, we can continue doing this with a minimum or rules.
Harry Llull
-------
∂17-Apr-86 1057 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
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Date: Thu 17 Apr 86 10:47:12-PST
From: Mary Dalrymple <DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: happy hour
To: linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Announcing:
the third weekly Linguistics Happy Hour tomorrow, same time, same
station (4:00, Greenberg Room); and
** coming next week **
VOLLEYBALL HAPPY HOUR, Friday at 4:00, place to be announced. Stay
tuned for further details.
-------
∂17-Apr-86 1549 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Travel to PODC
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Date: 17 Apr 86 10:12:04 EST (Thu)
From: Michael Fischer <fischer@YALE.ARPA>
Message-Id: <8604171512.AA03374@Yale-Bulldog.YALE.ARPA>
Subject: Travel to PODC
To: theory@RSCH.WISC.EDU
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 17 Apr 86 17:04:52 CST (Thu)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
My travel agent informs me that because of the world's fair in
Vancouver, travel to the Pacific Northwest will be heavy this summer,
and this will affect travel to Calgary as well since many of the
flights there go on to Vancouver. Thus, if you are planning to
go to PODC in August, it would be a good idea to reserve your flights
as soon as possible.
--Mike Fischer
--------------
TN Message #40
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∂18-Apr-86 1922 squires@ipto.ARPA Japanese representative
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Date: Fri 18 Apr 86 22:23:22-EST
From: Stephen Squires <SQUIRES@IPTO.ARPA>
Subject: Japanese representative
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-Id: <VAX-MM(187)+TOPSLIB(118) 18-Apr-86 22:23:22.IPTO.ARPA>
About a year ago Bob Balzer introduced me to a prominate member of the
Japanese computer science community (Kouichi) at an international program
committee meeting.
I asked Balzer to contact him and ask him to suggest a candidate for
the technical committee. We need to get more specfics about this candidate.
I have asked Balzer to tell me what he knows. The following messages
embody what has happened to date:
Friday, April 18, 1986 22:14:29-EST
339 18-Apr BALZER@ISI-VAXA Suggested Japanese representative (1149 chars)
Message 339 -- ************************
18-Apr-86 20:21:27-EST,1149;000000000000
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Date: 18 Apr 1986 1717-PST (Friday)
To: SQUIRES@USC-ISI.ARPA
From: BALZER@ISI-VAXA.ARPA
Subject: Suggested Japanese representative for Common Lisp
-------------- Begin Forwarded Message --------------
TO: BALZER@ISI-VAXA
FROM: PACRAIG@USC-ISIB
SENDER: PACRAIG@USC-ISIB
SUBJECT: Kouichi called....
RECEIVED: 4/18/86 15:13:45
SENT: 4/18/86 15:03:00
MESSAGE-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]18-Apr-86 15:03:51.PACRAIG>
TO: Balzer@ISI-VAXA.ARPA
FROM: Patti Craig <PACraig@USC-ISIB.ARPA>
SENDER: PACRAIG@USC-ISIB.ARPA
RECEIVED: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by isi-vaxa.ARPA (4.12/4.7)
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Following is the reference/name you wanted:
Masayuki Ida
Computer Science Laboratory
Aoyama Gakuin University
1626 Ono, Atugi City
Kanagawa 234-01
Japan
Phone: 462-48-1221, ext. 4526
Electronic Mail: IDA%utokyo-relay.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
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∂18-Apr-86 1925 squires@ipto.ARPA Re: Suggested Japanese representative for Common Lisp
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id AA18306; Fri, 18 Apr 86 22:26:31 est
Date: Fri 18 Apr 86 22:26:26-EST
From: Stephen Squires <SQUIRES@IPTO.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Suggested Japanese representative for Common Lisp
To: BALZER@ISI-VAXA.ARPA
Cc: SQUIRES@USC-ISI.ARPA, SQUIRES@IPTO.ARPA
Message-Id: <VAX-MM(187)+TOPSLIB(118) 18-Apr-86 22:26:26.IPTO.ARPA>
In-Reply-To: Message from "BALZER@ISI-VAXA.ARPA" of 18 Apr 1986 1717-PST (Friday)
Thanks for the reference. What do you know about person suggested? The
steering group has estabished some guidelines for membership. How do
could the steering committee get the additional specifics that they
need to know?
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∂19-Apr-86 1404 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese representative
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 19 Apr 86 17:03:46-EST
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1986 17:03 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12200160588.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Stephen Squires <SQUIRES@IPTO.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese representative
Steve,
Masayuki Ida is in fact the person we have been discussing as the most
likely Japanese candidate all along, but it's nice to know that Koiuchi
also feels that he's the obvious guy. Our major reservation was that he
might be too junior, so selecting him might be viewed as some sort of
insult.
Ida is the guy who translated Steeele's book into Japanese, and he has
been working on various Common Lisp standardization efforts over there,
including proposals for a subset and for an extension to Kanji
characters and strings. Apparently the focus of Common Lisp activity
over there is a committee within JEIDA (Japanese Electronics Industry
Development Association), which has been running for about a year with
Ida as the chairman.
Ida was recently promoted to associate professor at Aoyama Gakuin
University -- I'm not sure where that university is in the fairly
well-defined Japanese pecking order. He speaks adequate English for
communication, though he's not very fluent -- see his recent note to the
Common Lisp mailing list. He now seems to be able to send and recieve
netmail via CSnet with about a half-day latency.
Let me propose the following model, which we can bounce off of the
various senior Japanese contacts that we have to see what they think
about it:
1. Any individual in Japan who has a stable netmail connection to the
U.S. and an interest in the standardization of Common Lisp is encouraged
to join the Common Lisp mailing list and to participate in the
discussions. (Apparently a rebroadcast point is being established at
NTT, so that one message can be sent there and can be forwarded to
everyone on JUNET. However, Ida prefers to get direct mail via CSNET to
U-Tokyo.)
2. The committee within JEIDA should continue to be the focus for
Japanese Common Lisp activities. In the future, we will attempt to stay
in much closer contact with this group via netmail.
3. Though any number of Japanese researchers can participate in our
design discussions via the Common Lisp mailing list, we invite the JEIDA
committee to elect one representative to sit on our technical committee,
and one person (it may be the same person) to sit on our steering
committee for the purposes of formal liaison between the two groups.
The choice is up to them. (I wouldn't be surprised if Ida were
selected.)
If we agree that this is a reasonable model, the next step would be for
people who know the leading CS people in Japan to solicit their opinion
of this. It has the advantage that we're not telling them who to nominate,
so we don't have to weigh seniority against interest and knowledge; the
disadvantage is that we might get someone inappropriate from our point
of view, but I think it unlikely that any of these people will poison
the process.
-- Scott
∂20-Apr-86 0838 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Japanese Representative
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Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 08:23:51-PST
From: Martin <GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA>
Subject: Japanese Representative
To: cl-steering@su-ai.ARPA
Cc: GRISS%HP-HULK@HPLABS
I like Scott's proposal. I would be prepared to discuss it with E.
Goto fo
∂20-Apr-86 0900 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese Representative
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sun 20 Apr 86 12:02:33-EST
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1986 12:02 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12200367902.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Martin <GRISS%HP-HULK@HPLABS.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese Representative
In-reply-to: Msg of 20 Apr 1986 11:23-EST from Martin <GRISS%HP-HULK at hplabs.ARPA>
Martin,
Your message got truncated, but I believe that you were offering to
discuss the proposal for Japanese participation with Goto. If nobody
within our steering/technical committee objects to the proposal in the
next couple of days, then I think it would be very useful for you to
sound out Goto on this.
One concern I have is whether the JEIDA committee is viewed by people
like Goto as the legitimate body to represent the Japanese Common Lisp
community. I have no reason to believe it is not, but we don't want to
inadvertently take sides in some power struggle over there by throwing
our weight behind Ida's committee. It couldn't hurt to ask.
Thanks for offering to follow up on this.
-- Scott
∂20-Apr-86 1001 RPG Chairman
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I think it is time that we nominate a chairman of the Steering
committee. Because Bob Mathis knows all the proper steps to take,
because he has done this sort of thing before, and because he has
the international connections to pull it all off, I think we should
elect him our chairman.
-rpg-
∂20-Apr-86 1231 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Re: Chairman
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Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 12:26:13-PST
From: Martin <GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Chairman
To: RPG@SU-AI.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: GRISS%HP-HULK@HPLABS
In-Reply-To: Message from "Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>" of Sun 20 Apr 86 10:01:00-PST
Return-Path: <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
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Date: 20 Apr 86 1001 PST
From: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Chairman
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I think it is time that we nominate a chairman of the Steering
committee. Because Bob Mathis knows all the proper steps to take,
because he has done this sort of thing before, and because he has
the international connections to pull it all off, I think we should
elect him our chairman.
-rpg-
I agree
mlg
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∂20-Apr-86 1256 GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA Japanese Representative
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Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 08:23:51-PST
From: Martin <GRISS%HP-HULK@hplabs.ARPA>
Subject: Japanese Representative
To: cl-steering@su-ai.ARPA
Cc: GRISS%HP-HULK@HPLABS
I like Scott's proposal. I would be prepared to discuss it with E.
Goto for his feedback.
M
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∂20-Apr-86 1652 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA requests from project leaders
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Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 16:50:56-PST
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: requests from project leaders
To: researchers@SU-CSLI.ARPA
In various ways, in particular by the notes from project leaders to
their researchers that flash by my screen occasionally, I am getting
the impression that many of you are reluctant to put the effort
necessary into writing a paragraph or so describing your research.
I am sure that if you will take even less time than it takes to
write a paragraph, take three deep breaths and think about the human
condition and related issues, you will quickly see that:
a) Bothersome as such things are, there is a lot to be said
for the SDF Board coming to the conclusion that their gift/grant has
established a high quality place where people are pround of what they
are doing and understand it well enough to describe it;
b) To check this, they will probably ask some friends of yours
to review anything we send them, at some point or another;
c) To dilly dally, complain, wait to be courted, and in other
ways suggest that while worrying about such things is an appropriate use
of the time of your project leader, you really can't be bothered, is probably
not really the message you want to give, and simply creates for someone
who doesn't deserve it any more than you do, bother of the sort you are
reacting against.
Insofar as CSLI requires more of this sort of bother than
other sources of support you are used to, remember (i) it is probably
not very avoidable (ii) Your project leader has probably already
suffered more than you have because of it.
d) So, all things considered, you should simply do what you
can do better than anyone else, and explain what your are doing and how
it is coming and what you have accomplished.
If this doesn't apply to you, I apologize for using up your time.
-------
∂20-Apr-86 1919 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Fernando Pereira
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Date: Sun 20 Apr 86 19:18:43-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: PLANLUNCH reminder -- Fernando Pereira
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
A LOCALIZED MODEL OF CONCURRENCY
Fernando Pereira (PEREIRA@SRI-AI)
SRI International, AI Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 21
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In this talk I will give an informal overview of a structural theory
of concurrency that I have been developing with Luis Monteiro. The
main goal of our theory is to model the way in which local
interactions between components of a system lead to global behavior.
The theory, which is based on the mathematical concept of sheaf,
allows us to model precisely the idea of processes interacting
through common behavior at shared locations. In contrast to
behavioral models, ours keeps track of the individual contributions
of subsystems to overall system behavior, allowing a finer-grained
analysis of subsystem interactions.
From event signatures that specify relations of independence and exclusivity
between events, we construct spaces of locations where activity may occur.
Behaviors are then modeled as elements of sheaves of monoids over those
spaces and processes as certain sets of behaviors. The construction of the
model, and in particular its avoidance of interleaving, gives it very
convenient mathematical properties --- sheaves of behavior monoids are to
event signatures what free monoids are to alphabets. The theory also allows
us to identify on purely structural grounds event signatures with a
potential for deadlock.
Time permitting, I will engage in rambling speculation as to possible
applications of the theory.
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∂21-Apr-86 0608 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa AFLB this week
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Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 06:06:04-PST
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: AFLB this week
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12200597927.9.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Here are this weeks three AFLBs. All three speakers are faculty candidates.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
22-Apr-86 (Tuesday) : Robert Wilber (IBM Almaden)
White Pebbles Help
The black pebble game is played by placing black pebbles on, and removing
them from, the vertices of a directed acyclic graph in a way that models
the deterministic evaluation of a straight-line program. The number of
pebbles required to play the game is equal to the number of registers
needed to evaluate the straight-line program. The black & white pebble
game is an extension of the black pebble game that models nondeterministic
evaluations. I show that for arbitrarily large N there is a dag with
vertex indegrees bounded by 2 such that the necessary and sufficient
number of pebbles needed to pebble the dag using the rules for the black &
white pebble game is N whereas the number of pebbles needed using the
rules for the black pebble game is Theta(N log N / log log N). This shows
that nondeterminism reduces the number of registers needed to evaluate
certain straight-line programs by a factor of Theta(log N / log log N).
***** Time and place: April 22, 1:15 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
24-Apr-86 : Raimund Seidel (Cornell)
Constructing Higher-Dimensional Convex Hulls at Logarithmic Cost Per Face
The convex hull problem, finding the smallest convex set containing a finite
point set in R↑d, has been a prominent problem in computational geometry.
For d<=3 this problem has been thoroughly studied and efficient algorithms
are known. For d>3 the problem is complicated by the fact that for a
convex hull of m points in R↑d the number of faces, F, can be anywhere between
OMEGA(1) and O(m↑floor(d/2)). It is thus extremely desirable that the
running time of an algorithm for constructing convex hulls depends not
only on the input size m, but also on the output size F.
The best previously known algorithm of this type is due to Chand-Kapur.
It is based on the "gift-wrapping" principle and has running time O(Fm).
I will present an algorithm whose time complexity for fixed dimension d
is O(m↑2 + Flogm).
It is worth pointing out that a dual version of the convex hull problem
is the problem of enumerating all basic feasible solutions of a linearly
constrained set. In this context "gift-wrapping" is the dual notion of
"pivoting." The new algorithm shows how one can solve this enumeration
problem efficiently without pivoting.
***** Time and place: April 24, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
25-Apr-86 (Friday) : Andrew Goldberg (MIT)
A New Approach to the Maximum Flow Problem
The Maximum Flow problem has many applications in the fields of
combinatorics and operations research. The first algorithm for the
problem was discovered in 1956 by Ford and Fulkerson, and a number of
algorithms have been proposed since then. However, all previously
known max-flow algorithms worked by finding augmenting paths, either
one path at a time or all shortest augmenting paths at once (by using
the level network technique of Dinic).
The previously known algorithms give an O( min (n↑3, n↑(5/3) m↑(2/3),
nm log n)) upper bound on the problem; the upper bound is achieved by
a combination of three algorithms due to Karzanov, Galil, and Sleator
& Tarjan. The only previously known parallel max-flow algorithm, due
to Shiloach & Vishkin, runs in parallel time O(n↑2 log n) and requires
OMEGA(n) memory for each edge of the network.
We propose a method for computing max-flow without finding augmenting
paths explicitly. A sequential algorithm based on this method runs in
time O(n m log(n↑2 / m)). This bound is better then the previously
known bound, and it is achieved by a single algorithm. A parallel
algorithm based on the method runs in time O(n↑2 log n) using a
constant amount of memory per edge of the network; this makes the
implementation of the algorithm much more feasible (compared with
the Shiloach & Vishkin algorithm).
This has been a joint work with Robert E. Tarjan.
***** Time and place: April 25, 11:00 am in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Not all time slots for this academic year
have been filled. The file [SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains
more information about future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
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∂21-Apr-86 0721 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas): Umesh Vazirani]
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 07:16:39 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 07:17:15-PST
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas): Umesh Vazirani]
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200610884.11.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Anne will be distributing Umesh's papers today. Please read before
Wednesday mtg so we can decide on him too. I attach the search committee's
note to me about Umesh. -Nils
---------------
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Received: from magic.ARPA (magic) by decwrl.DEC.COM (4.22.03/4.7.34)
id AA02874; Sun, 20 Apr 86 10:07:11 pst
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id AA15242; Sun, 20 Apr 86 10:05:05 pst
From: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas)
Message-Id: <8604201805.AA15242@magic.ARPA>
Date: 20 Apr 1986 1005-PST (Sunday)
To: nilsson@score
Cc: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM, richardson@score
Subject: Umesh Vazirani
The theory search committee would like to propose to the CSD faculty
that we appoint Umesh Vazirani of Berkeley/MSRI as an Assistant
Professor of Computer Science, starting in the fall of 1986. Umesh
obtained his Ph.D. under Manuel Blum at Berkeley and is widely regarded
as the best theory graduate there in the last couple of years.
Ann has a copy of Umesh's vita and letters. These should be distributed
to the faculty in advance of our already scheduled Wednesday meeting.
At the meeting I can make the presentation of Umesh's case. Time is of
the essence as Umesh is already holding out on offers from Harvard,
Yale, and possibly Princeton. His Harvard offer is for an endowed
assistant professorship.
L.
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∂21-Apr-86 0844 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA message from/re Ida
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 08:44:08 PST
Date: 21 Apr 1986 08:46-PST
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: message from/re Ida
Subject: [Masayuki Ida <tansei!a37078%utokyo-relay.csnet@CSNET-RELAY...]
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]21-Apr-86 08:46:29.MATHIS>
Here is a message I received from Masayuki Ida last week. I
think it was partially in response to my separate ISO work to
generate international participation. The Professor Ikuo Nakata
that he mentions is the head of the Japanese delegation to
ISO/TC97/SC22 (the immediate group under which our ISO working
group would operate). Nakata's recommendation means that we
should find a place for Ida. There may be other appropriate
Japanese too (I think this is the point of Fahlman's message on
20 April).
-- Bob
Begin forwarded message
Received: FROM CSNET-RELAY.ARPA BY USC-ISIF.ARPA WITH TCP ; 15 Apr 86 08:41:33 PST
from utokyo-relay by csnet-relay.csnet id ak10810; 15 Apr 86 11:33 EST
by u-tokyo.junet (4.12/4.9J-1[JUNET-CSNET])
id AA06290; Tue, 15 Apr 86 19:40:40+0900
by tansei.u-tokyo.junet (4.12/4.9J)
id AA10384; Fri, 11 Apr 86 18:31:07+0900
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 86 18:31:07+0900
From: Masayuki Ida <tansei!a37078%utokyo-relay.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: ida@utokyo-relay.CSNET, mathis%usc-isif.arpa@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: I am the chair of the Common Lisp committee of Japan
Return-Path: <tansei!a37078%utokyo-relay.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Message-ID: <8604110931.AA10384@tansei.u-tokyo.junet>
Dear Dr. Bob Mathis;
It is the first letter to you.
Let me introduce myself. I am charing the common Lisp committee japan.
This committee was established on April 1985 under Japan Electronic
Industries Developement Association (JEIDA).
We 24 corporate members including US company, such as Symbolics, xerox,
Digital(DEC), univac, data general, and so on.
I have presented the existance of the committee at IJCAI'85 press conference
by myself.
As I am the translator of CLtL into japanese, gls knows me very well.
please refer him for my qualifications.
I have informed that you will organizing a committee X3J13 and a ISO one.
I got a message from several persons including Guy Steele, F.Kunze,
D. Bobrow when I met them at their room each.
They suggested me to attend the ANSI committee or ISO committee if possible.
I want to present the status of japan as to Common Lisp, and
I want to have a communication with you.
I have a plan to make a subset standard.
Private proposal was appeared at October meeting, and currently
working group for the subset is working with my private proposal.
I also have a proposal for japanese character representation.
It will conform with the AT&T UNIX standard for japanese character representation.
I already got a opinion of symbolics, xerox digital or other company.
TI asked their japanese representative to send my proposal to them.
The above two activities were already reported to several persons via UUCP network.
Fortunatelly, from April 6th 1986, My computer center was joined to CSNET.
So, communication with US persons will be much easier and will be much more firm.
Prof. Nakata of Tukuba university, who is the member of ISO SC22, asked me
to attend ISO lisp committee if the things will be going.
I wrtoe too much things on the first letter.
Please forgive me to send this suddden letter to you.
If you have an interest to me and my activity,
please send a mail to me. I will send a documents to you after I receive
your mail.
Thanks for reading this miss-spell-full letter.
Masayuki Ida
phD, Associate professor
Aoyama Gakuin University
Atsugi, Morinosato Aoyama 1-1
Kanagawa, Japan 243-01
tel: +81 462 48 1221 ext 4526
or home: +81 462 33 4004
csnet/arpanet ida%utokyo-relay.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
uucp ...hplabs!kddlab!titcca!ccut!ida
...Shasta!nttlab!ccut!ida
--------------------
End forwarded message
∂21-Apr-86 0908 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Chairman
Received: from XEROX.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 09:08:48 PST
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 21 APR 86 09:03:16 PST
Date: 21 Apr 86 08:59 PST
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Chairman
In-reply-to: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>'s message of 20 Apr 86 10:01
PST
To: RPG@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <860421-090316-1457@Xerox>
I support both nominations whole-heartedly.
Thany you Scott and Bob.
danny
∂21-Apr-86 0932 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 09:30:08 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 09:29:19-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200634925.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Lunch tomorrow in MJH 146 at 12:15! Nils will be out of town -- there will
be general discussion with Tom Mitchell of Rutgers University visiting.
-------
∂21-Apr-86 0939 EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Secretaries
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 09:35:44 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 09:33:13-PST
From: LaDonna Eppley <EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Secretaries
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: Eppley@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200635635.11.EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Just a reminder that this is National Secretary's Week, and Wednesday
is Secretary's Day.
LaDonna
-------
∂21-Apr-86 0942 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 09:42:30 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 09:41:08-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200637077.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I have just been advised that we will also have Bob Wilber of IBM/SJ
visiting with us at the CSD lunch tomorrow.
-------
∂21-Apr-86 0949 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA CSL fac cand--Ebeling
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 09:48:54 PST
Received: from SU-SIERRA.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Mon 21 Apr 86 09:46:58-PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 09:47:06-PST
From: Sharon Gerlach <CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
Subject: CSL fac cand--Ebeling
To: csl-faculty@SU-SIERRA.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: csl.gerlach@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
On this Friday, April 25, Carl Ebeling, a CSL faculty candidate from
CMU, will give a special seminar at 1:30 in CIS 101.
Please let me know if you would like to have some time to talk with him.
He will speak on the following...
All the Right Moves: A VLSI Architecture for Chess
Carl Ebeling
Carnegie Mellon University
Hitech, the Carnegie-Mellon chess program that recently won the ACM
computer chess championship and owns a USCF rating of 2340, owes its
success in large part to an architecture that is used for both
move generation and position evaluation. Previous programs have been
subject to a tradeoff between speed and knowledge: applying
more chess knowledge to position evaluation necessarily slows the
search. Although the previous computer chess champions, Belle and
Cray Blitz, have demonstrated the importance of deep search, it is
clear that better knowledge is required for first-rate chess. With
this new architecture, Hitech is able to search both deeply and
knowledgeably.
We will first describe the design and implementation of the move
generator which uses fine-grained parallelism to reduce the time to
produce and order moves. By generating all moves for both sides,
this move generator is able to order moves based both on capture
information and an estimate of the safety of the destination square.
This effort is rewarded by smaller search trees since the efficiency
of the alpha-beta search depends on the order in which moves are
examined. Experiments show that Hitech search trees are within a factor
of 1.5 of optimal. Although the amount of hardware required is
substantial, this architecture is eminently suited to VLSI.
We then describe the requirements of position evaluation and discuss
how this architecture can be adapted to perform evaluation. This
will include the description of a VLSI implementation that we
propose for position evaluation. Finally we will describe the other
components of the chess machine and present some performance results
that indicate how well the hardware supports the search.
-------
∂21-Apr-86 1025 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: Chairman
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 10:25:16 PST
Date: 21 Apr 1986 10:27-PST
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Re: Chairman
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: RPG@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]21-Apr-86 10:27:19.MATHIS>
In-Reply-To: The message of 20 Apr 86 1001 PST from Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
I am willing to serve as Chairman. I don't understand rowing
very much, but I get the impression that the rowers do most of
the work and the coxswain has a role in coordination and timing.
That is somewhat of how I understand my chairmanship -- I am
depending on the real Lisp experts to do a lot of the work to
make sure we keep on the right course.
If we are moving to vote on something we need a balloting
process. My next message to cl-steering will be a balloting
message. To vote, reply to that message. We should also set a
normal timing for ballots -- say at least a week and closing on
Tuesday night (that would take care of end-of-week, weekend, and
first-of-week types to all have a chance to see the ballot
message and respond. A ballot message should not have general
discussion, only information about the vote.
-- Bob
∂21-Apr-86 1039 BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA Courses and Degrees
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 10:39:05 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 10:18:12-PST
From: Kathy Berg <BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Courses and Degrees
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Stanford-Phone: (415) 497-4776
Message-ID: <12200643824.10.BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Final changes for Courses and Degrees are due on Friday
of this week (4/25). A copy of the CS Department galleys
have been distributed to CS faculty. Please read your
course descriptions, and let me know by Thursday afternoon
if any changes should be submitted.
My thanks for your kind cooperation.
Kathryn Berg
-------
∂21-Apr-86 1102 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 11:01:32 PST
Date: 21 Apr 1986 11:02-PST
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]21-Apr-86 11:02:12.MATHIS>
Should Bob Mathis be elected Chairman of the Steering Committee?
Please reply by Tuesday 29 April.
(a sufficient answer should be just a "reply" to this message
which will show the subject and then just your yes or no. As the
issues get more complicated there may need to be additional text,
but we should try to keep the balloting process simple.)
∂21-Apr-86 1108 RPG Should Mathis ...
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Yes.
-rpg-
∂21-Apr-86 1151 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 11:51:19 PST
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Mon 21 Apr 86 14:53:53-EST
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1986 14:53 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12200661231.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
In-reply-to: Msg of 21 Apr 1986 14:02-EST from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
(I don't think that technical committee members should vote on this, but
in case people feel they should...)
Yes.
-- Scott
∂21-Apr-86 1155 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA Re: Secretaries
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 11:55:37 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 11:07:54-PST
From: Gene H. Golub <GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Secretaries
To: EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA, Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <12200635635.11.EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Phone: 415/723-3124
Message-ID: <12200652872.32.GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I resent the concept of National Secretaries Day. It is an artifical
device that is promoted by the candy companies and flower shops.
Shouldn't everyday be secreataries day?
GENE
-------
∂21-Apr-86 1200 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Candidates
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 12:00:08 PST
Date: Mon 21 Apr 86 11:16:48-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Candidates
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200654492.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As you are aware, we have a number of searches going on within the department
for faculty candidates. The following AI candidates will be visiting us on
the indicated dates. Should you have a special interest in meeting with them,
please let me know.
David Etherington on April 28
Yoav Shoham on May 2 (talk on May 1)
John Batali on May 5
Natarajan Shankar on May 15
-Anne
-------
∂21-Apr-86 1754 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Mathis as Chairman
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 17:53:32 PST
Date: 21 Apr 1986 17:52-PST
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Mathis as Chairman
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]21-Apr-86 17:52:30.OHLANDER>
I concur that Bob Mathis would be the appropriate chairman.
Ron Ohlander
∂21-Apr-86 1913 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
Received: from XEROX.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Apr 86 19:13:16 PST
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 21 APR 86 19:14:15 PST
Date: 21 Apr 86 19:13 PST
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
In-reply-to: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA's message of 21 Apr 86 11:02 PST
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <860421-191415-2221@Xerox>
yes
∂22-Apr-86 0540 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 05:39:59 PST
Date: 22 Apr 1986 05:42-PST
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]22-Apr-86 05:42:20.MATHIS>
I had planned to go to the EuLisp meeting in Paris on May 5, but
it has just been changed to Erlangen, Germany, on May 2. So I
will not be going. I just talked to Jerome Chailloux. They
intend to finish their first draft at that meeting and distribute
it on the Common Lisp electronic mailing list. Their next
meeting will probably be June 2 in Bath England. I will try to
go to that one. (Just like everybody, I need 3-4 weeks planning
lead time.) Their August meeting will be in Boston at the same
time as the Lisp Conference. We should probably plan some
information on Common Lisp standardization activities for that
conference. What's appropriate?
-- Bob
∂22-Apr-86 0732 DLW@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA Lisp conference
Received: from SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 07:31:43 PST
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 469023; Tue 22-Apr-86 10:30:02-EST
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 86 10:30 EST
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Subject: Lisp conference
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]22-Apr-86 05:42:20.MATHIS>
Message-ID: <860422103049.3.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: 22 Apr 1986 05:42-PST
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Their August meeting will be in Boston at the same
time as the Lisp Conference. We should probably plan some
information on Common Lisp standardization activities for that
conference. What's appropriate?
In my opinion, the most important thing would be an announcement to the
attendees of the current state of things. We should announce the
existence and member of the technical and steering committees, and give
a brief agenda for each of them. We should explain what's going on with
ANSI and ISO, and what's going on regarding the formal definition of the
standard. We should also clear the air by announcing the official state
of standardization of extensions, such as the error/condition system,
object-oriented programming, and window systems. (By "we" I'm not
necessarily including myself, since I'm not personally on the
committees, but that's not important.) Presumably the conference
chairman should figure out how to best fit this into the format of the
conference.
By the way, you might be interested to know that the program committee
for the conference accepted a paper entitled "Desiderata for the
standardization of Lisp", by 13 European authors, headed by Julian
Padgett of Bath and including Chailloux. It attempts to present the
situation up to now, present some conclusions about how to proceed, and
their present progress to date, of which there is little, as they
readily admit. One of their conclusions is that there should be several
levels of standard, each a proper subset of the one above. It's clear
that they are trying to live with Common Lisp rather than fight it; the
tone is pretty reasonable and I don't see any problems coming from this.
∂22-Apr-86 0745 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Lisp conference
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 07:45:47 PST
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 22 Apr 86 10:48:22-EST
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1986 10:48 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12200878681.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Lisp conference
In-reply-to: Msg of Tue 22 Apr 86 10:30 EST from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
I think that Dan Weinreb's message covered the essential points of what
needs to happen at the Lisp Conference, except that I would add the need
for a question/answer session with as many members of the technical and
steering committees as we can conveniently round up. Perhaps the right
format is a 90 minute session with half an hour of status reports and an
hour of open discussion.
My guess is that this will be very heavily attended, so we'll need the
largest available room. I doubt that any slots are left on the official
program, so this may have to be an evening add-on of some sort. I
beleive that some of us are on the program committee for the meeting, so
maybe those people could make known our desire for a time slot of some
sort.
-- Scott
∂22-Apr-86 0841 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 08:41:24 PST
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 22 Apr 86 11:43:52-EST
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1986 11:43 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12200888762.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 22 Apr 1986 08:42-EST from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
I note that some cracks seem to be developing within the Eulisp group,
and that they are nearing the point where the differences in goals
between the formalists and the hackers will begin to manifest themselves
in major technical disagreements. It looks like the move of the May
meeting to Erlangen was the only way to keep Stoyan on board. It will
be interesting to see if the June meeting comes off, and whether they
are still working smoothly together by then.
With respect to Eulisp and the Eulisp people, I think that the following
points should be raised with them fairly soon. It is best to approach
this though Chailloux, as he seems to be more interested in Common Lisp
than the Padgett and Fitch.
1. We have told them this before, but we should reiterate our view that
it is necessary to standardize something reasonably close to the current
Common Lisp under ANSI and, if possible, under ISO. By "reasonably
close", I mean that we must recognize that many Common Lisp
implementations and a growing body of user code and training materials
exist already or are in preparation, so in the definition of the
standard we must not make any incompatible changes unless the benefits
very clearly outweigh the costs. In this process, we do not feel that
we are free to start from scratch and reconsider all of the old
decisions. We certainly do not view the current Common Lisp as perfect,
but it has attained the status of a de facto standard in the U.S. and
many other parts of the world, and orderly progress demands that we make
this standard explicit and official and that we clean up the current
ambiguities as best we can.
2. It is our intention to develop a cleaned-up language specification
for the full language, and submit this to ANSI and then to ISO as a
proposed standard for ANSI/ISO Common Lisp. We do not view this as
casting the Common Lisp spec in stone forever, nor do we wish to
preclude the emergence of an ISO standrd for some different Lisp or for
an official Common Lisp subset or set of "layers". But for all of us,
the first priority is developing a usable standard for the full
language, and we do not currently view a layered approach or a
definition using formal semantics as the quickest or best way to attain
that goal.
3. We recognize that some members of the Eulisp group want to develop a
"post-Common" Lisp that would be different in many ways from the
currently defined language. Others appear to want a mulitple-level
specification, with the most complex level corresponding closely to to
the current Common Lisp and with the lower levels being subsets. The
simplest levels may be definable by formal mathematical methods. We
respect these goals and wish you well, but we hope that such activities
will not preclude an ISO standard for something close to the current
Common Lisp with a specification that discusses only the full language.
4. If the Eulisp group or any individual members wish to contribute to
the standardization effort outlined in points 1 and 2 (even while
pursuing your own activities as discussed in point 3) we would welcome
such participation, either through the open discussions on the Common
Lisp mailing list, or perhaps by adding a Eulisp person to our technical
and/or steering committees. We would like to discuss this committee
membership if there is serious interest.
5. If you feel that you cannot subscribe to our goals and plans, we
understand, and wish you well. Even if we disagree on the best form for
a standard, we hope that the gorups can remain in close contact and can
learn from each other's efforts.
-- Scott
∂22-Apr-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 10:28:29 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 10:11:05-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI Seminar
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12200904675.20.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
David Etherington will be visiting the department on April 28 and, while
here, will be giving the following talk:
DAY: April 28, 1986
EVENT: AI Seminar
PLACE: Jordan 050
TIME: 4:15
TITLE: "Minimal Entailment and Non-Monotonic Reasoning"
PERSON: David W. Etherington
FROM: University of British Columbia
Circumstances commonly require that conclusions be
drawn (conjectured) even though they are not strictly warranted
by the available evidence.
Various forms of minimal entailment have been suggested
as ways of generating appropriate conjectures.
Minimal entailment is a consequence relation in which those
facts which hold in minimal models of a theory are considered
to follow from that theory.
Thus minimal entailment is less restrictive than the standard logical
entailment relation, which strongly constrains what evidence
may be taken as supporting a conclusion.
Different definitions of minimality of models yield different
entailment relations.
The talk will outline a variety of such relations.
Domain, Predicate, and Formula Circumscription [McCarthy 1978,
1980, 1984] are syntactic formalisms intended to capture these
relations.
We examine each from a semantic viewpoint, in the hope of
clarifying their respective capabilities and weaknesses.
Results on the consistency, correctness, and adequacy of
these formalisms will be presented.
While minimal entailment corresponds most directly to the
Closed-World Assumption
that positive information
not implicit in what is known can be assumed false
McCarthy and others have suggested applications of
circumscription to more general default reasoning tasks.
With this in mind, connections between minimal entailment and
Reiter's Default Logic will be sketched, if time permits.
In this connection, we will consider positive and negative
results due to Grosof and Imielinski, respectively.
-------
∂22-Apr-86 1256 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa Schedule for BATS: Tues. 4/29 at Berkeley
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 12:53:08 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 12:51:59-PST
From: BATS Coordinator for Stanford <HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Schedule for BATS: Tues. 4/29 at Berkeley
To: AFLB.SU@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12200933965.10.HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
Here is the program for the Bay Area Theory Seminar, to be held
Tuesday 29 April in Sibley Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus.
Abstracts and directions follow.
10:00 Ron Fagin (IBM)
Knowledge and Implicit Knowledge in a Distributed Environment
11:00 Richard Karp (UC Berkeley)
A Search Problem Related to Branch-and-Bound Methods
12:00 Lunch (served in 120BC Bechtel)
1:30 Yigal Brandman (Stanford)
A Universal Lower Bounding Technique on the Size of Decision Trees
and Two-Level AND-OR Implementations of a Boolean Function
2:30 Mark Manasse (DEC-SRC)
Optimal Amoritzed Algorithms for Caching and Sharing
Distributed Memory
-------
KNOWLEDGE AND IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE IN A DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT
Ron Fagin
IBM Almaden Research Center
A processor P in a distributed system is said to "know" a fact F if F
is true in every situation consistent with p's information. We
investigate the question of which "states of knowledge" are attainable
by processors in a distributed system. Previously, it had been
assumed that essentially all conceivable states of knowledge were
attainable by processors in distributed systems. We consider a
natural example of such a distributed system and show that,
surprisingly enough, certain states of knowledge are unattainable. We
precisely characterize, with a complete axiomatization, the properties
of the states of knowledge that are attainable by processors in the
type of distributed system we consider. These properties include the
standard (S5) properties of knowledge, along with a new property that
reflects the fact that implicit knowledge is never lost. This talk,
which represents joint research with Moshe Vardi, will be completely
self-contained.
-------
A SEARCH PROBLEM RELATED TO BRANCH-AND-BOUND METHODS
Dick Karp
UC Berkeley
Let T be an infinite binary tree with a real value assigned to each mode,
such that the valves along any path directed away from the root form an
th
increasing sequence. A searcher who wishes to determine the n -smallest
value in the tree begins walking along edges, starting at the root. She
observes the value assigned to each node she visits, but can retain in her
memory only log n such values and log n integers between 1 and n. How long
must she wander? We derive a surprisingly favorable upper bound, and discuss
the implications of our result for branch-and-bound methods using limited
storage.
This is joint work with Michael Saks and Avi Wigderson.
-------
A UNIVERSAL LOWER BOUNDING TECHNIQUE ON THE SIZE OF DECISION TREES
AND TWO-LEVEL AND-OR IMPLEMENTATIONS OF A BOOLEAN FUNCTION
Yigal Brandman (joint work with Alon Orlitzky and John Hennessy)
Stanford University
A universal lower bounding technique, bounding the size and several
other characteristics of the implementation of an arbitrary boolean
function as a two-level and-or and as a decision tree will be
presented. The bounding technique is based on the power spectrum
coefficients of the n-dimensional Fourier transform of the function.
The bounds vary from constant to exponential, and are tight in many
cases. Examples will be shown.
-------
OPTIMAL AMORTIZED ALGORITHMS FOR CACHING AND SHARING DISTRIBUTED MEMORY
Mark Manasse
Digital Equipment Corp.
Systems Research Center
We examine the problem of sharing memory among a set of processors
connected by a broadcast network, e.g. a bus. We assume that each
processor maintains a cache, with requests for pages not in that cache
satisfied by data transfer across the bus. To minimize bus traffic, we
must reduce the number of writes to shared variables (each of which costs
one bus cycle) by discarding pages, at the risk of having to read them in
again (at cost p, the number of variables per page) should another read
request to that page occur. The minimal cost for a sequence of read and
write requests is the number of bus cycles used by an optimal clairvoyant
algorithm which decides on page retention knowing in advance the entire
sequence.
We present online algorithms for deciding on page retention; each of
these algorithms has an amortized cost that is at most a constant factor
more than the minimal cost. For the model described above (under the
assumption that the caches are either of infinite size or are direct
mapped), we prove that our algorithm uses at most twice as many bus cycles
as the optimal algorithm and that no online algorithm can do better. To
obtain a constant-factor algorithm when the caches are of finite size and
are set-associative, we combine the previous strategy with LRU or FIFO
page replacement. Other refinements to the model include the extension to
multi-bus schemes, where we can prove that the communication per bus is
within a constant factor of optimal.
(This is joint work with Anna Karlin of Stanford University and Larry
Rudolph and Danny Sleator of Carnegie-Mellon University.)
--------
The lectures will be held in Sibley Auditorium in the Bechtel
building, which is just north of Evans Hall.
To get to the University from Highway 80, take the University Avenue
exit, and continue until the road ends. Turn left onto Oxford, north
to the next light, and right on Hearst. Continue on Hearst (which forms
the northern border of campus) until you can make a right turn on Gayley
(eastern border of campus). The first possible right off Gayley leads
into campus at the Mining Circle, on which Evans Hall is. There's a
kiosk at that entrance at which you can pick up your parking stickers
(mention BATS), and get directions on where to park. Note that these
stickers are little more than hunting licenses; you may have to park
several blocks away, off campus.
Highway 13 from the south turns naturally into Ashby heading west. Take
College Avenue north (I think it's the second light) to Dwight Way; go
east on Dwight to Piedmont Avenue (where Dwight becomes two-way), and
go north on Piedmont. It will turn into Gayley, and you'll see the left
turn for the East Gate opposite the Greek Theatre.
-------
∂22-Apr-86 1300 HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa BATS: approximate car count?
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 13:00:19 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 12:55:31-PST
From: BATS Coordinator for Stanford <HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: BATS: approximate car count?
To: aflb.su@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12200934607.10.HADDAD@su-sushi.arpa>
the Berkeley people would like an approximate car count, so that
they'll know how many parking stickers to get. Hence, I'd appreciate
it if you could let me know whose car you're going in.
-------
∂22-Apr-86 1335 Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA EuLisp
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 86 15:42 EST
From: David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Subject: EuLisp
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
cc: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12200888762.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860422154223.8.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Well said. I agree with you. (Oh, that's right, I'm not on the steering committee).
∂22-Apr-86 1336 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 13:31:20 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 13:15:29-PST
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Philosophy Department Colloquium
To: bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Jennifer Hornsby, from Oxford and visiting at the Center for Advanced
Study, will give a talk on Friday, May 2, at 3:15, in the Philosophy
Seminar Room, 92Q. Title: "Austin's Speech Acts, and Theory of Action."
-------
∂22-Apr-86 1343 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 13:36:40 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 13:16:30-PST
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
To: bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Does anyone know where Tore is or when he will be back? Marti at Philosophy
-------
∂22-Apr-86 1814 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA happy hour
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 18:13:26 PST
Date: Tue 22 Apr 86 18:07:52-PST
From: Mary Dalrymple <DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: happy hour
To: linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Announcing:
**VOLLEYBALL HAPPY HOUR**
this Friday at 4:00. We'll meet in the Greenberg Room and go from there
to the volleyball place.
Come one, come all!
-------
∂22-Apr-86 2134 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Specification Document
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Apr 86 21:14:50 PST
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 23 Apr 86 00:17:26-EST
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1986 00:17 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12201025953.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Specification Document
We need to keep moving on getting a document together, if indeed that is
going to be the central focus of our effort.
Several people on the technical committee have expressed a desire to get
a copy of the Lucid document so that we can all discuss what mixture of
materials we want to use. Dick, is it possible to send copies to
everyone on the technical committee? Presumably everyone has a copy of
CLtL, which is the other likely source of material.
It would certainly be simplest all around to develop a public-domain
document, but I see several problems with this. First, Bob Mathis says
that ANSI likes to copyright their standards documents. Second, Digital
Press might be more willing to grant ANSI permission to create a
derivitive work incorporating material from CLtL than to drop a lot of
material into the public domain. Third, once the work is in the public
domain, nobody has any control over it at all, and a confusing array of
mutant versions could appear.
Let me propose the following model to see if it sounds good to all of us
and, if so, whether we can sell it to ANSI, Digital Press, and Lucid's
hairy lawyers.
The standards document that we develop for Common Lisp would contain the
following copyright notice (language subject to tuning if we can get
some legal advice):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1986, 1987 American National Standards Institute
[[ Is that what ANSI stands for or did I guess wrong? ]]
Permission is hereby granted for any individual or organization to
reproduce the contents of this document without charge, in printed or
computer readable form, provided that the following conditions are
observed:
1. Every copy must include this copyright notice.
2. The text of this document must be reproduced in its entirety, without
any deletions or alterations.
3. Material may be added to the text of this document, but all such
material must be clearly marked as not being part of the original text.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital Press would grant permission to ANSI, in advance, to produce a
derivitive work incorporating portions of the text of CLtL, with the
understanding that the result would be published with the copyright
notice and permission statement listed above. The letter would make
clear that this permission in no way limits Digital Press's right to use
the original material themselves or to authorize the creation of new
editions or other derivitive works for their own use.
Lucid would agree to the same thing with regard to their manual.
Once these agreements are in place, I suggest that we copy the sources
to these documents to CMU. I am willing to coordinate the task of
producing a new document, given these sources, and to do most of the
necessary rewriting as decisions get made. (I will be looking for help
on specific chapters and issues, however.) The new document would
appear chapter by chapter in a directory that everyone in the Common
Lisp community could access. As I mentioned earlier, there would also
be a file listing all of the known differences between the new document
and CLtL and perhaps some other supporting docuemnts not part of the
standard.
If ANSI agrees to the "anyone can copy" provisions described above, I
have no major problem with developing this thing under the ANSI
copyright from the start. However, as of today we have no standing
within ANSI, and I'm not sure that it is appropriate for this document
to be "owned" by ANSI until it has been endorsed by X3J13 and accepted
by ANSI. There's the interesting question of who would own the document
if, for some reason, ANSI rejects it -- we would want to be in a
position to distribute the document and use it as an informal de facto
standard in that case.
Given that, perhaps the right move is to replace ANSI with "us" in the
above copyright notice and agreements, and to assign the copyright to
ANSI when and if they adopt the document as a standard. "Us" in this
case could be a non-profit corporation set up for the purpose -- The
Common Lisp Technical Committee, Inc. -- or it could be, say, the
chairman of the technical committee who would informally agree to hold
the copyright in trust for the whole group. The corporation is the
cleaner solution, but nobody answered my earlier query on what it would
take to form one, so I don't think any of us want to go through the
hassle.
Please let me know what you think of this plan. Perhaps Bob Mathis
could sound out ANSI on whether they would agree to something like this,
Steele could sound out Digital Press, and Gabriel could talk to Lucid's
lawyers about it. We should find out about the plan in which the thing
is copyrighted by ANSI from the start, and also about the plan in which
one of us holds the copyright until the thing is approved.
It would be very nice if we could get this all settled within a week or
two, so that we can start the real work.
-- Scott
∂23-Apr-86 0924 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Specification Document
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 09:24:31 PST
Date: 23 Apr 1986 09:24-PST
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Specification Document
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: CL-Steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]23-Apr-86 09:24:51.OHLANDER>
Scott,
I think that your concern over a specification document is
well founded and something that should be resolved as soon as possible.
One concern that I have, however, in letting ANSI have control of the
copyright, is whether we can get changes made in a reasonable way when
we have to. It may be the case that they are perfectly willing to share
the document but that it takes great effort and excessive time to ever
get the document changed. I think that we should look into this
aspect of the matter. Perhaps Bob Mathis could enlighten us.
Ron
∂23-Apr-86 1121 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:JMC@SU-AI.ARPA Report on Scientific Contributions of Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 11:21:29 PST
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 23 Apr 86 11:20:17-PST
Date: 23 Apr 86 1117 PST
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Report on Scientific Contributions of Computer Science
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
John Hopcroft is preparing such a report at the request of NSF. Draft
copies are available from Rutie Adler (RA@SAIL). Hopcroft solicits
comments. Presumably the report will be used in some way by Kent Curtis.
∂23-Apr-86 1223 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Mailing lists
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 12:23:27 PST
Date: Wed 23 Apr 86 12:20:28-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Mailing lists
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
This is just a restating of some of the available mailing lists on
CSLI.
Friends - For announcements of CSLI events. This list is monitored.
Folks - a list of people associated with CSLI. Used for messages
directed at the CSLI community.
Linguists - a list of people interested in Linguistics or associated with
the Linguistics Dept.
Linguistics-Dept - a list of people in the Linguistics department.
Phil-all - a list of people in the Philosophy department. Requests
regarding this list should be sent to Phil-request@su-csli.
Please note that people on the Linguists and Phil-all mailing lists
are often on the folks and friends lists and hence receive duplicates
if messages are sent to two of the lists.
Please also note that each CSLI project has at least one mailing
list of its own.
See <csli>mailing.lists for more information.
--Emma Pease
-------
∂23-Apr-86 1359 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 13:59:32 PST
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 23 Apr 86 13:43:44 pst
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 86 13:43:44 pst
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting
To: nail@diablo
Tomorrow's meeting will be canceled due to Passover, and also
the absence of a topic.
How would someone like to prepare to talk next week on one of the
papers that have been sent to me recently, e.g., the "Traversal
Recursion" paper? Perhaps one of our new recruits would volunteer.
---jeff
∂23-Apr-86 1442 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Ed Pednault
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 14:42:44 PST
Date: Wed 23 Apr 86 14:42:11-PST
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Ed Pednault
To: planlunch.dis: ;
TOWARD A MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF PLAN SYNTHESIS
Edwin P.D. Pednault (PEDNAULT@SRI-AI)
Stanford University and SRI International, AI Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 28
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Classical planning problems have the following form: given a set of
goals, a set of allowable actions, and a description of the current
state of the world, find a sequence of actions that will transform the
world from its current state to a state in which all of the goals are
satisfied. This talk is a presentation of my thesis research, which
examines the question of how to solve such problems automatically.
The question will be addressed from a rigorous, mathematical
standpoint, in contrast to the informal and highly experimental
treatments found in most previous work. By introducing mathematical
rigor, it has been possible to unify many existing ideas in automatic
planning, showing how they arise from first principles and how they
may be applied to solve a much broader class of problems than had
previously been considered. In addition, a number of theorems have
been proved that further our understanding of the synthesis problem,
and a language has been developed for describing actions that combines
the notational convenience of STRIPS with the expressive power of the
situation calculus.
This talk will concentrate on my techniques for plan synthesis with
only a brief summary of the other contributions of my research.
A mathematical framework will be introduced, along with a number of
theorems that form the basis for the synthesis techniques.
These theorems will then be combined with a least-commitment search strategy
to obtain a solution method that unifies and generalizes means-ends
analysis, opportunistic planning, goal protection, goal regression,
constraint posting/propagation, hierarchical planning, and nonlinear
planning.
-------
∂23-Apr-86 1451 Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA Specification Document
Received: from SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 14:51:43 PST
Received: from EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 470577; Wed 23-Apr-86 17:38:24-EST
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 86 17:37 EST
From: David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Subject: Specification Document
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12201025953.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860423173738.3.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I was under the impression that X3 is not part of ANSI.
∂23-Apr-86 1813 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, April 24, No. 13
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Apr 86 18:13:19 PST
Date: Wed 23 Apr 86 17:41:01-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, April 24, No. 13
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
April 24, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 13
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, April 24, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall No TINLunch this week
Conference Room
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Uses and Abuses of Models in Semantics
Trailer Classroom John Etchemendy and Jon Barwise
(Etchemendy@su-csli, Barwise@su-csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Ventura Hall Lexical Rules and Lexical Representations
Trailer Classroom Annie Zaenen (zaenen.pa@xerox)
(Originally scheduled as a CSLI Seminar on March 6)
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, May 1, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Selections from On the Plurality of Worlds
Conference Room by D. Lewis
Discussion led by Ed Zalta (Zalta@su-csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Visual Communication (Part 1 of 3)
Trailer Classroom Sandy Pentland and Fred Lakin
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Ventura Hall Structures in Written Language
Trailer Classroom Geoff Nunberg
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar April 24, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
THIS WEEK'S SEMINAR
Uses and Abuses of Models in Semantics
Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy
Barwise@su-csli and Etchemendy@su-csli
The use of set-theoretic models as a way to study the semantics of
both natural and computer languages is a powerful and important
technique. However, it is also fraught with pitfalls for those who do
not understand the nature of modeling. In this talk we hope to show
how a proper understanding of the representation relationship implicit
in modeling can help one exploit the power while avoiding the
pitfalls. Learn how to disarm your foes and impress your friends at
one go. The talk will presuppose some familiarity with the techniques
under discussion.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Selections from On The Plurality of Worlds
by D. Lewis
Discussion led by Ed Zalta (Zalta@su-csli)
Lewis' new book, On The Plurality of Worlds, contains a defense of
his modal realism, the thesis that the world we are part of is but one
of a plurality of worlds, and that we who inhabit this world are only
a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. In this TINLunch,
I'll describe the overall plan of the book, and then focus both on
some of Lewis' replies to objections or on his objections to the
program of ``ersatz modal realism,'' in which other worlds are
replaced by representations of some sort.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
Visual Communication
Sandy Pentland, Fred Lakin, Guest Speakers
May 1, 8, and 15
Speakers in this series will discuss and illustrate ongoing research
concerned with mechanisms of visual communication and visual languages
and the identification of visual regularities that support the
distinctions and classes necessary to general-purpose reasoning. Alex
Pentland will discuss how organizational regularities in human
perception can be used to facilitate a rational computer system for
3-D graphics modelling. Fred Lakin will describe a Visual
Communication Lab, and, in particular, a project to construct visual
grammars for visual languages. Examples show the use of these
grammars to recognize and parse ``blackboard'' diagrams.
!
Page 3 CSLI Calendar April 24, 1986
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PIXELS AND PREDICATES
Prolog and Geometry
Randolph Franklin, UC at Berkeley
wrf@degas.berkeley.edu
1:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 29, CSLI trailers
(Note change in day)
The Prolog language is a useful tool for geometric and graphics
implementations because its primitives, such as unification, match the
requirements of many geometric algorithms. We have implemented
several problems in Prolog including a subset of the Graphics Kernal
Standard, convex hull finding, planar graph traversal, recognizing
groupings of objects, and boolean combinations of polygons using
multiple precision rational numbers. Certain paradigms, or standard
forms, of geometric programming in Prolog are becoming evident. They
include applying a function to every element of a set, executing a
procedure so long as a certain geometric pattern exists, and using
unification to propagate a transitive function. Certain strengths and
weaknesses of Prolog for these applications are now apparent.
-------
∂23-Apr-86 2243 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
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Date: Tue, 22 Apr 86 14:44:13 cst
From: Simeon Ntafos <simeon%utd-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: theory%rsch.wisc.edu@csnet-relay.arpa
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 23 Apr 86 23:53:11 CST (Wed)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT
A. W. O. C. '86
Loutraki, Greece
July 8 - 11, 1986
AEGEAN WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING:
VLSI ALGORITHMS AND ARCHITECTURES
(2nd International Workshop on Parallel Computing & VLSI)
Sponsored & Organized by the COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE
In cooperation with: ACM, EATCS, IEEE and the General Secretariat
of Research and Technology (Ministry of Industry, Energy &
Technology of Greece)
*******************************************************************
PROGRAM CHAIRPERSONS:
Fillia Makedon (USA)
Paul Spirakis (USA, Greece)
PROGRAM COMMITEE:
K. Mehlhorn, Program Chairman (W. Germany)
I. Filotti (France)
S. Hambrusch (USA)
U. Lauther (W. Germany)
T. Leighton (USA)
T. Lengauer (W. Germany)
F. Luccio (Italy)
F. Makedon (USA)
C. Papadimitriou (USA, Greece)
T. Papatheodorou (Greece)
J. Reif (USA)
A. Rosenberg (USA)
P. Spirakis (USA, Greece)
H. Sudborough (USA)
P. Vitanyi (Netherlands)
PUBLICITY CHAIR:
Christos Manolopoulos (CTI)
LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS:
C. Manolopoulos, Chairman
R. Manolopoulos
D. Maritsas
K. Papatheodorou
T. Papatheodorou (C.T.I. Director)
E. Patoucha
P. Spirakis
S. Theodorides
ADDRESS:
Computer Technology Institute
27 Georgiou A. Sq.,
26000 PATRAS, GREECE
P. O. Box 1122, 261 10 PATRAS
Phone: (GREECE-61) 273496 or 225073
Workshop Location:
A.W.O.C. 86 will take place at the International Holliday Village
"Club Poseidon", located on the green slopes of the Corinthian
Bay, 86km west of Athens and 140 Km east of Patras.
"Club Poseidon" is one of the finest resorts in Greece, offering
every modern convenience for a memorable stay.
Transportation:
The transportation from the Athens International Airport (East Air
Terminal) to "Club Poseidon" and back to the airport, is provided
at no charge to all participants and accompanying persons according
to the following schedule:
a. Monday, July 7, 1986. Special charter buses will be leaving
from the East Air Terminal on the following hours:
1:30 pm 4:30 pm and 7:30 pm
Buses with yellow C.T.I. signs will be waiting in front of
the terminal.
b. Saturday, July 12, 1986. Buses depart at 12:00 pm from the
hotel, arriving at the airport at 1:30 pm approximately.
Other means of transportation:
* By public bus. The bus to Loutraki departs approximately
every hour from Athens. We recommend you take a taxi to
the bus station (called K.T.E.L. KORINTHOU, 100 Leoforos
Kifissou Street, Athens, tel 522-4914/4910 or 513/1636).
From Loutraki you can take a taxi to "Club Poseidon", about
2km away. (Hotel phone: 0741-4331 or 0741-4332)
* By car. If you drive from Athens or Patras take the highway
to Korinthos and follow the signs to Loutraki. We recommend
highly that you share a taxi and decide on the price ahead
of time.
NOTE: TAXIS ARE VERY INEXPENSIVE IN GREECE (About $3 from airport to
downtown Athens).
Accommodations:
A limited number of rooms is available at the International Holiday
Village "Club Poseidon" for the workshop.
Reservation through the form included in this announcement and a
30% deposit is requred and should be received by May 30. Single and
double bedrooms are available in two different classes; AA and AAA.
There is a discount price, for children under 12, provided that they
stay in extra beds in a double room. Children under 2 stay for free.
The price includes all meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) from Monday
night to Saturday noon.
Because of the limited availability, requests for rooms will be
fulfilled on a first-come first-served basis.
To avoid difficulties, we recommend that you send your reservation
as soon as possible.
Social Program:
There will be a reception on Tuesday night open to all participants
of the workshop and accompanying persons.
A guided tour to ancient Korinthos, two Greek traditional
monasteries and the nearby Lake of Vouliagmeni, is scheduled on
Wednesday after the morning session and lunch. The tour will take
about 3-1/2 hours and the rest of Wednesday is open for browsing and
entertainment.
On Thursday, instead of the usual dinner, there will be a moonlight
barbeque party by the sea, under the sounds of a Greek folk band.
(Besides our scheduled program, the hotel offers a variety of day and
night entertainment).
To participate in any of the above events, you must hve a ticket.
Tickets are provided free to everybody having a regular registration,
upon arrival on Monday. Everybody else can purchase tickets on the
spot, for the following fees:
Tuesday reception $ 10 per ticket
Wednesday tour $ 20 per ticket
Thursday barbeque $ 25 per ticket
Registration:
EVERYONE ATTENDING THE WORKSHOP MUST REGISTER.
The regular registration fee is $150 if received no later than
May 30, 1986. After this date, the fee is $190 and must be
received before June 27, 1986, which is the final deadline for
participation.
For graduate students, there is a student registration fee of
$50 if received no later than May 30, 1986, or $70 after this
date and before June 27, 1986.
Regular registration includes a copy of the proceedings,
transportation as described above, a welcome drink, and tickets
for all social events. Student registratin includes all the
above, except the tickets.
Proceedings:
The proceedings of the workshop will be published by Springer-
Verlag and distributed to all participants at no charge. An
additional number of copies of the proceedings will be available
for sale.
*******************
TUESDAY, JULY 8
Morning Session:
Session Chair: T. S. Papatheodorou (Computer Technology Institute
and Univ. of Patras, GREECE).
09:00 - 10:00 WELCOME AND OPENING ADDRESS
10:00 - 10:15 * COFFEE BREAK *
10:15 - 11:00 "Signal Processing in VLSI"
F. Preparata, Invited Speaker
(U. Illinois-Urbana, USA) and
G. Bilardi (Cornell U., USA)
11:00 - 11:30 "Two Processor Scheduling is in NC"
D. Helmbold and E. Mayr (Stanford Univ. USA)
11:30 - 12:00 "Breaking Symmetry in Synchronous Networks"
G. Frederickson (Purdue Univ., USA) and
N. Santoro (Univ. of Toronto, CANADA)
12:00 - 12:30 "Parallel Ear Decomposition Search (EDS) and
st-numbering in Graphs"
Y. Maan, B. Schieber (Tel Aviv Univ., ISRAEL)
and U. Vishkin (Tel Aviv Univ., ISRAEL and
Courant Inst., NYU, USA)
13:00 * LUNCH *
Afternoon Session:
Session Chair: K. Mehlhorn (Univ. of Saarbrucken, F.D.R.)
03:00 - 03:30 "A Unifying Framework for Systolic Designs"
Concettina Guerra (Purdue Univ., USA)
03:30 - 04:00 "Optimal Tradeoffs for Addition on Systolic
Arrays"
A. Aggarwal and J. Carter (I.B.M. Yorktown Heights
USA), and S. R. Kosaraju (John Hopkins U., USA)
04:00 - 04:30 "On the Connection Between Rectangular and
Hexagonal Systolic Arrays"
G. Rote (Tech.Univ., Graz, AUSTRIA)
04:30 - 05:00 "Lower Bounds for Sorting on Mesh-Connected
Architectures"
M. Kunde (Univ. Christian-Albrechts, Kiel, FDR)
Tuesday Evening:
05:00 - 05:30 * REFRESHMENTS *
05:30 - 07:00 "Reports from Research Institutes"
Chairs: I. Filotti (Orsay, FRANCE) and
F. Luccio (Pisa, ITALY)
P. Bertolazzi (IASI-CNR, ITALY)
Inst. of Information Processing (IIG) Graz, AUSTRIA
S. Katsafouros, Democritos Inst., GREECE
07:00 * DINNER *
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9
Morning Session:
Session Chair: C. Papadimitriou (Stanford Univ., USA and
National Tech. Univ. Athens, GREECE)
09:00 - 10:00 "Diogenes, Circa 1986"
Invited Talk
A. Rosenberg (Duke Univ., USA)
10:00 - 11:00 "Non-Sequential Computation and Laws of Nature"
Invited Talk
Paul Vitanyi (M.I.T., USA and Centrum voor
Wiskundee en Informatika Amsterdam, The
NETHERLANDS)
12:00 * LUNCH *
THURSDAY, JULY 10
Morning Session:
Session Chair: F. Preparata (U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
08:30 - 09:15 "A Survey of Problems and Results for Chanel Routing"
Invited Talk
F. T. Leighton (M.I.T., USA)
09:15 - 09:45 "Linear Algorithms for Two CMOS Layout Problems"
R. Mueller and T. Lengauer (Univ. Paderborn, W.
GERMANY)
09:45 - 10:15 "Some New Results on a Restricted Channel Routing
Problem"
L. Pagli and E. Lodi (U. Pisa, ITALY)
10:15 - 10:45 * COFFEE BREAK *
10:45 - 11:15 "Efficient Modular Design of TSC Checkers for
M-out-of-2M Codes"
A. Paschalis, D. Nikolos and C. Halatsis (Dept. of
Computers, NRC "Democritos", GREECE)
11:15 - 11:45 "VLSI Algorithms and Pipelined Architectures for
Solving Structured Linear Systems"
I-Chang Jou, Yu-Hen Hu and H.J.Yu (Chung-Li, TAIWAN)
11:45 - 12:15 "A High Performance Single-Chip VLSI Signal Processor
Architecture"
N. Kanopoulos (Digital Syst.,Res.Triangle, USA) and
P. Marinos (Duke U., USA)
13:00 * LUNCH *
Afternoon Session:
Session Chair: D. Maritsas (C.T.I. and Univ.of Patras, GREECE)
02:30 - 03:15 "Hierarchical Graph Algorithms in VLSI Design"
Invited Talk
T. Lengauer (U. of Paderborn, W. GERMANY)
03:15 - 03:45 "A Polynomial Algorithm for Recognizing Images of
Polyhedra"
L. Kirousis (U. Patras, GREECE)
03:45 - 04:15 "Parallel Tree Techniqus and Code Optimization"
E. Dekel, S. Ntafos and S.T. Peng (Univ. of Texas
at Dallas, USA)
04:15 - 04:45 "AT2-Optimal Galois Field Multiplier for VLSI"
M. Fuerer (Institut fuer Angewandte Mathematik,
U. Zurich, SWITZERLAND) and
K. Mehlhorn (U. Saarbrucken, W. GERMANY)
Thursday Evening:
05:45 - 07:15 "Industrial Sessions"
Chairs: J. Reif (Harvard U., USA) and
S. Hambrusch (Purdue U., USA)
Talks by Bull Co. representatives, Franch
"Optics and VLSI" (Talks by W. Payne, AT&T, USA) and by
A. Goutzoulis, Westinghouse, USA)
Demonstrations by companies to be announced.
10:00 * DINNER *
FRIDAY, JULY 11
Morning Session:
Session Chair: H. Sudborough (Univ. Texas-Dallas, USA)
08:30 - 9:15 "Book Embeddings"
Invited Talk
M. Yannakakis (Bell Labs, Murray Hill, USA)
09:15 - 09:45 "Efficient Parallel Evaluation of Straight-Line Code
G. Miller, (U.S.C. & MSRI, USA), E. Kaltofen
(R.P.I. & MSRI, USA) and V. Ramachandran (U.
Illinois-Urbana & MSRI, USA)
09:45 - 10:15 "A Logarithmic Boolean Time Algorithm for Parallel
Polynomial Division"
D. Bini (Univ. Pisa, ITALY) and
V. Pan (SUNY, Albany, USA)
10:15 - 10:45 * COFFEE BREAK *
Session Chair: F. Makedon (Univ. Texas-Dallas, USA)
10:45 - 11:15 "A Polynomial Algorithm for Recognizing Small Cutwidth
in Hypergraphs"
Z. Miller (U. Miami, Ohio, USA) and
I. H. Sudborough (Univ. Texas-Dallas, USA)
11:15 - 11:45 "A Generalized Topological Sorting Problem"
T. Hayerup and Ruelling (Universitat des Saarlandes
W. GERMANY)
11:45 - 12:15 "Combinational Static CMOS Networks"
J. A. Brzozowski and M. Yoeli (U. Waterloo, CANADA)
13:00 * LUNCH *
Afternoon Session:
Session Chair: P. Spirakis (Courant Inst., N.Y.U., USA and Computer
Technology Inst., Patras, GREECE)
02:15 - 03:15 "A Special Session on VLSI Design Issues"
Invited Talk
A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (U. Calif.Berkeley, USA)
03:15 - 03:45 "Efficient Parallel Linear Programming"
V. Pan (SUNY, Albany, USA)
03:45 - 04:15 "On the Time Required to Sum n Semigroup Elements
on a Parallel Machine with Simultaneous Writes"
I. Parberry (The Penn. State Univ., USA)
04:15 - 04:45 "A Comparative Study of Concurrency Control
Methods in B-trees"
A. Biliris (Boston Univ., USA)
04:45 - 05:15 "A Hierarchy of Channel Routing Methods: Algorithms
and Performance Bounds"
J. Blair and E. Lloyd (U. Pittsburgh, USA)
Friday Evening:
05:45 - 07:00 PANEL DISCUSSION
"Academia, Industry and Future Directions:
Chairs: F.T. Leighton & A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli
Panel: Bull Co. Representatives, I. Filotti, T.
Lengauer, K. Mehlhorn, T. Papatheodorou, and F.
Preparata.
07:00 * DINNER * AND SURPRISE ENTERTAINMENT
**********
A. W. O. C. '86
July 8 - 11, 1986
Club Poseidon, Loutraki, GREECE
REGISTRATION FORM
Please MAIL THIS FORM BY JUNE 27, 1986 TO: Computer Technology
Institute (CTI), P. O. Box 1122, 26110 Patras, GREECE
I wish to attend the workshop
NAME ..............................................................
Position ..........................................................
University or Institution .........................................
Mailing Address ...................................................
Phone(s)...........................................................
CSNET ADDRESS .....................................................
If a graduate student, write name and address of your advisor and
department
NAME................................................................
Address ............................................................
Advisor/Dept........................................................
Registration Fees
Before May 30 Before June 27
Regular $ 150 $ 190
Student $ 50 $ 70
I enclose a check or international money order for (please circle one)
$ 150 $190 $ 50 $ 70
(Make your check or money payable to: CTI, Patras, GREECE.)
Signature....................................Date......................
NAME AND ADDRESS OF ANOTHER PERSON WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN RECEIVING
INFORMATION ABOUT A.W.O.C. ............................................
.......................................................................
**************
HOTEL RESERVATION FORM
I want to make the following reservations:
ROOM QTY PRICE* NO. OF EXTRA FOR TOTAL
CHILDREN ONE CHILD
Single AA $ 320
Single AAA $ 375
Double AA $ 410 $ 130
Double AAA $ 480 $ 150
GRAND TOTAL:
DEPOSIT 30%
Please enclose check
AMOUNT REMAINING;
(To be paid upon arrival)
* Price includes 3 nights and all meals.
Please write the names of all the persons who are going to stay in
the rooms you have reserved:
Name Age (If under 12)
1.←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
2.←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
3.←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
4.←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
(Make your checks or money order payable to CTI, Patras, GREECE).
SIGNATURE ....................................Date.................
NOTE: (1) AAA rooms are more spacious and luxurious.
(2) If you wish to make alternate reservations at another
hotel in Loutraki and/or Athens, please contact directly
the cooperating travel agency: ..........................
.........................................................
(We cannot guarantee transportation from other hotels)
**********
--------------
TN Message #41
--------------
∂24-Apr-86 0915 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 09:15:00 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 09:06:07-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Yoav Shoham
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12201417134.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Yoav Shoham will be visiting the department on May 1 and on May 2. While
here, he will be giving the following talk:
DAY: May 1, 1986
EVENT: Circumscription Seminar
PLACE: Bldg. 380, Room X
TIME: 4:00
TITLE: CHRONOLOGICAL IGNORANCE:
time, knowledge, nonmonotonicity and causation
PERSON: Yoav Shoham
FROM: Yale University
We are concerned with the problem of reasoning about change within a formal
system. We identify two problems that arise from practical considerations of
efficiency and naturalness of expression: the persistence problem (otherwise
known as the frame problem, and a new, but no less evil, initiation problem.
In this talk we concentrate on the latter one.
We propose a new logic that allows efficient and natural reasoning about
change and which avoids the initiation problem. The logic, called the logic
of chronological ignorance, is a fusion of recent ideas on temporal logic,
modal logic of knowledge, and nonmonotonic logic.
We identify a special class of theories, called causal theories, and show
these have elegant model-theoretic properties which make reasoning about
causal theories very easy.
Finally, we contrast our logic with previous work on nonmonotonic logics
in computer science, and discuss its connection to the philosophical
literature on causation.
-------
∂24-Apr-86 0945 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Socrates/Folio: Accounts and Accessing From Other Computers--New People To Stanford-Read
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 09:44:55 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 09:37:56-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Socrates/Folio: Accounts and Accessing From Other Computers--New People To Stanford-Read
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, young@SU-SUSHI.ARPA,
: ;
Message-ID: <12201422928.19.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Anyone on the Stanford network can access Socrates (the online catalog and
a database which is part of the Folio system) by telneting from their own
computers from home or from your office: ie from Lots, Score, Sushi, Sierra,
Sumex-Aim........etc. However in order to do this you either need an ITS
account or a special Socrates account. In either case, the searching of
Socrates is FREE. With an ITS account, it is free when you are actually
searching Socrates but you pay what ever charges you incur for loging on
to the ITS account and any use of it. With a special Socrates account you
pay nothing for loging on but the only files you can search are Socrates and
other files in Folio (and files to be added to Folio ).
To get a special, free Socrates account you can come to the Math/CS Library
and fill out a form. You have to fill out the form before I can give you
the account number and password. At the point, I give you the account number
the account is activated. Right now I do have some forms in my office and
I generally try to keep a small stock of forms around. However when we do
run out, I can usually get more forms quickly.
Any questions, concerns, or suggestions about Socrates can be sent to me.
Harry Llull
-------
∂24-Apr-86 1033 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Candidates
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 10:32:56 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 10:32:45-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Candidates
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12201432907.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
For those of you that were unable to attend the faculty meeting yesterday
could you please send me (either by e-mail or by written memo) your vote
on the following proposed faculty candidates (yes/no/abstain):
Umesh Vazirani
--------------
Anoop Gupta
--------------
Thanks,
Anne
-------
∂24-Apr-86 1037 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Gray Tuesday letters
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 10:36:54 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 10:34:08-PST
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Gray Tuesday letters
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12201433157.14.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Gray Tuesday letters are being sent out electronically this year.
You will receive a copy of each of your advisee's letters, plus
those of any students whose reading committees you serve on.
You will probably receive these sometime today. Feel free to
contact me if you have any questions.
Victoria
-------
∂24-Apr-86 1155 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA class lists
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 11:55:44 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 11:36:53-PST
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: class lists
To: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12201444582.28.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The long-and-eagerly-awaited preliminary class lists are finally here.
Please stop by my office to pick up the ones that are rightfully yours.
And enjoy!
-Gina
-------
∂24-Apr-86 1414 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Apr 86 14:14:48 PST
Date: Thu 24 Apr 86 13:51:39-PST
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI Seminar
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12201469115.11.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
****************************************************************************
Please note that the CORRECT room for Shoham's talk
on May 1 re "Chronological Ignorance" is Bldg. 380 Room 380 X.
*****************************************************************************
-------
∂25-Apr-86 0826 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books-- Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 86 08:26:37 PST
Date: Fri 25 Apr 86 08:26:12-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books-- Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12201672012.17.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Semirings, Automata, Languages. EATC Monographs on Theoretical Computer
Science. by W. Kuich and A. Salomaa. QA267.K85 1986.
The Analysis of Concurrent Systems. Cambridge. Sept. 1983. Proceedings.
Lecture Notes In Computer Science. edited by Denvir, Harwood, Jackson,
and Wray. QA76.A624 1985.
Advances In Computer Vision And Image Processing. editor Thomas Huang.
Volume 1 1984. Image Reconstruction From Incomplete Observations.
TA1630.A34 v. 1 1984.
Programming Productivity. by Capers Jones. QA76.6.J659 1986.
Compilers: Their Design and Construction Using Pascal. by Robin Hunter.
QA76.6.H858 1985.
A Framework For Distributed Problem Solving. by Reid Smith.
QA76.9.D5S63 1981.
Multi-microprocessor Systems For Real-Time Applications. ed. by
Gianni Conte and Dante del Corso. QA76.54.M85 1985.
Eigenvalue Distribution of Compact Operatiors. by Hermann Konig.
QA329.6.K66 1986.
Merrill's Guide To Computer Performance Evaluation: Analysis of SMF/RMF
Data With SAS. by H. W. Merrill. SAS Institute. QA76.9.E94.M47 1983.
Organizaing Information: Principles of Data Base and Retrieval Systems.
by Dagobert Soergel. Z699.S539 1985.
Winter Simulation Conference Proceedings. 1985. ed. by Gantz, Blais, and
Solomon. (serials)
Harry Llull
-------
∂25-Apr-86 0859 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 86 08:59:01 PST
Date: Fri 25 Apr 86 08:47:35-PST
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12201675904.17.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Statis And Control Of Stochastic Processes. Steklov Seminar. 1984.
edited by Krylov, Lispter, and Novikov. QA276.A1.S7513 1984.
Probability and Measure. 2nd ed. by Patrick Billingsley. QA273.B575 1986.
Maximum-Entropy and Bayesian Methods in Inverse Problems. ed. by Ray Smith,
W. T. Grandy. Q370.M37 1985.
L'Analyse Bayesienne des Comparaisons. by Bruno Lecoutre. QA278.4.L43 1984.
Sampling Procedures and Tables for Inspection by Variables for Percent
Nonconforming. American National Standard. American Society for Quality
Control. TS156.2.A44 1980.
Singular Ordinary Differential Operators and Pseudodifferential Equations.
by Elschner. QA329.4.E582 1985.
Application of the Theory of Boundary Value Problems in the Analysis of
a Queueing Model with Paired Services. Mathematical Centre Tracts.
by J. P. C. Blanc. T57.9.B57.
Approximation Theory. Banach Center Publications. by Zbigniew Ciesielski.
QA221.A67 1979.
Self-Reference and Modal Logic. by C. Smorynski. QA9.46.S6 1985.
Advances in Microlocal Analysis. ed. by H. G. Garnir. QA299.6.N37 1985.
Tools For Thinking And Problem Solving. by Moshe Rubinstein.
QA63.R84 1986.
Introduction to Statistical Methods. volume 2 Applications to the
Life Sciences. by Jagdish Rustagi. QA276.12.R87 1984 v.2
Political and Related Models. Modules in Applied Mathamatics. v. 2
ed. by Brams, Lucas, Straffin. QA37.2.M6 1982.
100 Jahre Mathematisches Seminar der Karl-Marx-Universitat
Leipzig by Herbert Beckert and Horst Schumann. QA27.G4.H86 1981.
Computer Science and Statistics: Proceedings of the fifteenth
Symposium on the interface. ed. by James E. Gentle. (serials)
Harry Llull
-------
∂25-Apr-86 0947 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Logic seminar
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 86 09:47:23 PST
Date: Fri 25 Apr 86 09:01:30-PST
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Logic seminar
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
note: testing
Seminar in Logic and Foundations of Mathematics
Speaker: Prof. Michael Beeson, San Jose State, visiting Stanford
Title: Toward a computation system based on set theory
Time: Tuesday, April 29, 4:15-5:30
Place: Third floor lounge, Math Dept Bldg 380, Stanford.
S. Feferman
-------
-------
∂25-Apr-86 1024 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA Re: Chairman
Received: from AQUINAS.THINK.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 86 10:24:27 PST
Received: from THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA by THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 21405; Fri 25-Apr-86 13:28:47-EST
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 86 13:26 EST
From: Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Chairman
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, RPG@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]21-Apr-86 10:27:19.MATHIS>
Message-ID: <860425132609.2.GLS@THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA>
Date: 21 Apr 1986 10:27-PST
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
I am willing to serve as Chairman. I don't understand rowing
very much, but I get the impression that the rowers do most of
the work and the coxswain has a role in coordination and timing.
...
I used to row in my undergraduate days at Harvard. One thing to keep
in mind is that the only the coxswain can see where the boat is going;
everyone else faces backwards. The coxswain not only steers, but he
pounds the sides of the boat and yells a lot. He is also responsible
for providing lemons for the rowers to suck on.
--Guy
∂25-Apr-86 1028 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
Received: from AQUINAS.THINK.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 86 10:27:04 PST
Received: from THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA by THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 21407; Fri 25-Apr-86 13:30:53-EST
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 86 13:28 EST
From: Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>
Subject: BALLOT - Mathis Chairman?
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]21-Apr-86 11:02:12.MATHIS>
Message-ID: <860425132820.3.GLS@THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA>
Yes.
[Perhaps we should first have a ballot on the subject of:
"Should Bob Mathis be in charge of the first ballot?"
but that way recursive madness lies. :-) Boy, am I in
a good mood today!]
--Guy
∂25-Apr-86 1038 gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA EuLisp
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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 86 13:39 EST
From: Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>
Subject: EuLisp
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12200888762.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860425133932.7.GLS@THINK-KATHERINE.ARPA>
Well said. I agree with you. (I am on the steering committee, and I'm
not above swiping Moon's material.)
--Guy
∂25-Apr-86 1315 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Chairman
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 25 Apr 86 15:59:40-EST
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1986 15:59 EST
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12201721776.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Chairman
In-reply-to: Msg of 25 Apr 1986 13:26-EST from Guy Steele <gls at THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>
I never rowed in my undergraduate days, so the only image I have of the
role of the coxswain is the guy beating the big drum on the galley in
Ben Hur (and his assistants with the whips and electric cattle prods).
Probably this group is so self-motivated that we won't need the whips
very often...
Ramming Speed!
-- Scott
∂26-Apr-86 1659 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Your opinion needed quickly
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Apr 86 16:59:18 PST
Date: Sat 26 Apr 86 16:56:31-PST
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Your opinion needed quickly
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202027058.8.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We need to make a decision immediately on where we should hold
our commencement ceremony. Nils would like your input before
a decision is made. He requests that responses be sent to me.
The situation:
For the past 6 years (since we moved into Jacks Hall), we have had
commencement with Math, Math Sciences, and Statistics -- the ceremony
has been held at Math Corner.
Although we are no longer a part of H&S, last June after commencement Nils
thought it would be nice to continue having our ceremony with the extended
family (math, math sci. and stat). Math Sci. and Statistics people
expressed enthusiasm, but I could get no decision from Math.
I let the matter ride and then started trying to get a decision from
Barbara Fairlie, Math Administrator, on 4/3. On 4/11 (two weeks ago), she
left the message for me that Prof. Feferman did not want to
have commencement with CS -- they wanted to keep it small and personal.
I then contacted Events & Services to get us another spot. We have
been assigned the Old Union Courtyard, which is lovely.
Nils asked me to find out whether Math Sci and Statistics had also
been excluded, and I called Alice Lundin (of Math Sci) on Wed. to
tell her that they were welcome to join us if they wish.
Yesterday I received a phone call from Judy in Statistics. Barbara
has now decided that she cannot attend commencement and she wants
CS to join Math; she asked Judy to call me. I questioned
Judy about Prof. Feferman, and she said that apparently Prof. Feferman
doesn't care.
To be objective:
The Old Union Courtyard is available now because Human Biology outgrew it;
we might not again have an opportunity to get such a nice convenient
spot. It will hold 1000 people total, which allows us to grow with our
undergraduates.
Math corner will not allow for 200 CS undergraduates plus guests, so we will
have to move in the future.
I think we are better off moving now and not going through this uncertainty
each year.
However, the decision is for the faculty to make.
Carolyn
-------
∂26-Apr-86 1906 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa Re: Your opinion needed quickly
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id AA04977; Sat, 26 Apr 86 18:59:59 PST
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 86 18:59:59 PST
From: coraki!pratt@su-navajo.arpa (Vaughan Pratt)
Message-Id: <8604270259.AA04977@coraki.uucp>
To: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Cc: ac@su-score.ARPA
Subject: Re: Your opinion needed quickly
In-Reply-To: message of Sat 26 Apr 86 16:56:31-PST.
<12202027058.8.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
If it really does solve a growth-related logistics problem, then I have
no objection to the Old Union courtyard. I take it the deal is that
we get to lock it up for Commencement from now until we outgrow it...?
-v
∂27-Apr-86 1408 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: Your opinion needed quickly
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Date: Sun 27 Apr 86 13:56:20-PDT
From: Edward Feigenbaum <FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Your opinion needed quickly
To: TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA, ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <12202027058.8.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Message-ID: <12202245475.18.FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
To me the decision is obvious: go to the Old Union Courtyard. The idea to
"be with math" was built out of a small amount of sentimentality (for some of
us, none). The time of our move to Engineering and to an undergrad program
is as good a time as ever to make the move.
Anyway, the "little ceremony by math corner" is not a very inspiring
stage setting for a departmental graduation ceremony.
Ed
-------
∂27-Apr-86 2311 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Ed Pednault
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Date: Sun 27 Apr 86 23:10:40-PDT
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: PLANLUNCH reminder -- Ed Pednault
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
VISITORS : Please remember to arrive 5 minutes early so that you
can be escorted up from the receptionist's desk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOWARD A MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF PLAN SYNTHESIS
Edwin P.D. Pednault (PEDNAULT@SRI-AI)
Stanford University and SRI International, AI Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 28
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Classical planning problems have the following form: given a set of
goals, a set of allowable actions, and a description of the current
state of the world, find a sequence of actions that will transform the
world from its current state to a state in which all of the goals are
satisfied. This talk is a presentation of my thesis research, which
examines the question of how to solve such problems automatically.
The question will be addressed from a rigorous, mathematical
standpoint, in contrast to the informal and highly experimental
treatments found in most previous work. By introducing mathematical
rigor, it has been possible to unify many existing ideas in automatic
planning, showing how they arise from first principles and how they
may be applied to solve a much broader class of problems than had
previously been considered. In addition, a number of theorems have
been proved that further our understanding of the synthesis problem,
and a language has been developed for describing actions that combines
the notational convenience of STRIPS with the expressive power of the
situation calculus.
This talk will concentrate on my techniques for plan synthesis with
only a brief summary of the other contributions of my research.
A mathematical framework will be introduced, along with a number of
theorems that form the basis for the synthesis techniques.
These theorems will then be combined with a least-commitment search strategy
to obtain a solution method that unifies and generalizes means-ends
analysis, opportunistic planning, goal protection, goal regression,
constraint posting/propagation, hierarchical planning, and nonlinear
planning.
-------
∂28-Apr-86 0916 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 Apr 86 09:16:32 PDT
Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 09:14:39-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202456341.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Lunch tomorrow in MJH 146 at 12:15 with Bob Street on Academic Computing.
-------
∂28-Apr-86 1000 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Calendar update
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Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 09:21:16-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Calendar update
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
note: testing
CSLI COLLOQUIUM
Structures in Written Language
Geoff Nunberg
4:15, Thursday, May 1, Redwood G-19
Just about all contemporary research on linguistic structure has
been based exclusively on observations about the spoken language; the
written language, when it is talked about at all, is generally taken
to be derivative of speech, and without any independent theoretical
interest. When we consider the written language in its own terms,
however, it turns out to have a number of distinctive features and
structures. In particular, it contains a number of explicitly
delimited "text categories," such as are indicated by the common
punctuation marks and related graphical features, which are either
wholly absent in the spoken language, or at best are present there
only implicitly. In the course of uncovering the principles that
underlie the use of text categories like the text-sentence, paragraph,
and parenthetical (i.e., a string delimited by parentheses), we have
to provide three levels of grammatical description: a semantics, which
sets out the rules of interpretation associated with text categories
by associating each type with a certain type of informational unit; a
syntax, which sets out the dependencies that hold among
category-types; and a graphology, which gives the rules that determine
how instances of text categories will be graphically presented. Each
of these components is a good deal more complex and less obvious than
one might suppose on the basis of a recollection of what the didactic
grammars have to say about the written language; what emerges, in
fact, is that most of the rules that determine how text delimiters are
used are not learned through explicit instruction, and are no more
accessible to casual reflection than are the rules of grammar of the
spoken language.
(Please ignore the note in my header saying testing; I'm having a bit
of a tussle with my mailer at the moment.)
-------
∂28-Apr-86 1123 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU SESAME Colloquium TODAY (Mon.,4/28): Jean Lave
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id AA18375; Mon, 28 Apr 86 11:08:14 PDT
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 86 11:08:14 PDT
From: admin%cogsci@berkeley.edu (Cognitive Science Program)
Message-Id: <8604281808.AA18375@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
To: allmsgs@cogsci.berkeley.edu, cogsci-friends@cogsci.berkeley.edu,
seminars@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: SESAME Colloquium TODAY (Mon.,4/28): Jean Lave
Cc: admin@cogsci.berkeley.edu
Prof. Jean Lave of UC Irvine will be speaking today on "Cognition and Education:A View From Everyday Practice" at the SESAME Colloguium at 4:00 p.m. in
2515 Tolman Hall, Campus.
∂28-Apr-86 1437 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA John Batali
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Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 14:32:35-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: John Batali
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202514220.12.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
John Batali will be visiting the department on May 5. While here, he will
be giving the following talk:
DAY: May 5
EVENT: AI Seminar
PLACE: Jordan 050
TIME: 4:15
TITLE: Recursive Self-Control:
A Computational Groundwork for Rational Action
PERSON: John Batali
FROM: MIT AI Lab
Human activity must be understood in terms of agents interacting with
the world, those interactions subject to the details of the situation
and the limited abilities of the agents. Rationality involves an
agent's deliberating about and choosing actions to perform. I suggest
that deliberation and choice are themselves best viewed as activities of
the agent. This leads to a view of rationality based on "recursive
self-control" wherein the agent controls the activity of its body in
much the same way as a programmer controls a computational mechanism.
To prove that this view is really recursive, rather than just
meaninglessly circular, I describe a computer program whose architecture
illustrates how recursive self-control could work.
-------
∂28-Apr-86 1652 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Explorer flavor inspector
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 Apr 86 15:50:46 PDT
Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 15:39:37-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Explorer flavor inspector
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202526422.54.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
We've received a copy of an experimental flavor inspector from TI.
Load the tool FLAVOR-INSPECTOR to make it available, and then use
SYSTEM O to get to it. It's user interface is similar to the regular
inspector, but it seems pretty useful.
-- Rich
-------
∂28-Apr-86 1656 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Date: Mon, 28 Apr 86 16:23:21 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Development of an Object-Oriented DBMS"
Maier, Stein, Otis, and Purdy,
Oregon grad. Center.
∂28-Apr-86 1657 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
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Date: Mon, 28 Apr 86 16:14:18 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper recieved
To: nail@diablo
"Integrity Constraint Checking in Stratified DB's"
by Lloyd, Sonenberg, and Topor (U. Melbourne)
A stratefied DB is one whose rules do not have recursive uses
of negation.
∂28-Apr-86 1725 DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA volleyball
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Date: Mon 28 Apr 86 17:14:31-PDT
From: Mary Dalrymple <DALRYMPLE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: volleyball
To: linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Ivan has kindly agreed to let us use his volleyball net for future
games, but -- what's a volleyball game without a volleyball?
If anyone has a volleyball and would be willing to lend/donate it to
th linguistics department, please contact a member of the Happy Hour
Committee (Smita Joshi, Gary Holden, or Mary Dalrymple) or Gina Wein.
-------
∂29-Apr-86 0611 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
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Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 06:08:58-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12202684682.10.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
There will be no AFLB this week; however, students are encouraged to
meet at 1pm Wednesday (tomorrow) in MJ301 with Umesh Vazirani, a
possible theory faculty member. Next week's AFLB is substantially
the same as one of this week's BATS talks:
---------------------------------
8-May-86 : Anna Karlin (Stanford) or Mark Manasse (DEC-SRC)
Optimal Amortized Algorithms for Caching and Sharing Distributed Memory
We examine the problem of sharing memory among a set of processors
connected by a broadcast network, e.g. a bus. We assume that each
processor maintains a cache, with requests for pages not in that cache
satisfied by data transfer across the bus. To minimize bus traffic, we
must reduce the number of writes to shared variables (each of which costs
one bus cycle) by discarding pages, at the risk of having to read them in
again (at cost p, the number of variables per page) should another read
request to that page occur. The minimal cost for a sequence of read and
write requests is the number of bus cycles used by an optimal clairvoyant
algorithm which decides on page retention knowing in advance the entire
sequence.
We present online algorithms for deciding on page retention; each of
these algorithms has an amortized cost that is at most a constant factor
more than the minimal cost. For the model described above (under the
assumption that the caches are either of infinite size or are direct
mapped), we prove that our algorithm uses at most twice as many bus cycles
as the optimal algorithm and that no online algorithm can do better. To
obtain a constant-factor algorithm when the caches are of finite size and
are set-associative, we combine the previous strategy with LRU or FIFO
page replacement. Other refinements to the model include the extension to
multi-bus schemes, where we can prove that the communication per bus is
within a constant factor of optimal.
(This is joint work with Larry Rudolph and Danny Sleator of Carnegie-Mellon.)
***** Time and place: May 8, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Not all time slots for this academic year
have been filled. The file [SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains
more information about future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂29-Apr-86 0912 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluation results
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Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 09:11:15-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: evaluation results
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202717866.27.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The student comments about last quarter's courses have arrived for
your reading pleasure. Please stop by my office to pick up your
packet (if you had your class fill out evaluations, that is)...
or let me know if you want it sent to you through the id mail.
-Gina
-------
∂29-Apr-86 0912 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluation results
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Apr 86 09:12:23 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 09:11:15-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: evaluation results
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202717866.27.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The student comments about last quarter's courses have arrived for
your reading pleasure. Please stop by my office to pick up your
packet (if you had your class fill out evaluations, that is)...
or let me know if you want it sent to you through the id mail.
-Gina
-------
∂29-Apr-86 0905 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 29 (Dedre Gentner)
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Date: Tue, 29 Apr 86 08:46:36 PDT
From: admin%cogsci@berkeley.edu (Cognitive Science Program)
Message-Id: <8604291546.AA23423@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
To: allmsgs@cogsci.berkeley.edu, cogsci-friends@cogsci.berkeley.edu,
seminars@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: UCB Cognitive Science Seminar--April 29 (Dedre Gentner)
Cc: admin@cogsci.berkeley.edu
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Spring 1986
Cognitive Science Seminar - IDS 237B
Tuesday, April 29, 11:00 - 12:30
2515 Tolman Hall
Discussion: 12:30 - 1:30
3105 Tolman (Beach Room)
``Mechanisms of Analogy''
Dedre Gentner
Psychology, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Prof. Gentner is this semester's specially invited
speaker. She will be available for discussion after
her talk on Tuesday and all day Wednesday. Anyone
wanting to meet with her can arrange this with her
personally at her talk. Or call the Cognitive Sci-
ence office - 642-8461 - with your preferred times
and where you can be contacted.
Abstract
Analogy is a key process in learning and reasoning. This
research decomposes analogy into separable subprocesses and
charts dependencies. Evidence is presented that (1) once an
analogy is given, people map predicates and judge soundness
chiefly on the basis of common relational structure, as
predicted by the structure-mapping theory; (2) in contrast,
access to potential analogue depends heavily on common surface
features.
Accessibility and inferential power appear to be governed
by different kinds of similarity. This finer-grained analysis
of similarity helps resolve conflicting evidence concerning the
role of similarity in transfer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING TALKS
May 6: Paul Rosenbloom, Computer Science and Psychology,
Stanford
∂29-Apr-86 0956 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Apr 86 09:55:56 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 09:33:37-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Yoav Shoham
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: shah@SU-SIERRA.ARPA, grosof@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, hirsh@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202721939.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
In connection with Yoav Shoham's interview trip this week, Nils will be
taking him out to dinner on Thursday, May 1. Those of you that would like
to join them for the dinner, please let me know by Wednesday (tomorrow).
Thanks,
Anne
-------
∂29-Apr-86 1134 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sunrise
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Apr 86 11:33:58 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 11:31:07-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Sunrise
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202743329.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
You are invited to the inaugural breakfast of a new program which may
turn out to be of considerable interest and benefit. The name of the
program is the Sunrise Club, and it's designed to provide a common
meeting ground for interested students and faculty and their
counterparts in venture capital firms and small or start-up high
technology companies. Representatives of all four constituencies will
attend these breakfasts.
The benefits to us are an increased pool of fellowship funds (the
$2500 annual gift made by the corporate members goes for fellowships),
and an opportunity to exchange information with an important local
group of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.
Date: Thursday, May 15
Time: 7:30 a.m.
Place: Oak Lounge in Tresidder Union.
Speaker: Jim Gibbons
Since space is limited and we must have a fairly accurate head count
in order to plan the breakfast, please respond if you are interested
in attending to Diaz@Score, or Fullerton@Sierra.
Nils
-------
∂29-Apr-86 1521 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
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Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 15:10:46-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
cc: grosof@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202783314.11.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
-------
∂29-Apr-86 1536 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa another use for optimization
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Date: Tue, 29 Apr 86 15:20:27 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: another use for optimization
To: nail@diablo
Jeff N. points out that we have to worry a bit about storing
temporary relations in the SQL system. If tuples can have differing
formats, e.g., components that are arbitrary lists, then we have
very little choice other than to:
1. encode structured values as character strings of variable length
2. encode terms with pointers, using auxiliary relations,
i.e., a "relation" of cons cells.
However, suppose we know that some intermediate relation
consists only of tuples [f(X,Y), Z]. Then we can represent
this relation as a set of [X, Y, Z] triples, and make use of the
power of SQL to access components directly (rather than
having to pick apart character strings or chase pointers).
The property of having a fixed format is something that data-flow
analysis is capable of checking, and it might not be too
hard to get a decent approximation, i.e., a test that only
provides a format when all tuples really have that format,
and is not too likely to miss detecting a format when there
is one.
---jeff
∂29-Apr-86 1601 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meet with AI faculty candidate Yoav Shoham
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Apr 86 16:01:18 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 15:42:20-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Meet with AI faculty candidate Yoav Shoham
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
cc: grosof@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202789062.11.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Yoav Shoham, AI faculty candidate from Yale, will be meeting with
students and whoever else would like to talk to him, after his talk to
the Non-montonic Reasoning Seminar (from 4-5pm), i.e. at about 5pm
until about 6pm, this Thursday May 1, in MJH 252.
-------
∂29-Apr-86 1622 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Apr 86 16:21:03 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Apr 86 15:51:12-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Judea Pearl talk this Fri. 5/2
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA,
lowrance@SRI-AI.ARPA, garvey@SRI-AI.ARPA, konolige@SRI-AI.ARPA,
fischler@SRI-AI.ARPA
cc: grosof@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202790676.11.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
<Sorry for the previous blank message!>
JUDEA PEARL of the UCLA Computer Science Department will be speaking on
probabilistic reasoning
FRIDAY MAY 2 2:15pm JORDAN 040
GRAPHOIDS: A Logical Basis
for Dependency Nets
or
When would x tell you more about y
if you already know z
ABSTRACT:
We consider statements of the type:
I(x,z,y) = "Knowing z renders x independent of y",
where x and y and z are three sets of propositions.
We give sufficient conditions on I for the existence
of a (minimal) graph G such that I(x,z,y) can be validated
by testing whether z separates x from y in G. These
conditions define a GRAPHOID.
The theory of graphoids uncovers the axiomatic basis of
probabilistic dependencies and extends it as a formal
definition of informational dependencies. Given an
initial set of dependency relations, the axioms
established permit us to infer new dependencies by
non-numeric, logical manipulations, thus identifying
which propositions are relevant to each other in a
given state of knowledge. Additionally,
the axioms may be used to test the legitimacy of
using networks to represent various types of
data dependency, not necessarily probabilistic.
-------
∂30-Apr-86 0814 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA FALL RENTAL
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 08:07:34 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 08:07:22-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: FALL RENTAL
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202968381.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
A professor at California State Hayward is offering his house fully
furnished for the upcoming fall quarter. The house is located at
1328 Magnolia Avenue in San Carlos. It has two bedrooms, two baths,
and a big deck. The asking price for rental per month is $1,000
which includes a gardener (price is somewhat negotiable). If any of
you knows of a visiting professor who might be interested, please
call Tony Lima at (415) 593-6401 or (415) 593-6431.
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1015 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Dr. Peled of IBM
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 10:14:54 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 09:38:01-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Dr. Peled of IBM
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12202984883.16.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Dr. Abe Peled of IBM Yorktown Heights will be here on Tuesday,
May 20. He will be joining us for the Faculty Lunch and would
like to hear about our research from 1:30 to 3:30. I need 4
volunteers to give 30 minute presentations/discussions on their
projects.
1:30
2:00
2:30
3:00
In Nils' Conference room. Dr. Peled will give the CS500 Colloquium
and we're having a reception for him at the Faculty Club from 5:15 to
7.
Nils and I are co-sponsoring his visit, and we would appreciate your
help.
Carolyn
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1412 ULLMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA ACM elections
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 14:04:47 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 14:03:47-PDT
From: Jeffrey D. Ullman <ULLMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: ACM elections
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203033266.47.ULLMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
MIke Harrison reminds me he is running for President of ACM.
I long ago gave up the notion that ACM had the ability to
speak for the Computer Science community, and I doubt it
is possible to fix the problem. But if any of the candidates
could turn ACM into a voice for CS, Mike is it.
I hope you will consider returning your ACM ballots with a vote
for Mike.
---jeff
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1438 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA exam rooms again
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 14:38:14 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 14:33:31-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: exam rooms again
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203038677.33.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Hi.
The wonderful people at room scheduling would like some exam room
info once again. They need to know:
1) if you are planning on giving a final exam or not, and if so
2) will you need additional space (for alternate seating), and if so
3) do you want enrtirely new rooms, or the usual room plus additional space.
If you are planning to offer an alternate exam for those who can't take it
at the scheduled time, please give me a time, day, and room request.
Room scheduling needs this information by May 7th.....
-Gina
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1526 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: student scholarship fund]
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 15:23:12 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 15:19:04-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: student scholarship fund]
To: officers: ;
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12203046970.74.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Mail-From: AAAI-OFFICE created at 30-Apr-86 15:16:19
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 15:16:18-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: student scholarship fund
To: aaai-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12203046467.74.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
After some discussion within the Council about this scholarship fund,
the Executive Committee has decided to support a more modified program
for students with accepted papers at this year's conference. The
purpose of the fund is to give the student speakers the opportunity
to attend the conference and give their presentation when no other
source of funding is available to them. We anticipate spending
about $25-30K based upon approx 30-40 students needing support.
Next fall, we plan to expand this program to assist other students
attend the conference in 1987. During the fall, we'll be able to
investigate and establish evaluation criteria for support and establish
a different method of distribution.
In the meantime, we would now like to solicit your assistance in
reviewing the applications. All applications are due into the AAAI\
office by June 1 and notification of acceptance to applicants is
July 1.
If you are interested in participating in the review of these
applications, please contact me and I'll give you more information
about the reviewing procedures.
Cheers,
Claudia
-------
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1722 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 17:13:29 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 30 Apr 86 17:04:53 pdt
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 86 17:04:53 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting tomorrow
To: nail@diablo
Let's all show up for the meeting 11AM Thursday, 301 MJH.
We'll talk about progress with the RT's, code optimization,
whatever else is on people's mind.
---jeff
∂30-Apr-86 1722 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Doug Edwards
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 17:09:13 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 17:08:07-PDT
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Doug Edwards
To: planlunch.dis: ;
THE CHARACTERIZATION AND STRUCTURE OF EVENTS
Douglas D. Edwards (EDWARDS@SRI-AI)
SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, May 5
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Events were raised to prominence as a basic ontological category in
philosophy by Davidson, who used quantified variables ranging over
events in the logical analysis of assertions about causality and
action, and of sentences with adverbial modifiers. Drew McDermott
used the category of events in AI planning research to model changes
more complex than state transformations.
Despite the common use of events as an ontological category in
philosophy, linguistics, planning research, and ordinary language,
there is no standard characterization of events. Sometimes, as in
Davidson, they are taken to be concrete individuals. Other authors
think of them as types or abstract entities akin to facts,
propositions, or conditions; as such they are often subjected to
truth-functional logical operations, which Davidson considers to be
inapplicable. McDermott, following Montague in broad outline, thinks
of them as classes of time intervals selected from various possible
histories of the world. Other authors emphasize individuation of
events not just by time but also by spatial location, by the objects
or persons participating, or (Davidson) by their location in a web of
causes and effects.
In this talk I sketch a scheme for characterizing types of events
which illuminates the relationship between type and token events, the
internal structure and criteria of individuation of events, and the
relationship of events to other categories of entities such as
objects, facts, and propositions. Events turn out to be structured
entities like complex objects, not simple temporal or spatiotemporal
regions or classes of such.
-------
∂30-Apr-86 1803 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 1, No. 14
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 86 17:48:43 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Apr 86 17:01:30-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, May 1, No. 14
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
May 1, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 14
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, May 1, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Selections from ``On the Plurality of Worlds''
Conference Room by D. Lewis
Discussion led by Ed Zalta (Zalta@su-csli)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Visual Communication (Part 1 of 3)
Trailer Classroom Sandy Pentland (Pentland@sri-ai)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Structures in Written Language
Room G-19 Geoff Nunberg (Nunberg@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, May 8, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Definiteness and Referentiality
Conference Room Vol. 1, Ch. 11 of ``Syntax: A
Functional-Typological Introduction''
by Talmy Givon
Discussion led by Mark Johnson (Johnson@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall On Visual Communication (Part 2 of 3)
Trailer Classroom David Levy, Xerox PARC (Dlevy.pa@xerox)
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Whither CSLI?
Room G-19 John Perry, Director, CSLI
(Abstract on page 3)
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar May 1, 1986
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THIS WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Structures in Written Language
Geoff Nunberg (Nunberg@csli)
Just about all contemporary research on linguistic structure has
been based exclusively on observations about the spoken language; the
written language, when it is talked about at all, is generally taken
to be derivative of speech, and without any independent theoretical
interest. When we consider the written language in its own terms,
however, it turns out to have a number of distinctive features and
structures. In particular, it contains a number of explicitly
delimited ``text categories,'' such as are indicated by the common
punctuation marks and related graphical features, which are either
wholly absent in the spoken language, or at best are present there
only implicitly. In the course of uncovering the principles that
underlie the use of text categories like the text-sentence, paragraph,
and parenthetical (i.e., a string delimited by parentheses), we have
to provide three levels of grammatical description: a semantics, which
sets out the rules of interpretation associated with text categories
by associating each type with a certain type of informational unit; a
syntax, which sets out the dependencies that hold among category-types;
and a graphology, which gives the rules that determine how instances
of text categories will be graphically presented. Each of these
components is a good deal more complex and less obvious than one might
suppose on the basis of a recollection of what the didactic grammars
have to say about the written language; what emerges, in fact, is that
most of the rules that determine how text delimiters are used are not
learned through explicit instruction, and are no more accessible to
casual reflection than are the rules of grammar of the spoken
language.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Definiteness and Referentiality
Vol. 1, Ch. 11 of
Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction
by Talmy Givon
Discussion led by Mark Johnson (Johnson@csli)
The relationship between syntactic structure and meaning is one of
the most interesting lines of research being undertaken here at CSLI.
One of the questions being addressed in this work concerns the way
that grammatical or syntactic properties of an utterance interact with
its semantics, i.e., what it means. Givon and others claim that
discourse notions of topicality and definiteness interact strongly
with grammatical processes such as agreement---and moreover, that
there is no clear dividing line between grammar and discourse; one
cannot understand agreement or anaphora viewing them as purely
grammatical processes. Linguists here at CSLI are tentatively moving
toward this position, for example Bresnan and Mchombo (1986) make
explicit use of a theory of ``discourse functions'' to explain the
distributional properties of Object Marking in Chichewa, so a
discussion of what it would mean to have an ``integrated'' theory of
language is quite timely.
!
Page 3 CSLI Calendar May 1, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Givon's treatment of definiteness and referentiality explicitly
rejects earlier philosphical treatments as being ``too restrictive to
render a full account of the facts of human language.'' He starts by
listing some observations on the interactions between definiteness and
a variety of other linguistic phenomena (e.g. modality) and goes on to
propose a model based on a ``Universe of Discourse'' and the notion of
``referential intent.'' After examining examples of how
referentiality is coded in various languages and how it interacts with
various other syntactic and semantic phenomena, he finishes by
discussing degrees of definiteness and referentially, and introduces
the notion of communicative importance.
This chapter raised several interesting questions. For example,
what are the key properties of referentiality and definiteness, and
how would one go about building a theory that expresses them? What
are Givon's insights into this matter, and how could these be
reconstructed within a formal theory such as DRS theory or Situation
Semantics?
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
On Visual Communication
David Levy, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Dlevy.pa@xerox)
Lately there has been much talk around CSLI about representation as
a concept transcending and unifying work being done in different
research groups and domains. Various points have emerged and recurred
in recent presentations and discussions: the distinction between the
representing state of affairs (A) and the state of affairs represented
(B); examples of the dangers inherent in conflating them; forms of
structural correspondence between aspects (objects, properties, and
relations) of A and aspects of B; the partiality of representation
(the fact that only certain aspects of A correspond to aspects of B,
and that only certain aspects of B correspond to aspects of A); the
priority of B over A; and so on.
The use of computers is largely mediated by representations. Many
of these are transparent to us: We talk of ``typing an A'' when we
actually press a key, causing a character code (a character
representation) to be generated from which an actual character is
rendered. We talk of ``viewing'' data structures, when in fact we do
nothing of the sort, since data structures ``inside'' machines are
inherently non-visual, much as are mental states ``inside'' heads;
rather, we view *visual representations* of data structures.
In many contexts the transparency of representations (leading to
the conflation of A and B) is tremendously useful and powerful. The
term ``direct manipulation'' denotes a style of user interface design in
which the user is led (or encouraged) to conflate the visual objects
on the screen (e.g. icons) with the things they represent (e.g.
printers), and to conflate the representation of these visual objects
with the visual objects themselves. But there seem to be times when
our facility for seeing through representations is a hindrance rather
than a help, as Barwise and Etchemendy argued recently for the case of
model theory.
!
Page 4 CSLI Calendar May 1, 1986
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As a theoretician and observer of certain classes of computer
systems, and, equally importantly, as a *designer* of them, I believe
that we need an understanding of representation (and of the sorts of
issues described in the first paragraph) to help us build truly
rational systems. In this talk I will focus on the problem of
developing an analysis of visual representation. I will use examples
from the surface of computer screens (e.g. windows, scroll bars, and
icons) to illustrate the importance of distinctions such as visual vs.
non-visual entities, representing vs. represented entities, and
(active) processes vs. (static) representation relations.
------------
NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Whither CSLI?
John Perry, Director, CSLI
In this talk, I will try to bring everyone interested enough to come
up to date on several issues regarding CSLI's long range and not so
long range future, specifically:
1. What we are going to do for money when the SL grant from
SDF runs out.
2. What we are going to do for space when the permit for the
``trailers'' runs out.
3. Issues connected with CSLI's governance and ontological
status, or, ``Can Augustine's account of the trinity be
adapted for the CSLI environment?,'' or ``Who wants to
be the Holy Ghost?''
------------
LOGIC SEMINAR
Dynamic Algebras and the Problem of Induction
Vaughan Pratt, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford
4:15, Tuesday, May 6, Math. Dept. 383-N
-------
∂01-May-86 0754 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 07:54:32 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 07:49:41-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI Seminar
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203227305.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
**************************************************************************
Please note that the CORRECT time for Yoav Shoham's talk on May 1 re
"Chronological Ignorance" is 4:00 p.m.
**************************************************************************
-------
∂01-May-86 1028 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Seminar -- May 6 (Paul Rosenbloom)
Received: from [128.32.130.5] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 10:27:51 PDT
Received: by cogsci.berkeley.edu (5.50/1.9)
id AA04992; Thu, 1 May 86 04:44:11 PDT
Date: Thu, 1 May 86 04:44:11 PDT
From: admin%cogsci@berkeley.edu (Cognitive Science Program)
Message-Id: <8605011144.AA04992@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
To: cogsci-friends@cogsci.berkeley.edu
Subject: UCB Cognitive Science Seminar -- May 6 (Paul Rosenbloom)
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Spring 1986
Cognitive Science Seminar - IDS 237B
Tuesday, May 6, 11:00 - 12:30
2515 Tolman Hall
Discussion: 12:30 - 1:30
3105 Tolman (Beach Room)
``Procedural Abstraction in the Soar Cognitive Architecture''
Paul S. Rosenbloom
Departments of Computer Science and Psychology,
Stanford University
The Soar project is an attempt to build a system capable
of general intelligent behavior -- a cognitive architecture.
It is to be capable of working on the full range of tasks, from
highly routine to extremely difficult open-ended problems;
capable of employing the full range of problem solving methods
and representations required for these tasks; and capable of
learning about all aspects of the tasks and its performance on
them. In this talk I will present an overview of the current
system, which is an approximation to this ideal, and some new
results on the integration of abstraction planning capabilities
into R1-Soar -- the implementation in Soar of an expert system
for computer configuration. Abstraction planning in R1-Soar is
based on the partial execution of procedurally encoded opera-
tors and on Soar's general problem solving and learning capa-
bilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------
ELSEWHERE ON CAMPUS
Peter MacNeilage of the Department of Linguistics at the
University of Texas, Austin will speak on ``Handedness,
Cerebral Lateralization, and the Origin of Speech'' on Wednes-
day, May 7, at 12:00 noon in 210 Wheeler.
∂01-May-86 1124 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 11:24:01 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 11:17:32-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Sr. Faculty Meeting
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203265143.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As there are no important agenda items to discuss, there will NOT be a
sr. faculty meeting on Tuesday, May 6.
-------
∂01-May-86 1419 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar updates
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 14:19:48 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 13:23:09-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar updates
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Three messages:
CSLI Talk
Verbs of Change and the Semantics of Aspect
Dorit Abusch, Tel Aviv and CSLI
CSLI Seminar Room, 10:45, Tuesday, May 6
------------
The title of David Levy's seminar next Thursday at 2:15 is "On Visual
Representation" not "On Visual Communication" as announced in the
Calendar.
------------
The title of the Logic Seminar by Vaughan Pratt is "Dynamic Algebras
and the Nature of Induction" not "Dynamic Algebras and the Problem of
Induction" as announced in the Calendar. The Logic Seminar is
Tuesday, May 6 at 4:15 in Math. Bldg. 383-N.
-------
∂01-May-86 1431 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Yoav Shoham
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 14:31:08 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 14:31:14-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Yoav Shoham
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203300405.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Yoav Shoham will be visiting the department tomorrow and is already
scheduled to meet with a number of AI faculty. There is still some time
unscheduled between 9 and 11 (May 2) and we would like to give the
some non-AI faculty an opportunity to meet with him. Please let me know
if you have an interest.
Thanks,
Anne
-------
∂01-May-86 1532 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA two invitations
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 15:30:28 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 15:29:42-PDT
From: Stuart Reges <REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: two invitations
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 030C, 723-9798
Message-ID: <12203311049.19.REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Two fairly unique events will take place next week that I would like to invite
all of you to. On Friday, May 9, from 4-6 pm, Jim Rosse will join lesbian and
gay faculty and staff to host a reception celebrating the 16th anniversary of
the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Stanford. The reception will take place in the
courtyard behind building 1. On Saturday, May 10, Don Kennedy will host a
garden party and reception in support of AIDS chairities on the lawn of the
President's House. Both events are part of Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week,
which starts this Saturday.
Attendance at the Friday reception is free and does not have to be RSVP'd. The
Saturday reception, however, is a fund-raising event for AIDS, so those
attending are asked to make a contribution of $50/person. I have some
invitations for the Saturday event with RSVP forms if anyone is interested.
-------
∂01-May-86 1806 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA shoham
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Date: Thu 1 May 86 18:06:15-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: shoham
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203339547.11.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As a p.s. to Anne's msg, Yoav Shoham is a candidate for an AI
position in the CSD. People interested in talking with him should
contact Anne Richardson.
-------
∂01-May-86 2218 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meet with AI faculty candidate John Batalli Mon. 5/5
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 May 86 22:18:14 PDT
Date: Thu 1 May 86 22:14:25-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Meet with AI faculty candidate John Batalli Mon. 5/5
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203384726.10.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
John Batalli, AI faculty candidate from MIT, will be visiting the
dept. on Monday, May 5. Anyone (that means you, students,
especially!) who would like to meet with him, can do so at
11:30-12noon in MJH 220, on Monday (5/5). He will be giving a talk
in Jordan 050 at 4:15pm presenting his dissertation work on rationality.
-------
∂02-May-86 0832 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA John Batali
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 May 86 08:31:23 PDT
Date: Fri 2 May 86 08:27:32-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: John Batali
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: grosof@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, hirsh@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203496339.12.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
John Batali, an AI faculty candidate, will be visiting the department on
May 5. Nils Nilsson will be taking him out for dinner that evening. For
those wishing to accompany him, please let me know by 9:30 am on Monday.
Thanks,
Anne
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∂02-May-86 0945 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa ACM Doctoral Dissertation competition
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 May 86 09:44:49 PDT
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Date: Fri 2 May 86 09:42:40-PDT
From: Joseph I. Pallas <PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: ACM Doctoral Dissertation competition
To: faculty@su-sushi.arpa
cc: "ACM Dissertation committee": ;
Message-ID: <12203510019.15.PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa>
As you may know, the deadline for nominations for the 1986 ACM
Doctoral Dissertation competition is July 1. The committee would like
to receive your nominations (no more than one per advisor, please) of
truly outstanding dissertations by Friday, May 16. Your nomination
should include a one-page summary of the significance of the
dissertation.
The contest rules allow Stanford to submit only two nominations,
including both CS and EE, and the dissertation must have been accepted
by the department in the 12 months preceding July 1. The committee
will consider appropriate dissertations submitted to either department.
Please send your nominations to me, via electronic or physical mail,
no later than May 16.
Joe Pallas
ACM Dissertation Competition committee
P.S. The selection committee currently consists of students and Nils.
We would, of course, welcome additional volunteers from the faculty.
-------
∂02-May-86 1240 marvit%hplpm%HPLABS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please add me to list
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From: Peter Marvit <marvit%hplpm@hplabs.ARPA>
Message-Id: <8605021930.AA01017@hplpm>
Date: Friday, May 2, 1986 12:29:58
Subject: Please add me to list
To: PHIL-SCI@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
X-Sent-By-Nmail-Version: 04-Nov-84 17:14:46
Please add me to the TeXHAX mailing list. Also, could you send me
information about back issues/archives (what exists, how to access, etc.).
Thank you...
Peter Marvit
ARPA: marvit@hplabs.arpa HP Laboratories
UUCP: ...!hplabs!marvit 1501 Page Mill Rd.
Phone: 415/857-6646 Palo Alto, CA
-------
∂02-May-86 1500 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Technology Transfer/Japan
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 May 86 14:59:51 PDT
Date: Fri 2 May 86 14:53:25-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Technology Transfer/Japan
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203566588.31.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Tomoo Matsubara of Hitachi Software Engineering, and member of
technical committee of Japan Information Service Industry Association
(JISA) and Software Engineer's Association (SEA) will be here the
afternoon of Monday, May 12.
He would like to discuss technology transfer in Japan and the USA.
He published papers in "Computer" in March 84 and May 81 entitled
"Inside the Japanese Software Industry" and "The Computer Software
Industry in Japan".
Hitachi is a member of the Forum. If you are interested in talking
to him, please let me know.
Carolyn
-------
∂03-May-86 1455 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Computer Science And Engineering Programs: IEEE Publication And Abacus Articles
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 May 86 14:53:52 PDT
Date: Sat 3 May 86 14:53:06-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Computer Science And Engineering Programs: IEEE Publication And Abacus Articles
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cn.mey@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA,
cn.phm@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12203828675.8.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The following materials in the Math/CS Library may be of interest to you:
The 1983 IEEE Computer Society. Model Program In Computer Science And
Engineering. December 1983 (8619253) New Books Shelf
Abacus Vol. 3 No. 3 Spring 1986
Living With A New Mathematical Species: Computing And Computer Science
Prove Again That Mathematics Is A Living Part Of Human Culture. by Lynn
Arthur Steen. p.37
Computer Science And Literacy Defined: Mary Shaw's Carnegie-Mellon
Undergraduate Curriculum Gives Useful, Practical, And Operational
Definitions. by Eric Weiss. p. 48
See Also--The Carnegie-Mellon Curriculum For Undergraduate Computer Science
by Mary Shaw 1985 QA76.27.C37 1985.
Harry Llull
-------
∂03-May-86 1529 squires@ipto.ARPA Japanese representative
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Received: by ipto.ARPA (4.12/4.7)
id AA05936; Sat, 3 May 86 18:29:52 edt
Date: Sat 3 May 86 18:29:46-EDT
From: Stephen Squires <SQUIRES@IPTO.ARPA>
Subject: Japanese representative
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-Id: <VAX-MM(187)+TOPSLIB(118) 3-May-86 18:29:46.IPTO.ARPA>
The following message contains a confirmation for Kouichi's recommendation
for having Ida be the Japanesse representative with his CS-Net address:
---------------
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id AA05718; Sat, 3 May 86 15:08:42 edt
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Date: 3 May 1986 1208-PDT (Saturday)
To: squires@IPTO.ARPA
From: balzer@ISI-VAXA.ARPA
Subject: Japaneese representative on Lisp Committee
-------------- Begin Forwarded Message --------------
TO: balzer@ISI-VAXA
FROM: ihnp4!kddlab!k2@srava.sra.junet (Kouichi Kishida)
SUBJECT: Lisp Committee
CC: k2@seismo.CSS.GOV
RECEIVED: 5/03/86 11:53:35
SENT: 5/01/86 17:54:09
CC: k2@seismo.CSS.GOV
TO: BALZER@ISI-VAXA.ARPA
MESSAGE-ID: <8605020054.AA09039@srava.sra.junet>
FROM: ihnp4!kddlab!k2@srava.sra.junet (Kouichi Kishida)
RECEIVED: by srava.sra.junet (4.13/4.9J/3.1)
RECEIVED: by titan.junet (4.12/6.0Junet)
RECEIVED: by kddlabs.junet (4.12/4.7)
RECEIVED: by ihnp4.ATT.COM id AA00436; 2 May 86 10:39:36 CDT (Fri)
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RETURN-PATH: <ihnp4!kddlab!titcca!srava!k2@seismo.CSS.GOV> id AA18147; Sat, 3 May 86 04:35:03 pdt id AA04713; Fri, 2 May 86 12:01:37-1500 id AA04710; Fri, 2 May 86 12:01:31-1500 id AA24910; Fri, 2 May 86 10:47:51 jst id AA09039; Fri, 2 May 86 09:54:09 jst
This mail is just a reconfirmation of my phone message.
The person I recommend for Lisp Standardization Committee is:
Prof. Masayuki Ida
Computer Science Lab.
Aoyama Gakuin Univ.
1626 Ono, Atugi City, Kanagawa 234-01 Japan
TEL 0462-48-1221 ex 4526
CS-Net Address is : ida%utokyo-relay.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Regards,
Kouichi
-------
-------
∂03-May-86 1903 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese representative and other topics
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 3 May 86 22:04:19-EDT
Date: Sat, 3 May 1986 22:04 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12203874399.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese representative and other topics
In-reply-to: Msg of 3 May 1986 18:29-EDT from Stephen Squires <SQUIRES at IPTO.ARPA>
I had hoped to hear from a few more of the Japanese biggies before we
did anything, but we shouldn't let this hang for too long. Maybe we
should go along and propose to Ida the structure that I suggested
earlier (the JEIDA committee gets to pick a delegate, which will almost
certainly be Ida) and if it sounds OK to him we'll announce the plan
on Common Lisp, to which many other Japanese are now listening.
Maybe we should also send the statement I proposed earlier to Chailloux
and/or to the Eulisp mailing list? People receiving the Eulisp
transmissions have recently seen a reiteration of their view (at least,
Fitch and Stoyan's view) that Common Lisp, as it is presently
constituted, ought not to be standardized. They've got this idea that a
Lisp standard must be some sort of ideal of perfection that industry
ought then to try to live up to, while our view is (I think) that we've
already got a de facto standard, for better or worse, and we may as well
try to formalize it and clean it up a bit in the process.
My earlier proposal on copyrights and such seems not to have led to much
action. Until we find out if Digital Press and Lucid will grant us the
rights I described and if ANSI will agree to the "anyone can use it"
permission, we're effectively dead in the water. I believe that Mathis
should get an answer from ANSI on this, Steele from Digital Press, and
Gabriel from Lucid. Are there problems that need to be resolved before
this can be settled?
As I said earlier, I'm pretty well buried with work through mid-May, but
I expect to make quick progress in resolving a lot of technical issues
after that. If necessary, we can try to settle various issues and put
the decisions in a list, but I'd sure rather have an emerging document
at the center of this effort. Sometime soon, I'll try to come up with a
statement of principles about much change we think is desirable in this
process.
I guess the Technical Committee election is over, and I am your new
chairman. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll try to keep up a
steady beat on the drum.
-- Scott
∂04-May-86 1851 JOHNSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA Missing books...
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 May 86 18:51:24 PDT
Date: Sun 4 May 86 18:44:37-PDT
From: Mark Johnson <JOHNSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Missing books...
To: linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
All,
I seem to be missing quite a few books, for example:
Fauconnier - Mental Spaces
Givon - Syntax, vol. 1
If anybody has any of these, or any other books of mine, I
would be most grateful if I could get them back.
No questions asked.
Thanks,
Mark
PS: I need the Givon book immediately, because TIN lunch this
week is based on an excerpt from this book.
-------
∂04-May-86 2246 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder : Doug Edwards
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 May 86 22:46:31 PDT
Date: Sun 4 May 86 22:43:12-PDT
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: PLANLUNCH reminder : Doug Edwards
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
VISTORS: Please remember to arrive 5 minutes early.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
THE CHARACTERIZATION AND STRUCTURE OF EVENTS
Douglas D. Edwards (EDWARDS@SRI-AI)
SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center
11:00 AM, MONDAY, May 5
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Events were raised to prominence as a basic ontological category in
philosophy by Davidson, who used quantified variables ranging over
events in the logical analysis of assertions about causality and
action, and of sentences with adverbial modifiers. Drew McDermott
used the category of events in AI planning research to model changes
more complex than state transformations.
Despite the common use of events as an ontological category in
philosophy, linguistics, planning research, and ordinary language,
there is no standard characterization of events. Sometimes, as in
Davidson, they are taken to be concrete individuals. Other authors
think of them as types or abstract entities akin to facts,
propositions, or conditions; as such they are often subjected to
truth-functional logical operations, which Davidson considers to be
inapplicable. McDermott, following Montague in broad outline, thinks
of them as classes of time intervals selected from various possible
histories of the world. Other authors emphasize individuation of
events not just by time but also by spatial location, by the objects
or persons participating, or (Davidson) by their location in a web of
causes and effects.
In this talk I sketch a scheme for characterizing types of events
which illuminates the relationship between type and token events, the
internal structure and criteria of individuation of events, and the
relationship of events to other categories of entities such as
objects, facts, and propositions. Events turn out to be structured
entities like complex objects, not simple temporal or spatiotemporal
regions or classes of such.
-------
∂05-May-86 0818 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 08:18:19 PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 08:17:40-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204280977.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Lunch tomorrow in MJH 146 at 12:15 --- for general discussion!
-------
∂05-May-86 0922 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Jean-Claude Latombe
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 09:22:00 PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 09:11:23-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Jean-Claude Latombe
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204290755.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Jean-Claude Latombe, a robotics faculty candidate, will be visiting
the department on Thursday, May 8. Anyone wishing to meet with him,
please let me know.
-------
∂05-May-86 0934 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI/Robotics Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 09:34:15 PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 09:11:51-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI/Robotics Seminar
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204290840.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
DAY: May 8, 1986
EVENT: AI/Robotics Seminar
PLACE: Bldg. 380, Room 380 X
TIME: 4:15
PERSON: Jean-Claude Latombe
FROM: Industry & Technology of Machine Intelligence/France
********************************************************************
TITLE AND ABSTRACT TO FOLLOW
********************************************************************
-------
∂05-May-86 1159 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 11:58:57 PDT
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Mon 5 May 86 11:50:32-PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 11:53:48-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI Seminar
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204320321.16.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
John Batali, an AI Faculty Candidate, is visiting the department today.
While here, he will be giving the following talk:
DAY: May 5
EVENT: AI Seminar
PLACE: Jordan 050
TIME: 4:15
TITLE: Recursive Self-Control:
A Computational Groundwork for Rational Action
PERSON: John Batali
FROM: MIT AI Lab
Human activity must be understood in terms of agents interacting with
the world, those interactions subject to the details of the situation
and the limited abilities of the agents. Rationality involves an
agent's deliberating about and choosing actions to perform. I suggest
that deliberation and choice are themselves best viewed as activities of
the agent. This leads to a view of rationality based on "recursive
self-control" wherein the agent controls the activity of its body in
much the same way as a programmer controls a computational mechanism.
To prove that this view is really recursive, rather than just
meaninglessly circular, I describe a computer program whose architecture
illustrates how recursive self-control could work.
-------
∂05-May-86 1208 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 12:08:06 PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 12:06:33-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12204322642.55.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
1985 IEEE Computer Society Workshopp on Computer Architecture For Pattern
Analysis and Image Database Management. Miami Beach, Fl. (8619246)
10th International Conference On Computational Linguistics. 22nd Annual
Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Proceedings
of Coling84. Stanford University, July 1984. P98.I55 1984.
Advances In Human-Computer Interaction. by H. Rex Hartson. volume 1.
1985. QA76.9.I58A35 v.1 c.2
Expert Systems--A Practical Introduction by Peter S. Sell. QA76.76.E95S45
1985.
An Introduction to Data Base Design. by Salzberg. 1986. (8601226)
Essays On Cellular Automata. ed. by Arthur Burks.1970. QA267.5.S4B87.
Artificial Intelligence Promise and Performance. by Alain Bonnet.
Q335.B6613 1985.
Personal Computing With The UCSDp. System. by Overgaard and Stringfellow.
second edition. QA76.76.O63O84 1986.
High Technology Market Place Directory 1985-86. Reference (8600866)
Computer Vision Directory. First Interntional Edition. ed. by Philip
Flora. TA1632.I546 1986. Reference
(NOTE--THIS LIST IS A LITTLE LATE AND THE NEW BOOKS ARE NO LONGER ON
DISPLAY BUT ARE READY TO BE OR HAVE BEEN CHECKED OUT)
Harry LLull
-------
∂05-May-86 1217 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Stat/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 12:17:47 PDT
Date: Mon 5 May 86 12:17:01-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Stat/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12204324548.55.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Spectral Methods In Econometrics. by George Fishman. 1969. HB74.M4F5324
c. 3.
Annals of Operations Research. Flexible Manufacturing Systems: Operations
Research Models and Applications. T57.6.A5 v.3
Mathematical Problem Solving. by Alan Schoenfeld. 1985. QA63.S35 1985
c.2
Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems. Arbitrage Theory.
Introductory Lectures on Arbitrage-Based Financial Asset Pricing.
HG4522.W55 1985.
(THIS LIST IS LATE AND THESE NEW BOOKS ARE NO LONGER ON DISPLAY BUT
ARE READY TO BE OR HAVE BEEN CHECKED OUT)
Harry LLull
-------
∂05-May-86 1615 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
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Date: Mon, 5 May 86 15:52:59 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper recieved
To: nail@diablo
"Moving Selections into Fixpoint Queries" by P. Devanbu and R. Agarwal.
They show that the Aho/Ullman technique is not as good as one can do.
∂05-May-86 1925 HCGRS%clemson.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 May 86 19:23:44 PDT
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Date: Mon, 5 May 86 10:16 EDT
From: HCGRS%clemson.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
To: phil-sci@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
[Apologies to all Phil-Sci readers for bothering you with this administrivia.
It's just that several months' worth of messages to -request have not resulted
in any action, so this is my last resort.]
To the moderator/list maintainer: Please delete hcgrs@clemson.csnet from the
Phil-Sci list as soon as possible. Thank you.
-- Harold Grossman
Dept. of Computer Science
Clemson University
∂06-May-86 0615 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 06:15:37 PDT
Date: Tue 6 May 86 06:13:30-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12204520517.7.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Here's this week's AFLB. Next week's isn't set yet.
---------------------------------------
8-May-86 : Anna Karlin (Stanford)
Optimal Amortized Algorithms for Caching and Sharing Distributed Memory
We examine the problem of sharing memory among a set of processors
connected by a broadcast network, e.g. a bus. We assume that each
processor maintains a cache, with requests for pages not in that cache
satisfied by data transfer across the bus. To minimize bus traffic, we
must reduce the number of writes to shared variables (each of which costs
one bus cycle) by discarding pages, at the risk of having to read them in
again (at cost p, the number of variables per page) should another read
request to that page occur. The minimal cost for a sequence of read and
write requests is the number of bus cycles used by an optimal clairvoyant
algorithm which decides on page retention knowing in advance the entire
sequence.
We present online algorithms for deciding on page retention; each of
these algorithms has an amortized cost that is at most a constant factor
more than the minimal cost. For the model described above (under the
assumption that the caches are either of infinite size or are direct
mapped), we prove that our algorithm uses at most twice as many bus cycles
as the optimal algorithm and that no online algorithm can do better. To
obtain a constant-factor algorithm when the caches are of finite size and
are set-associative, we combine the previous strategy with LRU or FIFO
page replacement. Other refinements to the model include the extension to
multi-bus schemes, where we can prove that the communication per bus is
within a constant factor of optimal.
(This is joint work with Mark Manasse of DEC-SRC and with Larry Rudolph
and Danny Sleator of Carnegie-Mellon.)
***** Time and place: May 8, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Not all time slots for this academic year
have been filled. The file [SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains
more information about future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂06-May-86 1052 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Lisp Standardization
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 10:51:56 PDT
Date: 6 May 1986 10:52-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Lisp Standardization
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: CL-STEERING@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 6-May-86 10:52:25.MATHIS>
I have sent the following to other people who have expressed an
interest in the standardization process. I wanted all of you to
get it too, because it is too late to back out now.
This message is to confirm your net address and continuing
interest in the ANSI/X3J13 and ISO/TC97/SC22 standardization of
Lisp. The general mailing list "Common-Lisp at SU-AI" will
continue to receive information, this special list is only for
those with an active interest in the standardization process
itself.
-- Bob Mathis
∂06-May-86 1137 BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA Summer RAships
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 11:34:54 PDT
Date: Tue 6 May 86 11:23:03-PDT
From: Sharon Bergman <BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Summer RAships
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: bergman@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204576867.23.BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I need to start appointing students for Summer Quarter. Please
send me a list of students that you plan to support, percentage
and account number. The paperwork needs to be processed earlier than
usual because of the new registration procedure, so I would appreciate
receiving this information within the next couple of weeks if possible.
Thanks very much.
Sharon Bergman
-------
∂06-May-86 1152 Joseph.Ginder%SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 11:52:14 PDT
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Date: 6 May 1986 14:10-EST
From: Joseph.Ginder@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
To: phil-sci@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Message-Id: <515787013/jrg@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU>
Please remove my name from the mailing list. Sorry this has to go to
the mailing list -- why doesn't a request address exist?
--Joe
∂06-May-86 1151 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA X3J13 Hull Pounding
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 11:51:32 PDT
Date: 6 May 1986 11:53-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: X3J13 Hull Pounding
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 6-May-86 11:53:21.MATHIS>
Thank you for my selection as the Chairman of the Steering
Committee.
X3J13 has been approved. There will be no election of Chairman
for that until the end of the year. At the moment, I am the
Convenor of the first meetings. In that role I can effectively
direct the initial work. To that end I am hereby appointing what
we have called a Steering Committee as a Steering Committee to
help in guiding the work of X3J13 and I am appointing what we
have called a Technical Committee as a Technical Committee to
prepare initial items for discussion and potentially a draft of
the proposed standard.
You are no longer a self selected gang, but a legitimate
subcommittee under an approved standrards committee.
On the copyright question -- I have talked to DEC people and sent
some other information to Lucid. ANSI has to make money on the
publication of some of its standards, so the very broad
suggestion of Scott's will probably not work. Questions arise
with respect to commercial publication (PH, AW, Wiley, et al),
manufacturers' manuals (goldhill's distribution of the DEC book,
etc), derived manuals (possibly Lucid's), and on-line
documentation. ANSI would probably not like the first, but would
probably go with the last three. This is something where the
ANSI, DEC and Lucid lawyers will have to work something out with
our guidance.
On the Lucid manual as a starting point. I always assume the
rest of you are better informed than I am, so this is just a
personal request for a copy. It also seems likely that other
companies have their own manuals which may be very relevant in
places. We should probably make a general request for copies of
those manuals and establish a physical library at either CMU or
ISI for reference by the drafters.
Lisp Conference in Boston -- I would suggest a SHORT time period
during the regular session to give a status report (both
X3J13/ISO and technical) and then an evening (or other out of the
normal schedule) session for those specifically interested in
details. We should definitely take the opportunity to meet
ourselves.
Validation test suites -- we need to remind people of this again.
Standing agenda -- I plan to develop a standing agenda for the
Steering Committee that we can also use as a kind of status and
progress report. After reviewing it with you, I will put out
another general message about how X3J13 will be organized and
work.
-- Bob Mathis
∂06-May-86 1221 Joseph.Ginder%SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 12:19:02 PDT
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Received: from SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU by MC.LCS.MIT.EDU 6 May 86 14:15:30 EDT
Date: 6 May 1986 14:10-EST
From: Joseph.Ginder@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: Please delete me from the Phil-Sci list
To: phil-sci@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Message-Id: <515787013/jrg@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU>
Please remove my name from the mailing list. Sorry this has to go to
the mailing list -- why doesn't a request address exist?
--Joe
∂06-May-86 1257 ROBINS%USC-ISIB.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 12:55:57 PDT
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Date: 6 May 1986 12:40:05 PDT
From: Gabriel Robins <ROBINS@USC-ISIB.ARPA>
To: phil-sci@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Please remove me from the Phil-Sci list; I am tired of getting "Please
remove me from the Phil-List messages"... :-)
Gabriel Robins (ROBINS@USC-ISIF)
-------
∂06-May-86 1505 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA Come meet with robotics faculty candidate Jean-Claude Latombe
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 15:02:37 PDT
Date: Tue 6 May 86 14:55:00-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Come meet with robotics faculty candidate Jean-Claude Latombe
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204615452.49.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Jean-Claude Latombe, robotics faculty candidate, will be visiting this
Thursday, May 8. Students and others who would like to meet with him,
can do so from 11:15-11:45 in MJH 220. Jean-Claude will be giving a talk
at 4:15 that day in Room 380-380X.
-------
∂06-May-86 1832 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu REMINDER TO REGISTER FOR STOC
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id AA19903; Mon, 5 May 86 22:24:59 PDT
Date: Mon, 5 May 86 22:24:59 PDT
From: lawler@ernie.berkeley.edu (Eugene Lawler)
Message-Id: <8605060524.AA19903@ernie.berkeley.edu>
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Subject: REMINDER TO REGISTER FOR STOC
Cc: lawler@dali.berkeley.edu
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 06 May 86 19:20:44 CDT (Tue)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Advance registration for the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
to be held at Berkeley, May 28-30, must be made by May 14. Lodging
at the Dwight/Derby Complex cannot be assured after that date. Be sure
to mail your registration form now, if you have not already done so!
--------------
TN Message #42
--------------
∂06-May-86 1934 taylor%hpldat%HPLABS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU What I don't understand...
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 May 86 19:33:51 PDT
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Received: from hplabs.ARPA by MC.LCS.MIT.EDU 6 May 86 22:19:53 EDT
Received: from hpldat by hplabs.ARPA ; Tue, 6 May 86 19:18:04 pdt
Received: by hpldat ; Tue, 6 May 86 19:13:27 pdt
From: Dave Taylor <taylor%hpldat@hplabs.ARPA>
Message-Id: <8605070213.AA12307@hpldat>
To: phil-sci@hpldat
Date: Tue, 6 May 86 19:13:24 PDT
Subject: What I don't understand...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Knowledge Technologies Lab.
X-Mailer: msg [version 3.3a]
What I don't understand is that the only mail I ever receive from this
particular group is either requests to be added or requests to be
deleted!!
Is no-one actually interested in the subject matter that we're
supposed to be discussing herein??
I am.
In fact, I'll propose an appropriate question to the group;
In an ethical, moral and philosophical sense, what do the readers of
this group think of the topic of genetic manipulation??
More specifically, this can be broken down into a number of areas,
including plants (which have been genetically manipulated for years),
small animals (just starting recently) and then, ultimately perhaps,
humans. (current research is working on isolation of specific
chromasomes in the human DNA chain and thereby understanding how and
what the DNA spiral encodes...)
I'll refrain from commenting personally for a while...
RESPOND TO THE GROUP, TOO, NOT ME!!!!! (just in case)
-- Dave Taylor
taylor@HPLABS.{CSNET, ARPA} or ..hplabs!taylor
∂07-May-86 0710 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Addition to mailing list
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 07:09:56 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 7 May 86 10:10:48-EDT
Date: Wed, 7 May 1986 10:10 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12204793064.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: ram@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Addition to mailing list
If there are no objections, I would like to have Rob Maclachlan of CMU
(RAM@C.CS.CMU.EDU) added to the technical and, by transitivity, the
steering committee mailing lists as a non-voting observer. Rob will be
helping me to organize the technical side of things and keep track of
decisions, so it is convenient for me if he is able to follow closely
what we are doing. Rob will of course continue to particpate in the
design discussions on the normal Common Lisp mailing list, where his
contributions have been extremely valuable.
-- Scott
∂07-May-86 0806 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Parallel processing at Lockheed
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 08:06:07 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 08:04:50-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Parallel processing at Lockheed
To: aflb.su@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12204802927.7.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
A fellow from Lockheed sent me a letter informing us of parallel
processing research they'd be interested in supporting (including
research funds and perhaps summer jobs). I've posted his letter
on the AA and NA bulletin boards (right sides).
--Oren
-------
∂07-May-86 0848 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Honors for Nils' Newsletter
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 08:48:32 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 08:47:39-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Honors for Nils' Newsletter
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: sec@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204810721.25.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Nils wants to get another letter out to the alumni before commencement.
The last letter was dated 12/3/85. If you have received any honors
since the last letter went out, please let me know. This is not meant
to be a "heavy" newsletter, so if it is something amusing, send it.
Some of the secretaries have been sending me information on a regular
basis, but I don't want to miss anyone or any happening.
Carolyn
-------
∂07-May-86 1200 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Addition to mailing list
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 12:00:36 PDT
Date: 7 May 1986 11:57-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Addition to mailing list
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, ram@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA] 7-May-86 11:57:09.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12204793064.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
No objections.
Ron
∂07-May-86 1349 DONOGHUE@SU-SCORE.ARPA My Upcoming Absence
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 13:49:06 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 13:45:51-PDT
From: Mary Donoghue <DONOGHUE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: My Upcoming Absence
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Phone: (415) 497-9354
Message-ID: <12204865007.18.DONOGHUE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
This message is just to let you know that I will be away from the office
for about six weeks starting Friday, May 9, since I am having orthopedic
surgery Monday morning. I should be back at the end of June. I hope
things are peaceful in the department during my absence. Betty and
the rest of the staff will be sharing my duties.
--Mary Donoghue
-------
∂07-May-86 1454 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jerry Hobbs
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 14:54:26 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 14:51:37-PDT
From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jerry Hobbs
To: planlunch.dis: ;
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GRANULARITY
Jerry R. Hobbs (HOBBS@SRI-AI)
Artificial Intelligence Center, SRI International
CSLI, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, May 12
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
We look at the world under various grain sizes and abstract from it only
those things that serve our present interests. We can view a road,for
example, as a line, a surface, or a volume. Such abstractions enable us
to reason about situations without getting lost in irrelevant
complexities. Knowledge-rich intelligent systems will have to have
similar capabilities. In this talk I will present a framework in which
we can understand such systems. In this framework, a knowledge base
consists of a global theory together with a large number of relatively
simple, idealized, grain-dependent local theories, interrelated by
articulation axioms. In a complex situation, the crucial features are
abstracted from the environment, determining a granularity, and the
corresponding local theory is selected. This is the only computation
done in the global theory. The local theory is then applied in the bulk
of the problem-solving process. When shifts in perspective are
required, articulation axioms are used to translate the problem and
partial results from one local theory to another. In terms of this
framework, I will discuss idealization, the concepts of supervenience
and reducibility, prototype-deformation types of description, and the
emergence of global properties from local phenomena, and the
relationship of granularity to circumscription. Several examples of
uses of this framework from a wide variety of applications will be
given.
-------
∂07-May-86 1500 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 15:00:04 PDT
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Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:48:45 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting tomorrow
To: nail@diablo
We'll meet 11AM as usual, in 301.
Kathy will give us the lowdown on sharing the RT's,
and Jeff N. wants to talk about the second of the
Sacca/Zaniolo papers mentioned in the previous message.
∂07-May-86 1501 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 15:01:22 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Implementation of Recursive Queries for a Data Language Based
on Pure Horn Logic"
and
"Implementing Recursive Logic Queries with Function Symbols"
both by D. Sacca and C. Zaniolo, MCC.
∂07-May-86 1531 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Jean-Claude Latombe
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 15:31:02 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 15:11:04-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Jean-Claude Latombe
To: ok@SU-AI.ARPA, binford@SU-WHITNEY.ARPA, cannon@SU-SIERRA.ARPA,
reynolds@SU-SCORE.ARPA, jmc-lists@SU-AI.ARPA, grosof@SU-SUSHI.ARPA,
rv@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204880522.33.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Here is Jean-Claude Latombe's schedule for Thursday, May 8:
10:00 - 10:30 Mark Cutkosky Terman 523
10:45 - 11:00 Gibbons/Nilsson Terman 214
11:15 - 11:45 students MJH 220
12:00 - 1:00 Nilsson/Binford lunch at Faculty Club
1:15 - 2:15 Oussama Khatib Cedar B11
2:30 - 3:30 Search Committee MJH 220
4:15 - 5:00 Talk Bldg. 380, Room 380X
-------
∂07-May-86 1601 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 16:01:42 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 15:56:29-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12204888789.33.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Below is the title promised in a prior message:
DAY: May 8, 1986
EVENT: AI/Robotics Seminar
PLACE: Bldg. 380, Room 380 X
TIME: 4:15
PERSON: Jean-Claude Latombe
FROM: Industry & Technology of Machine Intelligence/France
TITLE: Automatic Robot Programming
-------
∂07-May-86 1708 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 17:08:32 PDT
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Received: from JUP by IO with VMS ;
Wed, 7 May 86 17:01:59 PDT
Date: Wed, 7 May 86 17:01:59 PDT
From: WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA
Subject: SIGBIG
To: @sig03.dis
ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY
San Francisco Golden Gate Chapter
"SIGBIG" Special Interest Committee
For Large High Speed Computers
Meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:30 PM. Speakers
who can give insights to various aspects of SUPERCOMPUTING are
featured each month.
Next meeting: Wednesday, MAY 7, 1986, 7:30 PM
Speaker: Gene Greer / G.E. Space Systems
Topic: Justifying Supercomputers in the Corporate World
Location: Boeing Computer Services
500 Washington Street Suite 700
San Francisco (415)392-6565
Directions: Sansome Street is nearest cross street
nearest to Montgomery Bart station.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tape-recordings of most of the previous may be obtained
in exchange for a tape cassette or $5.00 by contacting:
Mary Fowler (415)261-4058 (rec)
Supercomputing #192, BOX 2787
Alameda, CA. 94501-0787
For information contact Mary Fowler, Chairperson (415) 839-6547
or Mike Austin, Publ. Chair (415) 423-8446
∂07-May-86 1715 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 8, No. 15
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 May 86 17:15:41 PDT
Date: Wed 7 May 86 16:19:16-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, May 8, No. 15
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
May 8, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 15
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, May 8, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Definiteness and Referentiality
Conference Room Vol. 1, Ch. 11 of ``Syntax: A
Functional-Typological Introduction''
by Talmy Givon
Discussion led by Mark Johnson (Johnson@csli)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall On Visual Representation (Part 2 of 3)
Trailer Classroom David Levy, Xerox PARC (Dlevy.pa@xerox)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Whither CSLI?
Room G-19 John Perry, Director, CSLI
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, May 15, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall A Critique of Pure Reason
Conference Room by Drew McDermott
Discussion led by Pat Hayes (PHayes@sri-kl)
(Abstract next week)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Beyond the Chalkboard: Computer Support for
Trailer Classroom Collaboration and Problem Solving in Meetings
(Part 3 of 3)
Mark Stefik, Intelligent Systems Lab., Xerox PARC
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Transfer of f-structures Across Natural Languages
Room G-19 Tom Reutter, Weidner Communications Corp., Chicago
(Abstract on page 2)
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar May 8, 1986
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NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
Beyond the Chalkboard:
Computer Support for Collaboration and Problem Solving in Meetings
Mark Stefik
Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Computers for individuals are widely used. During meetings, however,
we leave them behind and rely on passive media such as chalkboards.
An experimental meeting room called the Colab has been created at
Xerox PARC. It is for studying computer support of collaborative
problem-solving in face-to-face meetings. The long-term goal is to
understand how to build computer tools to make meetings more
effective. This talk is about several dimensions of the Colab
project, including the physical setting, the special hardware and
software that have been created, the principles and technical results
that have emerged in the work so far, and some preliminary
observations about the first Colab meetings.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Transfer of f-structures Across Natural Languages
Tom Reutter, Weidner Communications Corp., Chicago
A recursive algorithm for mapping functional structure from a
source natural language into a target natural language is presented
and its implementation in the programming language CPROLOG is
discussed. The transfer algorithm is guided by a symmetrical
bilingual lexicon. It was prototypically implemented for
German-English as part of a transfer-oriented machine translation
system at the University of Stuttgart (Germany). Special emphasis is
placed on asymmetiral transfer, e.g., mapping of f-structures with
different semantic valencies, unequal NUM and SPEC attributes, etc.
------------
LOGIC SEMINAR
Relationships Between Frege Structures and
Constructive Theories of Functions and Classes
Solomon Feferman
4:15, Tuesday, May 13, Math. Dept. 383-N
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∂08-May-86 0752 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AI Seminar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 May 86 07:52:35 PDT
Date: Thu 8 May 86 07:50:34-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AI Seminar
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12205062475.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Natarajan Shankar will be visiting CSD on Thursday, May 15. While here, he
will be giving the following talk:
DAY: May 15, 1986
EVENT: AI Seminar
PLACE: Bldg. 380, Room 380 X
TIME: 5:15
TITLE: Checking the Proof of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem
with the Boyer-Moore theorem prover.
PERSON: Natarajan Shankar
FROM: The University of Texas at Austin
There is a widespread belief that computer proof-checking of significant
proofs in mathematics is infeasible. We argue against this belief by
presenting a formalization and proof of Godel's incompleteness theorem
that was checked with the Boyer-Moore theorem prover. This mechanical
proof establishes the essential incompleteness of Cohen's Z2 axioms for
hereditarily finite sets. The proof involves a metatheoretic formalization
of Shoenfield's first-order logic along with Cohen's Z2 axioms. Several
derived inference rules were proved as theorems about this logic. These
derived inference rules were used to develop enough set theory in order
to demonstrate the representability of a Lisp interpreter in this logic.
The Lisp interpreter was used to establish the computability of the
metatheoretic formalization of Z2. From this, the representability of
the Lisp interpreter, and the enumerability of proofs, an undecidable
sentence was constructed. The theorem prover was led to the observation
that if the undecidable sentence is either provable or disprovable, then
it is both provable and disprovable. The theory is therefore either
incomplete or inconsistent.
-------
∂08-May-86 1144 EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Phone Marking
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Date: Thu 8 May 86 11:23:03-PDT
From: LaDonna Eppley <EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Phone Marking
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: sec@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12205101155.13.EPPLEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As you all know, several of the new phones have been stolen from various
offices in MJH. The phones are expensive to replace, and Nils agrees
with us that it is a good idea to mark them all with identifying information,
using indelible ink.
We ask that the secretaries do the phones for their faculty and the other
members of their group. We will do the student phones and administrative
staff can mark their own phones. Marking pens can be picked up from Katie.
Thank you for your help.
LaDonna
-------
∂08-May-86 1224 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLUG Symposium--what do you want to find out?
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 May 86 12:22:31 PDT
Date: Thu 8 May 86 12:22:40-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: SLUG Symposium--what do you want to find out?
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12205112008.47.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Folks,
I'll be attending the Symbolics Lisp Users Group's national
symposium in June. There will be numerous sophisticated Symbolics
users, as well as Symbolics developers and managers in attendance.
Thus there will be opportunities to ask questions that are normally
hard to get answers for. If you have any such questions or concerns,
please let me know what you'd like to find out so that I can try to
get info for you. Possible topics include release 7, G machines,
specific technical questions, pricing, future plans, etc.
-- Rich
-------
∂08-May-86 1413 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Late Announcement
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Date: Thu 8 May 86 13:30:07-PDT
From: julius
Subject: Late Announcement
Sender: EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Reply-To: julius@csli
Tel: (415) 723-3561
PHILOSOPHY TALK
Truth, Paradox, and Partially Defined Predicates
Scott Soames, Princeton University
Tuesday, May 13, 10:45-12:00, Ventura Seminar Room
Followed by a discussion in the Philosophy Lounge
-------
∂08-May-86 1503 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
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Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Implementation of Recursive Queries for a Data Language Based
on Pure Horn Logic"
and
"Implementing Recursive Logic Queries with Function Symbols"
both by D. Sacca and C. Zaniolo, MCC.
∂08-May-86 1529 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
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Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:48:45 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting tomorrow
To: nail@diablo
We'll meet 11AM as usual, in 301.
Kathy will give us the lowdown on sharing the RT's,
and Jeff N. wants to talk about the second of the
Sacca/Zaniolo papers mentioned in the previous message.
∂08-May-86 1559 HOLDEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Stanford Child Language Research Forum
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Date: Thu 8 May 86 15:46:42-PDT
From: Gary Holden <HOLDEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Stanford Child Language Research Forum
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
A few weeks ago I put out a message asking for suggestions for a keynote
speaker for next year. So far only two people have responded - the
suggestions are Jean Berko Gleason and Michael Maratsos. Any other ideas
are welcome and we need them NOW since the invitation goes out in June.
Gary Holden.
-------
∂08-May-86 1603 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
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Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Implementation of Recursive Queries for a Data Language Based
on Pure Horn Logic"
and
"Implementing Recursive Logic Queries with Function Symbols"
both by D. Sacca and C. Zaniolo, MCC.
∂08-May-86 1738 BARWISE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Missing papers
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Date: Thu 8 May 86 17:29:06-PDT
From: Jon Barwise <BARWISE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Missing papers
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
At noon today I placed a yellow pad and some other papers in my mail
box containing notes of two hours work by 6 of us on the stass report
for the annual report. By three, they had disappeared. If anyone
picked them out of the wrong box by mistake, please return them. I
don't really want to try to reconstruct all we did from memory.
Thanks,
Jon
-------
∂08-May-86 2338 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 9 May 86 02:39:44-EDT
Date: Fri, 9 May 1986 02:39 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12205235256.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
This business of copyrights is a make-or-break issue. We've got to get
this settled to everyone's satisfaction, and we can't wait around for
lawyers to do it at their own usual pace or we'll lose at least a year.
We need to get an agreement in principle between our group, ANSI, and at
least one of Lucid or Digital Press before we can start serious work on
the new specification document.
Bob Mathis says that ANSI needs to make some money on the publication of
the standards document. OK. An interesting question is how much money
they need to make. I have no objection to ANSI making some money on the
document. Presumably they will put the money to good use. But if
ANSI's need to make money from this document means that companies cannot
quickly and easily get permission to duplicate the document, that nobody
will know for sure what the rules are for online use, and that students
have to pay some arbitrarily high price for a copy, then I for one am
not going to particpate in producing such a document. There are so many
possible mistakes I haven't made yet that I'm not going to waste time
making the old ones over again. We've got to have some clear
understandings about these issues before we begin.
I wonder if the following would fly: the manual carries the same
copyright notice as before, with blanket permission for verbatim
copying, but the notice is changed to say that anyone making a hardcopy
must pay ANSI, say, $2. If a publisher or manufacturer prints up a ton
of the manuals, ANSI gets a decent royalty; if a university prints up
100 copies, they can either be honest and pay up or they can break the
law. ANSI would print up some official copies of their own, for which
they could charge whatever they usually do.
There would be no charge for online copies, since it is impossible to do
the accounting. If anyone cares, the charge could apply to copies
distributed on tape, floppy, or optical disk. Lucid and Digital Press
would of course retain full, free, and unrestricted rights to their own
curent documents, but if they want to make copies of the final ANSI
document, they would have to pay like anyone else.
ANSI would make out just fine on that, I think, and the $2 charge
wouldn't bother anyone too much. We would have the nearly-free right to
reproduce the document that we want.
I suppose that if ANSI doesn't want to put all of this into the
document, I would settle for a written agreement between them and us
that they would grant such a licesne to anyone within a month of
receiving the request, and that the royalty would not be more than $2
per copy. And if they break this agreement, or if this document is not
adopted as an ANSI standard, it becomes public-domain.
Bob, can you get a reading on whether ANSI would agree to something like
this? We can lawyerize it all later.
-- Scott
∂09-May-86 0907 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Psychology Seminar
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 May 86 09:07:36 PDT
Date: Fri 9 May 86 08:16:05-PDT
From: dirk@su-psych
Subject: Psychology Seminar
Sender: EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Reply-To: dirk@su-psych
Tel: (415) 723-3561
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Date: Thu, 8 May 86 16:01:20 pdt
From: dirk@SU-PSYCH (Dirk Ruiz)
Subject: This Week's Psychology Dept. Friday Seminar.
To: friends@csli
Our speaker this week is Martin Braine. Time and place are 3:15, Friday
May 9 in room 100, Jordan Hall. Title and abstract follow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lexical entry for "if";
Some data on reasoning to a conditional conclusion in children and adults
Martin Braine
A psychological theory of a logical particle should have three parts:
(1) a lexical entry, which specifies the information about the meaning of
the particle carried in semantic memory; (2) a theory of the pragmatic
comprehension processes that, taken with the lexical entry, lead to
construal in context; and (3) a reasoning program that models subjects'
typical modes of reasoning on stimulus materials used in experiments. A
theory of "if" of this sort will be presented, and used to account for some
intuitions and developmental data on inferences, truth judgments, and
comprehension errors. In addition, some experiments will be reported in
which children and adults reason to an "if"-statement as conclusion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
∂09-May-86 1130 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 May 86 11:27:46 PDT
Date: 9 May 1986 11:10-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Copyrights
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA] 9-May-86 11:10:44.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12205235256.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
Your points are well taken. I have raised the issue
before and I'll raise it again that we do not want to place
ourselves in the same bind vis-a-vis ANSI that we have had with
Digital. I think that we have to give some rights to ANSI but we
had damn well better make sure that we have ultimate rights to
what we need. We must, for example, have the rights to the
Common Lisp Specification. We should also have the rights (as
you have already pointed out) to provide online manuals and
documents to those who need them for implementation. I think the
issue should be what rights we allow them rather than what rights
they want to give them.
Ron
∂09-May-86 1354 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
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Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Implementation of Recursive Queries for a Data Language Based
on Pure Horn Logic"
and
"Implementing Recursive Logic Queries with Function Symbols"
both by D. Sacca and C. Zaniolo, MCC.
∂09-May-86 1358 LINK@SU-CSLI.ARPA Good Bye
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 May 86 13:58:33 PDT
Date: Fri 9 May 86 13:45:49-PDT
From: Godehard Link <LINK@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Good Bye
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I am going back to Munich tomorrow, but I will be here again in July for
a month or so. To those who won't be around in summer I'd like to
say Good Bye.
Godehard
-------
∂09-May-86 1917 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 9 May 86 22:18:30-EDT
Date: Fri, 9 May 1986 22:18 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12205449845.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 9 May 1986 14:10-EDT from OHLANDER at USC-ISIB.ARPA
Ron,
I'm not sure that I understand all of the points in your recent message.
You say that
we had damn well better make sure that we have ultimate rights to
what we need. We must, for example, have the rights to the
Common Lisp Specification.
I'm not sure what rights you are talking about here, and how you want to
define "we". If we produce a document that is both spec and manual, and
if it is accepted as an ANSI standard, I just want to be sure that the
manual is readily available to all who need to use it in various ways.
We also want to be sure that there is some mechanism for producing
revised standards in the future, based on the text of the original
standard, but that would fall out of the normal ANSI process, I think.
I'm willing to let the ANSI process handle any future revisions, and
feel no great urge to keep the process in the hands of the current cast
of characters. I personally plan to get out of the Common Lisp game
once the first round of ANSI/ISO standardization is complete.
-- Scott
∂09-May-86 2316 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
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Date: 9 May 86 10:38:40 EDT
From: AGGARWA@IBM.COM
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 09 May 86 17:26:15 CDT (Fri)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
If you are interested in attending the Second Symposium on Computational
Geometry, please register NOW. After May 16, we will not be able to
guarantee either the rates or the availability of the rooms in the two
hotels. Also, the registration fees would be $25.00 higher than the
usual one.
--------------
TN Message #44
--------------
∂10-May-86 0511 zimmer%LLL-TIS-A.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU genetic manipulation/remove me
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id AA13279; Sat, 10 May 86 05:06:05 pdt
Message-Id: <8605101206.AA13279@lll-tis-a.ARPA>
Date: Sat May 10 05:06:01 1986
From: zimmer@lll-tis-a.ARPA (Mark Zimmermann)
Subject: genetic manipulation/remove me
To: phil-sci@mit-mc
Cc: zimmer@lll-tis-a.ARPA
Status: N
Pls remove me from list...
Genetic manipulation is, like programming/training/indoctrinating, distasteful
in direct proportion to the complexity (information content) of the system
being manipulated ... minimally troublesome for plasmids, more so for E.coli,
more so for multicellular plants, still more for inverterbrates, yet more
for mammals, highly unaesthetic for primates, etc. for hyperintelligent
entities....
Programming a Cray-2 is thus a (slightly?) more serious act than setting an
alarm clock, but is far less serious than sending a child off to school or
eating meat....
Pls remove me from list.... ↑z'
∂10-May-86 0752 jcm%ORNL-MSR.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Mutant, Manipulated Ideas
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id AA06984; Sat, 10 May 86 10:45:50 edt
Date: Sat, 10 May 86 10:45:50 edt
From: jcm@ORNL-MSR.ARPA (James A. Mullens)
Message-Id: <8605101445.AA06984@ORNL-MSR.ARPA>
To: phil-sci@MC
Subject: Mutant, Manipulated Ideas
>Pls remove me from list...
>
>Genetic manipulation is, like programming / training /
>indoctrinating, distasteful in direct proportion to the
>complexity (information content) of the system being
>manipulated... minimally troublesome for plasmids, more so for
>E.coli, more so for multicellular plants, still more for
>inverterbrates, yet more for mammals, highly unaesthetic for
>primates, etc. for hyperintelligent entities....
>
>Programming a Cray-2 is thus a (slightly?) more serious act than
>setting an alarm clock, but is far less serious than sending a
>child off to school or eating meat....
Indeed, programming is a sort of exercise in genetic
manipulation. Hofstadter and Dennett talk about "memes" in
their book "The Mind's I". Memes are to ideas as genes are to
the body -- a meme is the central core an of an idea. For
example, the idea that a computer's program should be stored in
the computer's memory so that it can be manipulated like data
(say, by a compiler or linker or editor) is an idea which has
been very successful. Survival of the fittest and judged this
meme worthy, it has proliferated and so dominates the world that
I expect most people reading this do not realize that computers
have been programming by plugging patch cords into electronic
panels, operating on data stored as punched cards. Other memes:
the theory of relativity, written language, the idea that people
related by blood should hang together (the concept of family).
Computer programs contain memes, like a body contains genes. We
launch our memes upon the network. "Neat" programs are studied,
modified, improved -- often preserving a central idea like "a
sorted directory is a good thing to have" or "a quick sorting
algorithm" or "you can use a mouse for input".
>
>Pls remove me from list.... ↑z'
I wish I could help you but, you see, I've only just arrived here.
Welcome to ... the Bermuda Triangle Zone for burned out Netters (:-).
==============================================================================
jcm@ornl-msr.arpa | oak ridge national lab | oak ridge TN | 615 574 5564
jim mullens | 5524 outer drive | knoxville TN | 615 691 7957
I was happy about not being paranoid until I realized that
that didn't mean no one was out to get me.
==============================================================================
∂10-May-86 0826 TONG%RED.RUTGERS.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please remove my name from this list
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Date: 10 May 86 11:12:54 EDT
From: TONG@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: Please remove my name from this list
To: phil-sci@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <12205590829.73.TONG@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
-------
∂11-May-86 2210 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Computer Science and Technology Board
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Date: Sun 11 May 86 21:41:09-PDT
From: Edward Feigenbaum <FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Computer Science and Technology Board
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA, gibbons@SU-SIERRA.ARPA, meindl@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206000109.26.FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
At the faculty lunch last week, I was asked: who are the members of the
newly reconstituted National Research Council Computer Science and Technology
Board. Having attended the first meeting, I now have the list, which
follows, in alphabetical order:
Joel Birnbaum (H-P)
Steve Chen (Cray)
Mike Dertouzos (MIT)
me
Sam Fuller (DEC)
Ron Graham (Bell Labs)
Bob Kahn
Len Kleinrock (UCLA)
Dave Kuck (Illinois)
Josh Lederberg (Rockefeller)
Bob Lucky (Bell Labs,Holmdel)
Bob Metcalfe (3Com)
Al Newell (CMU)
Mary Shaw (CMU)
Joe Traub,(Columbia), chairman
Andy Van Dam (Brown)
Sam Winograd (IBM Research)
Irving Wladawsky-Berger (IBM)
At the meeting a recent report authored by Van Dam and others,
entitled "Imbalance between Growth and Funding in Academic
Computer Science: Two Trends Colliding", was handed out. I have
forwarded a copy to Nils Nilsson's office. If anyone is interested
in having a copy, ask Anne Richardson.
Best wishes,
Ed
-------
∂12-May-86 0625 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Vazirani paper
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 06:25:30 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 06:22:12-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Vazirani paper
To: aflb.local@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12206094963.7.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Umesh Vazirani has left with Ashok Subramanian a few copies of his
joint paper with Vijay Vazirani and Ketan Mulmuley, "Matching Is as
Easy as Matrix Inversion". If you'd like a copy you can pick one up
from Ashok (as long as the supply lasts, although he'll keep a copy
for xeroxing after that).
--Oren
-------
∂12-May-86 0907 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tuesday CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 09:07:16 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 09:06:38-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tuesday CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206124898.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Harry Llull, who is in charge of our Math/Science Library, has made arrangements
for Paul Mosher, the Deputy Director of the University Libraries, and for
David Weber, the Director of the University Libraries, to meet with CSD for
lunch tomorrow in MJH 146 at 12:15 for a discussion of libraries.
-------
∂12-May-86 0943 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: Handbook For Writing Technical Proposals That Win Contracts
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 09:43:48 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 09:33:41-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library: Handbook For Writing Technical Proposals That Win Contracts
To: bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206129822.26.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
On our new books shelf, we have Handbook For Writing Technical Proposals
That Win Contracts by Donald V. Helgeson. It is a 1985, Prentice-Hall
publication with the call number T11.H45 1985 c.2. According to the preface,
Helgeson has spent more than 20 years in the aerospace industry in
systems engineering, marketing, and program management. He has written
and managed technical proposals for government contracts for the Army,
Air Force, Navy, NASA, DARPA, and various government agencies.
Harry Llull
-------
∂12-May-86 1156 rpg%brown.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU HELP!!!!!!
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by Brown.CSnet; 12 May 86 12:30-EDT
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Date: 12 May 86 (Mon) 12:29:51 EDT
From: Robert Goldman <rpg%brown.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: phil-sci%mc.lcs.mit.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: HELP!!!!!!
Several months ago, I screwed up badly when trying to get on this mailing
list. To my great shame, I ignorantly sent my request to the mail group
instead, causing it to go out to many irritated people nationwide (and more).
That was the last I heard from this newslist.
Just today, however, I got three un-collated, un-digested messages from
various people, pertaining to discussions I did not understand, and
containing requests to be dropped from phil-sci. Can anyone explain this to
me?
I WOULD like to be in the phil-sci distribution, by the way.
Sorry to share this with all of you, but I don't know what else to do.
Thanks,
Robert
BITNET rpg@BROWNCS.BITNET (to IBMS:BROWNVM)
CSNET rpg@Brown.CSNET
ARPANET rpg%Brown@csnet-relay.ARPA
UUCP {decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!brunix!rpg
∂12-May-86 1215 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 12:15:52 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 12:14:01-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12206159011.14.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
An Introduction To Software Physics: The Meaning Of Computer Measurement by
Kenneth Kolence. QA76.6.K645 1985.
Programming In Micro-Prolog by Hugh de Saram. QA76.73.P76D4 1985.
Artificial Intelligence: Concepts, Techniques And Applications. by Yoshiaki
Shirai and Jun-ichi Tsujii. Q335.S48613 1984.
A Book On C. by R. E. Berry and B. A. E. Meekings. QA76.73.C15B47 1984.
An Integrated Approach to Software Development. by Russell J. Abbott
QA76.76D47A23 1986.
The World Of Digital Typesetting. by John W. Seybold. Z253.3.S53 1984.
Automation Of America's Offices. Office of Technology Assessment.
December 1985. HF5548.2 A9 1985.
Readings In Knowledge Representation. edited by Ronald Brachman and Hector
Levesque. Q335.R43 1985.
American Standard Handbook Of Software Law. by John C. Lautsch.
KF390.5.C6L38 1985.
Digital Computer Funidamentals. sixth edition. by Thomas C. Bartee.
TK7885.B317 1985 c.2.
Mind In Science: A History of Explanations in Psychology and Physics.
by Richard Gregory. BF38.G67 1981. c.2.
Advanced Programmer's Guide to UNIX System V. by Thomas, Rogers, and
Yates. Osborne-McGraw-Hill. QA76.76.O63T46 1986.
Mastering The Macintosh Toolbox by Peatroy. QA76.8.M3P43 1986.
H. LLull
-------
∂12-May-86 1241 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 12:41:08 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 12:39:27-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@playfair.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <12206163640.14.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Stationary Sequences And Random Fields. by Murray Rosenblatt.
QA280.R67 1985.
Applied Mathematical Demography. Springer Texts In Statistics. 2nd ed.
by Nathan Keyfitz. HB849.51K49 1985.
Probabilistic Properties Of Deterministic Systems. by A. Lasota and M.
Mackey. QA402.L359 1985.
Biometrie--heute und morgen. Interregionales Biometriches Kolloquium
1980. Herausgegeben von W. Kopcke and K. Uberla. QH323.5.I565 1980.
General System Theory: Essential Concepts & Applications. by Anatol
Rapoport. Q295.R37 1986.
Tiem Series Analysis: Theory and Practice 6. Hydrological, Geophysical
and Spatial Applications. Proceedings of the International Conference
held at Toronto, Canada, 10-14 August 1983. ed. by Anderson, Ord,
and Robinson. GB656.2.S7T56 1985 c.2.
Applications of Statistics. Paruchuri R. Krishnaiah editor. Proceedings
of the Symposium held at Wright State University. Dayton, Ohio.
14-18 June 1976. QA276.A1S86 1976 c.2.
Selecta Donald C. Spencer. World Scientific. 3 volumes. QA3.S682 1985
volumes 1,2,3.
Harry LLull
-------
∂12-May-86 1405 Stroick%HI-MULTICS.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Please remove me from this list (3rd time)!
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Date: Mon, 12 May 86 14:20 CDT
From: Stroick@HI-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Please remove me from this list (3rd time)!
To: phil-sci@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <860512192017.820722@HI-MULTICS.ARPA>
∂12-May-86 1552 PETERS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Birth Announcement
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 15:52:28 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 15:45:48-PDT
From: Stanley Peters <PETERS@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Birth Announcement
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Friends of Elisabet Engdahl and Robin Cooper will rejoice to hear
of the birth of their daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, at 4:03 a.m.
today (Swedish Summer Time) in Lund. She weighs 6 pounds 8
ounces, and is 19 1/2 inches long. Parents and daughter are
doing beautifully.
-------
∂12-May-86 1721 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
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id AA15921; Fri, 9 May 86 13:21:34 cdt
Date: Fri, 9 May 86 13:21:34 cdt
From: Alan Selman <selman%iowa-state.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: theory%rsch.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 12 May 86 13:14:44 CDT (Mon)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
To all participant of the STRUCTURE in COMPLEXITY THEORY CONFERENCE
to be held in Berkeley, California, June 2-5:
THIS IS A REMINDER. PLEASE REMEMBER TO REGISTER BEFORE MAY 14.
As you are well aware, the schedule for regular conference activities
is very complete. Nevertheless, we would like to foster as much
of a workshop environment as is possible. Feel free to bring
stacks of preprints and reprints for distribution. The lounges,
complete with movable blackboards, and a small auditorium will
be available in the evenings for those of you who would like to
volunteer short presentations of your research. A bulletin
board will be available to post announcements of these talks.
--------------
TN Message #45
--------------
∂12-May-86 1930 veach%ukans.csnet%CSNET-RELAY.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU please remove my name
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Date: Mon, 12 May 86 13:05:56 CDT
From: Glenn Veach <veach%ukans.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: phil-sci%mc.lcs.mit.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: please remove my name
Enough is enough. I find the clerical and administrative messages
which dominate this list to be a little less than what its title
would suggest. SO *PLEASE* remove me from this list.
∂12-May-86 2030 GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA meet with AI faculty candidate Natarajan Shankar
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 20:30:30 PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 20:06:57-PDT
From: Benjamin N. Grosof <GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: meet with AI faculty candidate Natarajan Shankar
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA, mcs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206245105.19.GROSOF@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Natarajan Shankar, AI faculty candidate from University of Texas at
Austin, will be visiting Stanford this Thursday, May 15. Students and
others who would like to meet with him: the search committee has
arranged for him to be available at 4:00 in MJH220. Please arrive ON
TIME. (Since no students have come to meet with previous AI faculty
candidates, we would like to conserve Natarajan's time in the event
that the trend continues.)
-------
∂12-May-86 2329 BENDA%USC-ISI.ARPA@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU list maintenance
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 May 86 23:29:01 PDT
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Received: from USC-ISI.ARPA by MC.LCS.MIT.EDU 13 May 86 02:20:07 EDT
Date: 13 May 1986 02:16:16 EDT
Subject: list maintenance
From: Miroslav Benda <BENDA@USC-ISI.ARPA>
To: phil-sci@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Please remove from the list.
I have been getting several messagews to this effect per week. Why, I do not know.
But you may want to consider removing the whole list form the Arpanet and starting fresh.
Miro Benda
-------
∂13-May-86 0001 AI.DUFFY%R20.UTEXAS.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Stop this nonsense.
Received: from MC.LCS.MIT.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 00:01:40 PDT
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Date: Tue, 13 May 1986 01:48 CDT
From: AI.DUFFY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU
To: Phil-Sci@MC
Subject: Stop this nonsense.
Please send any further requests to be added to or deleted from
PHIL-SCI to PHIL-SCI-REQUEST@MC or to PHIL-SCI-REQUEST@AI if MC
happens to be dead.
I realize that requests for deletion have not been handled
particularly swiftly of late. Steps have been taken to wake up the
list maintainer, who happens to be out of town for the moment.
I will not respond to any responses to this message if they are sent
to PHIL-SCI. Thank you.
∂13-May-86 0143 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 01:43:33 PDT
Date: 12 May 1986 17:32-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Copyrights
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]12-May-86 17:32:59.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12205449845.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
My concern is that we don't just abrogate all rights to ANSI. We may
find ourselves in disagreement at some future time. In order to protect the
Common Lisp community, we should have some recourse to always go back to some
original document to make things the way that the Common Lisp community feels
that they should be. This would require, probably, either copyrighting the
Common Lisp specification under a representative organization of the Common
Lisp community or putting the specification in the Public Domain. If we
copyright the spec, we could then grant exclusive rights to ANSI to develop a
standard. I realize that this brings up that old problem of how we organize
such a group, but we may really have to face coming to grips with that issue.
I will talk to some people who have founded nonprofit organizations to see
what is involved. In the meantime, we should press on with getting some
agreement from DEC that we can make a derivative work of the Common Lisp
Specification for an ANSI standard.
Ron
∂13-May-86 0751 NET-ORIGIN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU This List
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id AA13312; Tue, 13 May 86 09:27:01 edt
Date: Tue, 13 May 86 09:27:01 edt
From: jcm@ORNL-MSR.ARPA (James A. Mullens)
Message-Id: <8605131327.AA13312@ORNL-MSR.ARPA>
To: phil-sci@MC
Subject: This List
Remove Me.
∂13-May-86 0753 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLBs
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 07:53:12 PDT
Date: Tue 13 May 86 06:16:20-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLBs
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12206356039.9.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
There will be no AFLB this week. This is next week's talk:
-------------------------------------
22-May-86 : Joan Feigenbaum (Stanford)
Report on the SIAM Discrete Math Conference
This talk will give a summary of the many graph-theoretic and
algorithmic results presented at the SIAM Discrete Math Conference
held at Clemson, May 14th to 16th.
***** Time and place: May 22, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Although all time slots for this academic
year have been filled, we may have a few during the summer. The file
[SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains more information about
future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂13-May-86 0814 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 13 May 86 11:15:29-EDT
Date: Tue, 13 May 1986 11:15 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12206377717.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 12 May 1986 20:32-EDT from OHLANDER at USC-ISIB.ARPA
I'm quite happy to work with a document in the public domain or one that
is copyrighted by one of us in trust for the group until we decide
what rights to turn over to ANSI et al. Even better is to set up a
formal organization (non-profit corporation, I guess) that consists of
the members of these committees to hold the copyrights, but someone else
has to carry the ball on setting up the legalities of that. This isn't
the problem we discussed earlier of how to organize the whole community
-- I think at this point we could get away with incorporating just the
committees that were selected (indirectly) by the whole community.
We need to get a clear reading from ANSI on what will happen if we bring
them a document that is public domain or copyrighted by someone else and
tell them, as the technical comittee, that this docuemnt is what we
think the Common Lisp standard should be. As I said before, I don't
have nay problem with them making some money selling copies and/or
collecting royalties, but ownership and total control of the text is
another matter. Whether we can come up with a sufficient set of written
agreements to make us feel good about turning ownership over to ANSI is
a complicated question.
It looks like getting this manual stuff straightened out is going to
take longer than I had hoped. As far as I know, most of us haven't even
seen the Lucid manual yet. I guess I'll get to work trying to organize
the issues into a set of items that we can decide, record, and stick
into the text later. More work, but everyone must be wondering why this
is taking so long, so we'd better start making some visible progress.
-- Scott
∂13-May-86 0937 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Van Nguyen talk
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 09:37:24 PDT
Date: Tue 13 May 86 08:59:04-PDT
From: Olender@sri-ai
Subject: Van Nguyen talk
Sender: EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Reply-To: olender@sri-ai
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Return-Path: <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
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Date: Mon 12 May 86 20:35:16-PDT
From: Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: TALK BY VAN NGUYEN
To: aic-associates@SRI-AI.ARPA, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: nguyes@IBM.COM
DATE: May 14, 1986
TIME: 4:15pm
TITLE: "Knowledge, Communication, and Time"
SPEAKER: Van Nguyen
LOCATION: SRI International
Ravenswood Avenue
Building E
CONFERENCE ROOM: EJ228
COFFEE: Waldinger's Office
EK292
3:45pm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
KNOWLEDGE, COMMUNICATION, AND TIME
Van Nguyen
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
(Joint work with Kenneth J. Perry)
Abstract
The role that knowledge plays in distributed systems has come under
much study recently. In this talk, we re-examine the commonly
accepted definition of knowledge and examine how appropriate it is for
distributed computing. Motivated by the draw-backs thus exposed, we
propose an alternative definition that we believe to be better suited
to the task. This definition handles multiple knowers and makes
explicit the connection between knowledge, communication, and time.
It also emphasizes the fact that knowledge is a function of one's
initial knowledge, communication history and deductive abilities. The
need for assuming perfect reasoning is mitigated.
Having formalized these links, we then present the first proof
system for programs that incorporates both knowledge and time. The
proof system is compositional, sound and relatively complete, and is
an extension of the Nguyen-Demers-Gries-Owicki temporal proof system
for processes. Suprisingly, it does not require proofs of
non-interference (as first defined by Owicki-Gries).
-------
-------
∂13-May-86 1054 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Date: Tue, 13 May 86 10:36:53 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Semantic DB Modeling: Survey, Applications and Research Issues,
by R. Hull and R. King, USC
This talks about "object oriented" data models.
∂13-May-86 1109 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Addition to mailing list
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 11:07:21 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 13 May 86 14:08:04-EDT
Date: Tue, 13 May 1986 14:07 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12206409134.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Addition to mailing list
In-reply-to: Msg of 8 May 1986 07:40-EDT from Martin <GRISS%HP-THOR at hplabs.ARPA>
There seem to ahve been no objections to adding RAM@C.CS.CMU.EDU to the
list as a non-voting observer. Dick, please make this change when you
get a chance.
I have no objection to other people
adding their assistants to the list as well, as long as the number
doesn't get out of hand. However, I would like to know specifically, by
name, everyone is receiving this mail and not have a lot of uncontrolled
indirection going on. We may have some sensitive issues to discuss.
-- Scott
∂13-May-86 1142 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jock Mackinlay
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 11:41:59 PDT
Date: Tue 13 May 86 11:40:54-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jock Mackinlay
To: planlunch.dis: ;
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF GRAPHICAL PRESENTATIONS
Jock D. Mackinlay (MACKINLAY@SUMEX-AIM)
Computer Science Department, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, May 19
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
The goal of the research described in this talk is to develop an
application-independent presentation tool that automatically designs
graphical presentations (e.g. bar charts, scatter plots, and connected
graphs) for relational information. There are two major criteria for
evaluating designs of graphical presentations: expressiveness and
effectiveness. Expressiveness means that a design expresses the
intended information. Effectiveness means that a design exploits the
capabilities of the output medium and the human visual system. A
presentation tool is intended to be used to build user interfaces.
However, a presentation tool will not be useful unless it generates
expressive and effective designs for a wide range of information.
This talk describes a theory of graphical presentations that can be used
to systematically generate a wide range of designs. Complex designs are
described as compositions of primitive designs. This theory leads to
the following synthesis algorithm:
o First, the information is divided into components, each
of which satisfies the expressiveness criterion for a
primitive graphical design.
o Next, a conjectural theory of human perception is used
to select the most effective primitive design for each
component. An effective design requires perceptual
tasks of low difficulty.
o Finally, composition operators are used to compose the
individual designs into a unified presentation of all
the information. A composition operator composes two
designs when the same information is expressed the same
way in both designs (identical parts are merged).
The synthesis algorithm has been implemented in a prototype presentation
tool, called APT (A Presentation Tool). Even though only a few primitive
designs are implemented, APT can generate a wide range of designs that
express information effectively.
-------
∂13-May-86 1156 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA [Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: TALK BY VAN NGUYEN]
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 11:55:28 PDT
Date: Tue 13 May 86 11:44:21-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: [Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: TALK BY VAN NGUYEN]
To: planlunch.dis: ;
PLANLUNCH-ers may also be interested in the following talk:
---------------
Return-Path: <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA (SRI-STRIPE.ARPA.#Internet) by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Mon 12 May 86 20:37:47-PDT
Date: Mon 12 May 86 20:35:16-PDT
From: Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: TALK BY VAN NGUYEN
To: aic-associates@SRI-AI.ARPA, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: nguyes@IBM.COM
DATE: May 14, 1986
TIME: 4:15pm
TITLE: "Knowledge, Communication, and Time"
SPEAKER: Van Nguyen
LOCATION: SRI International
Ravenswood Avenue
Building E
CONFERENCE ROOM: EJ228
COFFEE: Waldinger's Office
EK292
3:45pm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
KNOWLEDGE, COMMUNICATION, AND TIME
Van Nguyen
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
(Joint work with Kenneth J. Perry)
Abstract
The role that knowledge plays in distributed systems has come under
much study recently. In this talk, we re-examine the commonly
accepted definition of knowledge and examine how appropriate it is for
distributed computing. Motivated by the draw-backs thus exposed, we
propose an alternative definition that we believe to be better suited
to the task. This definition handles multiple knowers and makes
explicit the connection between knowledge, communication, and time.
It also emphasizes the fact that knowledge is a function of one's
initial knowledge, communication history and deductive abilities. The
need for assuming perfect reasoning is mitigated.
Having formalized these links, we then present the first proof
system for programs that incorporates both knowledge and time. The
proof system is compositional, sound and relatively complete, and is
an extension of the Nguyen-Demers-Gries-Owicki temporal proof system
for processes. Suprisingly, it does not require proofs of
non-interference (as first defined by Owicki-Gries).
-------
∂13-May-86 1406 MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Print Document
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 14:06:02 PDT
Date: Tue 13 May 86 13:11:31-PDT
From: Marjorie Maxwell <MARJORIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Print Document
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: consultants@SU-CSLI.ARPA
One of our consultants, Yi-Chin Lee has prepared a file explaining the usage
of all the different printers. It is under DOC:CSLI-PRINT.DOC. He also made
summaries for Turing, Russell and the Dandelions. I will make copies of the
summaries and if anyone is interested in having a copy please come in and
see me (G-4 in the trailers) or I will leave some copies in the consultants'
office - H-5.
Marjorie
-------
∂13-May-86 1439 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA copyrights
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 14:39:33 PDT
Date: 13 May 1986 12:41-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: copyrights
Subject: [MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA: copyrights]
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]13-May-86 12:41:53.MATHIS>
Sorry this didn't go out because of my typing mistake. In my
opinion, we do not have to form a corporation just to hold the
copyright. For the moment we can begin work on a new document
and we own it until its copyright is assigned; if ANSI doesn't
accept what we have done, they have no right to withhold it from
publication. -- Bob
Begin forwarded message
Received: By USC-ISIF.ARPA via direct-append with Hermes; 9 May 86 14:03:22-PDT
Date: 9 May 1986 14:03-PDT
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl←steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: copyrights
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 9-May-86 14:03:19.MATHIS>
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Scott, et al,
I will take on the direct negotiation with ANSI on this point.
Scott's point about a prearranged royalty is a good fall back
position. The main thing to ANSI seems to be recovering the
basic cost of publication (not so much a concern for profits).
When we did Ada, DoD provided ANSI some copies that were to be
given to other national standards bodies. A similar idea here
might take some of the financial pressure off. It may also be
possible to arrange some other publication mechanism.
I understand Scott's point about not wanting to make the same
mistakes over again.
About timing; this is going to take a few months. There is no
problem with our working to make a derived work from the Steele
book and including whatever from the Lucid manual that may be
appropriate (both seem willing to let us start from their current
works if they have some rights to use the result). We have not
at this point made any commitment to ANSI or X3 to give them the
result of our work. All these things have to be negotiated.
I talked to some ANSI people earlier this week. They keep
reminding me that I never do anything quite the usual way; but I
remind them that I've had enough of that same old stuff. Anyway
they think there is something that can be worked out. The next
couple of weeks are bad ones for them, because of another large
meeting in the US. I will try to arrange a time when I can meet
with them and work things out face-to-face.
So far I have not seen any message on this topic which disagrees
with my philosophy or approach. If any of you think there are
other points to consider or options to be explored, PLEASE LET ME
KNOW.
Bob
--------------------
End forwarded message
∂13-May-86 1742 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 May 86 17:41:54 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 13 May 86 20:42:56-EDT
Date: Tue, 13 May 1986 20:42 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12206481022.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 13 May 1986 15:41-EDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
I've got no philosphical differences with what Bob suggests, but I do
have a legal quibble:
As I understand the copyright law, we can't just "own the new document
until the copyright is assigned" unless we prevent members of the
community from getting copies of the new work. If we distribute the
draft specification widely without some sort of copyright notice on it,
that puts the text in the public domain. That is irreversible. ANSI
could later add a preface of some sort and copyright THAT, but anyone
would have the right to distribute the text with whatever changes they
feel like putting in.
That might not be so bad. Anyone wanting a definitive version with no
possibility of changes would have to come to ANSI or to us, depending on
who they trust. So ANSI might end up selling as many copies this way as
any other. And the rest of us could just forget about lawyers. It
might create some confusion to have mutant versions floating around, but
we could get the word out that only copies that are certified by ANSI
are to be treated as definitive. And it would minimize the amount of
lawyering needed. If ANSI and DEC or Lucid were willing to go along,
this is the route I'd prefer. It's hard to imagine DEC agreeing to
allow a derivitive work in the public domain; I'm not sure about Lucid.
If we don't want to go public-domain, either we keep the new manual out
of general circulation -- impossible -- or we have to put a copyright
notice on it. I think that means an individual or corporation ahs to be
named as the legal entity owning the copyright. So we have to either
form an organization or name one of us to "own" the manual until we turn
some of the rights over to ANSI. And we have to get permission from DEC
or Lucid to use their text in the way we specify. We can't start work
modifying their sources until we have that permission.
If I'm wrong about the legailities here, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
-- Scott
cl-steering
copyright holder
I think the organization that holds the copyright can be entirely informal,
i.e. the notice can be Copyright Common Lisp Steering Committee.
It can assign the copyright later. A lawyer won't like it, because
he'll ask, "What if the members fall out?". In so far as there is
confidence that people will continue to get along, this will work.
Legally it will be a partnership, and it would be best if the
organization as such never received any money.
∂13-May-86 2220 JMC copyright holder
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I think the organization that holds the copyright can be entirely informal,
i.e. the notice can be Copyright Common Lisp Steering Committee.
It can assign the copyright later. A lawyer won't like it, because
he'll ask, "What if the members fall out?". In so far as there is
confidence that people will continue to get along, this will work.
Legally it will be a partnership, and it would be best if the
organization as such never received any money.
∂14-May-86 0621 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU copyright holder
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 06:21:26 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 14 May 86 09:22:33-EDT
Date: Wed, 14 May 1986 09:22 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12206619304.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: copyright holder
In-reply-to: Msg of 14 May 1986 01:20-EDT from John McCarthy <JMC at SU-AI.ARPA>
If copyrighting this document under "Common Lisp Steering Committee" (or
"Technical Committee" or both, whatever we decide is best) is legal it
could save us all a lot of hassle. We'd want to do something more
formal before we turn it over to someone for approval or publication,
but this could allow us to get started. The biggest remaining question
is whether Lucid and/or Digital Press will agree to turn over rights to
create a derivitive work to such a group.
-- Scott
∂14-May-86 0742 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA copyright holder
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 07:42:43 PDT
Date: 14 May 1986 07:44-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: copyright holder
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]14-May-86 07:44:12.MATHIS>
One of the problems in standards work is liability. As an
informal partnership we can certainly copyright the various
working documents; but we should be clear that this is only a
technical proposal, which should keep us out of legal problems
until we get very close to the standardization (by which time
this will all have to be resolved).
Two recent situations point up potential difficulties. In one a
manufacturer of steam pressure gauges went out of business
because of a change in standards for such gauges by the Amer Soc
of Mech Eng; they sued and won. In another situation a life
insurance company threatened to sue members of the COBOL
Committee over changes they were proposing which might cost users
of the standard; they hasn't really happened (yet). I don't
think we are in any danger if we continue to treat our work at
this stage as a technical proposal. By the time we get to the
voting phases of the standards process, we will have all these
issues resolved.
-- Bob
∂14-May-86 0917 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 09:17:46 PDT
Date: Wed 14 May 86 09:16:35-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206650999.9.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Calendar advisory:
There will be a faculty meeting on Thursday, May 22 at 4:00 in MJH 146 to
consider new faculty appointment recommendations. Please mark it on your
calendars.
More details on this will follow next week.
-Anne
-------
∂14-May-86 0923 RPG Gentlemen,
To: CL-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Here is the list of addresses to which the CL-Steering address forwards.
Please note the mailing list at Symbolics. I presume this includes exactly
Moon and Weinreb. #msg.msg[jnk,jmc] is a private mail file of McCarthy's.
I have deleted from this list, for the purposes of this message, the
archiving entry at SAIL.
rpg,
gls%GODOT.THINK.COM,
#msg.msg[jnk,jmc],
squires@IPTO.ARPA,
Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA,
ohlander@USC-ISIE.ARPA,
fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU,
bobrow.pa@XEROX.COM,
CL-Steering-from-SU-AI@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA,
alan@AI.AI.MIT.EDU,
jar@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU,
griss@HPLABS.ARPA,
RAM@C.CS.CMU.EDU
∂14-May-86 1029 DLW@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Gentlemen,
Received: from [192.10.41.223] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 10:29:31 PDT
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 19120; Wed 14-May-86 13:19:17 EDT
Date: Wed, 14 May 86 13:23 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Subject: Gentlemen,
To: RPG@SU-AI.ARPA, CL-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: The message of 14 May 86 12:23 EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Message-ID: <860514132300.4.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: 14 May 86 0923 PDT
From: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Please note the mailing list at Symbolics. I presume this includes exactly
Moon and Weinreb.
That's right.
∂14-May-86 1155 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Mike Genesereth
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 11:55:23 PDT
Date: Wed 14 May 86 11:41:13-PDT
From: Betty Scott <BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Mike Genesereth
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: BScott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206677328.17.BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The promotion of Mike Genesereth to Associate Professor with tenure was approved
by the Board of Trustees at yesterday's meeting. Congratulations to Mike from
all of us.
Betty
-------
∂14-May-86 1503 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Sinking Explorer consoles
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 15:03:06 PDT
Date: Wed 14 May 86 14:57:30-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Sinking Explorer consoles
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12206713060.34.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
If you have noticed any Explorers consoles "sinking" after being
placed at some height, please let me know the name of that (those)
Explorer(s).
Thanks,
-- Rich
-------
∂14-May-86 1710 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 15, No. 16
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 17:10:40 PDT
Date: Wed 14 May 86 16:46:19-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, May 15, No. 16
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
May 15, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 16
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, May 15, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall A Critique of Pure Reason
Conference Room by Drew McDermott
Discussion led by Pat Hayes (PHayes@sri-kl)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Beyond the Chalkboard: Computer Support for
Trailer Classroom Collaboration and Problem Solving in Meetings
(Part 3 of 3)
Mark Stefik, Intelligent Systems Lab., Xerox PARC
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Transfer of f-structures Across Natural Languages
Room G-19 Tom Reutter, Weidner Communications Corp., Chicago
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, May 22, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Stalnaker on the Semantics of Conditionals
Conference Room Ch 7 ``Conditional Propositions,'' Inquiry
by Robert Stalnaker
Discussion led by Chris Swoyer (Swoyer@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Events and Modes of Representing Change
Trailer Classroom Carol Cleland (Cleland@csli)
(Abstract in next week's calendar)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Title to be announced
Room G-19 Nick Negroponte, MIT Media Lab.
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar May 15, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
THIS WEEK'S TINLUNCH
A Critique of Pure Reason
by Drew McDermott
Discussion led by Pat Hayes (PHayes@sri-kl)
In this recent manuscript, McDermott documents his disillusion with
the `logicist' view of knowledge representation in AI, i.e., the idea
that the language of thought is something like first-order predicate
calculus, and---more especially---that processes of thought are
something like the drawing of valid conclusions from stored
assumptions. McDermott has been, in spite of his upbringing at MIT,
one of the vocal advocates of this point of view ( often identified
with Stanford in AI circles), so this volte-face is especially
interesting. His main thesis is the rejection of the claim that a
clear objective semantics for a representational language requires
that it be regarded as a logic, and process on it as inferences. His
examples are largely drawn from the literature on `qualitative' or
`naive' physics.
--------------
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
Stalnaker on the Semantics of Conditionals
Ch. 7 ``Conditional Propositions,'' Inquiry
by Robert Stalnaker
Discussion led by Chris Swoyer, University of Oklahoma (Swoyer@csli)
In this chapter Stalnaker presents his latest thoughts on a semantics
for conditionals (both subjunctive and indicative) and defends his
account against criticisms by David Lewis and others, focusing on such
topics as conditional excluded middle, `would' vs. `might'
conditionals, and Lewis' limit assumption.
------------
LOGIC SEMINAR
Maslov's Theory of Gentzen Type Systems
Prof. Vladimir Lifschitz, San Jose State University
4:15, Tuesday, May 20, Math. Dept. 383-N
-------
∂14-May-86 2347 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA WARNING: Free speech may be hazardous to your funding
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 May 86 23:47:45 PDT
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 14 May 86 22:02:04-PDT
Date: Wed 14 May 86 16:56:55-PDT
From: Terry Winograd <WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: WARNING: Free speech may be hazardous to your funding
To: su-bboards@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Those readers who take DoD funding but have criticized (or are thinking
of criticizing) the Star Wars program (or any other policies of the DoD)
might be interested in the following, from the April 25 issue of Science
(page 444):
Hicks Attacks SDI Critics
Last summer, Under Secretary of Defense Donald Hicks rasised some
eyebrows in the academic community when he sharply criticized opponents
of the President's "Star Wars" missile defense effort and implied that
in the future only advocates of the program need apply for military
research grants. "I am not particularly interested in seeing department
money going to someplace where an individual is outspoken in his
rejection of department aims, even for basic research," he told the
Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on 25
July.
In a recent interview with Science, Hicks was asked if he really meant
that only those who agreed with the agency should receive its funds.
"Absolutely," he said. "What I'm saying is that the Department of
Defense is given money for DEFENSE. Those who want to accept the money
to help us with the programs we need, we want to have. But I don't
particularly view it as appropriate when somebody says we don't like the
way you're running the department, but we sure like your money."
...Hicks said that he is principally upset about computer scientists who
depend in part on DoD support, but voice skepticism about the
feasibility of creating the software demanded by a comprehensive missile
defense.
"If they want to get out and use their roles as professors to make
statements, that's fine, it's a free country," Hicks said. "But freedom
works both ways. They're free to keep their mouths shut ... [and] I'm
also free not to give the money." "I have a tough time with disloyalty,"
he added.
-------
∂15-May-86 0616 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa AFLB-like talk
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 06:16:09 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 06:12:09-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: AFLB-like talk
To: aflb.local@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12206879566.9.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
The Database Research Seminar, to be held at 3:15 tomorrow (Friday,
May 16th) in the usual AFLB room (MJ352), is of AFLB interest:
-----------------------------
The Cost and Power of Locking
Peter Rathmann
Kbms Project
Stanford University
Consider two transactions A and B, composed of m and n
atomic steps respectively. Let a fixpoint H be a subset of all
possible shuffles of the steps of A and B. [Papadimitriou-82]
gave a necessary and sufficient condition for H to be the
realizable set of all sequences of steps legal under some
locking program. This talk addresses two questions this work
left unanswered. First, how many locks does it take to realize
a given fixpoint set? Second, what sets are realizable as
fixpoints of some locking program in the case of three or more
transactions? Here, in response to the first query, we
demonstrate that for two transactions, any fixpoint set which
satisfies this condition may be realized with O(m↑2 n) locks,
while for three or more transactions, we show the existence of
realizable fixpoint sets which require a number of locks
exponential in the number of transaction steps. We also give a
partial response to the second question, by developing necessary
conditions for the realization of a set as the fixpoint of a
locking program.
-------
∂15-May-86 0910 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa ACM Dissertation competition reminder
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 09:10:30 PDT
Received: from su-sushi.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Thu 15 May 86 09:09:31-PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 09:07:56-PDT
From: Joseph I. Pallas <PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: ACM Dissertation competition reminder
To: faculty@su-sushi.arpa
cc: "ACM Dissertation committee": ;
Message-ID: <12206911566.14.PALLAS@su-sushi.arpa>
This is to remind you that nominations for the ACM Dissertation
competition are due by tomorrow, May 16. The committee will be
starting the decision process next week, so nominations must be
received by the end of this week.
Don't forget that nominations should include a one-page description of
the significance of the thesis.
joe
-------
∂15-May-86 0958 YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA BIG BIKE ROUND-UP
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 09:58:51 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 09:52:59-PDT
From: Tom Yamarone <YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: BIG BIKE ROUND-UP
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
FOLKS!
Today has been declared a CSLI-BIG-BIKE-ROUND-UP day...
If you are in possession of one of the Gold Fleet, and you
are not at Ventura Hall, either bring the bike back before
2 PM
or reply to this message with the whereabouts of the bike.
(This would also apply if you've used a bike and have it
parked somewhere else or if you've seen one of the Goldies
abandoned somewhere....e.g. The Bookstore, Tresidder Union.)
We do these round-ups periodically to maintain the highest
operational capabilities for the fleet....we run the tightest
ship in the biking business... and we thank you for your help.
Big Bro.
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∂15-May-86 1001 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa
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Date: Thu, 15 May 86 09:54:15 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
To: nail@diablo
Meeting today!
Jeff N. will talk about pushing selections thru recursions.
∂15-May-86 1702 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:jlh@su-amadeus.arpa New Addition to the Faculty
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Date: 15 May 1986 1514-PDT (Thursday)
From: John Hennessy <jlh@su-amadeus.arpa>
To: faculty@score, students@score, csl-faculty@shasta, csl-students@shasta
Cc: white@sierra, wooley@su-amadeus.arpa, gibbons@score
Subject: New Addition to the Faculty
I am delighted to announce that Anoop Gupta will be joining us
as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in January 1987.
Anoop has recently completed his PhD at CMU in the area of
architectures for production rule systems. He will be a welcome
addition to the Computer Systems Laboratory and to the Computer Science
Department.
∂15-May-86 1704 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 1
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 17:03:17 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 15:57:01-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 1
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
C S L I M O N T H L Y
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 1986 Vol. 1, No. 3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A monthly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
------------------
CONTENTS
Modular Programming Language Semantics
(A Subproject of STASS)
by J. A. Goguen and J. Meseguer part 1
Project Reports part 2
Situation Theory and Situation Semantics (STASS)
by Jon Barwise part 2
Semantics of Computer Languages
by Terry Winograd part 3
Approaches to Computer Languages (LACL)
by Stuart Shieber and Hans Uszkoreit part 4
Lexical Project
by Annie Zaenen part 4
Phonology and Phonetics
by Paul Kiparsky part 5
Finite State Morphology (FSM)
by Lauri Karttunen part 6
Japanese Syntax Workshop part 6
CSLI Postdoctoral Fellows part 6
Jean Mark Gawron
Helene Kirchner
Ed Zalta
CSLI Snapshots: Lucy Suchman part 7
Giants Fold in Ninth; CSLI Presence Blamed
By our Special Correspondent part 7
------------------
MODULAR PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE SEMANTICS
(A Subproject of STASS)
J. A. Goguen and J. Meseguer
Some computations, such as evaluating a numerical function or
sorting a list, are "context independent", in the sense that just
their input determines the final result. By contrast, a query to a
database or to an airline reservation system involves computations
that can be best understood as "context dependent", in the sense that
the final result also depends on background information already
available to the computer system. This background information is
usually referred to as the "state" of the system, and it usually
appears as an implicit parameter in the computation. This distinction
provides a rough division of programming languages into two classes:
1) "Declarative" languages, which provide mainly context independent
computation
2) "Imperative" languages, where states are implicit and computation is
generally context dependent
[NOTE: Some recent work on unifying functional and object-oriented
programming seems to transcend this distinction, perhaps suggesting
that a somewhat different point of view should be taken.]
Giving formal semantics for declarative languages is generally simpler
than for imperative languages. This is because tools from traditional
mathematical logic apply directly to declarative languages. In fact,
most declarative languages have been designed with a particular
mathematical theory in mind. This includes "functional" languages
such as pure LISP (consisting essentially of recursive function
definitions) and OBJ (consisting of function definitions in
many-sorted equational logic), as well as "relational logic
programming languages" such as pure PROLOG (consisting of Horn clause
definitions of relations). More generally, we suggest the class of
"logical programming languages", whose programs consist of sentences
in some logical system, and whose computations are (reasonably
efficient forms of) deductions in that system; this class includes
both functional and relational languages, as well as their
unification, as in the language EQLOG that we have developed at CSLI.
[NOTE: The notion of a logical programming language can be made more
formal by using the notion of "institution" of Goguen and Burstall.]
By contrast, the semantics of imperative languages is necessarily
more complex, and has required the development of new tools. The
greatest achievements have been made using Scott-Strachey
"denotational semantics". In denotational semantics, the parameters
implicit in a computation are made explicit, and the denotation of a
program text is a higher order function belonging to a complex domain
of denotations. In a certain sense, this is similar to Montague's
approach to natural language semantics. In spite of denotational
semantics' great contributions, two important problems remain
unsolved:
1) Modularity of programming language features
2) Comprehensibility of semantic definitions
The first problem has to do with the meanings given to programming
language features, such as assignment, DO-WHILE, and procedure call;
we would like to give "once-and-for-all" definitions of such features
that can be used in the semantics of any language having that feature.
This contrasts with standard denotational definitions, which may
require providing extra levels of higher order functions (called
"continuations") when interactions with other features occur (for
example, adding GO-TO's or implicit backtracking to a language
previously lacking them will be likely to cause problems). Montague
semantics exhibits a similar lack of modularity, reflected in the need
to raise the level of the higher order functions that are the
denotations of the different language constituents when new ones are
added to the grammar; for instance, a function from individuals to
truth values might suffice as the denotation of the verb "run" in the
phrase "John Brown runs", but a function of a higher order would be
needed for "All men run".
The second problem has to do with the fact that denotational
definitions may involve hundreds of pages and be quite hard to read
even for specialists. Of course, lack of feature modularity is part
of the problem, since this makes semantic definitions nonreusable, so
that each feature has to be reconstructed in the context of each
different language. Another serious and closely related difficulty
comes from the fact that all the implicit parameters have to be made
explicit, so that definitions can become quite cluttered. Thus, for
realistic programming languages, it is very difficult to use
denotational techniques in formulating machine-independent standards
or in generating compilers directly from language definitions.
We hope to overcome these problems by using situation theory with an
explicit distinction between foreground and background. This
distinction, which is not made by denotational approaches, seems to be
crucial for overcoming the two problems mentioned above. The
advantage of situation theory is that it permits us to deal with
information in a context, so that information is made explicit only
relative to a background. This seems ideally suited to the semantics
of imperative languages, and it is even useful for specifying the
operational semantics of declarative languages, where one is
interested in how things are actually computed, and in problems
concerning the control of such computations. Another reason for being
interested in using situation theory in this way is that it permits a
relatively direct comparison between the semantics of natural
languages and programming languages; indeed, there seem to be some
important structural similarities, as well as some interesting
differences.
In this approach, which we are developing as part of the STASS Project
(see the STASS report in this issue), we conceive the semantics of
programming language features as "actions" that transform one
computational situation into another. A computational situation is
understood as having different components, such as control,
environment, store, and input-output. By splitting these components
apart, yet treating them within a single formalism, we attempt to
regain feature modularity. For example, a GO-TO can be seen as
affecting only the control situation, without affecting the rest of
the computational situation. In such an account, the addition of new
features need not change the semantic definitions of previous
features, although it may well introduce new and more complex
structures into the embedding situation. We have already studied
several common features of imperative programming languages, as well
as some control issues for logic programming, from this point of view.
Another part of this study is to develop a graphical notation both for
computational situations, and for the situation-theoretic axioms
involved in defining programming language features. As well as being
very intuitive (once it has become familiar), such a notation has the
advantage of being independent from any present or future variations
in situation theory, thus permitting our descriptive work to proceed
in parallel with the development of adequate theoretical foundations.
The graphical notation could also be used in the user interface of a
programming language design system based on situation theory. One can
envision such a system generating compilers from knowing what features
are to be provided, and what their syntax is.
Along somewhat more general lines, since we view the meaning of a
programming language feature as an action that transforms one
situation into another, this work has been providing the STASS group
with some examples and stimulus for a systematic theory of action in
situation theory.
---------------------
end of part 1 of 7
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∂15-May-86 1730 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA shattering old myths
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Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:26:17-PDT
From: Stuart Reges <REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: shattering old myths
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 030C, 723-9798
Message-ID: <12206991365.22.REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I have been collecting some statistics to use in our battle for more funding,
and I thought I would share some. Several different measures all indicate that:
o Our teaching has tripled in the last 10 years, doubled in the last 5.
o We do 4% of the teaching that goes on at Stanford, even though we have
less than 2% of the faculty and probably less than 1% of the TA money.
o Only one-fourth of our teaching load comes from CS majors.
o We are now one of the big service departments along with English,
Math, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry. We have more bodies in classes
than any of them, and are third in number of units.
I hope that with this data we can finally put to rest some of the ridiculous
accusations like, "Your faculty don't teach enough," or, "You aren't as big as
Math," or, "You just spend all your money on your own graduate students."
If there is sufficient interest, I will distribute the detailed statistics.
-------
∂15-May-86 1751 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 2
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Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:06:26-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 2
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
PROJECT REPORTS
SITUATION THEORY AND SITUATION SEMANTICS (STASS)
Jon Barwise
Project Participants: Curtis Abbott, Jon Barwise (Project Leader),
Brian Smith, John Etchemendy, Mark Gawron,
Joseph Goguen, Kris Halvorsen, David Israel,
John Perry, Jose Meseguer, Ken Olson,
Stanley Peters, Carl Pollard, Mats Rooth,
Susan Stucky, Dag Westerstahl
The STASS Project represents a coordinated effort both to develop a
unified theory of meaning and information content, and to apply that
theory to specific problems that have arisen within the various
disciplines represented within the group: AI, Computer Science,
Linguistics, Logic, and Philosophy. The guiding idea behind the
formation of this group was to use provisional versions of situation
theory to give detailed analyses of the semantics of natural and
computer languages. This serves both to hone intuitions about the
information theoretic structures required by such analyses, and to
provide criteria of adequacy for our theory of such structures. The
goal is to make these intuitions and criteria become precise enough to
provide the basis of a mathematically rigorous, axiomatic theory of
information content that could be used in all these various
disciplines.
The group has five subprojects: semantics of natural and computer
languages, situated inference, representation theory, and axiomatizing
situation theory. In the limited space available here, I will report
on only one small aspect of our work over the past few months, one
that cuts across the first two subprojects. Other aspects will be
discussed in future newsletters, as well as in CSLI Reports from the
group.
Researchers at CSLI recognize the many cross-cutting ways in which
implicit aspects of information-bearing structures interact to affect
meaning, content, and information flow. An adequate theory must
provide accounts of all these implicit aspects, and explain how they
interact. It is natural to provide at least partially independent
accounts (modules) for each of the related aspects. For example, in
the case of utterances, the syntax module would provide an account of
a system of interrelated grammatical features. In developing such
modules, it is important to remember that the full theory must relate
all the modules to each other and to the properties of the utterance.
Thus it is a crucial mistake to move from modularity to autonomy,
emphasizing economy and elegance at the level of the individual
module, disregarding the module's role in the theory as a whole. For
example, to restrict one's semantic devices to (unary) function
application (as in much of semantics) has led to unnecessary
complications in the description of the semantics of nonapplicative
programming languages, and in the semantics of, e.g., "wh-constructs"
in natural language.
An information theoretic perspective suggests a unified way of looking
at these modules and their interaction. Consider the following
well-known example.
(1) I saw a man out walking.
What are the facts? For one, we see that we can use this sentence to
describe two quite different kinds of situations, one in which the
reporter was out walking, the other in which the man seen was the
walker. Alongside this semantic ambiguity, there is arguably a
syntactic or structural ambiguity in the sentence: what the
prepositional phrase modifies, the verb "see" or the noun "man".
What matters, for the theorist, are various correlations. First,
note that which syntactic structure is appropriate is correlated with
which type of situation is described. Second, which pair is
appropriate, in a given case, would seem to depend on some fact about
the speaker -- i.e., about something else again, not grammatical
structure, not described situation, but the context in which the
utterance takes place. Thus we see that a feature of the context is
correlated with facts about both the described situation and the
grammatical situation.
Things can be more complicated yet. Notice, for example, that if
we read or hear (1), we will usually be able to tell which reading is
appropriate, not because the speaker tells us, but because of other
features of the background. Thus, for example, if the previous
discourse has already established that the reporter was looking out
his window, the second reading will be appropriate. Thus, in
appropriate circumstances, discourse features of the background of the
utterance are themselves correlated with grammatical structure, with
the described situation, and with facts about the speaker.
It is easy to ask the wrong question at this point: which of these
four comes first, which second, and so on? Which is most basic? On
the present perspective, one need not answer such questions. Rather,
one needs to do three things:
(i) describe each of the implicit aspects;
(ii) state the relationships among all four aspects; and
(iii) show how information about any one can give information about
others.
The last two requirements strongly suggest using a single descriptive
framework for all the theoretical modules needed in (i). This is of
course contrary to most current practice, in which very different
systems are used to describe different information-bearing aspects of
utterances (trees for syntax, model theoretic structures for
semantics, etc.). However, since the aspects treated by each module
are, in fact, structures containing information about the others, it
seems that a theory of information content should provide a uniform
method for describing these modules, and their interaction. We take
this as one criterion of adequacy of an information theoretic account
of language.
In providing a framework for developing grammatical modules under
this conception, situation theory has proven to be a useful tool.
First, as Stucky has argued, it is important to consider linguistic
representations (both theories and their notations) under
interpretation, i.e., viewing the representations themselves as
deserving of semantic interpretation in the world. This view not only
provides a clearer articulation of the relation between form, meaning,
and interpretation, and shows the way to a notion of representational
equivalence whereby different theories can be compared, it also
provides a mechanism for writing constraint-based linguistic
descriptions without losing the insights provided by older sequential
models. (Of course, it is to be expected that some facts may turn out
to be nonfacts under the new view, and that new facts will emerge.)
Stucky first shows how to interpret a linguistic formalism in
situation theoretic terms, in such a way as to free the linguistic
description from the sequential model. Then, using the tools for
stating constraints that situation theory provides, she develops a
fragment in which constraints hold among various subsystems of
grammar. The additional flexibility, she argues, will allow in
principle for previously intractable phenomena (such as the
constraints holding between the form of language and the discourse
domain) to be seriously investigated.
This perspective also helps to untangle a number of previously
difficult semantical issues. Consider problems of quantifier scope.
Several members of the group have been investigating how general noun
phrases (also called quantifiers) like "every philosopher", "no
chair", and "most linguists" are interpreted. A long-standing problem
connected with semantically interpreting such quantifiers in human
languages is that they are often ambiguous as to their "scope". For
instance, the sentence
(2) It's fun to play most of those games
can be used to make either the statement that playing a majority of
the games in question is enjoyable (possibly because of the
relationships between them, not because any one is fun to play), or
the statement that each one of more than half of the games is
enjoyable. The first statement corresponds to the "narrow scope"
interpretation of the quantifier "most of those games", and the second
to a "wide scope" interpretation. Similarly, there are two possible
interpretations of the sentence
(3) No one has read most of those books
according to whether "most of those books" has narrower or wider scope
than the quantifier "no one".
Previous approaches to the problem fall into two classes. The
largest class comprises those analyses that postulate distinct
syntactic structures or "logical forms" for different scopings of
quantifiers; each such structure is interpreted unambiguously, with
quantifiers taking particular, specified scopes. The other, smaller
class of analyses, assigns multiple semantic values to each phrase of
the sentence, some of these semantic values consisting of two parts: a
parametrized meaning for the phrase (one which depends on the value of
a "free" parameter), plus a collection of operators including one
which will bind that parameter.
On the view sketched above, understanding language involves seeing
how information flows back and forth between modules in the analysis
of particular utterances -- in recognizing the structure of the
sentence, facts about the speaker and background, and relating these
to information carried about a situation it describes. The problem of
obtaining multiple interpretations of utterances of sentences like (2)
and (3) appears in a different light, given this view. We believe
that such sentences have only one syntactic structure. The way in
which the single structure becomes associated with either of two
interpretations involves different ways in which information about the
context of utterance can flow through that structure. That is which
interpretation is appropriate is controlled by facts about the
speaker, including intentions, in the utterance situation. Assigning
the narrow scope interpretation to "most of those games" in (2) or
"most of those books" in (3) presents no particular problems on any
theory; information simply flows in one direction through the tree
structure, or its situation theoretic equivalent. However,
determining whether those quantifiers have scope over the predicate
"fun" or the quantifier "no one" requires, in effect, that information
about that predicate or quantifier flow "down the tree" to the
embedded verb phrase "play most of those games" or "read most of those
books" so that it is available for combining with information about
the interpretation of the verbs "play" or "read" before the result is
combined with the interpretation of the quantifier "most...". Once
the latter combination is performed, the result flows directly "up" to
the sentence as a whole. Thus the process of assigning a wide scope
interpretation to the quantifier "most..." does not provide an
interpretation for the embedded verb phrase. This consequence of our
analysis yields the striking prediction that a sentence such as
(4) Few people have read most of those books, but Bill has
can mean that Bill is among the few people who have read a majority of
the books in question, but cannot mean that most of the books have the
property that Bill and only a few other people have read them. Thus we
would seek to explain this fact and various related ones, which were
discovered by Ivan Sag and studied extensively by him in a very
different semantic framework.
A rather different sort of application comes from the issues in the
semantics of computer languages. Goguen and Meseguer have found the
ability to deal in a separate but equal way with foreground and
background to be crucial in their effort to achieve "feature
modularity" for programming language semantics. Feature modularity
allows the semantics of a feature, such as "assignment", to be given
once and for all; it does not need to be changed when a new feature,
such as "go-to" is later added to a language. By contrast, in
standard approaches, such as denotational semantics, the semantics
previously given to a feature may require drastic alteration when new
features are added.
From the present perspective, the problem with achieving modularity
in standard approaches stemmed from the attempt to have a single
module treating information about control, environment, store, and
output and defined over the syntactic modules where programs are
defined. Splitting these apart, but treating them with a single
descriptive system, promises to help us regain feature modularity.
Thus, for example, a "go-to" can be seen as affecting the control
situation, which is like the background situation in the natural
language case, and need have no effect whatsoever on any of the rest.
With such an account of a language, the addition of new features need
not change the semantic definitions of previous features, although it
may well introduce new and more complex structures in the embedding
situation. Several programming language features have already been
studied from this point of view, and a graphical language for feature
specification that is naturally associated to their situation
theoretic structures is being developed. This work has uncovered
interesting connections with a theory of action in situation
semantics, where actions are understood as transformations of
situations.
The formal machinery for expressing the relationships between these
different situations goes beyond the scope of this note. Suffice it
to say, for those familiar with the theory, that they all involve
constraints expressed in terms of relations between parametric states
of affairs. This perspective has been quite useful in thinking about
these problems, but the problems have also led to refinements and
enrichments of situation theory. So the group feels that the initial
motivation for the STASS project was a very sound one.
end of part 2 of 7
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∂15-May-86 1810 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA Want to advise freshman?
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 18:10:45 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 17:25:39-PDT
From: Stuart Reges <REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Want to advise freshman?
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 030C, 723-9798
Message-ID: <12207002173.17.REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Our Department has been asked to provide a total of 7 freshman advisors next
year. This is based on the formula that faculty should advise 24 students on
the average and taking into account our graduate and projected undergraduate
enrollments. Nils and Ernst have already volunteered and I have two other
volunteers up my sleeve, so I need three more. If you are interested, please
let me know. It does take some time to advise the freshman, but I think Nils
and Ernst (former advisors) will agree with me that it can also be personally
rewarding.
-------
∂15-May-86 1900 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 3
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 19:00:28 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:07:32-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 3
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
SEMANTICS OF COMPUTER LANGUAGES
Terry Winograd
Project Participants: Mary Holstege, Jens Kaasboll, Birgit Landgrebe,
Kim Halskov Madsen, Kurt Normark, Liam Peyton,
Terry Winograd (Project Leader)
The goal of this project is to develop the theory of semantics of
computational languages, through the design of a specific family of
languages for system description and development. Our strategy can be
described as an interweaving of three levels: theory, experiments, and
environments.
A. Theory
Our goal is to develop theories that will serve as the basis for a
variety of constructed languages for describing, analyzing, and
designing real world situations and systems. A number of issues come
up in this context that have not been adequately dealt with, either in
work on natural language semantics or on the semantics of programming
languages. The following two examples illustrate the kind of analysis
we will develop through the experimental work described below.
1) Abstraction and approximation: In describing any complex real world
situation, people mix descriptions at different levels of abstraction
and detail. There are "higher-level" descriptions which in some way
or another simplify the account that is needed at a "lower" level.
There are a number of dimensions along which these simplifications are
made:
Generalization: Using more general categories (e.g., "tool") to
describe objects (or events or activities) that could be given more
precise classifications ("hammer", "saw", etc.)
Composition: Describing collections of objects (or activities,
etc.) in terms of composites without specifying their decomposition
into components. For example, describing the activity of a word
processor using elements like "update the screen" without giving
further detail of the components of the activity.
Idealization: Describing some kind of "standard" or "normal" case,
leaving out the details (or even whole dimensions) needed for some
actually occurring situations. Commonly, program descriptions
(even formal specifications) deal only with the cases in which
everything goes "normally" (e.g., no arithmetic overflows, user
interrupts, equipment malfunctions, etc., etc.)
Analogy: Describing one situation by giving a similar one (in some
dimensions) and specifying (explicitly or implicitly) a mapping from
one to the other.
This list could be extended further, but these are sufficient to get
the basic point. In working with practical languages (such as
programming and specification languages) there is a "semantic
discontinuity" in moving from one abstraction or approximation to
another. In the simple cases (e.g., straightforward composition)
there can be a clear mapping, but we do not yet have the theories to
deal adequately with more general cases.
We do not claim to be able to produce full answers to problems such
as analogy, but there is much that can be done in developing a
semantic theory adequate for dealing with these phenomena. In
particular, we want to develop a theory of the mapping between
different semantic domains and its relation to the "breakdowns" that
arise with respect to a given characterization (or "account").
The major accomplishment along theoretical lines during 1985-86 was
the completion and publication of a book coauthored by Winograd (with
Fernando Flores of Action Technologies and Logonet), entitled
Understanding Computers and Cognition. It lays a
theoretical/philosophical background for working on the more specific
questions of semantics, and served as a basis for discussions held in
conjunction with the Representation and Reasoning project. These
included the development of some concrete examples of representation
and idealization in computer systems (in particular, a
courses-and-grades system for a university registrar, and a simple
elevator controller). These and subsequent discussions led to the
writing of a paper on the foundations of representation, from the
perspective of the Winograd and Flores book (Winograd, forthcoming b),
which will be issued as a CSLI document later this summer, with hopes
of being refined (as a result of the ensuing discussion) for journal
publication. This paper and the material in the book will be the
basis for a CSLI seminar in May on "Why language isn't information".
2) Physical embodiment: Much of the work on computing languages has
dealt with the computer in a mathematical domain of inputs and
outputs, ignoring its embodiment as a physical process. This has been
a useful abstraction in many ways but, as the current interest in
issues of concurrency demonstrates, it is not adequate for many of the
phenomena of real computing (or of computational models for more
general physically embodied systems). In particular, there are
temporal, spatial, and causal constraints that can be described among
the components (in space and in time) of physical systems. To some
extent, these constraints can be reflected in the structure of
languages that are used to describe such systems. Research on system
modelling with Petri nets and related formalisms has attempted to make
the constraints explicit and precise. Work done in our group during
this year (including the completion of a dissertation by Kai-zhi Yue
[Yue, 1986]) has dealt with the use of such constraints in analyzing
the coherence of specifications of "stable operational systems" (see
Yue and Winograd, 1985).
B. Experiments
In exploring the general properties of situated formal languages, we
are focusing on the design and use of a class of languages called
"system description languages". These share some properties with
programming languages (especially in their overall structure and use
of language constructs) but have a semantics more in the tradition of
model theory and work on natural languages. That is, their meaning is
defined in terms of a correspondence with objects and activities in
the world, rather than through the operations and states of some
machine (or a mathematical abstraction of such a machine).
We have designed a first version of a language called ALEPH
(Winograd, forthcoming c), which has a semantics based on first-order
logic and a sequential interleaving model of discrete events. Work
this year has concentrated on writing up results. Current work
includes incorporating some insights that have developed through our
earlier fragmentary experiments (sketches of descriptions of real
systems), from Yue's dissertation work (which used a similar language
called DAO), and through our interactions with other researchers
looking at problems of system description.
In particular, during the winter quarter we organized a weekly
seminar on "System description and development", in which we looked at
concrete examples of computer systems and the way they are affected
by, and in turn shape, the language and representations used in a
concrete work setting such as a hospital ward. Speakers included Jens
Kaasboll and Kristen Nygaard, from Oslo University (Norway) and Kim
Halskov Madsen, from Aarhus University (Denmark), all of whom have
actively worked on projects relating theoretical computational models
and specification languages to specific system development settings.
Kaasboll and Madsen each visited for several months and are developing
papers relating their earlier work to the perspective on language they
encountered at CSLI (Kaasboll, forthcoming; Madsen, forthcoming). One
of the major results of the seminar will be a paper on "A language
perspective on the design of cooperative work", being prepared for a
conference this December (Winograd, forthcoming b).
C. Environments
As a basis for experimenting with system description languages, we
have been developing an environment, called MUIR, which is a toolkit
for designing and working with formal languages (Winograd, forthcoming
a; Winograd, 1986; Normark, 1986). It allows the experimenter to
specify a language in an extended formalism that includes the
information in ordinary constituent structure rules (expressed in a
hierarchical structure that allows sharing of information about
related forms) and also allows for "gateways" (terminal symbols that
specify another grammar and a nonterminal within it for further
expansion), declared and dynamic "properties" (which can be associated
with a node but are not part of its basic structure), and multiple
"presentation rules" (which map the structure onto some visible
presentation, such as a structured piece of text or a set of graph
nodes and links). The environment provides structure-driven text
editors and graph editors, which use the information in the grammar to
present "texts" (in an extended sense) written in the language and to
provide a variety of operations determined by the language
specification. It is based on a representation of structure in
Abstract Syntax Trees (AST) and specification of languages using a
uniform Meta-Grammar.
In addition to providing for language-specific (grammar-driven)
editing and presentation, MUIR provides an overall structure in which
to integrate a variety of language manipulation tools, such as
translators (or "transformers" in general), consistency and coherence
checkers, interpreters, deductive analyzers, etc. The ASTs provide a
uniform format for linguistic structures, and the editors are the
basis for interfaces to all aspects of the system. We have designed
MUIR with our own language designs in mind, but have tried to maintain
a good deal of generality. In fact, we plan to use it to implement
"grammars" of things such as the structure of text files in a language
manual, and conversations and messages in a message system. Although
we do not see the development of this environment as a primary goal,
we believe that it will be general enough and well enough worked out
to be of use to other CSLI researchers (it is implemented in
Interlisp-D).
Our development of MUIR was aided by the discussions in a weekly
seminar on environments that we held in the fall quarter. It was
attended by a number of people from Stanford and local industry, and
discussed the theoretical issues that must be addressed in
computer-based environments of all kinds, including programming
environments, specification environments, design environments (e.g.,
for VLSI design) and text-preparation environments. One key part of
the work was a collaboration with David Levy, relating our concerns to
the theories he is developing in the Analysis of Graphical
Representation group. The work of the long-term visitors (Ole
Lehrmann Madsen during the first year, Kurt Normark since then) has
been extremely useful in formulating the direction and doing
preliminary implementations of the environment.
Over the coming months we see the emphasis of our work as shifting
back from the environment to the design of ALEPH, and to experiments
with it, along with continuing development of the theoretical basis.
References
Publications
Normark, K. 1986. Transformations and Edit Operations in MUIR,
submitted to SIGPLAN/SIGSOFT Conference on Practical Programming
Environments.
Winograd, T. 1986. Hierarchical Grammar as the Basis for a Language
Development Environment, submitted to SIGPLAN/SIGSOFT Conference on
Practical Programming Environments.
Winograd, T. and Flores, F. 1986. Understanding Computers and
Cognition. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
Yue, K. 1985. Constructing and Analyzing Specifications of Real World
Systems. PhD Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, Stanford
(to be issued as a CS Report in 1986).
Yue, K. and Winograd, T. 1985. Creating Analyzable System
Descriptions. Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences, 476-485.
In preparation:
Kaasboll, J. On the Nature of Using Computers.
Madsen, K. H. Breakthrough through Breakdown: Structured Domains,
Metaphors, and Frames.
Normark, K. Papers on Transformation.
Winograd, T. (a). MUIR: A Language Development Environment.
Winograd, T. (b). Representational Accounts.
Winograd, T. (c). ALEPH: A System Specification Language.
Winograd, T. (d). A Language Perspective on the Design of Cooperative
Work, to be submitted to MCC/MIT conference on Computer-supported
Cooperative Work, 1986.
end of part 3 of 7
-------
∂15-May-86 1931 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA iso work on Lisp
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 19:31:34 PDT
Date: 15 May 1986 19:32-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: iso work on Lisp
Subject: [MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA: Text of ISO NWI Proposal 18 February...]
Subject: [mcvax!inria!queinnec@seismo.CSS.GOV (Christian Queinnec)]
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]15-May-86 19:32:36.MATHIS>
I just received the suggestions from Queinnec (who is chairman of
a french standards group) and don't really have a reaction yet.
I wanted you to see this as soon as possible. For comparison, I
am also forwarding the ISO NWI (New Work Item) proposal I drafted
and which has successfully passed through the US voting process.
-- Bob
Begin forwarded messages
Received: By USC-ISIF.ARPA via direct-append with Hermes; 22 Feb 86 08:39:58-PST
Date: 22 Feb 1986 08:39-PST
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Text of ISO NWI Proposal 18 February 1986
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]22-Feb-86 08:39:57.MATHIS>
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
1 Title
Information Processing Systems - Languages - Common Lisp
2 Scope
Development of an ISO standard for Common Lisp including its
syntax and semantics beginning from the proposed base document:
Common Lisp: The Language by Guy Steele Jr., Digital Press,
Burlington, MA, 1984.
The scope of the proposed standard language is essentially the
same as the scope Common Lisp as described in the Steele book;
i.e., the basic features and forms which should be supplied and
the extension mechanisms (functions, macros, and special forms)
which can be used to provide additional capabilities. There has
also been considerable work in Europe on the definition of
EU←LISP and in the US on the implementation of Common Lisp which
must also be considered.
The intent is to describe a programming language which can be
used in a number of different environments. Because of the
nature of the language and its implementations, the distinctions
between implemented language features, predefined system
functionality, and user defined supplementary capabilities are
not the same as in other languages; but there will still be some
issues to resolve about the size of the language, possible
subsets and supersets, and implementors' options.
3 Existing Documents
Common Lisp: The Language by Guy Steele Jr., Digital Press,
Burlington, MA, 1984; list of errata and issues being prepared by
Guy Steele; and also the EU←LISP specifications currently being
developed.
4 Liaison Organizations
The Common Lisp Community, the EU←LISP working Group, and the
various professional societies oriented toward artificial
intelligence programming languages.
5 Programme of Work
The first meeting of an ISO Working Group on Common Lisp should
take place during Winter 1987. Since there is already a well
accepted base document and the Common Lisp Community has already
begun considering issues and revisions, a Draft Proposal should
be ready by January 1988 for SC balloting.
6 Other Comments / Purpose and Justification
Lisp is the second oldest programming language still in current
use (after Fortran). Lisp has traditionally been the language
used for most Artificial Intelligence programming, and is now
becoming popular for non-AI tasks as well. Throughout its early
history, Lisp was the subject of much experimentation; this has
greatly improved the Lisp language, but has also led to a
proliferation of incompatible dialects. This lack of
standardization has impeded the acceptance of Lisp in industry.
In 1981, with the encouragement of DARPA, an effort was begun by
a number of researchers at several organizations to define a
commonly acceptable version of Lisp. The language specification
was written by members of this informal group, after extensive
discussions on the ARPAnet. The resulting book, Common Lisp: The
Language by Guy Steele Jr., has received world wide acceptance.
MACLISP, ZETALISP, SCHEME, INTERLISP, SPICE LISP, S-1 LISP, NIL
(New Implementation LISP), "Standard" LISP, and Portable
"Standard" LISP have all been considered in the design of Common
Lisp; and the most useful features of each were incorporated.
Common Lisp, as described in the Steele book, has now become a de
facto standard within the US, and there is great interest in this
language elsewhere. The following manufacturers currently offer
Common Lisp or have announced plans to offer Common Lisp as a
product: Symbolics, LMI, TI, DEC, DG, Gould, Sun, Apollo, Prime,
Tektronix, H-P, Xerox, AT&T, Pyramid, Lucid, Intermetrics, Gold
Hill, and Franz Inc. There is also a strong interest in Japan.
European efforts at defining EuLISP are building on the Common
Lisp experience.
The Common Lisp Community is an informal collection of people
from industry, academia, and government who have particpated in
the initial design and implementation of Common Lisp. This group
has been in existence for five years, communicating primarily by
ARPAnet. Occasionally the community meets, as they did in
Boston, December 9-11, 1985. At that meeting they decided that a
national and international standards effort for Common Lisp was
appropriate and decided to move ahead.
--------------------
Received: FROM SEISMO.CSS.GOV BY USC-ISIF.ARPA WITH TCP ; 15 May 86 19:09:55 PDT
from mcvax.UUCP by seismo.CSS.GOV with UUCP; Thu, 15 May 86 20:34:06 EDT
by mcvax.uucp; Thu, 15 May 86 22:08:33 +0200 (MET)
by inria.UUCP; Thu, 15 May 86 20:50:57 -0100 (MET)
Date: Thu, 15 May 86 20:50:57 -0100
From: mcvax!inria!queinnec@seismo.CSS.GOV (Christian Queinnec)
To: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Return-Path: <mcvax!inria!queinnec@seismo.CSS.GOV>
<mcvax!inria!queinnec>
Message-ID: <8605151950.AA07594@inria.UUCP>
Here is the proposal of the Lisp experts group from AFNOR for a New
Work Item. This proposal will be submitted to Mr Mathis for opening
discussion. This is quite short because i only have to fill a form
with little space devoted to text, but the items listed cover the
main issues we expect of this standard.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Draft Proposal for a New Work Item
15/May/1986 ISO/TC97/SC22
Title : Specifications for computer programming Language LISP
Purpose : the standard will specify 1) the syntax and semantics of the language
2) the conformity requirements 3) the host operating system requirements
3) the run-time libraries definitions 4) the mechanisms to build
developpment environnement libraries.
The standard will provide 1) equal semantics between interpreted and
compiled execution 2) efficient implementations on general purpose
computers 3) true portable applications (including graphics, mouse device,
windowing systems, objects, error handling ...).
Existing Documents :
"Common-Lisp : The language", Digital Press
"Eu←Lisp Proposals for an International Standard", (available from AFNOR)
Other comments : If approved by TC97 and if NWI is assigned to SC22, SC22
will establish a new Working Group.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Christian Queinnec
--------------------
End forwarded messages
∂15-May-86 2019 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 4
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 20:18:54 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:09:45-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 4
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
APPROACHES TO COMPUTER LANGUAGES (LACL)
Stuart Shieber and Hans Uszkoreit
Project Participants: Mary Holstege, Stuart Shieber, Hans Uszkoreit
(Project Leader)
The increasing complexity of computer languages (CLs), current
progress in formal linguistics, and the growing importance of
ergonomic factors in CL design is leading to the emergence of a new
field of research between computer science and linguistics.
LACL is a pilot project to investigate the application of methods
and findings from research on natural languages (NLs) to the design
and description of high-level CLs. The linguistically interesting way
to make CLs resemble NLs is not to simply graft English words or
phrases onto the computer language in a superficial way, as is the
common practice in current CL design, but rather to exploit the rich
inventory of encoding strategies that have developed during the
evolution of NLs and to which humans appear especially attuned.
Currently the LACL group is investigating the need for, and
feasibility of, applying linguistic approaches, techniques, and
findings to a set of sample problems. One of these is the use of
partially free word order among the arguments of functions to allow
flexibility in the order of evaluation and to eliminate the need for
the user to memorize arbitrary argument orders. This requires
disambiguation by sort, type, or special marking. In the paragraphs
below this problem serves as an example of the approach to be taken.
All known human languages have some degree of word order freedom.
That means that in every language there are sets of sentences that
have the same content and differ only in the order of their elements.
We call this phenomenon "permutational variation". Although the
permutational variants always share the same truth-conditional
content, they might differ in their conversational meaning, that is,
not all variants might be equally appropriate in the same situational
and textual contexts.
For the application of our research results on permutational
variation to CLs, we selected an area in which permutational variation
has actually already entered existing programming languages: the order
of the arguments of functions (commands, predicates). Functions with
more than one argument in a programming language correspond roughly to
verbs in NLs. In NLs which allow permutation of arguments --
subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects, for instance -- the
arguments can usually be distinguished through some morphological or
lexical markings such as affixes (e.g., case marking) or particles
that accompany the argument (e.g., prepositions or infinitival
markers). Other NLs, however, require that their arguments occur in a
fixed order.
Until recently, the fixed order approach was the only strategy for
designating the arguments of functions in programming languages.
However, certain more recent languages (like ADA, MESA, or ZETALISP)
provide a concept called "keyword" parameters in function calls or
record construction. The function of keywords is not much different
from the function of argument marking in NLs. In fact, some of the
individual implementations of the concept resemble strategies used in
NLs in quite an astounding way. This is especially true for the
mixture of free and fixed argument order. There is no indication that
the designers of the languages have been guided by linguistic
knowledge about these strategies, it just happened that the techniques
were determined to be useful on a rather pretheoretic level.
The use of keywords for marking arguments has been recently
disputed by Richard O'Keefe (1985). O'Keefe suggests that type
checking might be a better strategy to distinguish freely ordered
arguments. However, there is no reason to assume that a choice of a
single principle has to be made. In fact, NLs employ a number of
different strategies in parallel that complement each other in many
ways. It is often a mixture of word order, case marking, semantic, and
pragmatic information that designates the proper argument assignment.
Although there is no need to burden CLs with unnecessary complexity,
the optimal mix of strategies for argument designation needs to be
decided in a theoretically sound way, using all available knowledge
about encoding systems that have proven useful and appropriate in the
languages which are natural for humans.
Other sample problems for our research are:
o The exploitation of parallels between NL descriptions based on
complex structured information (such as f-structures or complex
categories) and type inference in CLs that allow partial
(so-called polymorphic) types.
Current linguistic theories make heavy use of notions of
partial information and identity constraints on information
which lead to a reliance on unification as a technique
for solving these systems of linguistic constraints. Earlier
independent developments in the theory of programming languages
led to the use of unification as a technique for solving type
constraints in typed programming languages. A rich analogy can be
developed along these lines between NL parsing and CL type inference,
which has the potential to contribute to both fields.
o The use of type inheritance systems for imposing a conceptually
transparent structure on the lexicon.
Inheritance of data types found in object-oriented
programming languages have counterparts as tools for structuring
lexicons in NL systems. The technology of such systems
developed for NL processing might serve to help explicate
the corresponding programming constructs and vice versa.
o The introduction of morphology for marking related lexical items as
to type (derivational morphology), thematic structure (relation
changing), or role (case marking).
o The need for less restricted uses of proforms (pronouns, ellipsis)
in CLs than currently exist.
Long-term issues in the emerging new field that go beyond the scope of
the pilot project include:
o Temporal expressions in the communication among parallel processes.
o The use of speech acts in message passing between objects and
processors.
o The utilization of discourse information to support ellipsis.
References
O'Keefe, R. 1985. Alternatives to Keyword Parameters. SIGPLAN Notices,
June.
LEXICAL PROJECT
Annie Zaenen
Project Participants: Mark Gawron, Kris Halvorsen, Lauri
Karttunen, Martin Kay, Paul Kiparsky,
Mats Rooth, Hans Uszkoreit, Tom Wasow,
Meg Withgott, Annie Zaenen (Project Leader)
The ultimate aim of the Lexical project is to build a lexicon that
is compatible with and useful to the other components of natural
language systems at CSLI. To implement it, we will begin with an
existing on-line dictionary and transform it progressively into what
we need.
Our basic hypothesis is that the syntactic and semantic frameworks
elaborated at CSLI are similar enough for it to be worthwhile to
construct a common lexicon encoded in a form that translates easily
into the different formalisms, rather than to have totally different
encodings for each framework. Given that dictionaries are typically
large, and will, even in the best case, contain more idiosyncratic
information than most components of a natural language system, this is
the only realistic way to proceed.
A lexicon contains morphological, phonological, syntactic, and
semantic information. For our first year of activity we decided to
focus on the syntactic and semantic aspects; the phonological and
morphological sides are better understood, and we assumed it would be
easier in those domains to extract the needed information out of
information already given in existing dictionaries.
In the past months we have investigated what kind of information
should be available to allow syntactic generalizations to be captured.
We started with the syntactic side because we wanted to take advantage
of Kiparsky's current work on this topic and of the presence of Mark
Gawron, a postdoctoral fellow at the center, who has already done
substantial work in this area. Traditionally, generative grammar
presupposes information about syntactic category and
"subcategorization". Our investigation has centered on the role of
thematic information about the arguments of verbs, that is, on the
usefulness of notions like "agent", "source", "theme". This
information is necessary if one wants to capture subregularities like
the relation between the uses of "hit" in "He hit the stick against
the fence" and "He hit the fence with a stick". In the following I
will summarize a few leading ideas that have been established and the
direction that the research is taking.
1. The syntactic behavior of the arguments of predicates is
ultimately based on the meaning of the predicates; hence, an
insightful account should be grounded in semantics. However, it is
useful to pursue the investigation both from the semantic and the
syntactic point of view, as the syntax is the best guide we have at
the moment to linguistically significant generalizations.
2. It is useful to establish equivalence classes that abstract away
from some of the meaning distinctions; for example, the first argument
of the verb "kick" (i.e., the kicker) and that of the verb "kiss"
(i.e., the kisser) have more in common than the first argument of
"kiss" and that of the verb "please" (i.e., the one who is pleased).
How these equivalence classes have to be established is an empirical
question. Representationally there are different ways of addressing
the problem; for example, by having features like "+agentive", by
having roles like "agent", or by having higher predicates like "do"
and "change" whose arguments have by definition the characteristics of
an agent, a theme, etc. Uszkoreit and Zaenen take the latter approach
in the model they are developing, but the technology needed to
implement any of these representations seems to be quite similar.
3. The mapping from thematic information onto syntactic categories is
at least partially hierarchical. For example, a subject cannot be
identified with an agent, a theme, or an experiencer until one knows
the complete set of arguments that a verb takes. But given the
thematic information, large classes of verbs behave in the same way;
for example for some verbs, if there is an agent, it will be the
subject (except in the passive form, for which an independent regular
mapping can be defined).
4. It is possible to represent lexical semantic and syntactic
information using the same kind of constraint-based formalism as is
used in other areas of linguistic modelling at CSLI. (See Fenstad,
Halvorsen, Langholm, and van Benthem, 1985, for the most extensive
discussion of the general ideas.)
5. The information about verb meaning, thematic argument classes, and
the mapping onto the lexical syntax can by and large be encoded using
computational tools already developed in connection with the PATR
project at SRI. They are included in Karttunen's D-PATR grammar
development system that is available at CSLI. This system allows the
grammar writer to use default values which can be changed by later
specifications and lexical rules to transform feature sets in even
more radical ways. For a full description of the system, see "D-PATR:
A Development System for Unification-based Grammar Formalisms" (to
appear as a CSLI Report). While the PATR system is useful, it needs
to be further developed. Disjunction and negation must be available
in the description of lexical entries, and it should also be possible
to assign set values to attributes.
6. Among the more basic theoretical questions remains that of
monotonicity. With overwriting and lexical rules, the specifications
of lexical entries are order-dependent, and thus the system as a whole
does not have the property of monotonicity that is felt to be
desirable in other areas of grammar. The reasons and consequences of
this situation have yet to be addressed in the overall context of
grammar.
Thinking about the lexicon as a part that has to be integrated in a
larger whole has the following advantages:
o The available syntactic theories delimit what needs
to be said in the lexicon. For example, when we are
able to state that a particular argument will be the
first syntactic argument of a certain verb, we feel
confident that our job is done, whether this argument
will then be treated as a "subject" in LFG, the
"last thing on the subcat list" in HPSG, or the "thing
that the verb will agree with" (in the simple case)
in Kiparsky's theory.
o The syntactic theories also push us to make distinctions
that tend to be overlooked in more independent approaches,
for instance the thematic information mentioned above in
(2) and (3).
o The computational tools get a new testing ground, and one
can discuss in a concrete way how the encoding of lexical
information compares to that of other linguistic information.
o An important question is the possibility of finding a
way to define words in terms of unanalyzed notions like
change, cause, and intention that can then feed into/be
fed by semantic theories in which these notions are
interpreted. If such a system can be developed,
we will have a lexicon that both on the syntactic and on
the semantic side is compatible with more than one theory.
In the next few months we will tackle that problem by
trying to determine how our view on lexical semantics fits
in with the semantics developed in STASS and AFL.
By trying to be compatible with syntactic and semantic proposals, we
expect to get a better idea about the place of the lexicon in
linguistic description than would be forthcoming from a study in which
the lexicon is seen as independent.
References
Fenstad, J. E., Halvorsen, P.-K., Langholm, T., and van Benthem, J.
1985. Equations, Schemata, and Situations: A Framework for Linguistic
Semantics. Report No. CSLI-85-29.
end of part 4 of 7
-------
∂15-May-86 2052 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 20:52:18 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:11:24-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
PHONOLOGY AND PHONETICS
Paul Kiparsky
Project Participants: Mark Cobler, Carlos Gussenhoven, Sharon
Inkelas, Paul Kiparsky (Project Leader),
Will Leben, Marcy Macken, Bill Poser,
Meg Withgott
Goals
This project is focused on postlexical phonology and its relation to
lexical phonology on the one hand, and to phonetic realization on the
other. We have been concentrating on three overlapping areas:
(1) tone and intonation (Leben, Poser),
(2) phonological phrasing and phonological processes which
apply in phrasal domains (Kiparsky, Poser), and
(3) formal properties of phonological rules and
representations (Kiparsky, Poser).
These are traditional concerns of phonology and (in part) of
phonetics, but we are approaching them in a somewhat new way which
seeks to unify those two disciplines and to integrate them with
linguistic theory. From that perspective, the important desiderata
are: (1) to fit the quantitative data obtained from instrumental
phonetic work into a phonological model that has independent
theoretical support, instead of constructing models on a more or less
ad hoc basis, (2) to construct substantial rule systems rather than
focusing, as is possible in some kinds of phonetic and phonological
research, on isolated rules or phenomena, and (3) to develop a
phonological theory consistent with a restrictive theory of grammar
such as those emerging from ongoing work at CSLI and elsewhere --
ambitions which, needless to say, have not made our lives any easier,
though they have made them a lot more interesting.
Tone and Intonation
Intonation in Tone Languages. Leben and Poser have collaborated on a
project on intonation in tonal languages (languages in which words
have different inherent pitch patterns), a topic about which almost
nothing is known. Most of the work has gone into analyzing data on
Hausa intonation that Leben collected in Nigeria last year, with the
help of Cobler and Inkelas (Leben, Cobler, and Inkelas 1986). They
discovered that a number of different intonational phenomena in Hausa
depend for their realization on phrase boundaries. These boundaries
are not typical phonological phrases (in particular, they are not in
general separated from one another by pauses); rather they correspond
to major syntactic boundaries, between NP and VP, and between V and
the different NP and adverbial complements of the verb. Drawing on
other work in autosegmental phonology, they propose that there is a
separate tier on which phrasal tone is represented, distinct from the
tier on which lexical tone is represented. By associating both the
High phrasal tone associated with the extra-High register used for
questions and for emphasis and the Low phrasal tone which describes
downdrift, they have been able to account formally for the apparent
complementarity of register raising and downdrift. They also offer an
alternative explanation of apparent evidence for utterance preplanning
in Hausa, namely that syntactic phrases may be preplanned but that
downdrift itself is not.
Pitch Accent. Withgott has continued her joint research with
Halvorsen on the phonetics and phonology of East Norwegian accent. In
a previous study (Withgott and Halvorsen, 1984) they argued that the
prosodic phenomenon of accent in Norwegian depends on the placement of
stress, morphological composition, and on regularities in the lexical
and postlexical phonology (rather than on a syllable-counting rule).
Using data derived from a computer-readable dictionary, they have now
(Withgott and Halvorsen, forthcoming) been able to provide further
support for their analysis through a quantitative study of the
accentual properties of compounds. Moreover, they have been able to
demonstrate that their account correctly predicts hitherto unobserved
phonetic differences between accents "1" and "2". This finding
disconfirms previous analyses which maintain that the two accents
reflect only one phonetic contour displaced in time.
Intonation Seminar. During the spring quarter, Leben, Gussenhoven,
and Poser are conducting a seminar on intonation. It covers background
material as well as current work being done at CSLI and elsewhere.
Participants include Withgott, Jared Bernstein (SRI), Ann Cessaris
(Key Communication in Menlo Park), Anne Fernald (Psychology), and a
number of Linguistics students.
Phrasal Phonology
Questions being addressed here include: How is phonological phrasing
related to syntactic structure? Can syntactic structure condition
phonological rules directly, or only indirectly via phrasing? How do
the properties of phrasal phonological rules differ from those of
lexical rules and of postlexical rules which apply across phrasal
domains? Where do so-called "phonetic rules" fit into the emerging
picture of the organization of the phonological component?
The reason these questions are up in the air is that several recent
developments have made untenable the hitherto standard picture of the
organization of phonology. According to this standard picture, the
rules of the phonological component map underlying representations
onto phonetic representations, which encode the linguistically
determined aspects of pronunciation; phonetic representations are in
turn related to the observed speech signal by largely universal rules
of phonetic implementation. One reason why this view bears rethinking
is that the theory of Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982, 1985; Mohanan
1982) posits the existence of a linguistically significant
intermediate level, the level of lexical representation. The rules
which map underlying representations onto lexical representations turn
out to have very different properties from the rules which map lexical
representations onto phonetic representations. Secondly, research in
phonetics (Liberman and Pierrehumbert, 1984) suggests that there exist
language-particular context-sensitive rules which manipulate low-level
continuously-valued parameters of the sort assumed to be
nonphonological in character. Third, studies of connected speech
(Selkirk, 1984) have led to the postulation of a prosodic hierarchy
which governs the application of phonological processes to
combinations of words.
These were originally separate lines of investigation, but Poser
and Kiparsky are finding that considerations from all three converge
in a surprising way: there appears to be a fairly clear-cut division
of postlexical rules onto two types, "phrasal" and "phonetic" rules,
which differ with respect to conditioning, domain, and discreteness as
follows:
PHRASAL RULES PHONETIC RULES
o subject to morphological-lexical o subject to phonological
conditioning conditioning only
o restricted to minor phrases o applicable also in larger
prosodic units
o manipulate discrete feature o manipulate continuous values
values
Table 1. A possible general typology of postlexical rules.
The same typology appears to extend to cliticization processes as
well.
We are currently investigating the possibility of assigning the two
types of postlexical rules to different modules of grammar, and
explaining their properties by the principles of those modules.
Formal Properties of Rules and Representations
Underspecification and Constraints on Rules. One of the basic ideas
of Lexical Phonology is that lexical representations are incompletely
specified and receive their nondistinctive feature specifications from
the phonological rules of the language and from universal default
rules. Recently, Kiparsky has explored the possibility that this
underspecified character of lexical representations explains certain
well-known properties of phonological rules which have so far been
accounted for by means of a range of unrelated constraints. One such
property is the restriction of rules to "derived environments" (the
"Strict Cycle Condition"). Another is the commonly encountered
failure of rules to apply if the undergoing segment is in a branching
constituent ("C-command"). Both are derivable from the proper
formulation of underspecification and the principles governing the
application of default rules. This makes it possible to impose
significant constraints on the role of syntactic information in phrase
phonology.
Underspecification and Overgeneralization. A tough problem for
linguistic theory is how learners infer abstract grammatical
structures and prune overly-general rules without explicit negative
information (i.e., without explicit correction). Marcy Macken has
developed an account of phonological acquisition that promises to
solve this long-standing puzzle. Her model distinguishes formal
(algebraic) structures of phonological representations, semantic
(particularly stochastic and geometric) properties of phonetic
interpretation, and the nonformal informational structures across time
in the environment. This has lead to an investigation of the role of
underspecification and default mechanisms in the overall organization
of the phonological grammar and consideration of constraints on the
formal system that come, not from properties of the abstract system,
but from properties of its extensional system.
Rules and Representation. Poser has been continuing to work on a
theory of phonological rules. This effort is intended both to
establish a more highly constrained system than has hitherto been
available, based upon general principles rather than ad hoc
constraints, and to provide a conceptual analysis and formalization of
the relevant notions. Recent results include a unified account of the
class of phenomena involving exempt peripheral elements, which
constrains the exempt material to single peripheral constituents
(Poser, 1986b), and work on the role of constituency in phonological
representations (Poser, 1986a). The latter bears on the relationship
between phonological representations and phonological rules and
especially on the way in which phonological representations transmit
information. The central point is that the motivated phonological
representation of stress permits the transmission of information about
the morphological structure that would otherwise be prohibited.
References
Kiparsky, P. 1985. Some Consequences of Lexical Phonology. In Colin
Ewen (ed.), Phonology Yearbook, Vol. II. Cambridge University Press.
Kiparsky, P. 1982. Lexical Morphology and Phonology. In I.-S. Yang
(ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin.
Liberman, M. and Pierrehumbert, J. 1984. Intonational Invariance
Under Changes in Pitch Range and Length. In Mark Aronoff and Richard
Dehrle (eds.), Language Sound Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mohanan, K. P. 1982. Lexical Phonology. Thesis, MIT. Reproduced by
Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Poser, W. (a). 1986. Diyari Stress, Metrical Structure Assignment,
and Metrical Representation. Fifth West Coast Conference on Formal
Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 22 March
1986.
Poser, W. (b). 1986. Invisibility. GLOW Colloquium, Girona, Spain, 8
April 1986.
Selkirk, E. 1984. Phonology and Syntax: The Relation between Sound
and Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Withgott, M. and Halvorsen, P.-K. 1984. Morphological Constraints on
Scandinavian Tone Accent. Report No. CSLI-84-11.
Withgott, M. and Halvorsen, P.-K. To appear. Phonetics and
Phonological Conditions Bearing on the Representation of East
Norwegian Accent. In N. Smith and H. van der Hullot (eds.),
Autosegmental Studies on Pitch Accent. Dordrecht: Foris.
end of part 5 of 7
-------
∂15-May-86 2057 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU iso work on Lisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 20:57:42 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 15 May 86 23:58:44-EDT
Date: Thu, 15 May 1986 23:58 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12207040954.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: iso work on Lisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 15 May 1986 22:32-EDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
I'm not sure how it is supposed to work in ISO when two groups want to
standardize the same thing in two incompatible ways. Do we both develop
proposals and then fight it out, or are we supposed to fight it out now?
Or is the convenor supposed to try to reconcile the two groups? What
exactly does a New Work Item mean?
Our position, I think, is that Common Lisp as described in ClTL is
already a de facto standard, and we intend to propose an official
standard that reflects this. Any changes will be considered in the
light of their effect on existing user code and implemenations;
incompatible changes will only be adopted if the benefits clearly
outweigh the costs. From what they have said in the past, the Europeans
intend to propose lots of gratuitous incompatibilities -- they didn't
get to play as Common Lisp was being designed, so now they feel free to
change everything they don't like, such as the type of NIL.
I think that these are fundamentally incompatible goals. A compromise
that would let them make just a few incompatible changes is as bad as
letting them redesign the whole language; the existing Common Lisp
community wouldn't buy gratuitous changes at this point just to make the
language more elegant in some eyes. The only other kind of compromise
that I can see is to let us do "ISO Common Lisp" while they try to
develop an "ISO EuLisp", but they seem to reject this since they want to
do "ISO LISP" and they have stated that the current Common Lisp should
not be standardized since it offends their sense of elegance. So unless
the Europeans relent, I think we have to go through whatever process is
invoked when irreconcilable differences arise in the standards process.
If we lose, we've still got ANSI, I guess.
If it comes to a shootout, they've got a few experts, but we've got
heavier ones. I'm not sure how we'd stack up in terms of publication
count, but we certainly have more practical experience by any
conceivable measure. We've also got a large and growing user community
and all of the major U.S. companies, which ought to count for
something. The Europeans are still trying to decide how to define what
a "Lisp" is, and they have nothing remotely resembling a complete
design, let alone implementations. So far, they've postponed all of the
kinds of decisions that lead to real disagreements. On the other hand,
the Europeans probably have the votes of more countries than do right
now, though I suppose we could start recruiting in the third world.
-- Scott
∂15-May-86 2141 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 6
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 21:36:47 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:12:40-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 6
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
FINITE STATE MORPHOLOGY (FSM)
Lauri Karttunen
Project Participants: John Bear, Lauri Karttunen (Project Leader),
Ronald Kaplan, Martin Kay, Bill Poser,
Kimmo Koskenniemi (by correspondence),
Mark Johnson
The basis for most of the work within the FSM group is the
observation that phonological rules can be converted to finite state
transducers. A transducer is an automaton with two input/output
heads. Such machines are computationally very efficient and their
efficiency can be further improved by merging several transducers into
a single one. Another benefit is that the system is bidirectional: it
can be used either to relate a surface string to a set of possible
lexical counterparts or to compute all the possible surface
realizations of a sequence of lexical representations. The conversion
of phonological rule systems to automata rests on elementary
operations of finite state machines: union, intersection,
complementation, determinization, and minimization. In order for the
conversion to be feasible practically, the algorithms for these basic
operations must be implemented very efficiently because the size of
the automata that need to be manipulated can grow very large even if
the ultimate outcome is compact.
Kaplan and Kay have worked for several years to produce the basic
set of tools for this type of computational phonology, and are now
very close to completion. In the last few months, Kaplan has
re-implemented many parts of his FSM package to increase its
efficiency; certain time-consuming tasks, such as determinization, can
now be performed in a fraction of the time they used to take. Using
an earlier version of this package, Koskenniemi has completed the
first version of a rule compiler that takes a set of two-level rules
and produces the set of corresponding automata for a bidirectional
analyzer/generator.
Because of these technological advances, computational linguistics,
which for a very long time has been preoccupied with syntax and
semantics, has finally made contact with phonology and morphology.
The task for the immediate future is to make the new facilities
generally available and to publicize their existence. To this end, we
organized a successful workshop on this topic at CSLI last summer.
Bear has implemented a new morphological analyzer in PROLOG. Like
its predecessor, Bear's new analyzer is based on Koskenniemi's
two-level model. It regards phonological rules as constraints between
lexical and surface realizations of morphemes and provides a formalism
(less general than Koskenniemi's) for expressing simple two-level
rules. Unlike most other implementations, the analyzer uses these
rules directly, rather than the corresponding finite state
transducers. Thus, the user avoids the labor of expressing
constraints in the form of automata. Another characteristic of the
analyzer is that word-internal syntax is handled by means of phrase
structure rules augmented with attribute-value matrices.
The emphasis of the work done so far has been on concatenative,
segmental phonology. Work in progress extends the approach in new
directions. Kay has worked out a multi-tiered finite state analysis
of Arabic morphology; Mark Johnson has provided an account of tone in
Kikuyu.
The computational work on automata also appears to be relevant
within the context of the project on Foundations of Grammar and other
CSLI projects which are exploring the notion of unification. As
William Rounds and Ronald Kaplan have pointed out, directed graphs can
be viewed as finite state machines. From this point of view,
unification of feature value matrices is analogous to determinizing
the union of two automata. We will investigate whether this
observation has some practical value.
---------------------
JAPANESE SYNTAX WORKSHOP
The second in a series of three workshops on Japanese Syntax was
held at CSLI on March 7 - 9, 1986. The series is being funded by the
System Development Foundation, and includes participants from
institutions throughout the United States and Japan.
For the second workshop, syntax was broadly construed as covering
also discourse phenomena and the interface between morphology and
syntax. Discourse and morphology are of considerable theoretical
interest at present, and both are of particular interest in the case
of Japanese. Discourse factors are intimately entangled with Japanese
syntax -- in the overt marking of topics and the discourse-level
interpretation of reflexives, for example -- and there is a long
tradition of work in this area by scholars such as Mikami Akira,
Susumu Kuno, and John Hinds. Morphosyntax is of interest because of
the large role played in Japanese by derivational morphology; at
present different theories assign different roles to the morphology,
and some interesting work was presented concerning the different
frameworks.
Several theoretical orientations were represented in the syntax
papers, including Government Binding Theory, Lexical Functional
Grammar, and Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Similarly, the
discourse paper represented Kuno's functional approach, Grosz's
centering framework, and Kamp's Discourse Representation Theory, with
commentary by Hinds, a representative of the conversational analysis
approach. This confrontation of syntactic and discourse based
approaches resulted in intense discussions of whether the phenomena in
questions were best accounted for in terms of syntactic structure or
as a result of discourse factors and of the controversial role played
by structural configuration.
Participants felt that the quality of papers was high, and that
there had been ample discussion of the issues raised. They plan to
publish their papers and a summary of the discussion in a forthcoming
CSLI volume.
---------------------
CSLI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
JEAN MARK GAWRON
After receiving his PhD in Linguistics from UC Berkeley, Gawron
accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh to
work with Henry Thompson and others interested in artificial
intelligence. There he participated in a reading group on situation
semantics and wrote a paper on the status of types in situation
theory.
At CSLI, he has embarked on two bodies of research which he hopes
will reach a convergence point in some work on the semantics of
prepositions. The first is a continuation of his work on situation
theory and situation semantics which includes a sequel to his types
paper called "Types, Parameterized Objects and Information".
Situation theory is the enterprise of laying down the axiomatic
foundations of situation semantics; thus, he feels, a "complete"
situation theory ought to bear much the same relation to situation
semantics that set theory bears to Montague semantics. In this paper
Gawron proposes some new axioms, discusses their relative strengths
and their relationship to other axioms proposed (in particular) by
Barwise and Cooper, and suggests adopting a still somewhat
controversial proposal of Carl Pollard's. Several issues raised in
this paper became the focus of a number of meetings of the STASS
group.
He has also written (and delivered at this year's Berkeley
Linguistic Society Meeting) a paper called "Clefts, Discourse
Representations, and Situation Semantics". This paper proposed a
treatment of some well-known presuppositional properties of it-clefts
("It was Maria that John loved"), and related them to wh-clefts ("The
one John loved was Maria"). It did this in the context of a somewhat
altered situation semantics, proposing a view of linguistic meaning
that diverged slightly from the published accounts, and offering in
return what was hopefully a general framework for handling
conversational implicature or presupposition.
Gawron's second body of research concerns prepositions. When he
arrived at CSLI, he expected to continue some research he had begun on
preposition meanings, intending particularly to apply them to
morphemes in other languages that did semantically analogous work
(prefixes in Polish and Hungarian). He now doubts some of the basic
hypotheses of that work, and says he has instead found himself
"backing into the lexical semantics", reconsidering some of the
semantic assumptions he had made in "Situations and Prepositions."
This has led in turn to "resurrecting some of the frame-based lexical
representations in my dissertation, and to various discussions about
that work with members of the Lexical group." He has found
particularly valuable the work that Paul Kiparsky is doing on lexical
representations, grammatical relations, and morphology. The result is
that his view on how lexical representations and morphological rules
should interact has changed considerably from that advanced in his
dissertation, and, ".. as a kind of side effect, my views on
prepositions have changed as well". Some of these changes are
presented in a paper entitled "Valence Structure Preservation and
Demotion" (delivered at the 22nd Chicago Linguistics Society Meeting).
In summary, he says, "The direct result of both of these lines of
research is that I have had to revise many of the particulars of an
account of the semantics of prepositions that I gave in the types
paper written before I came here. That in turn prompted
reconsideration of some of the basic claims of the paper, which I am
now prepared to ignominiously abandon. So the current work in
progress is a return to English prepositions, with some recanting and
some canting again in different directions".
HELENE KIRCHNER
While still a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science
at the University of Nancy, Kirchner won a position at the Centre
National de la Researche Scientifique in Jean-Pierre Jouannaud's
research group. Jouannaud had been following the work of Joseph
Goguen and Jose Meseguer (see lead article), and encouraged her to
apply for a CSLI postdoctoral fellowship to facilitate an exchange of
ideas.
Kirchner is interested in developing programming languages with
advanced validation tools. In many applications of computer science
such as aeronautics and the control of complex processes, the problem
of software fallibility is crucial; validation of the correctness of
these huge programs requires programming languages capable of
providing high level specifications and verification tools.
It made sense to begin her work with a programming language that
already had a clear semantics and inference mechanism, and, in
particular, with Goguen and Meseguer's OBJ. OBJ is a high level
specification language for algebraic abstract data types; it has a
clean algebraic semantics based on initial "order-sorted" algebras
(algebras whose carriers are composed of different sorts with possible
inclusions between them). The theory of order-sorted algebras
supports function polymorphism and overloading, error definition and
error recovery, multiple inheritance and sort constraints, which
permit the definition of what would otherwise be partial functions as
total functions on equationally defined subdomains. The basic
entities are objects described by sorts, functions, and equations.
During her stay at CSLI she studied, specified, and implemented a
new version of the inference mechanism for OBJ. Based on order-sorted
rewriting, her implementation is a generalization of standard
rewriting taking into account the inclusion relation on sorts. It
preserves the characteristic features of the language such as
modularity, error handling and error recovery, and sort constraints.
The next step will be to provide validation tools for OBJ or more
generally for equational programming languages -- for instance, tools
that allow the user to specify that the importation of a previously
defined object inside his current program does not modify the behavior
of the imported object. That issue is in general related to theorem
proving in equational theories for which the formalism of term
rewriting systems is especially suitable and efficient.
While OBJ was designed for context independent computation,
Kirchner feels that her work provides a first step to the development
of validation tools for context dependent languages. She feels (along
with Goguen and Meseguer) that situation theory provides a new logic
that is well suited to providing the semantics of such languages, and
she expects to turn to that application when her work on OBJ is
completed.
ED ZALTA
Zalta received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of
Massachusetts and then taught a year each in the Philosophy
Departments of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and at Rice
University before coming to CSLI. His interest was in foundational
issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, and the basic
conclusions he had reached seemed similar to some of those of Jon
Barwise and John Perry.
His major effort at CSLI has been to extend the axiomatic theory of
objects and relations developed in his book, "Abstract Objects"; for
example, he has extended his theory of worlds to account for moments
of time and to explain the structural similarities between worlds and
times. And he has designed a comprehensive intensional logic which
avoids the basic problems of Montague's logic. These results have
been incorporated into a new manuscript entitled "Intensional Logic
and the Metaphysics of Intentionality". Other papers he has written
during his fellowship include: "Referring to Fictional Characters: A
Reply", "Logical and Analytic Truths Which Aren't Necessary", and
"Lambert, Mally, and the Principle of Independence". These have been
presented in talks at the Eastern and Pacific Division meetings of the
American Philosophical Association and at the Berkeley Cognitive
Science Seminar.
Zalta enjoys teaching and has taught three courses in Stanford's
Philosophy Department while at CSLI. In the spring of 1985, he held a
seminar on "Nonexistent Objects and the Semantics of Fiction". During
the autumn and winter quarter of the 85-85 academic year, he and
Julius Moravcsik conducted the core seminar in metaphysics and
epistemology, focusing on the nature of events. And in the winter
quarter of this year he taught an undergraduate course on the history
of philosophy from Descartes to Kant.
He has found CSLI to be "a place where you can maximize your
abilities in whatever discipline you're in -- there is always someone
around to answer your questions". He has discovered more applications
of his theoretical approach than he had originally anticipated, and
has learned what it takes to make the approach interesting to others.
---------------------
end of part 6 of 7
-------
∂15-May-86 2210 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 7
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 22:09:54 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:13:43-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 7
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
CSLI SNAPSHOTS: LUCY SUCHMAN
As multi-disciplined as CSLI is, one does not usually see
anthropology listed among the disciplines represented here. But in
fact, Lucy Suchman, an anthropologist at Xerox PARC, is a valued
participant in CSLI activities.
Suchman is a member of the research staff in PARC's Intelligent
Systems Lab. She came to PARC seven years ago as a UC Berkeley
graduate student. Her training and research plans concerned the study
of practical activities and structures of interaction among people,
and she supposed PARC's computers would play no role in her work. But
she found PARC researchers asking some of the same questions she had
been asking, with the difference being that for them the computer was
one of the interacting agents. She began to wonder about the
relationship between what she knew about people interacting with each
other, and people interacting with machines. Her dissertation became
an effort to clarify that relationship, and focused on the role of
language, actions, and embedding circumstances in shared
understanding.
She was first drawn to CSLI by a seminar entitled "Why Context
Won't Go Away". CSLI's thesis that a theory of information should
account for its flow between situated agents -- human or computer --
seemed to coincide with her own ideas. She has for a long time been
following the work of Barbara Grosz and others concerned with the role
of context in dialogue. More recently she has become an active
participant in the Representation and Reasoning project, and continues
to be an interested observer of results coming from the Rational
Agency group. She is interested in a general account of
representation, and specifically in applying the account to the case
of plans and situated actions. She conceives of plans as
representations of action, and seeks to understand the relation of
plans to actions in concrete situations.
Recently, Suchman has become interested in efforts at PARC to
develop computer tools to aid collaboration. In a new research
project, she is asking basic questions about the nature of
collaboration, and is looking at two potential applications: the use
of computers to support and record the flow of information during
meetings, and the use of computers for note keeping by two or more
individuals working collaboratively on the same project.
From CSLI's point of view, the questions Suchman asks from an
empirical vantage point provide vital hooks to the real world. In
turn, she sees CSLI as an extension to her interdisciplinary life in
the Intelligent Systems Lab, and makes a point worth noting about such
labs. While much of her time is spent in building bridges between her
field and those of her colleagues, she is careful never completely to
cross over them. She feels the value of interdisciplinary research is
best realized when each researcher has a clear view of his or her own
field of choice, and does what he or she does best. For example, she
herself collaborates with designers at PARC, raising questions,
discussing research findings, and suggesting possible implications.
But ultimately she leaves the design decisions in their hands. She
believes that the strength of interdisciplinary work, ideally, comes
from the interaction of multiple, equally penetrating, but different,
perspectives on a common subject matter.
---------------------
GIANTS FOLD IN NINTH; CSLI PRESENCE BLAMED
By our Special Correspondent
As twenty representatives of CSLI looked on, the San Francisco
Giants last Saturday contrived to blow a two-run lead over the Chicago
Cubs in the top of the ninth inning. Pitcher Scott Garrelts took a 4-2
lead into the ninth (both Cubs runs off Ron Cey homers), but was then
yanked for Greg Minton, who gave up four runs. An abortive rally in
the bottom of the ninth gave local fans a moment of hope, but it
proved too little too late, and the Cubs emerged 6-5 victors.
In post-game interviews, many of the Giants blamed the loss on the
presence of the CSLI representatives. Garrelts, for example, claims to
have misheard a heated argument between John Perry and Brian Smith
about Donald Davidson's theory of indirect discourse, taking their
references to "On Saying That" to have meant "Ron Cey: in, fat" --
i.e., pitch Cey an inside fat pitch. At another point, Chili Davis was
tagged out running from third on a suicide squeeze when batter Rob
Thompson missed a bunt; Thompson later said that he had been confused
by a remark made in a discussion of perception verbs about the "scene
of A", which he heard as "swing away".
Over and above such distractions, however, the Giants claimed to
have been disconcerted by the presence in the stands of a group whose
philosophical and methodological commitments seemed to many to be
alien to the spirit of the National Pastime. As manager Roger Craig
put it: "Look, I been hearin' about `situations' ever since I came up
-- you got your hit-and-run situation, your squeeze situation, your
bunt situation, your brushback situation -- but I never heard of any
of these `actual' and `factual' types of situations, and if you ask
me, it's this kind of thing is going to ruin baseball. And all this
talk about designation -- we got enough trouble with the designated
hitter. What do they want, designated pitchers and runners and all
like that?" General manager Al Rosen added: "I hear these guys are
all gung ho about representation. Well let me tell you, it's too much
representation that's driving up the salaries nowadays and making it
impossible for a team to break even if they play over .500." Even
baseball commissioner Peter Uberroth got into the act. "What with the
problems we're having trying to clean up the game, the last thing we
need is a bunch of people who are into ontological promiscuity, and
who countenance six or seven different kinds of relations."
These reservations aside, however, the Giant front office said that
a CSLI group would be welcome at future contests, though denying
persistent rumors that Giant owner Bob Lurie was preparing to
establish a permanent postdoctoral fellowship for anyone versed in
philosophy of personal identity who could demonstrate ability to hit
the curve ball.
-------------
Editor's note
Letters to the editor are welcome. Please send correspondence to me at
CSLI or by electronic mail to BETSY@CSLI.
-------------
-Elizabeth Macken
Editor
-------
∂16-May-86 0922 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Calendar update
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 09:22:13 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 08:39:46-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Calendar update
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Late announcement:
CSLI COLLOQUIUM
Media Technology, The Art and Science of Personalization
Prof. Nick Negroponte, M.I.T. Arts and Media Lab
(formerly the Architecture Machine Group)
May 22, 4:15pm, Redwood Hall, G-19
As people look toward uncovering what constitutes expertise in one
field or another, there is a noticeable absence of interest in expert
systems wherein you or me are the object of the expertise. The art of
having a conversation includes substantial intelligence beyond the
domaine of discussion. This presentation will outline some of the
work on-going (and past) at MIT's Media Laboratory, illustrating
potentials for sensory-rich communications with computers.
-------
∂16-May-86 1020 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 May 86 20:52:18 PDT
Date: Thu 15 May 86 16:11:24-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, No. 3, part 5
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
PHONOLOGY AND PHONETICS
Paul Kiparsky
Project Participants: Mark Cobler, Carlos Gussenhoven, Sharon
Inkelas, Paul Kiparsky (Project Leader),
Will Leben, Marcy Macken, Bill Poser,
Meg Withgott
Goals
This project is focused on postlexical phonology and its relation to
lexical phonology on the one hand, and to phonetic realization on the
other. We have been concentrating on three overlapping areas:
(1) tone and intonation (Leben, Poser),
(2) phonological phrasing and phonological processes which
apply in phrasal domains (Kiparsky, Poser), and
(3) formal properties of phonological rules and
representations (Kiparsky, Poser).
These are traditional concerns of phonology and (in part) of
phonetics, but we are approaching them in a somewhat new way which
seeks to unify those two disciplines and to integrate them with
linguistic theory. From that perspective, the important desiderata
are: (1) to fit the quantitative data obtained from instrumental
phonetic work into a phonological model that has independent
theoretical support, instead of constructing models on a more or less
ad hoc basis, (2) to construct substantial rule systems rather than
focusing, as is possible in some kinds of phonetic and phonological
research, on isolated rules or phenomena, and (3) to develop a
phonological theory consistent with a restrictive theory of grammar
such as those emerging from ongoing work at CSLI and elsewhere --
ambitions which, needless to say, have not made our lives any easier,
though they have made them a lot more interesting.
Tone and Intonation
Intonation in Tone Languages. Leben and Poser have collaborated on a
project on intonation in tonal languages (languages in which words
have different inherent pitch patterns), a topic about which almost
nothing is known. Most of the work has gone into analyzing data on
Hausa intonation that Leben collected in Nigeria last year, with the
help of Cobler and Inkelas (Leben, Cobler, and Inkelas 1986). They
discovered that a number of different intonational phenomena in Hausa
depend for their realization on phrase boundaries. These boundaries
are not typical phonological phrases (in particular, they are not in
general separated from one another by pauses); rather they correspond
to major syntactic boundaries, between NP and VP, and between V and
the different NP and adverbial complements of the verb. Drawing on
other work in autosegmental phonology, they propose that there is a
separate tier on which phrasal tone is represented, distinct from the
tier on which lexical tone is represented. By associating both the
High phrasal tone associated with the extra-High register used for
questions and for emphasis and the Low phrasal tone which describes
downdrift, they have been able to account formally for the apparent
complementarity of register raising and downdrift. They also offer an
alternative explanation of apparent evidence for utterance preplanning
in Hausa, namely that syntactic phrases may be preplanned but that
downdrift itself is not.
Pitch Accent. Withgott has continued her joint research with
Halvorsen on the phonetics and phonology of East Norwegian accent. In
a previous study (Withgott and Halvorsen, 1984) they argued that the
prosodic phenomenon of accent in Norwegian depends on the placement of
stress, morphological composition, and on regularities in the lexical
and postlexical phonology (rather than on a syllable-counting rule).
Using data derived from a computer-readable dictionary, they have now
(Withgott and Halvorsen, forthcoming) been able to provide further
support for their analysis through a quantitative study of the
accentual properties of compounds. Moreover, they have been able to
demonstrate that their account correctly predicts hitherto unobserved
phonetic differences between accents "1" and "2". This finding
disconfirms previous analyses which maintain that the two accents
reflect only one phonetic contour displaced in time.
Intonation Seminar. During the spring quarter, Leben, Gussenhoven,
and Poser are conducting a seminar on intonation. It covers background
material as well as current work being done at CSLI and elsewhere.
Participants include Withgott, Jared Bernstein (SRI), Ann Cessaris
(Key Communication in Menlo Park), Anne Fernald (Psychology), and a
number of Linguistics students.
Phrasal Phonology
Questions being addressed here include: How is phonological phrasing
related to syntactic structure? Can syntactic structure condition
phonological rules directly, or only indirectly via phrasing? How do
the properties of phrasal phonological rules differ from those of
lexical rules and of postlexical rules which apply across phrasal
domains? Where do so-called "phonetic rules" fit into the emerging
picture of the organization of the phonological component?
The reason these questions are up in the air is that several recent
developments have made untenable the hitherto standard picture of the
organization of phonology. According to this standard picture, the
rules of the phonological component map underlying representations
onto phonetic representations, which encode the linguistically
determined aspects of pronunciation; phonetic representations are in
turn related to the observed speech signal by largely universal rules
of phonetic implementation. One reason why this view bears rethinking
is that the theory of Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982, 1985; Mohanan
1982) posits the existence of a linguistically significant
intermediate level, the level of lexical representation. The rules
which map underlying representations onto lexical representations turn
out to have very different properties from the rules which map lexical
representations onto phonetic representations. Secondly, research in
phonetics (Liberman and Pierrehumbert, 1984) suggests that there exist
language-particular context-sensitive rules which manipulate low-level
continuously-valued parameters of the sort assumed to be
nonphonological in character. Third, studies of connected speech
(Selkirk, 1984) have led to the postulation of a prosodic hierarchy
which governs the application of phonological processes to
combinations of words.
These were originally separate lines of investigation, but Poser
and Kiparsky are finding that considerations from all three converge
in a surprising way: there appears to be a fairly clear-cut division
of postlexical rules onto two types, "phrasal" and "phonetic" rules,
which differ with respect to conditioning, domain, and discreteness as
follows:
PHRASAL RULES PHONETIC RULES
o subject to morphological-lexical o subject to phonological
conditioning conditioning only
o restricted to minor phrases o applicable also in larger
prosodic units
o manipulate discrete feature o manipulate continuous values
values
Table 1. A possible general typology of postlexical rules.
The same typology appears to extend to cliticization processes as
well.
We are currently investigating the possibility of assigning the two
types of postlexical rules to different modules of grammar, and
explaining their properties by the principles of those modules.
Formal Properties of Rules and Representations
Underspecification and Constraints on Rules. One of the basic ideas
of Lexical Phonology is that lexical representations are incompletely
specified and receive their nondistinctive feature specifications from
the phonological rules of the language and from universal default
rules. Recently, Kiparsky has explored the possibility that this
underspecified character of lexical representations explains certain
well-known properties of phonological rules which have so far been
accounted for by means of a range of unrelated constraints. One such
property is the restriction of rules to "derived environments" (the
"Strict Cycle Condition"). Another is the commonly encountered
failure of rules to apply if the undergoing segment is in a branching
constituent ("C-command"). Both are derivable from the proper
formulation of underspecification and the principles governing the
application of default rules. This makes it possible to impose
significant constraints on the role of syntactic information in phrase
phonology.
Underspecification and Overgeneralization. A tough problem for
linguistic theory is how learners infer abstract grammatical
structures and prune overly-general rules without explicit negative
information (i.e., without explicit correction). Marcy Macken has
developed an account of phonological acquisition that promises to
solve this long-standing puzzle. Her model distinguishes formal
(algebraic) structures of phonological representations, semantic
(particularly stochastic and geometric) properties of phonetic
interpretation, and the nonformal informational structures across time
in the environment. This has lead to an investigation of the role of
underspecification and default mechanisms in the overall organization
of the phonological grammar and consideration of constraints on the
formal system that come, not from properties of the abstract system,
but from properties of its extensional system.
Rules and Representation. Poser has been continuing to work on a
theory of phonological rules. This effort is intended both to
establish a more highly constrained system than has hitherto been
available, based upon general principles rather than ad hoc
constraints, and to provide a conceptual analysis and formalization of
the relevant notions. Recent results include a unified account of the
class of phenomena involving exempt peripheral elements, which
constrains the exempt material to single peripheral constituents
(Poser, 1986b), and work on the role of constituency in phonological
representations (Poser, 1986a). The latter bears on the relationship
between phonological representations and phonological rules and
especially on the way in which phonological representations transmit
information. The central point is that the motivated phonological
representation of stress permits the transmission of information about
the morphological structure that would otherwise be prohibited.
References
Kiparsky, P. 1985. Some Consequences of Lexical Phonology. In Colin
Ewen (ed.), Phonology Yearbook, Vol. II. Cambridge University Press.
Kiparsky, P. 1982. Lexical Morphology and Phonology. In I.-S. Yang
(ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin.
Liberman, M. and Pierrehumbert, J. 1984. Intonational Invariance
Under Changes in Pitch Range and Length. In Mark Aronoff and Richard
Dehrle (eds.), Language Sound Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mohanan, K. P. 1982. Lexical Phonology. Thesis, MIT. Reproduced by
Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Poser, W. (a). 1986. Diyari Stress, Metrical Structure Assignment,
and Metrical Representation. Fifth West Coast Conference on Formal
Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 22 March
1986.
Poser, W. (b). 1986. Invisibility. GLOW Colloquium, Girona, Spain, 8
April 1986.
Selkirk, E. 1984. Phonology and Syntax: The Relation between Sound
and Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Withgott, M. and Halvorsen, P.-K. 1984. Morphological Constraints on
Scandinavian Tone Accent. Report No. CSLI-84-11.
Withgott, M. and Halvorsen, P.-K. To appear. Phonetics and
Phonological Conditions Bearing on the Representation of East
Norwegian Accent. In N. Smith and H. van der Hullot (eds.),
Autosegmental Studies on Pitch Accent. Dordrecht: Foris.
end of part 5 of 7
-------
∂16-May-86 1245 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: Videotape Operation--More Classes And Machines
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 12:45:19 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 09:46:25-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library: Videotape Operation--More Classes And Machines
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207180716.34.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The Math/CS Library has expanded its videotape operation to 22 classes and
10 machines. We are still dependant on students to use our reservation
system however we have instituted some flexibility into that system. Eight
or our ten machines are still sign-up/reservation machines. Two of our
ten machines are considered to be backups in case any of the reservation
machines break down. However as long as all eight reservation machines are
working, students will have access to two additional machines on a first
come first served basis. So if we are book-uped in advance, you still can
check to see if the walk-up machines are being used. They are located
in the same area as the reservation machines and are labeled walk-up.
In addition, we are taking more courses and as in the past are keeping
all tapes until the end of the quarter. The following classes are being
received on tape in the Math/CS Library:
CS003, 004, 014, 022, 106B, 106X, 111/EE181, CS123, 223B, 242/EE285,
CS254, 257B, 261, 323, 343/EE383, CS345, 348, 441, 446, 500, 520, 527.
With the reservation system, you can still sign-up three days in advance.
The walk-up machines should satisfy last minute emergencies.
Harry LLull
-------
∂16-May-86 1451 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Congratulations to John Hennessy
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 14:51:30 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 12:44:44-PDT
From: Betty Scott <BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Congratulations to John Hennessy
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: BScott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207213177.18.BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
John Hennessy was promoted to a full Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on May 13. Congratu-
lations to John, and we are all pleased that he now has a formal CSD appoint-
ment.
Betty
-------
∂16-May-86 1503 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA Committee on Research Annual Open Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 15:03:04 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 13:12:02-PDT
From: Betty Scott <BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Committee on Research Annual Open Meeting
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: BScott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207218149.18.BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I call your attention to this announcement in today's Daily:
COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH ANNUAL OPEN MEETING
All interested members of the University community are invited to attend the
Committee on Research's Annual Meeting to be held on Thursday, May 22, from
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Oak Lounge West in Tresidder Union. The
meeting is for the purpose of soliciting comments on any issue related to
University research policies and their implementation. In particular,
comments are invited on the following matters:
1. Review of the University's current Secrecy in Research Guidelines as con-
tained in the Faculty Handbook. These Guidelines are required by policy
to be reviewed annually.
2. Discussion of academic authorship: issues, practices, problems, mechanisms
for resolving disputes.
Contact Associate Dean of Research and Academic Information Systems, Patricia
Devaney, at 723-3763 for additional information.
------------
Earlier in the year there was much concern over the new Patent Agreement, and
many of you were unwilling to sign it. This open meeting presents an oppor-
tunity to voice these concerns.
Betty
-------
∂16-May-86 1507 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: iso work on Lisp
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 15:07:49 PDT
Date: 16 May 1986 14:10-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Re: iso work on Lisp
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]16-May-86 14:10:01.MATHIS>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12207040954.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott, Thanks for those comments. I am planning to go to the
next EuLisp meeting in Bath, England on June 2. My purpose is to
try to achieve some compromise that allows work to go forward on
what we think of as Common Lisp. Your point is well taken ( and
I depend on you and others from the technical and steering
committees to continue to remind me) that sometimes a compromise
is really just giving up. If Mary wants the whole piece and John
says let's each take half, it is not a compromise to give
three-fourths to Mary. I'm sorry, it may be a compromise, but it
is not fair or reasonable.
I'll have more on this to say later. I also want to hear from
other people. -- Bob
∂16-May-86 1544 JJW Ignorant now usable
To: MJH-LispM@SU-AI.ARPA
Ignorant, the 3600 in MJH 324, has finally had its console repaired
and is now in good shape.
Mt St Coax, on the other hand, continues to have problems. The
Symbolics maintenance people say there is a short in the backplane,
and they have ordered a replacement which should arrive early next
week. The FEP board, which was originally suspected to be bad, is
probably okay.
∂16-May-86 1624 BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA reminder: Peterson's Guides
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 16:23:53 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 14:24:08-PDT
From: Kathy Berg <BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: reminder: Peterson's Guides
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Stanford-Phone: (415) 497-4776
Message-ID: <12207231272.17.BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I am currently updating the two-page departmental listing for
Peterson's Guides. Copies of the previous description
were distributed to each faculty member last month.
If you have not yet done so, please return your corrected copy
at your earliest convenience. If you need another copy,
please let me know; I would be happy to give you one.
My thanks for your kind cooperation.
Kathy
-------
∂16-May-86 1638 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * a csli-related event
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 16:38:29 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 16:31:34-PDT
From: Susi Parker <SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: TGISpring * a csli-related event
To: FOLKS@SU-CSLI.ARPA
*May 23rd @ 4 o'clock *Potluck *More later
-------
∂16-May-86 1810 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: iso work on Lisp
Received: from XEROX.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 18:10:10 PDT
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 16 MAY 86 17:46:19 PDT
Date: 16 May 86 17:46 PDT
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: iso work on Lisp
In-reply-to: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA's message of 16 May 86 14:10 PDT
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <860516-174619-1022@Xerox>
To what extent can we consider the following to make EU happy?
a) subsets of CommonLisp
b) alternatives that are additive
c) alternatives that can be made additive
by loading a support file.
The latter two keeps backwards compatability at th cost of agreeing on a
union that is acceptable, and the first allows smaller upwards growing
parts.
I agree that changes that harm current users must be very important to
be accepted.
∂16-May-86 1916 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU iso work on Lisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 19:16:48 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 16 May 86 22:17:55-EDT
Date: Fri, 16 May 1986 22:17 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12207284746.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Bobrow.pa@XEROX.COM
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: iso work on Lisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 16 May 1986 20:46-EDT from Bobrow.pa at Xerox.COM
To what extent can we consider the following to make EU happy?
a) subsets of CommonLisp
b) alternatives that are additive
c) alternatives that can be made additive
by loading a support file.
My own opinion, which I have expressed to Chailloux on several
occasions:
I've never had any problem with some group going off and defining a
subset, or more than one, as long as they don't create too much
confusion about what the "real" Common Lisp is. That means that if it
claims to be a subset, it must really be a subset and not some
incompatible simplification. And that if a multiple-level standard is
created, the name "Common Lisp" is reserved for the language we
currently have; the others are Common Lisp "subsets" or "kernels" or
something like that, and not "Common Lisp, Level 1". And even the
naming issue might be negotiable.
I personally think that making an official subset is a waste of time.
Any machine with virtual memory can easily support the full language,
and for delivery of critical applications on small machines, the subset
you want is whatever subset you happen to have used. There are simple
GC techniques that flush most of the unused stuff once you're done with
development. I think that if you do want a subset, you want a different
subset for each application: education, CAD, symbol-crunching, writing
editors, and so on. But while I personally have no interest in subsets,
it does no harm if someone goes off and defines one, even if they
make it official. So if that's all it would take to make them happy, I
have no objection.
Chailloux, in private discussions, has said he wants a compatible Common
Lisp subset, but Fitch, Padget, and Stoyan want to clean everything up.
They have stated at various times that Common Lisp should not be
standardized in its current state -- they use the word "standard" to
mean some Platonic ideal of the perfect Lisp. So maybe we could entice
the INRIA people with this offer, but not the others. Even if they
agreed that we get to do Common Lisp while they do subsets, there might
be problems with other groups interested in subsets, including Ida in
Japan, Gold Hill, and Kessler at Utah. All have different ideas.
I have also said to Chailloux that if they have specific ideas for
changes, we would be happy to consider them, especially if they take the
form of compatible extensions. That is not to say that we would accept
whatever changes that they propose -- no blank checks in this business.
But I don't think they're into extensions, from the technical material
I've seen so far. They want to clean things up in fundamental ways and
make the whole language more Scheme-like, on the one hand, and to
preserve their existing investment in the code for LeLisp and Cambridge
Lisp on the other hand. And they have this weird concern for what kind
of minimal Lisp can be done on a Z-80. Why they didn't pick a PDP-8, I
don't know!
I don't want to fight with these people. The split is partly our fault
for not having found some way of including them in the original design
discussions. We should be as accommodating as possible, on all
dimensions, without taking the fatal step of allowing them to dictate
incompatible changes in the existing Common Lisp. I'd really like to
bring the Eulisp people into the fold, but they're academics, and if
they want to be stubborn they don't have to pay attention to the rest of
the world or to the kinds of concerns that come up when you need to sell
a made-up standard to real companies with real users. If they insist
upon being unreasonable and on trying to keep the current Common Lisp
out of ISO, we'll just have to fight it out. They have about a dozen
people involved in Eulisp, more or less. I'm happy to listen to their
ideas, but in a sane world there's no way they should be able to dictate
terms to 30 or so major companies hundreds of people involved in
implementation efforts, and a Common Lisp user community that already
numbers in the thousands and is growing fast.
-- Scott
∂16-May-86 2139 RPG ISO Lisp
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
There are several possible solutions to the EuLisp problem:
1. Convince them that there should be an `ISO Common Lisp,'
an `ISO EuLisp,' and in 10 years, an `ISO Lisp.'
2. Convince them to make EuLisp a Lisp in which Common
Lisp can be easily and efficiently implemented. I suppose
this could be considered a subset of Common Lisp, but
more likely it is a Lisp implementation language.
3. Work with the European manufacturers to:
a. get more European votes, if possible
b. get them to see that their academic interests
are not totally applicable, even in Europe.
I presume that ISO voting in Europe cannot be by a self-appointed,
small number of people.
4. Start investigating ways to sidestep the `if there is an ISO
standard, the US military (?) must use it' problem. In this
case, the US and our Common Lisp friends can vote against
EuLisp, and we can go our separate ways.
I would guess that the only real problem is if ISO adopts EuLisp and
not Common Lisp. I suppose there are more ambitious compromises that
involves starting the work on a true platonic Lisp, but I'm not sure
my stamina is up to that.
-rpg-
∂16-May-86 2331 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday Reminder
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 May 86 23:31:51 PDT
Date: Fri 16 May 86 23:31:27-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Black Friday Reminder
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12207330908.12.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Pleaseremember that Black Friday will take place Tuesday, June 3rd,
at 2:15 p.m., in MJH 252.
Victoria
-------
∂17-May-86 0741 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU ISO Lisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 May 86 07:41:07 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 17 May 86 10:42:11-EDT
Date: Sat, 17 May 1986 10:42 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12207420239.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: ISO Lisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 17 May 1986 00:39-EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG at SU-AI.ARPA>
I agree with RPG's analaysis, and share his lack of enthusiasm for
starting over.
I've been assuming that if we get an ANSI standard for Common Lisp, the
U.S. military and friends will be free to shoose that over an
incompatible ISO standard. Is that right? Presumably some foreign
governments and researchers will not have that freedom; that gives them
some incentive to vote for us rather than EuLisp if it comes down to a
choice at ISO. If the vote doesn't come up for a year or so, the
dominance of Common Lisp will be very clear, since all of the
manufacturers will have their implementations out and in good shape by
then, all of the major expert-system shells will be converted, and the
research community will have made the move. Right now we can see that
the necessary momentum is there, but from the outside it may not be so
clear since lots of things are just in beta-test or unannounced.
-- Scott
∂17-May-86 1227 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA 1987 Forsythe Lecture
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 May 86 12:27:23 PDT
Date: Sat 17 May 86 12:25:05-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: 1987 Forsythe Lecture
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207471746.12.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I am pleased to announce that Bob Tarjan of Princeton University has
accepted our invitation to be the 1987 Forsythe Lecturer during the week
of Jan 26 through 30. Exact dates and lecture titles to be announced.
-Nils
-------
∂17-May-86 1303 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
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Date: Sat 17 May 86 13:03:04-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Meeting
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: bureaucrat@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207478660.12.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We are scheduling a special faculty meeting at 4:00 pm on Thursday, May
22, to hear recommendations from search committees . (I've forgotten the
room number; Anne will send around a room announcement.)
The theory search committee is recommending Robert Wilber. His vitae
and papers will be circulated to the faculty on Monday. (Unfortunately,
Umesh Vazirani declined our offer and decided to accept one from Harvard.
So the search for another "theory person" continues.)
We have two other search committees making recommendations. Polling of
the robotics search committee is almost complete, and it seems certain
that they will be recommending Jean-Claude Latombe as an Associate
Professor of Computer Science (with tenure) for the robotics position.
Dr. Latombe's vitae will be circulated Monday to the senior faculty.
Senior faculty members are urged to come by my office during the days
before the faculty meeting to review evaluation letters. (In summary,
they are excellent. I will have copies of the letters available at
the faculty meeting but do not want copies circulating.)
The AI search committee will be meeting on Wednesday, May 21, and it
is likely that they will have a recommendation. The committee has
interviewed some outstanding candidates. (Faculty members who have
met with these candidates are urged to send comments to me before
the search committee meeting so that the search committee can
consider them.) Since we won't know our recommendation in time
to give the faculty time to read the papers of our recommendee, I
will circulate cvs of all five AI candidates to the faculty. Please
stop by my office to have a look at their evaluation letters.
We will have both a general and a senior faculty meeting on Thursday.
The general one will be first and will consider Robert Wilber and
any junior faculty member that might be recommended by the AI committee.
That accomplished, we will then adjourn the general meeting and convene
a senior meeting to consider Latombe and any senior tenured faculty
member that might be recommended by the AI committee.
Please give high priority to attending and to reading the papers and the
evaluation letters. I regard faculty additions (such as the ones we may
propose next Thursday) as the most important thing I am involved in
around here.
Thanks, -Nils
-------
∂18-May-86 2126 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jock Mackinlay
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 May 86 21:26:01 PDT
Date: Sun 18 May 86 21:25:36-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jock Mackinlay
To: planlunch-reminder.dis: ;
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTOMATIC DESIGN OF GRAPHICAL PRESENTATIONS
Jock D. Mackinlay (MACKINLAY@SUMEX-AIM)
Computer Science Department, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, May 19
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
The goal of the research described in this talk is to develop an
application-independent presentation tool that automatically designs
graphical presentations (e.g. bar charts, scatter plots, and connected
graphs) for relational information. There are two major criteria for
evaluating designs of graphical presentations: expressiveness and
effectiveness. Expressiveness means that a design expresses the
intended information. Effectiveness means that a design exploits the
capabilities of the output medium and the human visual system. A
presentation tool is intended to be used to build user interfaces.
However, a presentation tool will not be useful unless it generates
expressive and effective designs for a wide range of information.
This talk describes a theory of graphical presentations that can be used
to systematically generate a wide range of designs. Complex designs are
described as compositions of primitive designs. This theory leads to
the following synthesis algorithm:
o First, the information is divided into components, each
of which satisfies the expressiveness criterion for a
primitive graphical design.
o Next, a conjectural theory of human perception is used
to select the most effective primitive design for each
component. An effective design requires perceptual
tasks of low difficulty.
o Finally, composition operators are used to compose the
individual designs into a unified presentation of all
the information. A composition operator composes two
designs when the same information is expressed the same
way in both designs (identical parts are merged).
The synthesis algorithm has been implemented in a prototype presentation
tool, called APT (A Presentation Tool). Even though only a few primitive
designs are implemented, APT can generate a wide range of designs that
express information effectively.
-------
∂19-May-86 1017 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General and Sr. Faculty Meetings
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 May 86 10:17:40 PDT
Date: Mon 19 May 86 10:17:27-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: General and Sr. Faculty Meetings
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207972797.12.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The room number for the faculty meetings on Thursday, May 22 starting at
4:00 is MJH 146.
-Anne
-------
∂19-May-86 1046 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA AFT meeting
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Date: Mon 19 May 86 10:37:44-PDT
From: Julius
Subject: AFT meeting
Sender: EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Reply-To: Julius@su-csli.arpa
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Penultimate AFT meeting this Tuesday, May 20, at 10:45. Will discuss
relations between thematic structures and semantic predicate structure
following up Abusch's paper.
Julius
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∂19-May-86 1104 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 May 86 11:04:44 PDT
Date: Mon 19 May 86 11:00:08-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207980567.12.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Abe Peled and Jean Paul Jacob of IBM will be joining CSD for lunch tomorrow
(Tuesday, May 20) in MJH 146 at 12:15 for general discussion of IBM.
-------
∂19-May-86 1806 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Reception for Dr. Peled Tuesday, May 20
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 May 86 18:06:09 PDT
Date: Mon 19 May 86 18:04:46-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Reception for Dr. Peled Tuesday, May 20
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12208057870.19.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Dr. Peled will give the CS500 Colloquium on Tuesday, May 20.
We will have a reception for him at the Faculty Club
from 5:15 to 6:30 in the Red Room.
-------
∂19-May-86 1928 HALVORSEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Housing June 1 to June 21 for Jens Erik Fenstad
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 May 86 19:28:03 PDT
Date: Mon 19 May 86 19:18:58-PDT
From: Kris Halvorsen <HALVORSEN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Housing June 1 to June 21 for Jens Erik Fenstad
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, su-bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: Halvorsen@SU-CSLI.ARPA, pawson.pa@XEROX.COM
Prof. Jens Erik Fenstad from the Mathematics Dept at the University of Oslo is
visiting CSLI from June 1 until June 21. He is looking for housing for this
time period, preferably a house-sitting arrangement. If
you have anything that might be suitable, or know of others who do,
please let me know.
Thanks,
Per-Kristian
-------
∂20-May-86 0615 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 May 86 06:14:30 PDT
Date: Tue 20 May 86 06:10:45-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12208190031.17.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Here's this week's AFLB. There will be no AFLB next week due to STOC.
------------------------------------
22-May-86 : Joan Feigenbaum (Stanford)
Report on the SIAM Discrete Math Conference
This talk will give a summary of the many graph-theoretic and
algorithmic results presented at the SIAM Discrete Math Conference
held at Clemson, May 14th to 16th.
***** Time and place: May 22, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Although all time slots for this academic
year have been filled, we may have a few during the summer. The file
[SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains more information about
future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂20-May-86 1121 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * This friday-may 23rd * 4 o'clock
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 May 86 11:21:18 PDT
Date: Tue 20 May 86 10:29:45-PDT
From: Susi Parker <SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: TGISpring * This friday-may 23rd * 4 o'clock
To: FOLKS@SU-CSLI.ARPA
My original message re the subj of the TGISpring event contained
a subcategory commonly known as a "potluck"; we WILL be having a
potluck in June, however THIS FRIDAY we will be slaving in the
sun making vanilla ice cream.
*BRING POSSIBLE TOPPINGS*
May 23rd: other csli-related events
The Henry Waldgrave Stuart Chair Inaugural Lecture
John Perry * Meaning and the Self * 8 o'clock
and a full moon
ENJOY
-------
∂20-May-86 1418 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 May 86 14:17:05 PDT
Date: Tue 20 May 86 14:07:05-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12208276744.24.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Complexity And Structure. Lecture Notes In Computer Science. by Uwe Schoning.
QA267.S37 1986.
Recursive Descent Compiling. by A.J.T. Davie and R. Morrison.QA76.6.D373.
ACM Conference On The History of Personal Workstations. Proceedings. Jan.
9-10, 1986. Palo Alto. (8601249)
Human Factors In Software Development. Tutorial. Second Edition. by Bill
Curtis. (8619659)
Modern Design And Analysis Of Discrete-Event Computer Simulations. Tutorial.
by Edward J. Dudewicz and Zaven A. Karian. QA76.9.C65D82 1985.
Languages For Automation. ed. by Shi-Kuo Chang. T59.5.L36 1985.
The Knowledge Machine: Artificial Intelligence And The Future Of Man by
Donald Michie and Rory Johnston. Q335.M468 1985.
Relationale Anfragen; Zerlegung und Optimierung. Informatik-Fachberichte
101. by Jurgen Koch. (8601554)
Semantische Reprasentation Komplexer Objektstrukturen: Modelle fur
nichtkonventionelle Datenbankanwendungen. Informatik-Fachberichte 100.
by Winfried Lamersdorf. (8601553)
Darstellung Und Nutzung Von Expertenwissen fur ein Bildanalysesystem.
Informatik-Fachberichte 104. by Gerhard Sagerer (8600370).
C For Personal Computers: IBM PC, AT&T PC 6300, and Compatibles, based
on microsoft and lattice compilers. by Narain Gehani. QA76.73.C15G45 1985.
So This Is 1984. The International Council For Computer Communication.
edited by D. Parkhill and P. Enslow, Jr. (Some personal views by governors
of the International Council for Computer Communication. TK5105.5.S63 1984
c.2
The Metafont book by Donald Knuth.1986. Z250.8.M46K58 1986.
Harry LLull
-------
∂20-May-86 1433 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 May 86 14:33:35 PDT
Date: Tue 20 May 86 14:31:19-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12208281156.24.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Probability Theory And Harmonic Anlysis. ed. by Chao and Woyczynski.
Papers from the Mini-conference on Probability and Harmonic Analysis
held in Cleveland, Ohio 1983. QA273.A1P77 1986.
Robustness Of Bayesian Analyses. Studies in Bayesian Econometrics. edited
by Joseph Kadane.1984. HA31.9R62 1984 c.2
Optimization Theory: The Finite Dimenstional Case. 1975. by Magnus R.
Hestenes. QA402.5H47 1981.
Mathematics And The Search For Knowledge. By Morris Kline. 1985.
QA99.K55 1985.
The following 7 are ISI Lecture Notes--Indian Statisticcal Institute:
Lecture Notes No.
3-Lectures On Functional Analysis Part I Perturbation By Bounded Operators
by R. Bhatia and K. R. Parthasarathy 1978. QC20.7.F84B45 1978 v.1.
5-Perfect Measures Part 1 Basic Theory by D. Ramachandran. QA273.43R35
1979 v.1.
6-Lectures On Functional Analysis Part 2 Perturbation By Unbounded Operators.
QC20.7.F84B45 1978 v.2.
7-Perfect Measures Part 2 Special Topics by D. Ramachandran. QA273.43.R35
1979 v.2.
8-Suslin's Work On Linear Groups Over Polynomial Rings And Serre Problem by
S.K. Gupta and M.P. Murthy. QA251.3.G86.
9-Stochastic Control Theory. by Makiko Nisio. QA402.3.N5 1981.
10-Theory Of Games And Its Applications To Economics And Politics. by
L.S. Shapley and L.K. Raut. QA269.S52 1981.
Multiobjective And Stochastic Optimization Based On Parametric Optimization.
Mathematical Research. by Guddat, Vasquez, Tammer and Wendler.
(8619303)
Convergence Structures 1984. Mathematical Research. edited by Novak, Gahler,
Herrlich, and Mikusinski. (8619302)
Parcella '84. Mathematical Research. edited by Handler, Legendi and Wolf.
(8619660)
Der Staz Vom Ausgeschlossenen Dritten. by Franz von Kutschera. 1985.
BC135.K842 1985.
Computational Complexity. Mathematics and its Applications. by K. Wagner
and G. Wechsung. QA267.W34 1986.
Discrete Mathematics For Engineers. Topics in Computer Mathematics.
by O.P. Kuznetsov and G. M. Adel'son-Vel'skii. QA76.9.M35K8913 1985.
H. LLull
-------
∂20-May-86 1551 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar update
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 May 86 15:51:07 PDT
Date: Tue 20 May 86 15:08:14-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar update
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
CSLI SEMINAR
Events and Modes of Representing Change
Carol Cleland
2:15, Thursday, May 22, Ventura Trailers
We ordinarily think of change as something which is inherently dynamic:
the shattering of a window, the flying of a bird, the explosion of the space
shuttle Challenger. That is to say, we think of change as involving
some kind of physically real process or activity. This process or activity
ostensibly provides the actual physical medium for the alteration of
conditions associated with the change.
In this light it is surprising how few of our modes of representing
change provide for any notion of process or activity. In contemporary
analytic philosophy, for instance, change is almost invariably
represented in terms of a mere difference in the properties instanced by
an object at different times. Similarly, change is often represented in
computation theory as a mere difference in discrete machine
configurations at different times.
It is my contention that such representations of change are inadequate.
Change involves more than a mere sequence of, in effect, durationless
entities. In this talk I will adumbrate an alternative account of
change--an account which takes seriously the notion that change involves
primitive activity. I will also argue that certain traditional
philosphical puzzles regarding the nature of events appear to be
resolvable if we incorporate such a notion of change into an account
of events.
-------
``Meaning and the Self''
by John Perry
The Henry Waldgrave Stuart Chair Inaugural Lecture
Friday, May 23, 8 pm, History Room 2
Reception to follow in Tanner Library, Building 90
-------
-------
∂21-May-86 0923 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting tomorrow
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 09:23:25 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 21 May 86 09:11:53 pdt
Date: Wed, 21 May 86 09:11:53 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting tomorrow
To: nail@diablo
For tomorrow's meeting, I'd like to talk about the "crisis"
regarding the port of cprolog to the RT.
That is, assuming Jamie doesn't get it working by tomorrow.
---jeff
∂21-May-86 1224 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Book on Deductive DB's
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 12:23:58 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 21 May 86 12:12:33 pdt
Date: Wed, 21 May 86 12:12:33 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Book on Deductive DB's
To: nail@diablo
I got a letter from John Lloyd, Dept. of CS, Univ. of Melbourne,
Parkville, Victoria, Australia, which he would like me to
pass on to the nail list.
John is putting together a volume for Cambridge Press with the
title "Theoretical Foundations of Deductive DB Systems."
If anyone has a paper they would like considered for inclusion
in this book, would they please communicate directly with him at
the above address.
---jeff
∂21-May-86 1252 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA NO PLANLUNCH NEXT MONDAY
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 12:52:06 PDT
Date: Wed 21 May 86 12:47:18-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: NO PLANLUNCH NEXT MONDAY
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 21-May-86 12:47:18.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Due to the Memorial Day holiday, there will be NO PLANLUNCH this coming
Monday. We will resume, however, on Monday June 2.
-Amy Lansky
-------
∂21-May-86 1509 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA PhD Program revision
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 15:07:07 PDT
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 21 May 86 15:03:51-PDT
Date: Wed 21 May 86 14:48:33-PDT
From: Terry Winograd <WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: PhD Program revision
To: Phdcom@SU-AI.ARPA, phd-program@SU-SCORE.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
jlh@SU-SONOMA.ARPA
cc: Winograd@SU-CSLI.ARPA
At the last full faculty meeting, it was voted to approve the plans for
the revision of the PhD program, subject to further discussion on the
exact makeup of the comprehensive exam. At one of the upcoming faculty
meetings this Spring, we will need to take final action. The committee
has collected syllabus information and met to discuss the comprehensive.
This message includes our draft proposal. Victoria Cheadle
(CHEADLE@SCORE) can give you a complete updated version of the proposal,
incorporating these. Also since the previous meeting, an additional
issue has come up that was not in the original proposal: the
requirements for students from other departments to get a PhD Minor in
Computer Science. A proposal for that appears at the end of this
message.
------
Summary of Comprehensive Exam:
Instead of the current six one-hour exams, we will have three 3-hour
exams. These can be passed separately (e.g., in different quarters or
years). Comps will still be given in Winter and Spring. A single
committee will be responsible for putting together the full exam
(although they are free to divvy up the work by sections). The three
areas are labelled "Systems [covering the old Hardware and Software
exams]", "Theory [MTC and AA]", and "Specialized areas [AI, NA, and new
material on Graphics and Databases]". The following is a draft of a
potential syllabus for the three, along with the names of the people who
will be cleaning up the details. If you have comments, please let them
know. We want to get general approval at the faculty meeting for the
overall structure. The comp committee will of course be free to modify
the readings each year.
In deciding what should go into the "Specialized areas" exam, we took
into account a number of considerations. An "ideal" topic would have
all of the following:
1) It is considered a significant topic (one that every student
should be familiar with) by computer scientists in general.
2) It involves specialized methods that are not part of the regular
systems or theory curriculum.
3) There is substantial faculty interest and expertise in the topic
at Stanford.
4) Courses are taught here that cover the material.
5) There is a good introductory-graduate text that incorporates the
relevant material.
Not every topic fits all of these, and we did not expect to find a hard
and fast rule for deciding what should be in. Presumably it will change
over time as the field (and our department) evolves. The exact
proportions of the different topics will be subject to the decision of
the committee making up the exam. That is, the fact that there are four
topics need not mean that each will count for exactly 25% of the score.
A student must pass the entire "specialized areas" part with an
acceptable overall score (not based on a minumum in each area). We felt
that it would raise too much confusion to try to keep track of results
of scores on these subtopics in a context of changes over the years.
------
SYSTEMS [to be reviewed by Lantz and Hennessey]
Harold Abelson and Gerald Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs, MIT, 1985
Alfred V. Aho, Sethi, R., and Jeffrey D. Ullman, Compilers --
Principles, Techniques, and Tools, Addison-Wesley, 1986. All except
sections 9.11-9.12, 10.9-10.13.
Bell, C.G., Mudge, J.C., and McNamara, J.E., Computer Engineering -- A
DEC View of Hardware Systems Design, Digital Press, 1978.
M. Ben-Ari, Principles of Concurrent Programming, Prentice-Hall
International, 1982. Material on concurrent programming.
Kogge, P., The Architecture of Pipelined Computers, McGraw-Hill, 1981.
M. Morris Mano, Computer System Architecture, Second Edition,
Prentice-Hall, 1982. Basic logic design, data representation, and
computer organization. Material taught in CS 108 and CS 112.
James L. Peterson and Abraham Silberschatz, Operating System Concepts,
Addison-Wesley, Second Edition, 1985.
Andrew Tannenbaum, Structure Computer Organization, Chapters ?
Terrence W. Pratt, Programming Languages: Design and Implementation,
Second edition, Prentice-Hall, 1984.
------
THEORY [to be reviewed by Guibas and Pratt]
Alfred V. Aho, John E. Hopcroft, and Jeffrey D. Ullman, Data Structures
and Algorithms, Addison-Wesley, 1983.
Herbert B. Enderton, A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, Academic
Press, 1972, Chapters 1--2.
Michael R. Garey and David S. Johnson, Computers and Intractability,
Freeman, 1979, Chapters 1--3, 7.
John E. Hopcroft and Jeffrey D. Ullman, Introduction to Automata Theory,
Languages, and Computation, Addison-Wesley, 1979, Chapters 1--3,
4.1--4.6, 5--7, 8.1--8.5.
Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1, Second
Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1973, Section 1.2 (except for Subsection
1.2.11.3)
Zohar Manna, Introduction to Mathematical Theory of Computation,
McGraw-Hill, 1973, Chapters 1--3.
Nils Nilsson, Principles of Artificial Intelligence, Kaufman, 1980,
Chapters 4--6.
Sedgewick, Robert, Algorithms, Addison-Wesley, 1983.
--------
SPECIALIZED AREAS [To be reviewed by Winograd and Rosenbloom]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Elaine Rich, Artificial Intelligence, McGraw-Hill, 1983.
DATA BASES
Jeffrey Ullman, Principles of Data Base Systems, Computer Science
Press, 1982
GRAPHICS
Newman and Sproull, Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics,
Chapters 1--5, and 15--18.
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
Kendall E. Atkinson, An Introduction to Numerical
Analysis, Wiley, 1978, Chapters 1--3, 5, 7, 8 (except
Sections 2.8, 2.10, 5.4).
--------------
Proposal for PhD Minor
The old version of the minor required a Masters pass on the comp. Since
we no longer have our own masters students taking the comp, this is not
appropriate, since it would lead to extremely bimodal distribution on
the exam. Some students did a careful examination of requirements from
other departments, and came up with the following. More details are on
{SCORE}<winograd>phd-minor.txt
"15 units of CS coursework, numbered 200 or above, including at
least three of the Master's core courses (to provide breadth) and
one course numbered above 300 (to provide depth). One of the
courses taken must include a significant programming project to
demonstrate programming proficiency. A GPA of 3.0 or better must
be maintained."
-------
∂21-May-86 1800 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 22, No. 17
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 18:00:32 PDT
Date: Wed 21 May 86 17:03:26-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, May 22, No. 17
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
!
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
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May 22, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 17
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A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, May 22, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Reading: ``Conditional Propositions,'' Ch. 7, Inquiry
Conference Room by Robert Stalnaker
Discussion led by Chris Swoyer (Swoyer@csli)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Events and Modes of Representing Change
Trailer Classroom Carol Cleland (Cleland@csli)
(Abstract on page 3)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Media Technology, the Art and Science of
Room G-19 Personalization
Nick Negroponte, MIT Arts and Media Lab.
(Abstract on page 4)
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, May 29, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Reading: ``A Speaker-based Approach to Aspect''
Conference Room by Carlota Smith
Discussion led by Dorit Abusch (Abusch@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Why Language isn't Information
Trailer Classroom Terry Winograd (Winograd@csli)
(Abstract on page 3)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Natural Language as a Reflection of Cognitive
Room G-19 Structure
Bill Croft, Stanford & SRI International(Croft@sri-ai)
(Abstract on page 4)
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar May 22, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH
``A Speaker-based Approach to Aspect''
by Carlota Smith
Discussion led by Dorit Abusch (Abusch@csli)
Two components contribute to sentential aspect: situation aspect and
viewpoint aspect. Situation aspect is dependent on the aspectual
classification of verbs, time adverbials, etc. Speakers determine the
situation type of an actual situation and correlate it with the
appropriate linguistic form in their language. Speakers can also talk
about a situation from a certain viewpoint (or perspective) as either
perfective or imperfective (corresponding to simple tense or
progressive in English). The interaction between the viewpoint aspect
chosen by the speaker and the situation aspect determines sentential
aspect. This approach can explain the aspect of simple tense event
sentences in English as well as non-standard aspectual choices.
Although aspectual viewpoint in French (imparfait vs. passe compose)
is different from English, it interacts with situation aspect in a
similar way. Examples from other languages are also discussed.
(Note: The term ``situation'' used by Smith is not that employed in
situation semantics).
------------
THE HENRY WALDGRAVE STUART CHAIR INAUGURAL LECTURE
``Meaning and the Self''
by John Perry
Friday, May 23, 8 pm, History Room 2
(Reception to follow in Tanner Library, Building 90)
!
Page 3 CSLI Calendar May 22, 1986
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THIS WEEK'S SEMINAR
Events and Modes of Representing Change
Carol Cleland (Cleland@csli)
We ordinarily think of change as something which is inherently
dynamic: the shattering of a window, the flying of a bird, the
explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. That is to say, we think
of change as involving some kind of physically real process or
activity. This process or activity ostensibly provides the actual
physical medium for the alteration of conditions associated with the
change.
In this light it is surprising how few of our modes of representing
change provide for any notion of process or activity. In contemporary
analytic philosophy, for instance, change is almost invariably
represented in terms of a mere difference in the properties instanced
by an object at different times. Similarly, change is often
represented in computation theory as a mere difference in discrete
machine configurations at different times.
It is my contention that such representations of change are
inadequate. Change involves more than a mere sequence of, in effect,
durationless entities. In this talk I will adumbrate an alternative
account of change---an account which takes seriously the notion that
change involves primitive activity. I will also argue that certain
traditional philosophical puzzles regarding the nature of events
appear to be resolvable if we incorporate such a notion of change into
an account of events.
----------
NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
Why Language isn't Information
Terry Winograd (Winograd@csli)
In developing theories of language, researchers introduce formal
objects corresponding to meanings and try to develop rules relating
those objects. These rules may be more or less sophisticated in
taking into account context, utterance situation, etc., but they all
ground their account of linguistic meaning in terms of something that
lies ouside of language, whether it be truth conditions, possible
worlds, situations, or ``concepts''.
This seems to work well enough when dealing with simple
descriptions of perceived physical reality (``The cat is on the mat'',
``Snow is white'', etc.) but is far more difficult and less convincing
when applied to more realistic examples of languge use, either from
casual conversation (``You aren't kidding, are you?'' or from text
like this abstract.
I will argue that in basing theories of meaning on an articulation
of ``objects,'' ``properties'', etc. we never escape the domain of
language, and are really articulating the possible moves in a kind of
conversation. Much of the technical work done in semantics and
philosophy of language can be reinterpreted in this light, but it
leads to radically different overall obejctives and different
expectations about the potential for building computer programs that
could legitimately be said to ``understand'' or ``mean what they
say''.
The talk is based on parts of a book I have recently completed with
Fernando Flores, entitled Understanding Computers and Cognition, and
on discussions in the Representation and Reasoning group.
!
Page 4 CSLI Calendar May 22, 1986
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THIS WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Media Technology, the Art and Science of Personalization
Nick Negroponte, MIT Arts and Media Lab.
As people look toward uncovering what constitutes expertise in one
field or another, there is a noticeable absence of interest in expert
systems wherein you or me are the object of the expertise. The art of
having a conversation includes substantial intelligence beyond the
domaine of discussion. This presentation will outline some of the
work on-going (and past) at MIT's Media Laboratory, illustrating
potentials for sensory-rich communications with computers.
----------
NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
Natural Language as a Reflection of Cognitive Structure
William Croft, Stanford & SRI International
Natural languages and their structure generally provide the most
tractable and least nebulous evidence in cognitive science. Cognitive
science should (and frequently does) turn to linguistics for potential
hypotheses of general cognitive structure. Hence it is plausible to
ask if natural language structures reflect in some more or less direct
way cognitive structures of greater generality. The purpose of this
talk is to present a simple but nevertheless fundamental set of
hypotheses based on cross-linguistically universal generalizations,
whose validity would be worth testing in nonlinguistic cognitive
modalities.
The first and most naive proposal a cognitive scientist might
entertain is that human beings divide their experience (or whatever it
is) into parts, and consequently establish relations among those
parts. Natural language provides clues as to what parts experience is
divided into and what relations are used to hold those parts together.
The universal syntactic categories noun, verb and adjective are based
on the interaction of (1) a commonsense ontological classification
into objects, properties and actions, and (2) principles of organizing
information in discourse. The ``case hierarchy'' of subject, object
and oblique reflect the organization of the ``parts'' of experience
into a causal network of events with their participants, given a
discourse-determined selection of subject.
In addition to these hypotheses, a more general principle of cognition
is proposed: human beings select certain situation types as ``focal''
or ``natural'', and other, similar situation types are coerced into
the model provided by the ``focal'' situation types. The linguistic
manifestation of this principle is found in the distribution of
universal vs. typologically variable grammatical phenomena.
-------
∂21-May-86 2237 G.MDP@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #14
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 May 86 22:37:02 PDT
Date: Monday, May 19, 1986 1:26PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #14
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Tuesday, 20 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 14
Today's Topics:
SEQUENTIAL PARLOG MACHINE
Conference Announcement
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 86 18:09:32 BST
From: mcvax!doc.ic.ac.uk!sg@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: SEQUENTIAL PARLOG MACHINE
SEQUENTIAL PARLOG MACHINE
We are now distributing the first release of our sequential
PARLOG system, to run on Unix machines. This system is
based on an abstract instruction set -- the SPM (Sequential
PARLOG Machine) -- designed for the sequential implementation
of PARLOG. The system comprises an SPM emulator, written in
C; a PARLOG-SPM compiler, written in PARLOG; and a query
interpreter also written in PARLOG. An environment allows
users to create, compile, edit and run programs.
The system is a fairly complete implementation of the PARLOG
language. Unlike previous implementations of PARLOG, and of
other parallel logic programming languages, there is no "flat"
requirement for guards; guards may contain any "safe" PARLOG
conjunction. A powerful metacall facility is provided.
The SPM instruction set was designed by Steve Gregory. The
system has been implemented by Alastair Burt, Ian Foster, Graem
Ringwood and Ken Satoh, with contributions by Tony Kusalik.
The work has been supported by the SERC, ICL and Fujitsu.
The SPM system is currently available, in object form, for the
Sun and Vax under Unix 4.2; it is distributed on a tar format
tape, which includes all documentation. Anyone interested in
obtaining a copy should first contact me at the following
address, to request a copy of the licence agreement. The
software will then be shipped on receipt of the completed
licence and prepayment of the handling fee.
-- Steve Gregory
Dept. of Computing
Imperial College
London SW7 2BZ
England
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 86 15:03:23 BST
From: mcvax!doc.ic.ac.uk!csa@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Conference Announcement
THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LOGIC PROGRAMMING
July 14-18, 1986
FINAL PROGRAM
Monday, July 14
All Day Tutorial: Logic programming and its applications by
Robert Kowalski and Frank Kriwaczek.
Half Day Tutorials:
A.M. Prolog implementation and architecture. David Warren
or Techniques for natural language processing in Prolog.
Michael McCord
P.M. Parallel logic programming. Keith Clark and Steve
Gregoryor Japanese Fifth Generation Applications Research.
Koichi Furukawa
Tuesday, July 15
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: K. Fuchi, ICOT
1a. Parallel implementations
An abstract machine for restricted AND-parallel execution of
logic programs.
Manuel V. Hermenegildo, University of Texas at Austin.
Efficient management of backtracking in AND-Parallelism.
Manuel V. Hermenegildo, University of Texas at Austin & Roger
I. Nasr, MCC.
An intelligent backtracking algorithm for parallel execution
of logic programs.
Vipin Kumar, University of Texas at Austin.
Delta Prolog: a distributed backtracking extension with events.
Luis Moniz Pereira, Luis Monteiro, Jose Cunha & Joaquim N.
Aparicio, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
1b. Theory and complexity
OLD resolution with tabulation.
Hasao Tamaki, Ibaraki University.
Logic programs and alternation.
P. Stepanek & O. Stepankova, MFF Prague.
Intractable unifiability problems and backtracking.
D.A. Wolfram, Syracuse University.
On the complexity of unification sequences.
Heikki Mannila & Esko Ukkonen, University of Helsinki.
2a. Implementations and architectures
How to invent a Prolog machine.
Peter Kursawe, GMD & University of Karlsruhe.
A sequential implementation of Parlog.
Ian Foster, Steve Gregory, Graem Ringwood, Imperial College &
Ken Satoh,
Fujitsu Limited.
A GHC abstract machine and instruction set.
Jacob Levy, Weizmann Institute.
A Prolog processor based on a pattern matching memory device.
Ian Robinson, Schlumberger Palo Alto Research.
2b. Inductive inference and debugging
An improved version of Shapiro's model inference system.
Matthew Huntbach, University of Sussex.
A framework for ICAI systems based on inductive inference and
logic programming.
Kazuhisa Kawai, Riichiro Mizoguchi, Osamu Kakusho & Jun'ichi
Toyoda, Osaka University.
Rational debugging in logic programming.
Luis Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Using definite clauses and integrity constraints as the basis
for a theory formation approach to diagnostic reasoning.
Randy Goebel, University of Waterloo, Koichi Furukawa, ICOT &
David Poole, University of Waterloo.
INVITED TALK: Theory of logic programming. Jean-Luis Lassez,
IBM
Wednesday, July 16
INVITED TALK: Concurrent logic programming languages.
Akikazu Takeuchi ICOT.
3a. Concurrent logic languages
P-Prolog: a parallel language based on exclusive relation.
Rong Yang & Hideo Aiso, Keio University.
Making exhaustive search programs deterministic.
Kazunori Ueda, ICOT.
Compiling OR-parallelism into AND-parallelism.
Michael Codish & Ehud Shapiro, Weizmann Institute.
A framework for the implementation of Or-parallel languages.
Jacob Levy, Weizmann Institute.
3b. Theory and semantics
Logic program semantics for programming with equations.
Joxan Jaffar & Peter J. Stuckey, Monash University.
On the semantics of logic programmming languages.
Alberto Martelli & Gianfranco Rossi, Universita di Torino.
Towards a formal semantics for concurrent logic programming
languages.
Lennart Beckmann, Uppsala University.
Thursday, July 17
INVITED TALK: Logic programming and natural language
processing. Michael McCord, IBM.
4a. Parallel applications and implementations
Parallel logic programming for numeric applications.
Ralph Butler, Ewing Lusk, William McCune & Ross Overbeek,
Argonne National Laboratory.
Deterministic logic grammars.
Harvey Abramson, University of British Columbia.
A parallel parsing system for natural language analysis.
Yuji Matsumoto, ICOT.
4b. Theory and higher-order functions
Equivalence of logic programs.
Michael J. Maher, University of Melbourne.
Qualified answers and their application to transformation.
Phil Vasey, Imperial College.
Procedures in Horn-clause programming.
M.A. Nait Abdallah, University of W. Ontario.
Higher-order logic programming.
Dale A. Miller & Gopalan Nadathur, University of
Pennsylvania.
5a. Program analysis
Abstract interpretation of Prolog programs.
C.S. Mellish, University of Sussex.
Verification of Prolog programs using an extension of
execution.
Tadashi Kanamori, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation &
Hirohisa Seki, ICOT.
Detection and optimization of functional computations in
Prolog.
Saumya K. Debray & David S. Warren, SUNY at Stony Brook.
Control of logic program execution based on the functional
relations.
Katsuhiko Nakamura, Tokyo Denki University.
5b. Applications and teaching
Declarative graphics.
A. Richard Helm & Kim Marriott, University of Melbourne.
Test-pattern generation for VLSI circuits in a Prolog
environment.
Rajiv Gupta, SUNY at Stony Brook.
Using Prolog to represent and reason about protein structure.
C.J. Rawlings, W.R. Taylor, J. Nyakairu, J. Fox & M.J.E.
Sternberg, Imperial Cancer Research Fund & Birkbeck College.
A New approach for introducing Prolog to naive users.
Oded Maler, Zahava Scherz & Ehud Shapiro, Weizmann Institute.
INVITED TALK: Prolog programming environments. Takashi
Chikayama, ICOT.
Friday, July 18
INVITED TALK: Logic programming and databases. Jeffery D.
Ullman, Stanford University.
6a. Implementations and databases
A superimposed codeword indexing scheme for very large
Prolog databases. Kotagiri Ramamohanarao & John Shepherd,
University of Melbourne.
Interfacing Prolog to a persistent data store.
D.S. Moffat & P.M.D. Gray, University of Aberdeen
General model for implementing DIF and FREEZE.
P. Boizumault, CNRS.
Cyclic tree traversal.
Martin Nilsson & Hidehiko Tanaka, University of Tokyo.
6b. Theory and negation
Completeness of the SLDNF-resolution for a class of logic
programs.
R. Barbuti, Universita di Pisa.
Choices in, and limitations of, logic programming.
Paul J. Voda, University of British Columbia.
Negation and quantifiers in NU-Prolog.
Lee Naish, University of Melbourne.
Gracefully adding negation and disjunction to Prolog.
David L. Poole & Randy Goebel, University of Waterloo.
7a. Compilation
Memory performance of Lisp and Prolog programs.
Evan Tick, Stanford University.
The design and implementation of a high-speed incremental
portable Prolog compiler.
Kenneth A. Bowen, Kevin A. Buettner, Ilyas Cicekli & Andrew
Turk, Syracuse University.
Compiler optimizations for the WAM.
Andrew K. Turk, Syracuse University.
Fast decompiling of compiled Prolog clauses.
Kevin A. Buettner, Syracuse University.
7b. Models of computation and implementation
Logic continuations.
Christopher T. Haynes, Indiana University.
Cut & Paste - defining the impure primitives of Prolog.
Chris Moss, Imperial College.
Tokio: logic programming language based on temporal logic
and its compilation to Prolog.
M. Fujita, Fujitsu Labs. Ltd., S. Kono, H. Tanaka & Moto-oka,
University of Tokyo.
The OR-woods description of the execution of logic programs.
Sun Chengzheng & Tzu Yungui, Changsha Institute.
PANEL DISCUSSION: Programming vs. uncovering parallelism.
Chair: Keith Clark, Imperial College.
---------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LOGIC PROGRAMMING
July 14-18, 1986
GENERAL INFORMATION
TIME AND VENUE
Monday 14th to Friday 18th July. Imperial College of Science
and Technology, South Kensington. Sherfield Building - Great
Hall, Pippard and Read Lecture Theatres.
Registration: Tutorials from 8.00 a.m. on Monday and Full
Conference from 2.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. on Monday and from 8.15
p.m. on Tuesday, in the main reception area adjacent to the
Great Hall.
General information on facilities and entertainment in London
will be available from the main reception desk.
CONFERENCE SESSIONS
The main conference runs from 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 15th July
until 5.00 p.m. on Friday, 18th July. Technical sessions are
divided into two parallel streams and each paper lasts for
approximately 20 minutes. (Each day has plenary sessions
addressed by invited speakers). Morning breaks are from 10.30-
10.50, lunch breaks from 12.30-2.00, and afternoon breaks from
3.40-4.00.
TUTORIALS
The Tutorial Programme takes place on Monday, 18th July, from
9.30 a.m. Each tutorial session is priced separately.
COMMERCIAL EXHIBITION
There will be a commercial exhibition located in the Junior
Common Room on the same level as the main conference facilities
in the Sherfield Building from 1.00 p.m. on Monday until Thursday
lunchtime. Companies taking part in the exhibition include sw
developers, hardware manufacturers and publishers. A reception
will be held in the exhibition area at the end of the tutorial
sessions on Monday. Refreshments will also be available in
the exhibition area during session breaks. Anyone interested in
taking space at the exhibition should contact the Conference
Organizers at Imperial College Tel. 01-589 5111 ext. 5011.
SOCIAL PROGRAMME
Monday, 14th July Reception in Exhibition Area.
Time 5.15 p.m. - 8.00 p.m. Cost included in registration fee.
Tuesday, 15th July A limited number of theatre and
concert tickets will be available
from the reception desk.
Wednesday, 16th July Jazz Boat Trip on the River Thames
Time 7.00 p.m. - 11.00 p.m. including live music, & buffet
supper. Cost #15 per person.
Numbers limited.
Thursday, 17th July Banquet at Imperial College.
Time 7.30 p.m. Cost included in full registration.
REFRESHMENTS/LUNCHES
Refreshments are provided during session breaks and will be
served in the reception area and exhibition area.
A seated buffet lunch will be available at #5.00 per person
per day if ordered in advance (see registration form).
Lunches are served in the Sherfield dining hall. Alterna-
tively, reasonably priced food can be obtained from local
restaurants and pubs within walking distance of the college.
ACCOMMODATION
Hotel Accommodation should be booked, quoting the conference
name, directly with:
Expotel, Banda House, Cambridge Grove, London W6 OLE
Tel. (01) 741 4411
Halls of Residence. Rooms should be booked in advance on
the registration form. They will be allocated to those who
register first. Full payment must be made at the time of
ordering. There will be no cancellation refunds, but
rooms may be transferred to another name.
25 single bedded rooms are available at Imperial College
from Saturday 12th - Thursday, 17th July inclusive (six
nights) at a total cost of #100 including English breakfast.
A further 25 are available from Sunday to Thursday (5 n
ights) at a total cost of #85 including English breakfast.
-----------------------------------------------------------
THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LOGIC PROGRAMMING
July 14-18, 1986
REGISTRATION FORM
Please complete one form per applicant. Please keep a
photocopy of your registration form for your reference.
Please print or type.
Surname.........................Firstname...................
Organisation ...............................................
Address.....................................................
Tel. No. ......................... Telex ...................
Conference Registration tic
received before 1st June #155 ----
received after 1st June #178 ----
Members of BCS, ACM, IEEE, Japanese
Computer Soc. rec. before 1st June #125 ----
Full time student - evidence required #60 ----
subtotal ←←←←←←←
Tutorial Programme (tick) normal delegate student
Warren (a.m.) or ←←← #65 ←←←
McCord (a.m.) ←←← #65 ←←←
Clark and Gregory (p.m.) or ←←← #65 ←←←
Furukawa (p.m.) ←←← #65 ←←←
(for two half day tutorials #110
or
Kowalski/Kriwaczek full day ←←← #100 ←←←
Lunches #5 per day (tick days & specify vegetarian meals)
Mon←←← Tue←←← Wed←←← Thur←←← Fri←←← Vegetarian←←←
Social Programme tick
Banquet (price included in non student fee) ←←←
#20 per student or each additional person ←←←
Jazz boat trip #15 per person ←←←
limited numbers for both events
Accommodation (single)
Imperial College Sat.-Thurs. (six nights inc.) #100
Imperial College Sun.-Thurs. (five nights inc.) #85
London University Sun.-Fri. (six nights inc.) #100
Hotel accommodation can be booked through Expotel,
London (01) 741 4411.
TOTAL ←←←←←←←
Cheques and bankers drafts in Pounds Sterling only should
be made payable to Logic Programming Conference Imperial
College. Please return this form together with your remittance
covering all items requested to: Andrew Abelson, 3rd
International Conference on Logic Programming, Department of
Computing, Imperial College, London SW7 2BZ, England.
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂22-May-86 0949 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FULLERTON@SU-SIERRA.ARPA Thanks to good donors
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 May 86 09:48:59 PDT
Received: from SU-SIERRA.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Thu 22 May 86 09:46:33-PDT
Date: Thu 22 May 86 09:48:00-PDT
From: Dwain Fullerton <FULLERTON@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
Subject: Thanks to good donors
To: Faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: ct.pac@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA, fullerton@SU-SIERRA.ARPA,
schwappach@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
Message-ID: <12208753868.10.FULLERTON@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
It's a pleasure to invite you to join with colleagues in
saying thanks (by telephone) to alumni who have contributed
generously to the School and Department during the past year.
The date is June 18, the time 5 p.m., the place 301 Encina
Hall. Dinner is provided. Bob White, who has participated
before, is prepared to testify that it usually turns out to be a
pleasant and stimulating evening.
If you're interested, R.S.V.P. to Pam Cook, director of the
Engineering Fund (ct.pac@Forsythe), or call her at 5-4219.
Incidentally, at last count the Fund was ahead of last year,
so the signs are good.
Best,
Dwain
-------
∂22-May-86 1105 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Brace yourself
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 May 86 11:05:02 PDT
Date: Thu 22 May 86 10:50:32-PDT
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Brace yourself
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Last month I received a letter from Elwood Fritchey, President of the
Kill the Redwoods League and Executive Director of the Photocopying
Hall of Fame. He congratulated CSLI on its permissive photocopying
policy:
Those of us who believe that photocopying is a basic human right,
that should be as accessible as the air we breathe and the trees
we cut, feel CSLI's policies are the standard by which others
should be judged...
Touched as I was by this testimonial, I have decided to tighten up on
our photocopying policy. The basic theme of the new policy is that
the CSLI budget only picks up photocopying directly related to CSLI
research and activities, but this is broadly conceived and we try, as
always, to be helpful.
Actually, this isn't much of a change in policy, if any, but the
effort conveys it in a readily comprehensible way, and the procedures
to implement it are new.
A document stating and explaining the policy will be sent out in a
couple of hours. I am sending this out now so that you can brace
yourselves.
John
-------
∂22-May-86 1201 SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA TGISpring * THISfriday * 4 o'clock
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 May 86 12:01:40 PDT
Date: Thu 22 May 86 11:49:40-PDT
From: Susi Parker <SUSI@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: TGISpring * THISfriday * 4 o'clock
To: FOLKS@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: BROWWN@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
it turns out that this will really be a TGISundae
the possible topping (for csli-made vanilla ice cream) list looks like
this:
butterscotch sauce
fresh strawberries
whipped cream
coconut sprinkles
call me @ 723-4443 with your inspirations
PS: bring children (optional)
-------
∂22-May-86 1307 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Emma Pease
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 May 86 13:06:46 PDT
Date: Thu 22 May 86 12:54:53-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Emma Pease
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
As most of you have probably heard, I will be away on vacation from
May 24 to June 8 and again from June 14 till July 6.
Hence,
Calendar entries should be sent to Jamie Marks (Jamie@csli) by noon
on Wednesday. Remember that abstracts for Thursday activities are
printed in the previous Thursday's calendar.
Please send requests for additions or deletions to mailing lists to
requests@csli, and someone will take care of it. Please be as
specific as possible. If the requests are sent to my account, they
will wait there until I get back.
Emma
-------
∂22-May-86 1405 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Photocopying Policy
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 May 86 14:05:04 PDT
Date: Thu 22 May 86 13:48:20-PDT
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Photocopying Policy
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
PHOTOCOPYING POLICY
The CSLI photocopier is for the (reasonable) professional use of CSLI
researchers. This includes research, teaching, and other professional
activities. We are happy if it proves convenient for the personal
affairs of these researchers, and for the professional and personal
affairs of others. But these latter categories must be paid for by
the user.
CSLI postdocs, graduate students, and visiting scholars who expect
their professional usage to exceed 250 pages per quarter should
explain the need to the Assistant Director.
Graduate students from impoverished departments associated with CSLI
are given, as a courtesy, 100 pages per quarter for professional use.
These "limits" do not include photocopying for CSLI project meetings
and events.
Each user of the CSLI photocopying machine has an account (i.e., a
page in the log book) to keep track of usage. Personal usage by CSLI
researchers, and personal and professional usage of others, should be
paid for (@ 5cents/page) as it occurs, by giving the money to the
receptionist, or one of the secretaries in the front office if the
receptionist is not available, or, if necessary, by leaving an IOU.
There are also accounts for projects and events. Photocopying for
project meetings and other events should be registered on the
appropriate page, and NOT on the user's personal account.
EXAMPLES
Ms. X, a graduate student involved in CSLI research, would like to
photocopy the Oxford English Dictionary, as it is relevant to her
dissertation.
POLICY APPLICATION: Legal problems aside, she should copy it at 250
pages a quarter, register it on her individual account, and do no
other photocopying for the quarter. Or she might try to convince
Betsy that the excessive usage is legitimate in her case. Or she
might try to hold her breath for forty minutes.
Ms. Y, a postdoc, will have a lot of photocopying to do in the fall
quarter of a given year, much more than 250 pages, because she is
trying to get a job and has vitas and writing samples galore to send
out.
POLICY APPLICATION: She should talk to Betsy, who will be sympathetic.
Ms. Z, a jewel in the crown of CSLI, a researcher whose contribution
helps define and make it what it is, does an enormous amount of
photocopying as part of her work.
POLICY APPLICATION: Great. She should just keep track of it.
Ms. W has a CSLI computer account. She is a member of a computerless
department. She isn't involved in CSLI research, but she is a
beneficiary of CSLI's policy to make its computer available in a
generous way, given its good luck in having a lot of computational
capacity and great freedom in how it is used because of its private
funding. It is convenient for her to do photocopying at CSLI, when
she gets the printout of her research.
POLICY APPLICATION: She should pay for every page. We are happy our
computer can be used to provide access to the otherwise accessless,
but we don't feel that photocopying is in the same category.
Ms. U, a CSLI graduate student, is giving a talk to the Discourse
Project meeting, and needs to do a lot of photocopying which would use
up her allotment.
POLICY APPLICATION: No problem. The copies should be registered on
the project account, not on her individual account page.
Ms. T is a graduate student in impoverished CSLI-related department Z.
Her specialty is as far from CSLI concerns as is imaginable. She
would like to copy a couple of articles relevant to her research.
POLICY APPLICATION: No problem. She has 100 free pages a quarter as
long as we can afford this sort of generosity.
Ms. V is any of the above. She wants to copy her income tax form.
POLICY APPLICATION: This is personal, so she should pay for this use.
-------
∂23-May-86 1139 vardi@su-aimvax.arpa Call for Papers
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 May 86 11:38:04 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Fri, 23 May 86 11:06:22 pdt
Date: Fri, 23 May 86 11:06:22 pdt
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi@diablo>
Subject: Call for Papers
To: ailist@sri-ai, cbosgd!announce@sun, nail@diablo, theory@uwisc
CALL FOR PAPERS
Sixth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on
PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS
San Diego, California, March 23-25, 1987
The conference will cover new developments in both the
theoretical and practical aspects of database and
knowledge-base systems. Papers are solicited which describe
original and novel research about the theory, design,
specification, or implementation of database and knowledge-
base systems.
Some suggested, although not exclusive, topics of interest
are: architecture, concurrency control, database and expert
systems, database machines, data models, data structures for
physical implementation, deductive databases, dependency
theory, distributed systems, incomplete information, user
interfaces, knowledge and data management, performance
evaluation, physical and logical design, query languages,
recursive rules, spatial and temporal data, statistical
databases, and transaction management.
You are invited to submit ten copies of a detailed abstract
(not a complete paper) to the program chairman:
Moshe Y. Vardi
IBM Research K55/801
650 Harry Rd.
San Jose, CA 95120-6099, USA
(408) 927-1784
vardi@ibm.com
Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of significance,
originality, and overall quality. Each abstract should 1)
contain enough information to enable the program committee
to identify the main contribution of the work; 2) explain
the importance of the work - its novelty and its practical
or theoretical relevance to database and knowledge-base sys-
tems; and 3) include comparisons with and references to
relevant literature. Abstracts should be no longer than ten
double-spaced pages. Deviations from these guidelines may
affect the program committee's evaluation of the paper.
The program committee consists of Umesh Dayal, Tomasz Imiel-
inski, Paris Kanellakis, Hank Korth, Per-Ake Larson,
Yehoshua Sagiv, Kari-Jouko Raiha, Moshe Vardi, and Mihalis
Yannakakis.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 10,
1986. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection
by December 8, 1986 (authors who supply an electronic
address might be notified earlier). The accepted papers,
typed on special forms, will be due at the above address by
January 9, 1987. All authors of accepted papers will be
expected to sign copyright release forms. Proceedings will
be distributed at the conference, and will be subsequently
available for purchase through ACM.
General Chairman: Local Arrangements:
Ashok K. Chandra Victor Vianu
IBM Research Center Dept. of Computer Science
P.O.Box 218 Univ. of California
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 La Jolla, CA 92093
(914) 945-1752 (619) 452-6227
ashok%yktvmx@ibm.com vianu@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
∂23-May-86 1248 YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA HOME-MADE ICE CREAM TODAY
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 May 86 12:43:58 PDT
Date: Fri 23 May 86 12:34:19-PDT
From: Tom Yamarone <YAMARONE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: HOME-MADE ICE CREAM TODAY
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Yet another message reminding you that today at
4:00 PM
We're making home-made vanilla ice cream here at Ventura Hall!
All are urged to come and partake in this T.G.I.Sundae Time.
If you have a topping you'd like to bring, please call 3-4443 to
add it to the list of toppings being diligently detailed by our
topping mistress......
See you at 4:00 , today for this carnival of creamy consumption!
-------
∂23-May-86 1920 @SU-SUSHI.ARPA,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Call for Papers
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 May 86 19:19:59 PDT
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-SUSHI.ARPA with TCP; Fri 23 May 86 19:16:54-PDT
Received: from rsch.wisc.edu by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 23 May 86 19:16:41-PDT
Received: by rsch.wisc.edu; Fri, 23 May 86 20:36:17 CDT
Received: from crys.wisc.edu by rsch.wisc.edu; Fri, 23 May 86 13:47:45 CDT
Message-Id: <8605231847.AA04664@crys.wisc.edu>
Received: from su-aimvax.arpa by crys.wisc.edu; Fri, 23 May 86 13:47:04 CDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Fri, 23 May 86 11:06:22 pdt
Date: Fri, 23 May 86 11:06:22 pdt
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi@diablo>
Subject: Call for Papers
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 23 May 86 20:26:08 CDT (Fri)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
CALL FOR PAPERS
Sixth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on
PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS
San Diego, California, March 23-25, 1987
The conference will cover new developments in both the
theoretical and practical aspects of database and
knowledge-base systems. Papers are solicited which describe
original and novel research about the theory, design,
specification, or implementation of database and knowledge-
base systems.
Some suggested, although not exclusive, topics of interest
are: architecture, concurrency control, database and expert
systems, database machines, data models, data structures for
physical implementation, deductive databases, dependency
theory, distributed systems, incomplete information, user
interfaces, knowledge and data management, performance
evaluation, physical and logical design, query languages,
recursive rules, spatial and temporal data, statistical
databases, and transaction management.
You are invited to submit ten copies of a detailed abstract
(not a complete paper) to the program chairman:
Moshe Y. Vardi
IBM Research K55/801
650 Harry Rd.
San Jose, CA 95120-6099, USA
(408) 927-1784
vardi@ibm.com
Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of significance,
originality, and overall quality. Each abstract should 1)
contain enough information to enable the program committee
to identify the main contribution of the work; 2) explain
the importance of the work - its novelty and its practical
or theoretical relevance to database and knowledge-base sys-
tems; and 3) include comparisons with and references to
relevant literature. Abstracts should be no longer than ten
double-spaced pages. Deviations from these guidelines may
affect the program committee's evaluation of the paper.
The program committee consists of Umesh Dayal, Tomasz Imiel-
inski, Paris Kanellakis, Hank Korth, Per-Ake Larson,
Yehoshua Sagiv, Kari-Jouko Raiha, Moshe Vardi, and Mihalis
Yannakakis.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 10,
1986. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection
by December 8, 1986 (authors who supply an electronic
address might be notified earlier). The accepted papers,
typed on special forms, will be due at the above address by
January 9, 1987. All authors of accepted papers will be
expected to sign copyright release forms. Proceedings will
be distributed at the conference, and will be subsequently
available for purchase through ACM.
General Chairman: Local Arrangements:
Ashok K. Chandra Victor Vianu
IBM Research Center Dept. of Computer Science
P.O.Box 218 Univ. of California
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 La Jolla, CA 92093
(914) 945-1752 (619) 452-6227
ashok%yktvmx@ibm.com vianu@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
--------------
TN Message #46
--------------
∂24-May-86 0008 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #14
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 May 86 00:08:11 PDT
Date: Friday, May 23, 1986 10:16AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #14
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 23 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 14
Today's Topics:
Administration - Order Restored,
Implementations - Call←In & VMS/Prolog & KBES-Tools,
& TRO & Exponentiation & Recursion & Compilation & Tricks
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri 23 May 86 10:13:12-PDT
From: Chuck Restivo <Restivo@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Order
[cwr]
Many thanks to Mike Peeler for help with restoring order to
the MMAILR !
I apologize for not having put the Digest as frequently as
it should have been. There have been a bunch of low level
details that have prevented me from producing it, and they
have now been addressed.
Best,
Chuck
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 86 11:20:20 est
From: Scott Guthery <sguthery%slb-doll.csnet@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject: Call-In to Edinburgh
Has anyone done or does anyone know about a program call-in
interface to Edinburgh C-Prolog? The idea is to write
list = cprolog("blender(X).");
and get back a list of blenders. The hard bit seems to be
being able to assert things on the fly and find them later
without saving and restoring the world.
Thanks for your help,
-- Scott Guthery.
------------------------------
Date: 7 Apr 86 15:09:13 GMT
From: Chris Tweed
Subject: VMS/Prolog wanted
C-Prolog is available from:
EdCAAD
Dept. of Architecture
University of Edinburgh
20 Chambers Street
Edinburgh EH1 1JZ
Contact Mrs M. McDougall
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 1986 18:51-EDT
From: VERACSD@USC-ISI.ARPA
Subject: Benchmarking KBES-Toools
I have come across some recent benchmarks from NASA (U.S.
Gov't MEMORANDUM from the FM7/AI Section, April 3, 1986)
which compared various KBES tools' (ART, OP, KEE & CLIPS)
times for solving the MONKEY-AND-BANANA problem. (This
toy problem is explained in detail along with OPS source
in Brownston et. al.'s "Programming Expert Systems in OPS5".)
Although the benchmarks include backward-chaining solutions
to the problem in both KEE and ART (along with forward
chaining counterparts), there is no PROLOG implementation
in the comparison. I am very interested in a PROLOG
comparison, and am in the process of implementing one.
Unfortunately, I am not (yet) a competent PROLOG programmer
and am currently learning my way around PROLOG on a DEC-20.
Consequently, any advice/suggestions re implementing this
benchmark and timing it effectively would be be useful &
appreciated. (By the way, the time to beat is 1.2 secs. for a
forward-chaining implementation using ART on a 3640 with
4MB main-memory.)
I would be glad to share the results with anyone who offers
assistance. (Or for that matter with whomever is interested.)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 86 20:11:03 pst
From: Peter Ludemann <ludemann%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject: response to Prolog Digest V4 #12
Warren Abstract Machine ("WAM") bibliography.
Warren, D.H.D.: An Abstract Prolog Instruction Set. SRI
Technical Note 309. - the basic description.
Gabriel, Lindholm, Lusk, Overbeek: A Tutorial on the Warren
Abstract Machine for Computational Logic. Argonne National
Laboratory Report ANL-84-84. - amplifies SRI 309. The
description of how WAM avoids putting entries on the "trail"
needs careful reading - it's a bit terse (but correct).
The rest of the paper is quite good. I would recommend
starting with this paper.
Tick, E. and Warren, D.H.D.: Towards a Pipelined Prolog
Processor. IEEE 1984 International Symposium on Logic
Programming. - gives a description of a hardware
implementation for SRI 309. The description of WAM is
a bit terse, but probably adequate if you read carefully.
Warren, D.H.D.: Implementing Prolog - Compiling Predicate
Logic Programs. Technical Reports 39 and 40, Department
of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
- describes compiling (into DEC-10 code, although the the
papers are done mainly in terms of pseudo-code). Also describes
tail recursion optimisation. This is mainly of historical
interest but some of the concepts are useful for understanding
SRI 309.
==================
One of the nice things about the Warren design is its tail
recursion optimisation (TRO). TRO helps solve the problem
of running out of stack space which was mentioned in Prolog
Digest V4 #12. (As far as I'm concerned, any Prolog wihtout
TRO is just a toy. And TRO isn't very hard to implement.)
There are many people who are implementing variations of WAM
(including myself). I would appreciate hearing about these
other designs.
-- Peter Ludemann
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 86 15:09:45 MET
From: Neideck%Germany.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: Exponentiation Bug
Answer to the "exponentiation bug" of Srinivas Sataluri in
Vol 4, No. 12
The bug isn't really caused by the exponentiation operator,
it should be possible to produce similar results with the
other arithmetic functors.
Since the integer 8 and the real number 8.0 are two different
constants they would not normally unify. C-Prolog performs
all internal arithmetic in double precision floating point,
then checks whether the result can be represented as an
integer. Thus every result without a fractional part should
be returned as an integer.
To see what's wrong, define a predicate real/1:
real(X) :- number(X),not integer(X).
Then the following strange computations are successful:
?- X is 2↑2, real(X), Y is X, integer(Y).
X = 4
Y = 4
The real error is with the function "Narrow" from "arith.c"
which checks, whether a number f can be represented as an
integer:
*****> if ((double)(k = (int)f) != f) return FALSE; <******
The test ist carried out with the full double precision input,
but the actual result returned is of even less than single
precision, since the return value to C-Prolog is squeezed into
32 Bits together with a few tag bits. Differences in the
vanishing parts of the mantissa inhibit the conversion of the
result to integer format, though the actual value does not
show any perceivable reason for this. Therfore "rule2" works,
as
P is Z
performs the necessary conversion to integer format for Z.
The test in Narrow should be less precise to counter this
misbehavior. Ideally one should remove all the spurious
mantissa bits by doing
f = XtrFloat(ConsFloat(f));
at the beginning of Narrow, but as both of them are genuine
functions, this comes out expensive, so I suggest the following
fix, which comes close:
double f; int *i;
{
register int k;
float imprecise;
imprecise = f; f = imprecise; /* Drop mantissa bits */
/* Better: f = XtrFloat(ConsFloat(f)); but is rather expensive*/
if (f < MinInt || f > MaxInt) return FALSE;
if ((double)(k = (int)f) != f) return FALSE;
*i = k;
return TRUE;
-- Burkhard Neidecker
------------------------------
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 19:14:06-PST
From: Fernando Pereira <PEREIRA@SRI-CANDIDE.ARPA>
Subject: Recursion in Prolog
The three ingredients that you need to make recursion
affordable in Prolog are the following features in your
Prolog system:
- tail recursion optimization
- global (structure) stack garbage collection
- a compiler that recognizes common deterministic
idioms
Prolog-10/20 has had all three for 7 years, with the result
that it is possible to write the natural recursive formulations
of problems rather than being forced into horrible contortions
with assert and fail.
Summary: find a Prolog that uses today's technology, not
yesterday's...
-- Fernando Pereira
------------------------------
Date: Fri 4 Apr 86 19:19:24-PST
From: Fernando Pereira <PEREIRA@SRI-CANDIDE.ARPA>
Subject: Prolog compilation
Some of DHD Warren's papers, including the ones mentioned,
have also appeared as SRI technical reports. Write to
Tonita Walker, EJ257
Artificial Intelligence Center
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Ave.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
The relevant report numbers are 290 and 309.
-- Fernando Pereira
------------------------------
Date: 2 Apr 86 20:09:39 GMT
From: Emneufeld@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Prolog Hacker Tricks
If there is already a book on this subject, someone please
let me know. Prolog is wonderful, but it has its unique
problems; some of which can only be dealt with by a bit of
hacking. The following trick was shown to me by a friend:
To save space, use
not ( not ( predicate (X ...))))
in place of `predicate (X ... )' where you are interested
just in the success of the predicate and not any values it
might return. (Why does it work?) If the predicate succeeds,
the meta-predicate not fails, bindings are undone and stack
space is freed. Second not returns success. If the predicate
fails, nothing is saved, but you get the answer you wish.)
Send your favourite hack.
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂24-May-86 1354 SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA File of drivers/riders for STOC
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 May 86 13:54:50 PDT
Date: Sat 24 May 86 13:52:31-PDT
From: Alejandro Schaffer <SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: File of drivers/riders for STOC
To: aflb.su@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12209322669.27.SCHAFFER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
I have set up a file on sushi, <SCHAFFER>stoc.txt for people driving or
riding to STOC. You should be able to edit the file. Now if we can
just find an algorithm to group riders with a driver and another
algorithm for parking in Berkeley, we should be OK.
Alex
-------
∂24-May-86 1724 JF@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Re: parking
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 May 86 17:24:33 PDT
Return-Path: <lawler@ernie.Berkeley.EDU>
Received: from ernie.Berkeley.EDU by SU-SUSHI.ARPA with TCP; Sat 24 May 86 17:19:18-PDT
Received: by ernie.Berkeley.EDU (5.51/1.12)
id AA14999; Sat, 24 May 86 17:20:28 PDT
Date: Sat, 24 May 86 17:20:28 PDT
From: lawler@ernie.berkeley.edu (Eugene Lawler)
Message-Id: <8605250020.AA14999@ernie.Berkeley.EDU>
To: JF@su-sushi.arpa
Subject: Re: parking
ReSent-Date: Sat 24 May 86 17:21:20-PDT
ReSent-From: Joan Feigenbaum <JF@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
ReSent-To: aflb.su@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
ReSent-Message-ID: <12209360685.27.JF@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Parking permits will be sold ($4.50) at the meeting. But I suspect that
it will be possible to park on the street.
--Gene
∂26-May-86 1049 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Fridaynformation
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 May 86 10:48:22 PDT
Date: Mon 26 May 86 10:46:49-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Black Fridaynformation
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12209813151.11.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
If you are not planning on attending the Black Friday meeting
(June 3rd, 2:15 pm, Jacks 252), please send me any and all
relevant information regarding your advisees. This is particularly
important for students who are not going to meet the deadlines set
down in their Gray Tuesday letters.
Victoria
-------
∂26-May-86 1113 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA faculty meetings
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 May 86 11:13:38 PDT
Date: Mon 26 May 86 11:12:48-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: faculty meetings
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12209817883.13.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There are still two items that need to be dealt with by the
faculty before the end of the quarter. One concerns recommendations
for the PhD program and the other concerns acting on the recommendation
of the robotics search committee. I suggest that we have a short meeting
to discuss these items immediately after the Black Friday meeting on
Tuesday June 3. Since the Black Friday mtg will probably be short,
we ought to be able to start the faculty meeting at 3.
First, we will have a general faculty meeting to hear the final
PhD committee recommendations, discuss them, and act on them. Terry
will distribute material before the meeting so that people can read
beforehand and thus help shorten the length of the meeting.
Second, we will have a senior faculty meeting (which is often scheduled
for the first Tuesday of every month anyway), to act on the robotics
search committee's recommendation of Jean-Claude Latombe. Please read
his vitae and letters ahead of time (in Anne Richardson's office) so that
we can have a short discussion and vote. (The matter was not decided
at our last faculty meeting due to a shortage of time.)
-Nils
-------
∂26-May-86 1219 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Honors!
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 May 86 12:19:18 PDT
Date: Mon 26 May 86 12:18:03-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Honors!
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12209829761.13.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Two of our faculty have recently been honored, and I'd like to
congratulate them and let you all know about it in case you
don't know already.
1. George Dantzig was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science
at the Carnegie-Mellon University commencement ceremony on
May 12, 1986.
2. Gene Golub was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy
of Engineering.
-Nils
-------
∂27-May-86 0605 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [franz!fimass!jkf: Where we stand ]
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Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 09:03 EDT
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Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: [franz!fimass!jkf: Where we stand ]
Date: Tuesday, 27 May 1986 02:02-EDT
From: franz!fimass!jkf at kim.Berkeley.EDU (John Foderaro)
To: Scott E. Fahlman <ucbkim!C.CS.CMU.EDU!Fahlman at kim.Berkeley.EDU>
Re: Where we stand
I believe that using the Steele book, or any other document of that
form, would be a mistake for a basis for a standard. The book is
written in good English which has its advantages (being thoroughly
enjoyable and subtly witty) and its disadvantages (being incompletly
specified and at times totally ambiguous). What we need is a
excruciatingly dull document which has the form:
1. definitions of terms
2. functions and special forms, alphabetically.
3. special symbols
Each function is defined using simple English and the terms defined in
the beginning.
Appendicies could be added to flesh out sections of functions (such
as the error system or defstruct), but in all cases the official
definition is in the main part of the manual.
The form of the function descriptions could be in a neutral format
from which one could convert it to any of the popular typesetting
languages using a filter.
For example:
function: cons
arguments: x (any-lisp-object)
y (any-lisp-object)
action: Allocate and return a new object of type cons initiatialing the car
slot to x and the cdr slot to y.
This would help promote an international standard since it will make
the translation to other languages easier. I've met someone who
is translating the Steele book to Japanese and I was suprised at the
number of important concepts he has wrong (and his readers will get
wrong).
john foderaro
franz inc.
∂27-May-86 0611 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 06:08:09-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12210024567.11.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
There is no AFLB this week due to STOC. Here's next week's talk:
------------------------------------
5-June-86 : Joe Kilian (MIT)
Almost All Primes Can Be Quickly Certified
(Abstract forthcoming)
***** Time and place: June 5, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
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∂27-May-86 0620 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
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Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 09:19 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12210026673.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: franz!fimass!jkf@λkim.Berkeley.EDU (John Foderaro)λ
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Where we stand
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 May 1986 02:02-EDT from franz!fimass!jkf at kim.Berkeley.EDU (John Foderaro)
John,
I understand your concern about the format of the Steele book, and share
it. I think there may be some middle ground between the current book
and "excruciatingly dull" that would allow us to produce a very precise
spec that is also useful as a manual for the working programmer (though
it would certainly not be a good introductory text for the language).
If we can do that, we will prevent the confusion that would arise due to
differences between the official spec and whatever more readable manual
everyone ends up using.
I think that the spec has two kinds of things in it: very precise
descriptions of each of the functions, forms, and built-in variables,
and some conceptual material explaining, for example, how scoping or
packages work in Common Lisp. For the descriptions, the kind of format
you describe (and that we see coming from the Eulisp effort) is indeed
what we want. The Lucid manual is already organized more or less this
way, which is the reason I'd like to get it as a starting point. (We
would have to go over it carefully to get rid of any Lucid-specific
stuff and make sure it really does match Steele.)
For the descriptive material, the Steele book has some useful chunks of
text that I'd like to be able to lift. This text has the advantage that
people have been scrutinizing it for a couple of years, so we know where
most of the ambiguities are. If we write something new, we'll be
discovering new problems for awhile after the user community gets hold
of the new text.
I think that this mixture of formats would be good for online use. One
could create a cross-index of function-description frames, and pointers
to the appropriate chunk of explanatory text where needed.
My inclination is to go with Tex for the new document, as this seems to
be the most widespread text-formatter around. (I won't use any of those
evil hacks with "roff" in the name, and Scribe (TM) is too expensive for
some groups.) If we use Tex macros in a consistent way, automated
conversion to other formatters would be just as easy as if we used raw
text in a rigid format, but the advantage is that we can quickly run off
decent-looking working documents as we go.
Anyway, that's my current thinking on the matter. I'm still pretty
flexible on this. Once we have access to the various sources and can
start putting this together, we can see how various organizations work
out in practice.
-- Scott
∂27-May-86 1140 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA colloquium
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 11:33:26-PDT
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: colloquium
To: phil-all@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Calvin Normore will give a talk on Friday, May 30 at 3:15 in the Philosophy
Semonar Room, 92Q. Title: "Ockham's Consequences"
-------
∂27-May-86 1154 RPG Mark Your Calendars
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
CC: rhh@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
There will be a meeting of the object-oriented programming group after the
Lisp conference. I will ask Bert Halstead to find a room at MIT or
Symbolics that will hold around 50 - 100 people. I propose that it be
held starting around 2pm on the last day of the Lisp conference, 2pm being
after the conference is over. Shall I send this out over the main mailing
list?
On another note, let me bring you up to date on the Lucid manual
situation. There is a major, unexpected complication in the use of the
manual. The best situation for us (this committee) is that Lucid allows a
derived work with little or no constraint. However, suppose Lucid simply
agrees to that, and the derived work is not sufficiently different from
the original that the usual copyright tests would fail; that is, that the
derived work would have been judged a copyright enfringement of the
original. The fact that Lucid released the derived work implies a release
of the original. The lawyers can solve this, but none of us would want to
sign that document.
Bob Mathis and Lucid's lawyers are proceeding on this front, though
slowly.
-rpg-
∂27-May-86 1234 Moon@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Where we stand
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Date: Tue, 27 May 86 15:22 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Subject: Where we stand
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12210026673.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860527152215.0.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 09:19 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
[Recipient removed: John Foderaro]
....
My inclination is to go with Tex for the new document, as this seems to
be the most widespread text-formatter around. (I won't use any of those
evil hacks with "roff" in the name, and Scribe (TM) is too expensive for
some groups.) If we use Tex macros in a consistent way, automated
conversion to other formatters would be just as easy as if we used raw
text in a rigid format, but the advantage is that we can quickly run off
decent-looking working documents as we go.
I take it you decided to ignore my contention that the only viable format
for working documents is straight text with no formatting commands obscuring it?
∂27-May-86 1247 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
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Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 15:44 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12210096801.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "David A. Moon" <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Where we stand
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 May 1986 15:22-EDT from David A. Moon <Moon at SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
I take it you decided to ignore my contention that the only viable format
for working documents is straight text with no formatting commands obscuring it?
No, but I decided to disagree with it. As I said at the time in mail I
hope you got, I think that having a way of quickly whipping up a
decent-looking document with an index, visible section headings, and
some way of getting at distinctive fonts for emphasis and for code
examples will be valuable during the development process. I don't think
that a lot of effort should go into making the document beautiful at
this point, but I want it to be reasonably functional and not just
80-column uglitext for reading on terminals.
If the others feel as you do, I'd be willing to discuss this, but I got
the impression that you were the only one who held this view. The one
who does the work of assembling the new document gets a slightly bigger
vote, I think.
-- Scott
∂27-May-86 1333 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Cage and Poligon.
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 13:32:22-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Cage and Poligon.
To: AAP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210105433.33.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Due to sundry changes to system software I have recompiled the following
systems completely:-
Parser, L100, New-Poligon-Language, New-Cage-Language, New-Oligon.
The result of these recompilations is @i[incompatible] with previous
software. Please recompile any code that you have that uses these
systems. This includes Userfns, writen in Lisp.
In the New-Oligon release I have included the extensions, which I
mentioned before I left for my holiday. These changes are upwards
compatible.
Rice.
-------
∂27-May-86 1336 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Splitting the list
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 13:32:24-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Splitting the list
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210105441.53.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've split the KSL-LispM mailing list into KSL-Explorer and
KSL-Symbolics. Right now, everyone who was on KSL-LispM is on both
lists. If you are not interested in Explorers, send me a note and
I'll take you off the KSL-Explorer list. Likewise, if you aren't
interested in news about KSL Symbolics machines, send me a note to get
removed from that list. KSL-Lispm will remain the union of the two
lists.
-- Rich
-------
∂27-May-86 1336 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Splitting the list
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 13:32:24-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Splitting the list
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210105441.53.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've split the KSL-LispM mailing list into KSL-Explorer and
KSL-Symbolics. Right now, everyone who was on KSL-LispM is on both
lists. If you are not interested in Explorers, send me a note and
I'll take you off the KSL-Explorer list. Likewise, if you aren't
interested in news about KSL Symbolics machines, send me a note to get
removed from that list. KSL-Lispm will remain the union of the two
lists.
-- Rich
-------
∂27-May-86 1352 ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Where we stand
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Date: Tue, 27 May 86 16:52:10 EDT
From: Alan Bawden <ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Where we stand
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA
In-reply-to: Msg of Tue 27 May 1986 15:44 EDT from Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman at C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <[AI.AI.MIT.EDU].46661.860527.ALAN>
Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 15:44 EDT
From: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman at C.CS.CMU.EDU>
No, but I decided to disagree with it. As I said at the time in mail I
hope you got, I think that having a way of quickly whipping up a
decent-looking document with an index, visible section headings, and
some way of getting at distinctive fonts for emphasis and for code
examples will be valuable during the development process. I don't think
that a lot of effort should go into making the document beautiful at
this point, but I want it to be reasonably functional and not just
80-column uglitext for reading on terminals.
While there is something to be said for the ability to generate passable
hardcopy, I have yet to see a text-justifier that has a notation for font
shifts that doesn't render the input text unreadable. TeX's notation is
perhaps the worst of the bunch.
When generating documentation myself, I generally stick to a few simple,
readable conventions to indicate -emphasis-, CODE, <meta-variables>,
.section names, etc. Then a couple of TECO macros generally suffice to
convert the result to TeX input or whatever, when the time comes for fancy
output. I don't know if a group can work this way, but it sure would be
nice to be able to work with readable text. I want to be able to get
proposed text in my mailbox, and not have to run it through TeX in order to
read it without donning my kludge-proof goggles.
Look at it this way, this document is for communication among ourselves
almost as much as it is for communication with the rest of the world.
∂27-May-86 1434 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 May 86 14:27:51 PDT
Date: Tue 27 May 86 14:25:24-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, cs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12210115088.32.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Fundamentals Of Operating Systems. 3rd edition. 1984. by A. M. Lister.
QA76.6.L57 1984.
Computer Graphics: Visual Technology and Art. Proceedings of Computer
Graphics Tokyo '85. edited by Tosiyasu Kunii. T385.C5995 1985.
Digital Picture Processing; an Introduction. by L. P. Yaroslavsky.
TA1632.I1713 1985.
Uncertainty Models For Knowledge-Based Systems by I. R. Goodman and
H. T. Nguyen. Q375.G66 1985.
Structured Walkthroughs. 3rd edition. by E. Yourdon. QA76.6.Y672 1985.
Computers In Clinical & Biomedical Engineering. edited by L. Karanja.
R858.C6537 1983.
Fortran 77 A Top-Down Approach by N. K. Lehmkuhl. QA76.73.F25L44 1983.
Computer Dictionary. Fourth Edition. by Charles Sippl. Ref. QA76.15.S5
1985.
H. LLull
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∂27-May-86 1446 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 May 86 14:45:52 PDT
Date: Tue 27 May 86 14:32:29-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12210116376.32.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Cluster Analysis. Dissertation. Yale Univ. by Robert F. Ling. 1971.
QA278.L555 1971 a
Mathematics of Multi Objective Optimization. CISM Courses and Lectures.
edited by P. Serafini QA402.5.M37 1984.
Fast Fourier Transform and Convolution Algorithms. 2nd corrected and
updated edition. by H. J. Nussbaumer. QA403.5.N87 1982 c.2.
H. LLull
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∂27-May-86 1454 DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA Format of manual
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Date: Tue, 27 May 86 17:55 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN>
Subject: Format of manual
To: cl-steering@sail
Message-ID: <860527175521.2.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
I agree with Scott's message. I've spent many hours working on Lisp
documentation (the Lisp Machine Manual), and there's one point I'd like
to respond to: descriptions of individual functions are the easiest
thing to write. While the existing CLtL isn't sufficiently specific in
its descriptions of some functions, this is not its primary problem.
The real hard part in writing such documentation is explaining the
concepts. This is particularly hard when you're writing a standards
document, that needs to be very precise. While I agree that the
stylized form of function documentation that JKF suggested, and that the
Lucid documentation uses, is a good thing, it should not be viewed as
the most important change towards producing a clear and specific manual.
In my experience, there is an important tradeoff between writing a
manual useful for a reader who's learning what the manual says, and
writing a manual that's very clear and specific. It's hardly impossible
to do some of each, but it's very hard, because often one goal gets in
the way of the other.
I'd recommend that the guideline for the new CL spec is that it should
attempt to present the material in a logical, ordered fashion that
builds from the bottom to the top, and it should attempt to assume that
the reader is not yet familiar with concepts not yet presented, but it
should above all be strict and precise, even if this conflicts with the
other goals.
The balance is subtle and hard to measure precisely. I agree with Scott
that we'll have to experiment some to find the right tradeoff. I also
agree that starting with the existing material, and modifying it to be
closer to what we want, is more likely to succeed than an attempt to
start from scratch.
∂27-May-86 1518 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 27 May 86 18:16:35-EDT
Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 18:16 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12210124396.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Alan Bawden <ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA
Subject: Where we stand
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 May 1986 16:52-EDT from Alan Bawden <ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
When generating documentation myself, I generally stick to a few simple,
readable conventions to indicate -emphasis-, CODE, <meta-variables>,
.section names, etc. Then a couple of TECO macros generally suffice to
convert the result to TeX input or whatever, when the time comes for fancy
output. I don't know if a group can work this way, but it sure would be
nice to be able to work with readable text. I want to be able to get
proposed text in my mailbox, and not have to run it through TeX in order to
read it without donning my kludge-proof goggles.
It seems to me that it would be somewhat easier to create a set of TECO
macros to strip off any TEX formatting stuff you don't want to see. It
takes a serious amount of AI for a teco macro to know whether "I" in
some text is normal English or if it is a variable name that should be
converted to computerfont.
My view is that at least half the time I'm going to be looking at the
paper version of this stuff, and I want that to look halfway decent.
The rest of the time I'll be looking at it on a workstation with a
hi-res screen, and if I don't like the way the TeX input looks there,
it's easy enough to whip up some kludge that display TeX files in some
approximation to how they will look on paper.
-- Scott
∂27-May-86 1545 Moon@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Where we stand
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Date: Tue, 27 May 86 18:41 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Subject: Where we stand
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12210124396.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860527184125.3.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Character-Type-Mappings: (1 0 (NIL 0) (NIL :ITALIC NIL) "CPTFONTI")
Fonts: CPTFONT, CPTFONTI
Date: Tue, 27 May 1986 18:16 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
My view is that at least half the time I'm going to be looking at the
paper version of this stuff, and I want that to look halfway decent.
The rest of the time I'll be looking at it on a workstation with a
hi-res screen, and if I don't like the way the TeX input looks there,
it's easy enough to whip up some kludge that display TeX files in some
approximation to how they will look on paper.
And how much of the time will you be spending editing it?
I wonder if I could get you to commit to "whipping up some kludge" that
you will run over the text every time you send stuff to me to read so I
can read it, and every time I send edited stuff to you, you will run it
over it again to turn it back into the format that you like. I doubt
that I could. I hope you get my point, which is not at all "Fahlman is
intransigent and uncooperative" (or substitute "Moon" for "Fahlman" if
you like). My point is that we ought to be concentrating on the content
of this stuff, not the appearance. If the appearance won't take care of
itself, it at least does not require the specialized skills of
high-powered language designers.
Two related points: (1) If I have to wade through a sea of backslashes,
curly brackets, atsigns, or any other garbage, I'm a lot less likely to
notice that we forgot to say whether or not FORMAT ~A is affected by the
value of *PRINT-PRETTY*. (2) People like you and I are very easily
distracted into debugging our Tex macros or making the "last" tweak so
something looks pretty on paper, instead of doing what we are supposed
to be doing. Let's leave the book design to the book designers and the
typography to the typographers (and for God's sake let's leave the
litigation to the lawyers) and not erect unnecessary obstacles to getting
the language design accomplished by the language designers. And, oh yes,
I promise to take the ε1character-style shiftsε0 off before I send anything
to you; everybody has their own garbage that somebody else doesn't want
to wade through.
∂27-May-86 1658 JAR@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU text
Received: from [10.1.0.6] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 May 86 16:58:01 PDT
Date: Tue, 27 May 86 19:57:22 EDT
From: Jonathan A Rees <JAR@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: text
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-reply-to: Msg of Tue 27 May 86 16:52:10 EDT from Alan Bawden <ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <[MX.LCS.MIT.EDU].922039.860527.JAR>
I agree with Bawden and Moon. We should try to come up with a notation
that's much simpler and more readable than TeX.
Jonathan
∂27-May-86 2123 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where we stand
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 28 May 86 00:10:42-EDT
Date: Wed, 28 May 1986 00:10 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12210188849.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "David A. Moon" <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Where we stand
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 May 1986 18:41-EDT from David A. Moon <Moon at SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Well, those are all pretty good arguments, and it looks like you've got
me outnumbered, three votes to one. And my heart is certainly not set
on using TeX -- I've used Scribe for the past eight years, though I've
been meaning to move over to TeX for the last two of those years. It
seems clear to me that the final document is going to be done in TeX,
since it is the least obnoxious formatting system that is available on
just about every machine, but I guess we can hire some semi-technical
coolie to format the document and do an index at the end.
In my view, pretending to pass around chunks of the manual in English,
but carefully adhering to some set of conventions that can be
machine-translated into TeX (or whatever), would be more of a
distraction than writing in a real formatting language in the first
place. If it's going to be English, let's just use any natural language
conventions that we all understand. Bawden can say -potato- and I can
say POTATO, and if both forms find their way into the evolving manual,
the guy who does the final formatting can sort it all out into TeX.
Let me suggest the following: If we start from scratch, we'll write the
manual in something like plain English and add the formatting, whatever
it is, at the end. If we start with either the Steele book or the Lucid
book (both of which are now in TeX, I believe), and if the editing is
mostly done here at CMU, I want to reserve the right to continue in TeX
rather than scraping it all away, making changes, and having to add it
all back in at the end. But if we go that way, we'll run the document
through TeX whenever changes are made and create a plain-English file
from it. We can have our discussions in terms of the English version,
people writing proposed changes can use English, and you'll never have
to know that I'm keeping things in TeX behind your backs.
Since you offer, I would prefer not to see those ↑F's, and I'll try not
to use @i[...] too much. I'm tempted to propose that we also agree
never to go over 80-columns, even when responding to nested mail
messages, because the wraparaound is infinitely more distracting to me
than any possible text-formatting garbage. But if I proposed that you'd
all taunt me for not hacking my mail on a -REAL- machine.
-- Scott
∂28-May-86 0838 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Top 10 Computer Companies
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 08:38:14 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 08:36:11-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Top 10 Computer Companies
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210313658.29.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
This morning's Mercury lists Datamation magazine's list of the
world's top 10 computer companies ranked by 1984 data-processing
revenues. All 10 belong to the Computer Forum.
1. IBM $44.3 billion
2. DEC 6.2 b
3. Burroughs 4.5 b
4. Control Data 3.8 b
5. NCR 3.7 b
6. Fujitsu 3.5 b
7. Sperry 3.47 b
8. H-P 3.4 b
9. NEC 2.8 b
10.Siemens AG 2.79 b
I don't belive that Burroughs buyout of Sperry will affect their
Forum membership.
Carolyn
-------
∂28-May-86 0932 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Journal--Discrete & Computational Geometry
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 09:32:03 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 09:26:11-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Journal--Discrete & Computational Geometry
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210322761.41.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We have just received volume 1 number 2 1986 of Discrete & Computational
Geometry. This is a new journal for the Math/CS Library. This journal
will come out quarterly and is published by Springer-Verlag. The editors-
in-chief are Jacob E. Goodman and Richard Pollack. The editorial board
includes Leo Guibas, Donald Knuth, Robert Tarjan, H. S. M. Coxeter, and
Gian-Carlo Rota among others. This is an international journal of
mathematics and computer science, covering a broad range of topics in
which geometry plays a fundamental role. The following articles are in
the copy we have received v.1,no. 2: A Resolution of the Sylvester-Gallai
Problem of J.-P. Serre by L.M. Kelly; Computing Circular Separability
by Joseph O'Rourke, S. Rao Kosaraju and Nimrod Megiddo; Spherical
Complexes and Nonprojective Toric Varieties by Gunter Ewald; Smooth,
Easy To Compute Interpolating Splines by John D. Hobby; Geometric
Realizations for Dyck's Regular Marp On A Surface Of Genus 3 by E.
Schulte and J. M. Wills; A Polynomial Solution For The Potato-peeling
Problem by J. S. Chang and C. K. Yap; and Some Basic Properties Of
Packing and Covering Constants by H.Groemer.
H. LLull
-------
∂28-May-86 1126 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Final results of Ph.D. admissions
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 11:26:14 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 11:20:03-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Final results of Ph.D. admissions
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12210343491.33.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Listed below are the final results from this year's Ph.D. admissions
process. I have a slightly different version of this file that prints
out nicely on the Boise. Let me know if you'd like that version, as
well.
Name Undergraduate School Interests
Decision Where They Decided to Go Fellowship 1 and 2
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Ashcroft,Robert N. CORNELL UNIVERSITY MTC PSL
DECLINE UCB NSF
Basu,Julie JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY PSL NDS
ACCEPT
Black,Christina L. CORNELL UNIVERSITY PSL MTC
DECLINE UCB NSF
Burns,Derrick R. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AA DA
ACCEPT Bell Corp.
Chambers,Craig D. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PSL NDS
ACCEPT SOE
Chandra,Rohit INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, KANPUR DCS ND
ACCEPT
Cohen,Edith. TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY CM AI
ACCEPT
Derr,Marcia A. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON PSL CL
ACCEPT
Etzioni,Oren W. HARVARD UNIVERSITY AI AA
DECLINE CMU
Feder,Tomas. STANFORD UNIVERSITY MTC AA
ACCEPT IBM
Fernando,Timothy P. CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MTC AI
ACCEPT
Geva,Shai TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY AI PSL
DECLINE CMU
Gottlieb,Adam M. HARVARD UNIVERSITY NDS OS
DECLINE MIT NSF
Grigni,Michelangelo. DUKE UNIVERSITY MTC AA
DECLINE MIT NSF
Hanson,Michael J. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON MTC PSL
ACCEPT NSF
Hayes,Barry. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PSL CG
ACCEPT
Henzinger,Thomas A. JOHANNES KEPLER UNIVERSITAT MTC AI
ACCEPT
Jakobsson,Hakan. missing MTC ND
ACCEPT
Kharitonov,Michael V. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY MTC A
DEFER
Lazana,Georgia-Loucy. UNIVERSITY OF PATRAS PSL OS
ACCEPT
Lebiere,Christian J. UNIVERSITE DE L'ETAT A LIEGE AI MTC
DECLINE CMU
Mellinger,David K. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PSL CG
ACCEPT GE
Mumick,Inderpal S. INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, DELHI AI AA
ACCEPT
Murdock,Janet L. PURDUE UNIVERSITY AI AA
ACCEPT
Ng,Antony P. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VLSI AA
DECLINE UCB
Nowick,Steven M. YALE UNIVERSITY AI PS
ACCEPT
Phipps,Geoffrey R. UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY AI MT
ACCEPT
Piatko,Christine D. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY NA AA
DECLINE Cornell
Pollard,Nancy S. UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON AI
DECLINE MIT NSF
Rinard,Martin C. BROWN UNIVERSITY AA APP
ACCEPT
Rothberg,Edward E. STANFORD UNIVERSITY AA OR
ACCEPT NSF
Salesin,David H. BROWN UNIVERSITY CG AA
ACCEPT SOE
Sanger,Terence D. HARVARD UNIVERSITY ROB
DECLINE MIT NSF
Sorkin,Gregory B. HARVARD UNIVERSITY AI CM
DECLINE UCB
Subi,Carlos S. UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRES
ACCEPT
Taylor,Ian L. YALE UNIVERSITY PSL AI
DECLINE MIT NSF
Vaughan,Richard A. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AI DB
ACCEPT NSF
Wang,Alexander. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY APP MTC
ACCEPT SOE
Wolf,Elizabeth S. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY CL CM
ACCEPT NSF
Wolverton,Michael J. RICE UNIVERSITY AI AA
ACCEPT Shell
Young,Neal E. CORNELL UNIVERSITY MTC CL
DECLINE Princeton NSF
Zabih,Ramin MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PSL AI
ACCEPT (deferring one Qtr.) Hertz
Zhu,David J. FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE APP AI
ACCEPT
Accept 29 (with two deferrals)
Decline 14
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Total: 43
Note: There will also be two deferrals from last year who will start
this fall. That makes a grand total of 45 (shudder!) new Ph.D. students.
Their folders are now available for you to look through in my office.
I would prefer that the folders not leave my office.
Victoria
-------
∂28-May-86 1144 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA oops!
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 11:42:48 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 11:34:01-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: oops!
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12210346034.33.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I meant to say that we would have 31 new Ph.D. students
(still, shudder!), not 45!
Sorry about that,
Victoria
-------
∂28-May-86 1236 COLEMAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Summer Housing available
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 12:36:16 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 12:29:46-PDT
From: Carolyn Coleman <COLEMAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Summer Housing available
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Does anybody know of people who intend to come to visit CSLI or environs for
the summer who will need housing? I will be away from mid-June to
mid-September and am anxious to find someone to whom I can sublet my room.
My place is a shared 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house in Menlo Park, 3 1/2 miles
from campus and 15-20 minutes away by bike. My (ladies') bike comes with the
room. Cost is $375 per month plus 1/3 utilities.
Contact me by E-mail, Coleman @ su-csli, or call us at home. We are Carolyn,
Eric and John: (415) 329-8656.
Hopefully yours, Carolyn Coleman.
-------
∂28-May-86 1325 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: 1985 Alvey Computer Vision and Image Interpretation Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 13:24:57 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 13:22:42-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library: 1985 Alvey Computer Vision and Image Interpretation Meeting
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210365818.29.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Image And Vision Computing, volume 3, number4, November 1985 includes 9
papers from the 1985 Alvey Computer Vision and Image Interpretation Meeting.
The titles are: On Describing Complex Surface Shapes, Optic Flow Segmentation
As An Ill-posed And Maximum Likelihood Problem, Direct Surface Reconstruction
From A Moving Sensor, Binocular Stereo Algorithm Based On The Disparity-
Gradient Limit And Using Optimization Theory, Surface Descriptions From
Stereo And Shading, Use Of Multiple Difference-of-Gaussain Filters To Verify,
Geometric Models, An Approach To Knowledge-Driven Segmentation, Relaxation
Labelling Algorithms--A Review, and Knowledge-Based Analysis Of Carotid
Angiograms.
H. LLull
-------
∂28-May-86 1446 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA evaluations
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 14:46:13 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 14:09:46-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: evaluations
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210374385.22.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Please stop by my office (MJH 030) to pick up evaluation forms
for your class to fill out.
-Gina
-------
∂28-May-86 1447 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #15
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 14:47:17 PDT
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 1986 1:32PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #15
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Wednesday, 28 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 15
Today's Topics:
Announcement - Call for Papers,
Queries - Translation & CP & Circularity,
Implementations - Standard Behavior & Benchmarking KBES Tools,
Humor - Programmers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 May 86 11:07:24 pdt
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi@diablo>
Subject: Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
Sixth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on
PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS
San Diego, California, March 23-25, 1987
The conference will cover new developments in both the
theoretical and practical aspects of database and
knowledge-base systems. Papers are solicited which describe
original and novel research about the theory, design,
specification, or implementation of database and knowledge-
base systems.
Some suggested, although not exclusive, topics of interest
are: architecture, concurrency control, database and expert
systems, database machines, data models, data structures for
physical implementation, deductive databases, dependency
theory, distributed systems, incomplete information, user
interfaces, knowledge and data management, performance
evaluation, physical and logical design, query languages,
recursive rules, spatial and temporal data, statistical
databases, and transaction management.
You are invited to submit ten copies of a detailed abstract
(not a complete paper) to the program chairman:
Moshe Y. Vardi
IBM Research K55/801
650 Harry Rd.
San Jose, CA 95120-6099, USA
(408) 927-1784
vardi@ibm.com
Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of significance,
originality, and overall quality. Each abstract should 1)
contain enough information to enable the program committee
to identify the main contribution of the work; 2) explain
the importance of the work - its novelty and its practical
or theoretical relevance to database and knowledge-base sys-
tems; and 3) include comparisons with and references to
relevant literature. Abstracts should be no longer than ten
double-spaced pages. Deviations from these guidelines may
affect the program committee's evaluation of the paper.
The program committee consists of Umesh Dayal, Tomasz Imiel-
inski, Paris Kanellakis, Hank Korth, Per-Ake Larson,
Yehoshua Sagiv, Kari-Jouko Raiha, Moshe Vardi, and Mihalis
Yannakakis.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 10,
1986. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection
by December 8, 1986 (authors who supply an electronic
address might be notified earlier). The accepted papers,
typed on special forms, will be due at the above address by
January 9, 1987. All authors of accepted papers will be
expected to sign copyright release forms. Proceedings will
be distributed at the conference, and will be subsequently
available for purchase through ACM.
General Chairman: Local Arrangements:
Ashok K. Chandra Victor Vianu
IBM Research Center Dept. of Computer Science
P.O.Box 218 Univ. of California
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 La Jolla, CA 92093
(914) 945-1752 (619) 452-6227
ashok%yktvmx@ibm.com vianu@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 86 15:16:48 GMT
From: Andy Cheese abc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: translation wanted
Does anybody out there have an english translation of ICOT
technical report TR-054, I can't even make out the title.
-- Andy Cheese
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 86 15:26:21 GMT
From: Andy Cheese abc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Concurrent Prolog
ICOT report tr-092 states that a Concurrent Prolog
compiler is available which runs on top of Prolog,
does anybody have such a compiler ?
-- Andy Cheese
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 86 07:55:18 GMT
From: David Sherman <dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Help - how do I avoid circularity here?
I'm designing a large Prolog program for corporate
tax planning under Canadian income tax law. I want
to include the following definitions:
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptype(Taxpayer,
ccpc).
Let's call this a "type 1" definition. ccpc stands for
Canadian-controlled private corporation, a term used in
our income tax system. The purpose of this definition,
and dozens like it, is to say "if I'm told as part of
the facts entered by the user that we have a CCPC, then
of course it's a corporation". Of course, if the facts
contain the statement "tptype(xyzcorp, ccpc).", then
any rules which depend on xyzcorp being a corporation,
a private corporation, a Canadian corporation
or a CCPC should all be satisfied.
Now I have another set of rules. Let's call them "type
2". Type 2 rules let Prolog figure out, from the various
facts given, WHETHER a corporation is, for example, a
CCPC. A type 2 rule might be:
tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :-
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation),
resident(Taxpayer, canada),
[etc.... various other things which need to be tested,
for the corporation to be both Canadian-controlled and
private].
So if the person entering the facts has entered facts
sufficient to deduce that a corporation is a CCPC, without
having explicitly said so, any rules which depend on a
corporation being a CCPC can still be satisfied.
Now comes the problem. When I have both type 1 and
type 2 rules in place, I get circularity. Putting in a
cut doesn't help if the rules are never satisfied (when
the rule is tested against a taxpayer who is an individual,
for example). (I can't put a cut right after the ":-",
because there may be lots of different facts which would
cause tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) to be true, and I
want to test them all. I just don't want one of them to
come back and ask tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) again.)
Now, I've come up with a partial solution. I can say:
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :-
clause(tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc), true).
which stops the circularity. However, then I lose the
deductive ability, which means that for a chain of
reasoning I have to test each case individually with
"clause". (For example, CCPC implies private corporation a
And private corporation implies corporation. But if I'm
testing for the facts with "clause", I have to have three
rules: corporation if privatecorporation; privatecorporation
if ccpc; and corporation if ccpc.)
Is there any other solution which will stop the circularity?
Is there a way I can tell Prolog "if you've been here before
with these facts, you're in a loop, so fail", without saying,
as the cut does, that it should then fail for all of the
various definitions of the predicate?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm using C-Prolog
1.2a, if it matters.
-- David Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 86 14:56:37 GMT
From: Chris Moss <cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Help - how do I avoid circularity here?
In article <1211@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
>I'm designing a large Prolog program for corporate tax planning
>under Canadian income tax law. I want to include the following
>definitions:
>
>tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc).
>
>Let's call this a "type 1" definition. ... A type
>2 rule might be:
>
>tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :-
> tptype(Taxpayer, corporation),
>Now comes the problem. When I have both type 1 and type 2
>rules in place, I get circularity.
Well known problem. Structural solution as follows: split
your predicate into two parts, one of rules, the other
facts which do not have any recursive calls. Add a
reference from first to second. By this time you will
rarely if ever need directly recursive calls.
e.g.
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, ccpc).
tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, corporation).
tptype(Taxpayer, Type) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, Type).
-- Chris Moss
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 86 18:44:00 GMT
From: gooley@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
Consider the following trivial predicate:
a([]).
a(←).
Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How
do other implementations behave?
-- Mark Gooley
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 12:46:30 GMT
From: Craig D. Singer <cds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two.Which is standard behavior? How
>do other implementations behave?
I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
in implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog
will tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null
list, so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did
not find two matches. Anybody disagree?
-- Craig D. Singer
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 20:57:35 GMT
From: Andrews@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and UNSW
>Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How do other
>implementations behave?
It depends what you mean by "one match". I should think all
Prolog systems would just tell you that the query succeeds,
since there are no free variables to get bindings for in the
query.
The standard reading of the predicate in FOL with identity
would be
a(X) <- X = [] \/ X = X.
...which, given the standard computation algorithm, should
probably give two responses to the query
:-a(X).
... namely, X=[] and X=X.
--Jamie.
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 12:56:24 GMT
From: Craig D. Singer
In article <7233@duke.UUCP> cds@duke.UUCP (Craig D. Singer)
writes:
>In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>>
>>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>>
>>a([]).
>>a(←).
>>
>>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and UNSW
Prolog finds two.
>>Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
>>behave?
>
>I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly in
implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog will
tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null list,
so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did not find
two matches. Anybody disagree?
Well, after I posted the above response I went ahead and
checked out the version of C-Prolog which comes with 4.2/4.3
BSD and it DOES find two matches. The way to note this is to
expand the predicate as follows:
a([],2).
a(←,3).
Then ask the query a([],X). The response will be:
X = 2
after which you can type a semicolon and hit return, which
produces:
X = 3
yes
So C-Prolog (and, I would guess, any prolog) finds both
matches.
-- Craig D. Singer
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 13:52:01 GMT
From: James H. Cox <jhc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How
>do other implementations behave?
>
Hmmmm, not exactly.
Depends on what you mean by finding a match and how you
apply the query. If you type
a([]).
to the C-Prolog interpreter it comes back and says 'yes',
i.e. the predicate can be satisfied. However, when you
present such a query to the C-Prolog top level interpreter
it does not give you any opportunity to backtrack, you only
get this opportunity if there are any variables given in
your query, and you make use of this opportunity by typing
';' which invites the interpreter to backtrack.
Below follows two dialogs with C-Prolog that indicate there
are indeed two solutions to the query you mentioned. (Note
that '?-' is the interpreter's prompt for you to type a
query, and that ↑ appears under user input)
?- a(X). -- initial query
↑↑↑↑↑
X = [] ; -- first solution, ; typed so invoke
↑ backtracking.
X = ←0 ; -- second solution..
↑
no -- prolog says no more solutions.
?- a([]), write(a), fail.-- need to phrase it like this to
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ invoke backtracking since the
interpreter will not give us the
opportunity..
aa -- indicates 'write(a)' called twice.
no -- no more solutions.
?-
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 16:39:01 GMT
From: Randy Goebel <rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
> >a([]).
> >a(←).
> >
> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
> >and UNSW Prolog finds two.
> >Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
> >behave?
←←←←←←←←←←←←←
> I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly in
>implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog will
>tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null list,
>so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did not find
>two matches. Anybody disagree?
-------------
Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
The formulae assert that the individual constant named
`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class named
by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the anonymous
variable is a universially quantified variable, then there
are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
logical interpretation.
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 23:49:05 GMT
From: bts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
C-Prolog finds one solution at a time, UNSW looks
for all solutions to a goal. C-Prolog (and many
others) only give you a chance to ask for more
solutions at the top level if there are free non
-anonymous variables in your query. An easy way
to show that C-Prolog was finding both solutions
in the original program is
?- a([]), write(hello), nl, fail.
Count the number of 'hello's.
-- Bruce T. Smith
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 86 12:47:18 GMT
From: Tom Frauenhofer <tfra@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
>>In article <7233@duke.UUCP> cds@duke.UUCP (Craig D.
>>Singer) writes: >>In article <6500005@uicsl>
>>gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>>>
>>>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>>>
>>>a([]).
>>>a(←).
>>>
>>>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>>>and UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior?
>>>How do other implementations behave?
>>
>>I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>>behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
>>in implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog
>>will tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a
>>null list, so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it
>>did not find two matches. Anybody disagree?
>Well, after I posted the above response I went ahead and
checked out the version of C-Prolog which comes with 4.2/4.3
BSD and it DOES find two matches. The way to note this is to
expand the predicate as follows:
>a([],2).
>a(←,3).
>Then ask the query a([],X). The response will be:
>X = 2
>after which you can type a semicolon and hit return,
>which produces:
>X = 3
>So C-Prolog (and, I would guess, any prolog) finds both
>matches.
For whoever is collecting /interested in this information:
I tried both of the above scenarios in Turbo Prolog and the
PD version of A.D.A Prolog. The results:
Turbo Prolog:
First scenario: 1 match
Second scenario: 2 matches
A.D.A PDProlog:
First scenario: 2 matches
Second scenario: 2 matches
-- Tom Frauenhofer
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 86 16:19:42 GMT
From: Nabiel Elshiewy <nabiel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> Mark Gooley (gooley@uicsl.UUCP)
writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How do
>other implementations behave?
Intuitively C-Prolog's one match is the expected standard
behaviour. The two assertions describe a choice; it is either
an empty list or something else which differs from an empty
list.
Aside: Also both Quintus Prolog and Mu-Prolog find one match.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 86 15:54:00 GMT
From: Gooley@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
It seems that C-Prolog v1.3 (which I use) finds one
match, but v1.5 finds two. I suppose it was a bug
that's now been fixed. Thanks to all who replied.
-- Mark Gooley
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 86 05:41:35 GMT
From: Ludemann@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP
(Randy Goebel LPAIG) writes:
>> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
>> >a([]).
>> >a(←).
>> >
>> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>> >and UNSW Prolog finds two.
>> >Which is standard behavior? How do other
>> >implementations behave?
>Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
>to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
>The formulae assert that the individual constant named
>`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class
>named by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the
>anonymous variable is a universially quantified variable,
>then there are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
>
>Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
>behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
>logical interpretation.
I have to disagree, Randy. The query merely asks whether
or not there is a proof of "a([])". Not how many there
are. Although by Prolog's execution order, there are only
two ways of generating the answer, there are of course an
←infinite← number of logical proofs. There is no point
in trying to list them all :-).
Furthermore, if the goal "a([])" is within a predicate (for
example, q(X) :- a([]), b(X).), then a smart implementation
would notice that if "b(X)" fails, there is no need to re
-try "a([])". Isn't that what all the work on intelligent
backtracking has been about?
Now, a general philosophical point. Prolog is certainly
←not← logic programming, although it is a large step in
that direction. A true logic programming language would
not have nor need "cut" ("!"), "var", "nonvar", etc.
("=..", "name", "is" and even "call" are legitimate because
they can be considered as an infinite number of rules.
"var" and "nonvar" can't be described that way). One of
the advantages of logic programming is that it allows us
to consider computations without knowing (precisely) the
underlying execution strategy. Indeed, for "pure" programs,
the execution strategy could change, yet the programs would
still execute correctly. Let us strive to produce true
logic programming languages which get over the minor
failings of Prolog.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 86 12:42:30 GMT
From: Chris Moss <cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP writes:
>> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
>> >a([]).
>> >a(←).
>> >
>> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>> >UNSW Prolog finds two.
>> >Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
>> >behave?
>> I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>> behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
>> in implementations.
Most of this discussion is not about how Prolog behaves, but
how the top level query evaluator behaves. As a member of the
Prolog standards committee but NOT speaking officially I should
say that most environmental questions are being RULED OUT by
the standards committee. Whether it will specify exactly what
is the answer to a top level query is not yet sorted out.
[To repeat what has been said already, the confusion is just
about what response CProlog makes to a top-level query - if
the query contains no variables it just answers "yes" and
doesn't give the opportunity to look for another solution
(all ways of solving it are equivalent so why bother).
UNSW gives ALL solutions by default, even in this rather
unnecessary case. If it was part of a larger problem,
every Prolog I know would backtrack and find both, even
though it was strictly equivalent]
-- Chris Moss
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 16:01:39 GMT
From: Marco Valtorta <mgv@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
I find UNSW's behavior to be intuitively more
correct, since it seems that the empty list "[]"
should match the anonymous variable "←". This
wouldn't be the first time that I find UNSW to
act in a way that is closer to my "mental model"
of Prolog. Maybe someone involved in a
standardization effort could contribute something
on this topic?
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:07:18 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
> In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon
> writes:
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one
>match and UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is
standard behavior? How do other implementations
behave?
I did not! My response to whoever wrote that question
was that if ← is a universally quantified variable,
then the logic defines the correct answer; NOT the
implementation. Isn't that what logic programming is
for? 8-).
-- Randy Goebel
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:21:44 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
Now, a general philosophical point. Prolog is certainly
←not← logic programming, although it is a large step in
that direction. A true logic programming language would
not have nor need "cut" ("!"), "var", "nonvar", etc.
("=..", "name", "is" and even "call" are legitimate
because they can be considered as an infinite number of
rules. "var" and "nonvar" can't be described that way).
One of the advantages of logic programming is that it
allows us to consider computations without knowing
(precisely) the underlying execution strategy. Indeed,
for "pure" programs, the execution strategy could change,
yet the programs would still execute correctly. Let us
strive to produce true logic programming languages which
get over the minor failings of Prolog.
Many claim that "logic programming" is an oxymoron. The
logic of pure Prolog is well defined...that's all I said.
I don't believe that cut, var, and nonvar cannot be
described logically, just because they aren't in Prolog
implementations.
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:16:30 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>and UNSW Prolog finds two.
>Which is standard behavior? How do other implementa
>-tions behave?
>Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
>to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
>The formulae assert that the individual constant named
>`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class named
>by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the anonymous
>variable is a universially quantified variable, then
>there are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
>Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
>behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
>logical interpretation.
>I have to disagree, Randy. The query merely asks whether
>or not there is a proof of "a([])". Not how many there
>are.
There is nothing in my reply that says anything about what
an implementation should do with such proofs (count them,
print them, ignore them, etc.). All it says is that there
are two proofs. If you ask for all proofs, then there
had better be two. 8-).
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 1986 18:51-EDT
From: VERACSD@USC-ISI.ARPA
Subject: Benchmarking KBES-Toools
I have come across some recent benchmarks from NASA (U.S.
Gov't MEMORANDUM from the FM7/AI Section, April 3, 1986)
which compared various KBES tools' (ART, OP, KEE & CLIPS)
times for solving the MONKEY-AND-BANANA problem. (This toy
prob- lem is explained in detail along with OPS source in
Brownston et. al.'s "Programming Expert Systems in OPS5".)
Although the benchmarks include backward-chaining solutions
to the problem in both KEE and ART (along with forward
-chaining counterparts), there is no PROLOG implementation in
the comparison. I am very interested in a PROLOG comparison,
and am in the process of implementing one.
Unfortunately, I am not (yet) a competent PROLOG programmer
and am currently learning my way around PROLOG on a DEC-20.
Consequently, any advice/suggestions regarding implementing
this benchmark and timing it effectively would be useful and
appreciated. (By the way, the time to beat is 1.2 secs. for
a forward-chaing implementation using ART on a 3640 with 4MB
main-memory.)
I would be glad to share the results with anyone who offers
assistance. (Or for that matter with whomever is interested.)
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 86 01:14:23 GMT
From: mnl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Prolog programmers
Prolog programmers must be humorless people. After all,
they use :- instead of :-) or :-(
-- Mark Nelson
"This function is occasionally useful as the arguement to
a function which requires a function as an arguement."
-- Guy Steele
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂28-May-86 1501 keller@utah-cs.ARPA SLP '86 Program
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Date: Wed, 28 May 86 15:47:12 MDT
From: keller@utah-cs.arpa (Bob Keller)
Message-Id: <8605282147.AA13839@utah-cs.ARPA>
To: 86-slp-mailing@utah-cs.ARPA
Subject: SLP '86 Program
SCHEDULE
SLP '86
Third IEEE Symposium on
LOGIC PROGRAMMING
September 21-25, 1986
Westin Hotel Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Conference Chairperson
Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah
Program Chairperson Local Arrangements Chairperson
Robert M. Keller, University of Utah Thomas C. Henderson, University of Utah
Tutorials Chairperson Exhibits Chairperson
George Luger, University of New Mexico Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
Program Committee
Francois Bancilhon, MCC William Kornfeld, Quintus Systems
John Conery, University of Oregon Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah
Al Despain, U.C. Berkeley George Luger, University of New Mexico
Herve Gallaire, ECRC, Munich Rikio Onai, ICOT/NTT, Tokyo
Seif Haridi, SICS, Stockholm Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
Lynette Hirschman, SDC Mark Stickel, SRI International
Peter Kogge, IBM, Owego Sten Ake Tarnlund, Uppsala University
SUNDAY, September 21
19:00 - 22:00 Symposium and tutorial registration
MONDAY, September 22
08:00 - 09:00 Symposium and tutorial registration
09:00 - 17:30 TUTORIALS (concurrent) Please see attached abstracts.
George Luger Introduction to AI Programming in Prolog
University of New Mexico
David Scott Warren Building Prolog Interpreters
SUNY, Stony Brook
Neil Ostlund Theory of Parallelism, with Applications to
Romas Aleliunas Logic Programming
University of Waterloo
12:00 - 17:30 Exhibit set up time
18:00 - 22:00 Symposium registration
20:00 - 22:00 Reception
TUESDAY, September 23
08:00 - 12:30 Symposium registration
09:00 Exhibits open
09:00 - 09:30 Welcome and announcements
09:30 - 10:30 INVITED SPEAKER: W. W. Bledsoe
Some Thoughts on Proof Discovery
11:00 - 12:30 SESSION 1: Applications
The Logic of Tensed Statements in English -
an Application of Logic Programming
Peter Ohrstrom, University of Aalborg
Nils Klarlund, University of Aarhus
Incremental Flavor-Mixing of Meta-Interpreters for
Expert System Construction
Leon Sterling and Randall D. Beer
Case Western Reserve University
The Phoning Philosopher's Problem or
Logic Programming for Telecommunications Applications
J.L. Armstrong, N.A. Elshiewy, and R. Virding
Ericsson Telecom
14:00 - 15:30 SESSION 2: Secondary Storage
EDUCE - A Marriage of Convenience:
Prolog and a Relational DBMS
Jorge Bocca, ECRC, Munich
Paging Strategy for Prolog Based Dynamic Virtual Memory
Mark Ross, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
K. Ramamohanarao, University of Melbourne
A Logical Treatment of Secondary Storage
Anthony J. Kusalik, University of Saskatchewan
Ian T. Foster, Imperial College, London
16:00 - 17:30 SESSION 3: Compilation
Compiling Control
Maurice Bruynooghe, Danny De Schreye, Bruno Krekels
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Automatic Mode Inference for Prolog Programs
Saumya K. Debray, David S. Warren
SUNY at Stony Brook
IDEAL: an Ideal DEductive Applicative Language
Pier Giorgio Bosco, Elio Giovannetti
C.S.E.L.T., Torino
17:30 - 19:30 Reception
20:30 - 22:30 Panel (Wm. Kornfeld, moderator)
Logic Programming for Systems Programming
WEDNESDAY, September 24
09:00 - 10:00 INVITED SPEAKER: Sten Ake Tarnlund
Logic Programming - A Logical View
10:30 - 12:00 SESSION 4: Theory
A Theory of Modules for Logic Programming
Dale Miller
University of Pennsylvania
Building-In Classical Equality into Prolog
P. Hoddinott, E.W. Elcock
The University of Western Ontario
Negation as Failure Using Tight Derivations for General Logic Programs
Allen Van Gelder
Stanford University
13:30 - 15:00 SESSION 5: Control
Characterisation of Terminating Logic Programs
Thomas Vasak, The University of New South Wales
John Potter, New South Wales Institute of Technology
An Execution Model for Committed-Choice
Non-Deterministic Languages
Jim Crammond
Heriot-Watt University
Timestamped Term Representation in Implementing Prolog
Heikki Mannila, Esko Ukkonen
University of Helsinki
15:30 - 22:00 Excursion
THURSDAY, September 25
09:00 - 10:30 SESSION 6: Unification
Refutation Methods for Horn Clauses with Equality
Based on E-Unification
Jean H. Gallier and Stan Raatz
University of Pennsylvania
An Algorithm for Unification in Equational Theories
Alberto Martelli, Gianfranco Rossi
Universita' di Torino
An Implementation of Narrowing: the RITE Way
Alan Josephson and Nachum Dershowitz
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11:00 - 12:30 SESSION 7: Parallelism
Selecting the Backtrack Literal in the
AND Process of the AND/OR Process Model
Nam S. Woo and Kwang-Moo Choe
AT & T Bell Laboratories
Distributed Semi-Intelligent Backtracking for a
Stack-based AND-parallel Prolog
Peter Borgwardt, Tektronix Labs
Doris Rea, University of Minnesota
The Sync Model for Parallel Execution of Logic Programming
Pey-yun Peggy Li and Alain J. Martin
California Institute of Technology
14:00 - 15:30 SESSION 8: Performance
Redundancy in Function-Free Recursive Rules
Jeff Naughton
Stanford University
Performance Evaluation of a Storage Model for
OR-Parallel Execution
Andrzej Ciepelewski and Bogumil Hausman
Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)
MALI: A Memory with a Real-Time Garbage Collector
for Implementing Logic Programming Languages
Yves Bekkers, Bernard Canet, Olivier Ridoux, Lucien Ungaro
IRISA/INRIA Rennes
16:00 - 17:30 SESSION 9: Warren Abstract Machine
A High Performance LOW RISC Machine
for Logic Programming
J.W. Mills
Arizona State University
Register Allocation in a Prolog Machine
Saumya K. Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
Garbage Cut for Garbage Collection of Iterative Programs
Jonas Barklund and Hakan Millroth
Uppsala University
EXHIBITS:
An exhibit area including displays by publishers, equipment manufacturers, and
software houses will accompany the Symposium. The list of exhibitors includes:
Arity, Addison-Wesley, Elsevier, Expert Systems, Logicware, Overbeek
Enterprises, Prolog Systems, Quintus, and Symbolics. For more information,
please contact:
Dr. Ross A. Overbeek
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Ave.
Argonne, IL 60439
312/972-7856
ACCOMODATIONS:
The Westin Hotel Utah is a gracious turn of the century hotel with Mobil 4-Star
and AAA 5-Star ratings. The Temple Square Hotel, located one city block away,
offers basic comforts for budget-conscious attendees.
MEALS AND SOCIAL EVENTS:
Symposium registrants (excluding students and retired members) will receive
tickets for lunches on September 23, 24, and 25, receptions on September 22 and
23, and an excursion the afternoon of September 24. The excursion will
comprise a steam train trip through scenic Provo Canyon, and a barbeque at Deer
Valley Resort, Park City, Utah.
Tutorial registrants will receive lunch tickets for September 22.
TRAVEL:
The Official Carrier for SLP '86 is United Airlines, and the Official Travel
Agent is Morris Travel (361 West Lawndale Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115,
phone 1-800-621-3535). Special airfares are available to SLP '86 attendees.
Contact Morris Travel for details.
A courtesy limousine is available from Salt Lake International Airport to both
symposium hotels, running every half hour from 6:30 to 23:00. The taxi fare is
approximately $10.
CLIMATE:
Salt Lake City generally has warm weather in September, although evenings may
be cool. Some rain is normal this time of year.
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A deposit of one night's room or credit card guarantee is required for arrivals
after 6pm.
Room Rates (circle your choice):
Westin Hotel Utah Temple Square Hotel
single room $60 $30
double room $70 $36
Reservations must be made mentioning SLP '86 by August 31, 1986 to guarantee
these special rates.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
SLP '86 TUTORIAL ABSTRACTS
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROLOG INTERPRETERS AND COMPILERS
DAVID SCOTT WARREN
SUNY AT STONY BROOK
Prolog is by far the most used of various logic programming languages that have
been proposed. The reason for this is the existence of very efficient
implementations. This tutorial will show in detail how this efficiency is
achieved.
The first half of this tutorial will concentrate on Prolog compilation. The
approach is first to define a Prolog Virtual Machine (PVM), which can be
implemented in software, microcode, hardware, or by translation to the language
of an existing machine. We will describe in detail the PVM defined by D.H.D.
Warren (SRI Technical Note 309) and discuss how its data objects can be
represented efficiently. We will also cover issues of compilation of Prolog
source programs into efficient PVM programs.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PROLOG:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THEORETICAL
ISSUES IN AI WITH PROLOG EXAMPLES
GEORGE F. LUGER
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
This tutorial is intended to introduce the important concepts of both
Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming. To accomplish this task, the
theoretical issues involved in AI problem solving are presented and discussed.
These issues are exemplified with programs written in Prolog that implement the
core ideas. Finally, the design of a Prolog interpreter as Resolution
Refutation system is presented.
The main ideas from AI problem solving that are presented include: 1) An
introduction of AI as representation and search. 2) An introduction of the
Predicate Calculus as the main representation formalism for Artificial
Intelligence. 3) Simple examples of Predicate Calculus representations,
including a relational data base. 4) Unification and its role both in
Predicate Calculus and Prolog. 5) Recursion, the control mechanism for
searching trees and graphs, 6) The design of search strategies, especially
depth first, breadth first and best first or "heuristic" techniques, and 7) The
Production System and its use both for organizing search in a Prolog data base,
as well as the basic data structure for "rule based" Expert Systems.
The above topics are presented with simple Prolog program implementations,
including a Production System code for demonstrating search strategies. The
final topic presented is an analysis of the Prolog interpreter and an analysis
of this approach to the more general issue of logic programming. Resolution is
considered as an inference strategy and its use in a refutation system for
"answer extraction" is presented. More general issues in AI problem solving,
such as the relation of "logic" to "functional" programming are also discussed.
PARALLELISM IN LOGIC PROGRAMMING
NEIL OSTLUND
ROMAS ALELIUNAS
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
The fields of parallel processing and logic programming have independently
attracted great interest among computing professionals recently, and there is
currently considerable activity at the interface, i.e. in applying the concepts
of parallel computing to logic programming and, more specifically yet, to
Prolog. The application of parallelism to Logic Programming takes two basic
but related directions. The first involves leaving the semantics of sequential
programming, say ordinary Prolog, as intact as possible, and uses parallelism,
hidden from the programmer, to improve execution speed. This has traditionally
been a difficult problem requiring very intelligent compilers. It may be an
easier problem with logic programming since parallelism is not artificially
made sequential, as with many applications expressed in procedural languages.
The second direction involves adding new parallel programming primitives to
Logic Programming to allow the programmer to explicitly express the parallelism
in an application.
This tutorial will assume a basic knowledge of Logic Programming, but will
describe current research in parallel computer architectures, and will survey
many of the new parallel machines, including shared-memory architectures (RP3,
for example) and non-shared-memory architectures (hypercube machines, for
example). The tutorial will then describe many of the current proposals for
parallelism in Logic Programming, including those that allow the programmer to
express the parallelism and those that hide the parallelism from the
programmer. Included will be such proposals as Concurrent Prolog, Parlog,
Guarded Horn Clauses (GHC), and Delta-Prolog. An attempt will be made to
partially evaluate many of these proposals for parallelism in Logic
Programming, both from a pragmatic architectural viewpoint as well as from a
semantic viewpoint.
∂28-May-86 1544 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH: Charlie Koo
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 15:44:04 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 14:31:47-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH: Charlie Koo
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 28-May-86 14:31:47.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYNCHRONIZING PLANS AMONG INTELLIGENT AGENTS
VIA COMMUNICATION
Charlie Koo (KOO@SUSHI)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 2
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In a society where a group of agents cooperate to achieve certain
goals, the group members perform their tasks based on certain plans.
Some tasks may interact with tasks done by other agents. One way to
coordinate the tasks is to let a master planner generate a plan and
distribute tasks to individual agents accordingly. However, there are
two difficulties. Firstly, the master planner needs to know all the
expertise that each agent has. The amount of knowledge sharply
increases with the number of specialties. Secondly, the
master-planning process will be computationally more expensive than if
each agent plans for itself, since the planning space for the former
is much larger. Therefore, distributed planning is motivated.
The objective of this on-going research is to formalize a model for
synchronizing and monitoring plans independently made by nonhostile
intelligent agents via communication. The proposed model also will
provide means to monitor the progress of plan execution, to prevent
delays, and to modify plans with less effort when delays happen.
In this talk, a commitment-based communication model which allows
agents to track their commitments during execution of plans will be
proposed. It includes a language, a set of communication operators
and a set of commitment tracking operators. The process of
synchronizing plans based on this communication model will also be
described.
Relevant work: Contract Net, nonlinear planners, distributed planners.
-------
∂28-May-86 1723 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tuesday Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 17:15:07 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 15:52:27-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tuesday Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210393078.32.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
On Tuesday, June 3 we will have Gordon Bell (newly in charge of
NSF's computer-related activities) and Charles Brownstein (also
of NSF) as our guests for the faculty lunch. Subject: Computer
Science and NSF. They would also like to chat a little after lunch
(and before the Black Friday mtg at 2:15) with us. Some of the CSLI
people will also come to lunch that day. MJH146; 12:15. -Nils
-------
∂28-May-86 1725 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, May 29, No. 18
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 17:25:36 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 16:48:15-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, May 29, No. 18
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
May 29, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 18
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, May 29, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Reading: ``A Speaker-based Approach to Aspect''
Conference Room by Carlota Smith
Discussion led by Dorit Abusch (Abusch@csli)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Why Language isn't Information
Trailer Classroom Terry Winograd (Winograd@csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Natural Language as a Reflection of Cognitive
Room G-19 Structure
Bill Croft, Stanford & SRI International(Croft@sri-ai)
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, June 5, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Reading: ``Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect''
Conference Room by A.N. Whitehead
Discussion led by Carol Cleland
(Abstract next week)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall On the Nature of the Intentional
Trailer Classroom Ivan Blair (Blair@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall Title to be announced
Room G-19 Julius Moravcsik
--------------
Page 2 CSLI Calendar May 29, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
On the Nature of the Intentional
Ivan Blair (Blair@csli)
After a period of banishment, the mental has been reinstated as an
object of scientific study; yet, just what IS the mental? Minds --
particularly those of humans and ``higher'' animals -- are central
examples of what I am calling the intentional, although I construe
intentionality more broadly. In this talk, I shall try to draw some
conclusions regarding the nature of the intentional and its place in
our theories of the world.
--------
-------
∂28-May-86 1746 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #15
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 17:46:05 PDT
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 1986 1:32PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #15
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Wednesday, 28 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 15
Today's Topics:
Announcement - Call for Papers,
Queries - Translation & CP & Circularity,
Implementations - Standard Behavior & Benchmarking KBES Tools,
Humor - Programmers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 May 86 11:07:24 pdt
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi@diablo>
Subject: Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
Sixth ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on
PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE SYSTEMS
San Diego, California, March 23-25, 1987
The conference will cover new developments in both the
theoretical and practical aspects of database and
knowledge-base systems. Papers are solicited which describe
original and novel research about the theory, design,
specification, or implementation of database and knowledge-
base systems.
Some suggested, although not exclusive, topics of interest
are: architecture, concurrency control, database and expert
systems, database machines, data models, data structures for
physical implementation, deductive databases, dependency
theory, distributed systems, incomplete information, user
interfaces, knowledge and data management, performance
evaluation, physical and logical design, query languages,
recursive rules, spatial and temporal data, statistical
databases, and transaction management.
You are invited to submit ten copies of a detailed abstract
(not a complete paper) to the program chairman:
Moshe Y. Vardi
IBM Research K55/801
650 Harry Rd.
San Jose, CA 95120-6099, USA
(408) 927-1784
vardi@ibm.com
Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of significance,
originality, and overall quality. Each abstract should 1)
contain enough information to enable the program committee
to identify the main contribution of the work; 2) explain
the importance of the work - its novelty and its practical
or theoretical relevance to database and knowledge-base sys-
tems; and 3) include comparisons with and references to
relevant literature. Abstracts should be no longer than ten
double-spaced pages. Deviations from these guidelines may
affect the program committee's evaluation of the paper.
The program committee consists of Umesh Dayal, Tomasz Imiel-
inski, Paris Kanellakis, Hank Korth, Per-Ake Larson,
Yehoshua Sagiv, Kari-Jouko Raiha, Moshe Vardi, and Mihalis
Yannakakis.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is October 10,
1986. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection
by December 8, 1986 (authors who supply an electronic
address might be notified earlier). The accepted papers,
typed on special forms, will be due at the above address by
January 9, 1987. All authors of accepted papers will be
expected to sign copyright release forms. Proceedings will
be distributed at the conference, and will be subsequently
available for purchase through ACM.
General Chairman: Local Arrangements:
Ashok K. Chandra Victor Vianu
IBM Research Center Dept. of Computer Science
P.O.Box 218 Univ. of California
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 La Jolla, CA 92093
(914) 945-1752 (619) 452-6227
ashok%yktvmx@ibm.com vianu@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 86 15:16:48 GMT
From: Andy Cheese abc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: translation wanted
Does anybody out there have an english translation of ICOT
technical report TR-054, I can't even make out the title.
-- Andy Cheese
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 86 15:26:21 GMT
From: Andy Cheese abc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Concurrent Prolog
ICOT report tr-092 states that a Concurrent Prolog
compiler is available which runs on top of Prolog,
does anybody have such a compiler ?
-- Andy Cheese
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 86 07:55:18 GMT
From: David Sherman <dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Help - how do I avoid circularity here?
I'm designing a large Prolog program for corporate
tax planning under Canadian income tax law. I want
to include the following definitions:
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptype(Taxpayer,
ccpc).
Let's call this a "type 1" definition. ccpc stands for
Canadian-controlled private corporation, a term used in
our income tax system. The purpose of this definition,
and dozens like it, is to say "if I'm told as part of
the facts entered by the user that we have a CCPC, then
of course it's a corporation". Of course, if the facts
contain the statement "tptype(xyzcorp, ccpc).", then
any rules which depend on xyzcorp being a corporation,
a private corporation, a Canadian corporation
or a CCPC should all be satisfied.
Now I have another set of rules. Let's call them "type
2". Type 2 rules let Prolog figure out, from the various
facts given, WHETHER a corporation is, for example, a
CCPC. A type 2 rule might be:
tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :-
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation),
resident(Taxpayer, canada),
[etc.... various other things which need to be tested,
for the corporation to be both Canadian-controlled and
private].
So if the person entering the facts has entered facts
sufficient to deduce that a corporation is a CCPC, without
having explicitly said so, any rules which depend on a
corporation being a CCPC can still be satisfied.
Now comes the problem. When I have both type 1 and
type 2 rules in place, I get circularity. Putting in a
cut doesn't help if the rules are never satisfied (when
the rule is tested against a taxpayer who is an individual,
for example). (I can't put a cut right after the ":-",
because there may be lots of different facts which would
cause tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) to be true, and I
want to test them all. I just don't want one of them to
come back and ask tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) again.)
Now, I've come up with a partial solution. I can say:
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :-
clause(tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc), true).
which stops the circularity. However, then I lose the
deductive ability, which means that for a chain of
reasoning I have to test each case individually with
"clause". (For example, CCPC implies private corporation a
And private corporation implies corporation. But if I'm
testing for the facts with "clause", I have to have three
rules: corporation if privatecorporation; privatecorporation
if ccpc; and corporation if ccpc.)
Is there any other solution which will stop the circularity?
Is there a way I can tell Prolog "if you've been here before
with these facts, you're in a loop, so fail", without saying,
as the cut does, that it should then fail for all of the
various definitions of the predicate?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm using C-Prolog
1.2a, if it matters.
-- David Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 86 14:56:37 GMT
From: Chris Moss <cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Help - how do I avoid circularity here?
In article <1211@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
>I'm designing a large Prolog program for corporate tax planning
>under Canadian income tax law. I want to include the following
>definitions:
>
>tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc).
>
>Let's call this a "type 1" definition. ... A type
>2 rule might be:
>
>tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :-
> tptype(Taxpayer, corporation),
>Now comes the problem. When I have both type 1 and type 2
>rules in place, I get circularity.
Well known problem. Structural solution as follows: split
your predicate into two parts, one of rules, the other
facts which do not have any recursive calls. Add a
reference from first to second. By this time you will
rarely if ever need directly recursive calls.
e.g.
tptype(Taxpayer, corporation) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, ccpc).
tptype(Taxpayer, ccpc) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, corporation).
tptype(Taxpayer, Type) :- tptypefact(Taxpayer, Type).
-- Chris Moss
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 86 18:44:00 GMT
From: gooley@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
Consider the following trivial predicate:
a([]).
a(←).
Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How
do other implementations behave?
-- Mark Gooley
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 12:46:30 GMT
From: Craig D. Singer <cds@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two.Which is standard behavior? How
>do other implementations behave?
I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
in implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog
will tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null
list, so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did
not find two matches. Anybody disagree?
-- Craig D. Singer
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 20:57:35 GMT
From: Andrews@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and UNSW
>Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How do other
>implementations behave?
It depends what you mean by "one match". I should think all
Prolog systems would just tell you that the query succeeds,
since there are no free variables to get bindings for in the
query.
The standard reading of the predicate in FOL with identity
would be
a(X) <- X = [] \/ X = X.
...which, given the standard computation algorithm, should
probably give two responses to the query
:-a(X).
... namely, X=[] and X=X.
--Jamie.
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 86 12:56:24 GMT
From: Craig D. Singer
In article <7233@duke.UUCP> cds@duke.UUCP (Craig D. Singer)
writes:
>In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>>
>>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>>
>>a([]).
>>a(←).
>>
>>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and UNSW
Prolog finds two.
>>Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
>>behave?
>
>I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly in
implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog will
tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null list,
so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did not find
two matches. Anybody disagree?
Well, after I posted the above response I went ahead and
checked out the version of C-Prolog which comes with 4.2/4.3
BSD and it DOES find two matches. The way to note this is to
expand the predicate as follows:
a([],2).
a(←,3).
Then ask the query a([],X). The response will be:
X = 2
after which you can type a semicolon and hit return, which
produces:
X = 3
yes
So C-Prolog (and, I would guess, any prolog) finds both
matches.
-- Craig D. Singer
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 13:52:01 GMT
From: James H. Cox <jhc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How
>do other implementations behave?
>
Hmmmm, not exactly.
Depends on what you mean by finding a match and how you
apply the query. If you type
a([]).
to the C-Prolog interpreter it comes back and says 'yes',
i.e. the predicate can be satisfied. However, when you
present such a query to the C-Prolog top level interpreter
it does not give you any opportunity to backtrack, you only
get this opportunity if there are any variables given in
your query, and you make use of this opportunity by typing
';' which invites the interpreter to backtrack.
Below follows two dialogs with C-Prolog that indicate there
are indeed two solutions to the query you mentioned. (Note
that '?-' is the interpreter's prompt for you to type a
query, and that ↑ appears under user input)
?- a(X). -- initial query
↑↑↑↑↑
X = [] ; -- first solution, ; typed so invoke
↑ backtracking.
X = ←0 ; -- second solution..
↑
no -- prolog says no more solutions.
?- a([]), write(a), fail.-- need to phrase it like this to
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑ invoke backtracking since the
interpreter will not give us the
opportunity..
aa -- indicates 'write(a)' called twice.
no -- no more solutions.
?-
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 16:39:01 GMT
From: Randy Goebel <rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
> >a([]).
> >a(←).
> >
> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
> >and UNSW Prolog finds two.
> >Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
> >behave?
←←←←←←←←←←←←←
> I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly in
>implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog will
>tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a null list,
>so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it did not find
>two matches. Anybody disagree?
-------------
Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
The formulae assert that the individual constant named
`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class named
by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the anonymous
variable is a universially quantified variable, then there
are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
logical interpretation.
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 23:49:05 GMT
From: bts@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
C-Prolog finds one solution at a time, UNSW looks
for all solutions to a goal. C-Prolog (and many
others) only give you a chance to ask for more
solutions at the top level if there are free non
-anonymous variables in your query. An easy way
to show that C-Prolog was finding both solutions
in the original program is
?- a([]), write(hello), nl, fail.
Count the number of 'hello's.
-- Bruce T. Smith
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 86 12:47:18 GMT
From: Tom Frauenhofer <tfra@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
>>In article <7233@duke.UUCP> cds@duke.UUCP (Craig D.
>>Singer) writes: >>In article <6500005@uicsl>
>>gooley@uicsl.UUCP writes:
>>>
>>>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>>>
>>>a([]).
>>>a(←).
>>>
>>>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>>>and UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior?
>>>How do other implementations behave?
>>
>>I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>>behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
>>in implementations. However, any book on "vanilla" Prolog
>>will tell you that "←" matches to anything, including a
>>null list, so I would indeed be annoyed by C-Prolog if it
>>did not find two matches. Anybody disagree?
>Well, after I posted the above response I went ahead and
checked out the version of C-Prolog which comes with 4.2/4.3
BSD and it DOES find two matches. The way to note this is to
expand the predicate as follows:
>a([],2).
>a(←,3).
>Then ask the query a([],X). The response will be:
>X = 2
>after which you can type a semicolon and hit return,
>which produces:
>X = 3
>So C-Prolog (and, I would guess, any prolog) finds both
>matches.
For whoever is collecting /interested in this information:
I tried both of the above scenarios in Turbo Prolog and the
PD version of A.D.A Prolog. The results:
Turbo Prolog:
First scenario: 1 match
Second scenario: 2 matches
A.D.A PDProlog:
First scenario: 2 matches
Second scenario: 2 matches
-- Tom Frauenhofer
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 86 16:19:42 GMT
From: Nabiel Elshiewy <nabiel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <6500005@uicsl> Mark Gooley (gooley@uicsl.UUCP)
writes:
>
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>
>a([]).
>a(←).
>
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is standard behavior? How do
>other implementations behave?
Intuitively C-Prolog's one match is the expected standard
behaviour. The two assertions describe a choice; it is either
an empty list or something else which differs from an empty
list.
Aside: Also both Quintus Prolog and Mu-Prolog find one match.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 86 15:54:00 GMT
From: Gooley@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
It seems that C-Prolog v1.3 (which I use) finds one
match, but v1.5 finds two. I suppose it was a bug
that's now been fixed. Thanks to all who replied.
-- Mark Gooley
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 86 05:41:35 GMT
From: Ludemann@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP
(Randy Goebel LPAIG) writes:
>> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
>> >a([]).
>> >a(←).
>> >
>> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>> >and UNSW Prolog finds two.
>> >Which is standard behavior? How do other
>> >implementations behave?
>Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
>to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
>The formulae assert that the individual constant named
>`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class
>named by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the
>anonymous variable is a universially quantified variable,
>then there are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
>
>Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
>behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
>logical interpretation.
I have to disagree, Randy. The query merely asks whether
or not there is a proof of "a([])". Not how many there
are. Although by Prolog's execution order, there are only
two ways of generating the answer, there are of course an
←infinite← number of logical proofs. There is no point
in trying to list them all :-).
Furthermore, if the goal "a([])" is within a predicate (for
example, q(X) :- a([]), b(X).), then a smart implementation
would notice that if "b(X)" fails, there is no need to re
-try "a([])". Isn't that what all the work on intelligent
backtracking has been about?
Now, a general philosophical point. Prolog is certainly
←not← logic programming, although it is a large step in
that direction. A true logic programming language would
not have nor need "cut" ("!"), "var", "nonvar", etc.
("=..", "name", "is" and even "call" are legitimate because
they can be considered as an infinite number of rules.
"var" and "nonvar" can't be described that way). One of
the advantages of logic programming is that it allows us
to consider computations without knowing (precisely) the
underlying execution strategy. Indeed, for "pure" programs,
the execution strategy could change, yet the programs would
still execute correctly. Let us strive to produce true
logic programming languages which get over the minor
failings of Prolog.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 86 12:42:30 GMT
From: Chris Moss <cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP writes:
>> >Consider the following trivial predicate:
>> >a([]).
>> >a(←).
>> >
>> >Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match and
>> >UNSW Prolog finds two.
>> >Which is standard behavior? How do other implementations
>> >behave?
>> I do not have the authority to say which is "standard"
>> behavior, if by that you mean which is found more commonly
>> in implementations.
Most of this discussion is not about how Prolog behaves, but
how the top level query evaluator behaves. As a member of the
Prolog standards committee but NOT speaking officially I should
say that most environmental questions are being RULED OUT by
the standards committee. Whether it will specify exactly what
is the answer to a top level query is not yet sorted out.
[To repeat what has been said already, the confusion is just
about what response CProlog makes to a top-level query - if
the query contains no variables it just answers "yes" and
doesn't give the opportunity to look for another solution
(all ways of solving it are equivalent so why bother).
UNSW gives ALL solutions by default, even in this rather
unnecessary case. If it was part of a larger problem,
every Prolog I know would backtrack and find both, even
though it was strictly equivalent]
-- Chris Moss
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 16:01:39 GMT
From: Marco Valtorta <mgv@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior?
I find UNSW's behavior to be intuitively more
correct, since it seems that the empty list "[]"
should match the anonymous variable "←". This
wouldn't be the first time that I find UNSW to
act in a way that is closer to my "mental model"
of Prolog. Maybe someone involved in a
standardization effort could contribute something
on this topic?
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:07:18 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
> In article <980@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon
> writes:
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one
>match and UNSW Prolog finds two. Which is
standard behavior? How do other implementations
behave?
I did not! My response to whoever wrote that question
was that if ← is a universally quantified variable,
then the logic defines the correct answer; NOT the
implementation. Isn't that what logic programming is
for? 8-).
-- Randy Goebel
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:21:44 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
Now, a general philosophical point. Prolog is certainly
←not← logic programming, although it is a large step in
that direction. A true logic programming language would
not have nor need "cut" ("!"), "var", "nonvar", etc.
("=..", "name", "is" and even "call" are legitimate
because they can be considered as an infinite number of
rules. "var" and "nonvar" can't be described that way).
One of the advantages of logic programming is that it
allows us to consider computations without knowing
(precisely) the underlying execution strategy. Indeed,
for "pure" programs, the execution strategy could change,
yet the programs would still execute correctly. Let us
strive to produce true logic programming languages which
get over the minor failings of Prolog.
Many claim that "logic programming" is an oxymoron. The
logic of pure Prolog is well defined...that's all I said.
I don't believe that cut, var, and nonvar cannot be
described logically, just because they aren't in Prolog
implementations.
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 86 03:16:30 GMT
From: rggoebel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
>Consider the following trivial predicate:
>a([]).
>a(←).
>Given the query :-a([]). , C-Prolog finds one match
>and UNSW Prolog finds two.
>Which is standard behavior? How do other implementa
>-tions behave?
>Hmmm. The reason for logic programming's existence is
>to dispense with guesses about what behaviour should be.
>The formulae assert that the individual constant named
>`[]' and everthing else (i.e., `←') is in the class named
>by the predicate `a'. If you believe that the anonymous
>variable is a universially quantified variable, then
>there are two resolution proofs of the query a([]).
>Implementors' treatment of `←' can produce non-standard
>behaviour; non-standard means not consistent with the
>logical interpretation.
>I have to disagree, Randy. The query merely asks whether
>or not there is a proof of "a([])". Not how many there
>are.
There is nothing in my reply that says anything about what
an implementation should do with such proofs (count them,
print them, ignore them, etc.). All it says is that there
are two proofs. If you ask for all proofs, then there
had better be two. 8-).
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 1986 18:51-EDT
From: VERACSD@USC-ISI.ARPA
Subject: Benchmarking KBES-Toools
I have come across some recent benchmarks from NASA (U.S.
Gov't MEMORANDUM from the FM7/AI Section, April 3, 1986)
which compared various KBES tools' (ART, OP, KEE & CLIPS)
times for solving the MONKEY-AND-BANANA problem. (This toy
prob- lem is explained in detail along with OPS source in
Brownston et. al.'s "Programming Expert Systems in OPS5".)
Although the benchmarks include backward-chaining solutions
to the problem in both KEE and ART (along with forward
-chaining counterparts), there is no PROLOG implementation in
the comparison. I am very interested in a PROLOG comparison,
and am in the process of implementing one.
Unfortunately, I am not (yet) a competent PROLOG programmer
and am currently learning my way around PROLOG on a DEC-20.
Consequently, any advice/suggestions regarding implementing
this benchmark and timing it effectively would be useful and
appreciated. (By the way, the time to beat is 1.2 secs. for
a forward-chaing implementation using ART on a 3640 with 4MB
main-memory.)
I would be glad to share the results with anyone who offers
assistance. (Or for that matter with whomever is interested.)
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 86 01:14:23 GMT
From: mnl@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Prolog programmers
Prolog programmers must be humorless people. After all,
they use :- instead of :-) or :-(
-- Mark Nelson
"This function is occasionally useful as the arguement to
a function which requires a function as an arguement."
-- Guy Steele
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂28-May-86 1749 PETERSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA bike bargains - last chance
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 17:49:27 PDT
Date: Wed, 28 May 1986 17:44 PDT
Message-ID: <PETERSON.12210413515.BABYL@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
From: PETERSON@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: su-bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Subject: bike bargains - last chance
Men's bike, 10 speed with extras - light, carrier, lock & cable - $70.
This comes with Recyclery repurchase guarantee worth $55, so you can
get up to 9 months cycling for $15!
Boy's bike (22 inch frame, 26 inch wheels) - $40. (Recyclery
repurchase on this is $35). Currently ridden by 12 year old.
These are unbeatable bargains for anyone wanting short term bike use,
so let your friends know. But quickly, because I MUST sell by Sunday
night.
Phone 493-1591, or reply by e-mail to PETERSON@CSLI.
∂28-May-86 2024 TREITEL@su-sushi.arpa trouble
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 86 20:24:39 PDT
Date: Wed 28 May 86 20:17:52-PDT
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: trouble
To: mjh-lispm@su-ai.arpa
cc: treitel@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12210441396.37.TREITEL@su-sushi.arpa>
Wednesday evening about 7:30 I found Iguana quietly Fepping to itself, with a
message on the screen about a "recoverable disk error" and an "unrecoverable
disk overrun". I re-booted it anyway, which may have been a silly thing to do,
but I seem to have got away with it. However, if namespace sevice seems to be
down some time in the future, this could be the reason.
- Richard
-------
∂29-May-86 1027 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Special Talk
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Date: Thu, 29 May 86 10:16:08 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Special Talk
To: milton@sri-ai, nail@diablo
Joachim Biskup will give a talk on "Design of Relational
DB Schemes by Stepwise Removal of Forbidden Substructures"
on Monday, June 2, at 11AM, in ERL320.
---jeff ullman
∂29-May-86 1148 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General Faculty Meeting - June 3
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 11:48:34 PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 11:46:08-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: General Faculty Meeting - June 3
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210610383.19.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
On June 3, there will NOT be a general faculty meeting as originally
planned. The PhD Committee discussion that was to be an agenda item
for that meeting has been postponed until a date later in June.
-Anne
-------
∂29-May-86 1153 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 11:53:41 PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 11:52:13-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Sr. Faculty Meeting
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210611489.19.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
On June 3, there will be a sr. faculty meeting at 2:15 in MJH 252 to
discuss/vote on the possible appointment of Jean-Claude Latombe as a
faculty member in CSD.
-Anne
-------
∂29-May-86 1156 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA General Faculty Meeting
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Date: Thu 29 May 86 11:53:36-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: General Faculty Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210611742.19.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There will be a general faculty meeting on Tuesday, June 10 at 2:30 in MJH 146
to approve CSD degree candidates.
-Anne
-------
∂29-May-86 1416 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA commencement protocol
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 14:15:48 PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 14:10:04-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: commencement protocol
To: csd-list@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210636586.12.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
16-May-86 14:40:38-PDT,1981;000000000000
Date: Fri 16 May 86 14:40:37-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Commencement Protocol
To: csd@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12207234275.25.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Perhaps sending this to all CSD is overkill, but so many are asking
questions. Hopefully, this will answer those questions.
Victoria Cheadle is in charge of the academic details for commencement
for PHD and MSAI grads.
Jutta McCormick is in charge of the academic details for all other
MS grads.
COLOR HOODS:
PHD students: crimson on one side (for Stanford); orange on the other
side (for School of Engineering); bluish-purple trim to
designate the PHD degree.
MS students: black on outside; red on inside with orange around the edge.
The authority for this is Prof. Eric Hutchinson, Academic Sec. for the
University Emeritus.
After the big ceremony at the Stadium, grads, faculty, guests, etc.
will walk to the individual ceremonies. CSD will hold its individual
ceremony in the Old Union Courtyard. We will start between 12:30 and
1 p.m. -- depending on what time we can call everything to order.
Just before we begin I will give instructions to the grads and the
faculty who will be participating.
Order:
Carolyn Tajnai Instructions; call to order
Professor Nilsson greetings
Prof. Wiederhold will hood MS grads
Prof. Oliger will hand out MS diplomas
assisted by Jutta McCormick
Dr. William Clancey will hood MSAI grads
Prof. Mike Genesereth will hand out MSAI diplomas
assisted by Victoria Cheadle
Prof. Jack Herriot will hood PHD grads
Prof. Nils Nilsson will hand out PHD diplomas
assisted by Victoria Cheadle
After the ceremony there will be a reception for the new grads,
their families and guests and faculty.
COMMENCEMENT COMMITTEE
Kathy Berg
Victoria Cheadle
LaDonna Eppley
Jutta McCormick
Robin Maslin
Gina Modica
Premla Nangia
John Reuling
Betty Scott
Carolyn Tajnai, coordinator
-------
∂29-May-86 1454 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday meeting to be rescheduled
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 14:54:00 PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 14:50:33-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Black Friday meeting to be rescheduled
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, phd@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12210643954.31.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Due to various reasons, the Black Friday meeting has been
cancelled for Tuesday, June 3rd. We have not yet settled
on another date, but it will probably take place sometime
during the last two weeks in June. I will let you know as
soon as a date has been confirmed (hopefully, in the next
day or so). Please continue to send me progress reports.
Victoria
-------
∂29-May-86 1653 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 16:53:09 PDT
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Thu 29 May 86 16:51:26-PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 16:43:52-PDT
From: Edward Feigenbaum <FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
To: RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <12210611489.19.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Message-ID: <12210664583.70.FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Aren't there still classes on June 3? Is it not unfair to call faculty
meetings at 2:15PM when some of us might still be in class (i.e.
1:15 to 2:30)?...Ed
-------
∂29-May-86 1725 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 86 17:25:32 PDT
Date: Thu 29 May 86 17:23:39-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Sr. Faculty Meeting
To: FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
cc: RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA, NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <12210664583.70.FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Message-ID: <12210671826.28.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Let's reschedule the sr. fac. mtg to occur at 2:30 on Tuesday,
June 3 (instead of at 2:15). -Nils
-------
∂29-May-86 2217 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu POPL '87 Call for Papers
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Received: from (VICTOR)YKTVMZ.BITNET by WISCVM.WISC.EDU on 05/29/86 at
15:14:35 CDT
Date: 29 May 1986 16:01:52-EDT (Thursday)
From: "Victor S. Miller" <VICTOR%YKTVMZ.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Subject: POPL '87 Call for Papers
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 29 May 86 23:29:20 CDT (Thu)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Call For Papers
The Fourteenth Annual ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN Symposium on
Principles of Programming Languages
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY, January 21-23, 1987
The fourteenth POPL symposium will address fundamental principles and
important innovations in the design, definition, and implementation of
programming languages and systems. Both theoretical and applied pa-
pers are solicited. In both the theoretical and applied domains, pa-
pers at the symposium must present new ideas that have the potential
to improve the understanding of principles of programming languages in
the Computer Science Community. In particular, papers at the sympo-
sium must contain material not presented previously in any formal fo-
rum. Papers describing work in which an implemented system embodies
an important principle in such a way that the usefulness of that prin-
ciple is better understood, are especially encouraged. The symposium
is not limited to topics included in previous POPL symposia -- papers
introducing important new topics are desired as well. Authors should
submit 11 copies(1) of a technical summary to the program committee
chairman. The initial submission should not be a complete paper, but
it must contain enough information for the committee to judge its rel-
evance, clarity, correctness, originality, and significance. In par-
ticular, it is important to include specific results, sketches of
their derivations, and comparisons with related work. Because of the
large number of submissions (165 were submitted to the 13th POPL Sym-
posium), the committee must make its judgement on the basis of a mini-
mum of text. Submissions should be limited to 10 pages, typed
double-spaced, or typeset 10-point on 16-point spacing. The total
text should not exceed 3,000 words. Longer submissions may be trun-
cated arbitrarily by the program committee. Submissions must be re-
ceived by August 8, 1986. Late papers may be eliminated arbitrarily.
Each paper submitted will be considered by the program committee, con-
sisting of
Michael J. O'Donnell The University of Chicago (Chairman)
Gregory Andrews University of Arizona
Marc Auslander IBM, T. J. Watson Research Center
Edmund Clarke Carnegie-Mellon University
Harald Ganzinger Universitaet Dortmund
Neil Jones University of Copenhagen
Gilles Kahn INRIA Sophia-Antipolis
Alan Mycroft Cambridge University
Fernando Pereira SRI International
Thomas Reps University of Wisconsin
Norihisa Suzuki IBM, T. J. Watson Research Center
Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by September 22,
1986. Full versions of the accepted papers must be received in
camera-ready form by October 15, 1985. Authors of accepted papers
will be expected to sign a copyright release form. Proceedings will
be distributed at the symposium, and will be available subsequently
from ACM.
Program Chair Local Arrangements
Michael J. O'Donnell Prof. Manfred Paul
Attn: POPL87 Institut fuer Informatik
The University of Chicago Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Department of Computer Science Arcisstra\ss e 21
Ryerson Hall, 1100 E. 58th St. Postfach 202420
Chicago, IL 60637 D-8000 Muenchen 2
U.S.A. WEST GERMANY
(1) Persons submitting papers from countries in which access to copy-
ing machines is extremely difficult may submit single copies.
--------------
TN Message #47
--------------
∂30-May-86 0745 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Foreigners
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 30 May 86 10:44:21-EDT
Date: Fri, 30 May 1986 10:44 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12210828480.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Foreigners
I never received any feedback on my proposal that we go ahead and invite
the JEIDA committeee to nominate someone for the steering and technical
committees. (This will probably be Ida.) Before we start voting on
things, which will start soon, I'd like to make this gesture. It could
make a big difference in the enthusiasm with which the Japanese accept
our work, and they are our best potential ally outside the U.S., not to
mention being a substantial fraction of the potential user community.
Shall we move on this?
I'm not sure whether it is worthwhile asking the Europeans if they are
interested in joining right now. Maybe we should wait till Bob Mathis
returns from the Eulisp meeting, where he can see what the mood is over
there. He could quietly inform Chailloux and any other non-radicals
over there that we would like to have a European or two in the inner
loop if we can find one who subscribes to the goal of standardizing the
current Common Lisp without major changes.
-- Scott
∂30-May-86 0912 BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA 86-87 leave information
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Date: Fri 30 May 86 09:10:13-PDT
From: Betty Scott <BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: 86-87 leave information
To: AC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: BScott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12210844144.10.BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
If any CS faculty plan to be on leave part or all of next year, I will appre-
ciate having this information as soon as possible. Those of you who have
already talked with me about 86-87 leaves need not respond.
Thanks,
Betty
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∂30-May-86 1257 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Foreigners
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Date: 30 May 1986 12:38-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Foreigners
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: CL-Steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]30-May-86 12:38:19.MATHIS>
I was a little worried when Scott used this subject heading; I
thought he might be taking about other language type people.
I thought we had all converged on Ida. The only question seemed
to be how to bring him in -- direct personal invitation or
slection by the Japanese committee. I'll go with whichever Scott
decides. We might offer him at least a provisional place until
the Japanese selection is done.
I hope something positive comes of my trip next week. I will be
talking primarily about procedural and organizational issues.
The point that I have noticed in the discussions on this subset
or minimal set or core language is approximately --
standards for subset languages motivated by machine capacities
are not very useful (eg, Minimal BASIC and the PL/I subset);
there is a strong desire in the Lisp community for minimal
logical basis for the language (who else uses "pure" as a
descriptor?), but practicality is the strongest motivator in the
standardization effort (people are using Common Lisp and what we
need now is a common, standardized definition of that). Everyone
seems interested in discussing a minimal core basis for Lisp, but
that should not delay the currently needed standard for what is
generally understand as Common Lisp.
-- Bob
∂30-May-86 1318 Moon@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA Foreigners
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Date: Fri, 30 May 86 16:12 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>
Subject: Foreigners
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12210828480.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860530161241.5.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Fri, 30 May 1986 10:44 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I never received any feedback on my proposal that we go ahead and invite
the JEIDA committeee to nominate someone for the steering and technical
committees. (This will probably be Ida.) Before we start voting on
things, which will start soon, I'd like to make this gesture.
As far as I'm concerned, go ahead. (I'm not on the steering committee.)
Dan Weinreb will not be reading his mail until the week after next, but
I would be surprised if he disagreed with my opinion on this particular issue.
∂30-May-86 1506 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 May 86 15:06:19 PDT
Date: Fri 30 May 86 15:01:42-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12210908128.44.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Black Friday has been re-scheduled for Friday (we decided to actually
have it on a Friday just to keep you on your toes!), June 27th, at
2:15 p.m., in Jacks 146. Immediately following Black Friday, there
will be a Faculty Meeting to discuss the proposed changes in the
Ph.D. program.
Mark those calendars now!
Victoria
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∂30-May-86 1540 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 May 86 15:27:13 PDT
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Fri, 30 May 86 15:20:17 PDT
Date: Fri, 30 May 86 15:20:17 PDT
From: WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA
Subject: SIGBIG
To: @sig03.dis
ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY
San Francisco Golden Gate Chapter
"SIGBIG" Special Interest Committee
For Large High Speed Computers
Meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:30 PM. Speakers
who can give insights to various aspects of SUPERCOMPUTING are
featured each month.
Next meeting: Wednesday, June 4, 1986, 7:30 PM
Speaker: Dennis White / Floating Point Systems
Topic: Floating Point Systems for General Fortran
and Large Matrix Algebra Problems
Location: AXIOM Systems
1589 Centre Pointe Drive
Milpitas, CA (Wheelchair Accessible)
Directions: 17 South to Montague Expressway East. Left from
Montague onto Centre Point (before Capitol).
or 17 South to Capitol Expressway East. Right from
Capitol onto Centre Point (before Montague).
or 680 South to Montague Expressway West. Right from
Montague onto Centre Point (after Capitol).
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tape-recordings of most of the previous may be obtained
in exchange for a tape cassette or $5.00 by contacting:
Mary Fowler (415)839-6547
Supercomputing #192, BOX 2787
Alameda, CA. 94501-0787
For information contact Mary Fowler, Chairperson (415) 839-6547
or Mike Austin, Publ. Chair (415) 423-8446
∂31-May-86 1017 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Spring Picnic!
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 31 May 86 10:17:44 PDT
Received: from su-sushi.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Sat 31 May 86 10:13:26-PDT
Date: Sat 31 May 86 10:13:18-PDT
From: CSD Social Committee
Subject: CSD Spring Picnic!
Sender: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
To: csd-list@su-score.arpa
Reply-To: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12211117772.19.WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa>
SSSS PPPPP RRRRR II NN NN GGGGG PPPPP II CCC NN NN II CCC
SS PP PP RR RR II NNN NN GG PP PP II CC CC NNN NN II CC CC
SSS PPPPP RRRRR II NNNNNN GG GG PPPPP II CC NNNNNN II CC
SS PP RR RR II NN NNN GG GG PP II CC CC NN NNN II CC CC
SSSS PP RR RR II NN NN GGGGG PP II CCC NN NN II CCC
What better way to celebrate the end of classes than the annual CSD Spring
Picnic, coming up soon. This year it's being held on Wednesday, June 4,
at Burgess Park in Menlo Park. There will be sports, sun (we hope!), and
lots of food and drink. Sporting and sunning start at 2, eating starts
around 5, and drinking starts anytime. Anyone with any connection to the
CSD is welcome, as are friends, enemies, and strangers you pick up off the
street. We especially want to assure the staff and faculty that they're
welcome -- don't let the idea of hordes of students worry you....
Because of the short notice (our apologies), we need help in getting all
the preparations done by then. Please volunteer if you can help -- we
can't do it all ourselves. We need help in the following:
Grills: we have only one picnic-sized grill at the park. If
you have one that we could use, please let us know.
Cooks: we need someone to be in charge of the cooking, and we
also need people to cook.
Food, Drink, and Inedibles: we need help buying and transporting
all the food, drink, and assorted supplies.
Sports: someone to make sure softball and volleyball equipment
make it there. It appears that the picnic area has a
volleyball net already, but at least one extra is probably
a good idea.
Clean-up: just help gather everything up at the end. It's not
that hard, and you get to eat all the leftover food and
drink all the leftover beer.
Let us know if you can help with any or all of these.
More information, including directions (it's within easy biking and driving
distance), will follow shortly.
CSD Social Committee
-------
∂31-May-86 1927 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Proposed message
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 31 May 86 18:55:24 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 31 May 86 21:55:11-EDT
Date: Sat, 31 May 1986 21:55 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12211212771.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Proposed message
Just to make it all specific, here is the message that I propose sending
to Professor Ida sometime soon. Let me know if you disagree with this
action, or if you have any amendments. After a few days, I will take
silence as agreement.
I'm not sure who the message should be signed by. I'm happy enough to
do this as "Scott Fahlman, on behalf of the Common Lisp Steering and
Technical Committess", but it's more of a steering-type function.
-- Scott
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Professor Ida:
Now that we have reliable network communications with Japan, the Common
Lisp group in the U.S. would very much like to encourage Japanese
participation in our efforts to clarify and standardize the Common Lisp
specification. The members of the Technical and Steering committess
have been discussing for some time how we might include our Japanese
counterparts in the decision-making process. After discussing the
matter with several Japanese researchers, we believe that the following
model may be the best one to follow:
1. The language design discussions will take place on the public Common
Lisp mailing list. We invite any individual in Japan who is interested
in these issues to follow the discussion on this list and to contribute
to it. We believe that the technical barriers to such participation
have now been eliminated, at least for people with access to Junet or
CSNet. Our discussions are in English, so unless some sort of
translation can be arranged, only English-speaking researchers will be
able to participate directly.
2. It appears that your JEIDA committee on Common Lisp is coordinating
much of the Common Lisp activity in Japan. This should continue to be
the focus for the Japanese Common Lisp community. We will try to
maintain close communications with your committee in the future,
probably via netmail to you and other members.
3. For the purpose of formal liaison between our group and yours, we
would like to invite the JEIDA committee to select one person who will
be a member of our Steering Committee and one person who will be a
member of our Technical Committee. (One person can fill both posts, if
you like.) These members will be invited to any face-to-face committee
meetings we might have, but we expect these to be rare events. We
believe that the Japanese members would be able to participate in
almost all committee decisions, even if he is unable to attend some
meetings in the U.S.
Does this seem like a reasonable plan to you? Are there important
segments of the Japanese Common Lisp community who would not be
represented under this plan? Do you have any other suggestions on how
we might handle this?
If you agree with this plan, we will announce it on the Common-Lisp
mailing list, which many Japanese researchers will see.
Best regards,
Scott Fahlman
(on behalf of the Common Lisp Technical and Steering Committees)
∂31-May-86 1932 MANCOSU@SU-CSLI.ARPA room for sublet.
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 31 May 86 19:32:25 PDT
Date: Sat 31 May 86 19:28:10-PDT
From: Paolo Mancosu <MANCOSU@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: room for sublet.
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
One room in two bedroom apartment available for summer sublet starting june 15 (or later if desired). Twenty minutes by bike from campus; pool; sauna.
Location: 315 O'Keefe St., Palo Alto.
Rent: $300/month + utilities.
If interested, send message to: Mancosu @Turing, or call 326-1752 and ask for
Paolo or Amy.
-------
∂01-Jun-86 1507 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Proposed message
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Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 01 JUN 86 15:07:01 PDT
Date: 1 Jun 86 15:06 PDT
Sender: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Proposed message
In-reply-to: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>'s message of Sat,
31 May 86 21:55 EDT
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)
Message-ID: <860601-150701-1707@Xerox>
Scott,
I like the message. Should we include a description of the difference
between the steering and technical committees (what the former does, for
example)?
----- dgb:
∂01-Jun-86 1522 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Proposed message
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jun 86 15:22:11 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sun 1 Jun 86 18:19:01-EDT
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1986 18:18 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12211435558.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Bobrow.pa@λXerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)λ
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Proposed message
In-reply-to: Msg of 1 Jun 1986 18:06-EDT from Bobrow.pa at Xerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)
Good idea. The steering and technical committees have been described
earlier on the mailing list, but some of the Japanese have not been
reading this for very long. The following sentence should do it:
"The Steering Committee is concerned with the administrative issues in
developing a proposed standard and submitting it to ANSI and ISO for
formal approval; the Technical Committee is concerned with the technical
content of the proposal."
-- Scott
∂01-Jun-86 1929 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tom Mitchell
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Date: Sun 1 Jun 86 19:27:11-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tom Mitchell
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211480747.10.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I had a long talk with Jim Meindl today about the CIS billet that we hoped
could be used for Tom Mitchell. The conclusion is that Jim doe not think
Tom is "sufficiently systemsy" to fit the purposes of that billet. I
tried to persuade him that, nevertheless, Tom would be excellent for CIS and for
the university, but Jim is unconvinced. Although the "CIS billet" is not
necessarily a "Meindl billet", nevertheless without Jim Meindl's and John
Hennessy's strong endor{neq↑vvV
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∂01-Jun-86 1934 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA continued
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jun 86 19:34:23 PDT
Date: Sun 1 Jun 86 19:32:31-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: continued
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211481716.10.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
(A noise pulse sent the previous msg prematurely) .... strong endorsement,
we cannot use the billet. Tom does not have their endorsement for that
billet. So, it looks like our try to get an extra billet for Tom isn't
going to work. Jim Gibbons asked me if Tom Mitchell would be our first choice
for a new billet from the provost if such could be obtained (and he didn't
think it could). I responded that if we had one more "free billet" that there
would be a lot of call on it besides from AI people. I hope I represented
the consensus CSD interest in making that answer. Tom was going to be away
for the weekend, so I won't be able to contact him to tell him that we are
not going to be making him an offer until sometime tomorrow. Sorry it
didn't work out. -Nils
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∂01-Jun-86 2253 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Charlie Koo
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jun 86 22:52:14 PDT
Date: Sun 1 Jun 86 22:48:02-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Charlie Koo
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 1-Jun-86 22:48:02.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYNCHRONIZING PLANS AMONG INTELLIGENT AGENTS
VIA COMMUNICATION
Charlie Koo (KOO@SUSHI)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 2
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
In a society where a group of agents cooperate to achieve certain
goals, the group members perform their tasks based on certain plans.
Some tasks may interact with tasks done by other agents. One way to
coordinate the tasks is to let a master planner generate a plan and
distribute tasks to individual agents accordingly. However, there are
two difficulties. Firstly, the master planner needs to know all the
expertise that each agent has. The amount of knowledge sharply
increases with the number of specialties. Secondly, the
master-planning process will be computationally more expensive than if
each agent plans for itself, since the planning space for the former
is much larger. Therefore, distributed planning is motivated.
The objective of this on-going research is to formalize a model for
synchronizing and monitoring plans independently made by nonhostile
intelligent agents via communication. The proposed model also will
provide means to monitor the progress of plan execution, to prevent
delays, and to modify plans with less effort when delays happen.
In this talk, a commitment-based communication model which allows
agents to track their commitments during execution of plans will be
proposed. It includes a language, a set of communication operators
and a set of commitment tracking operators. The process of
synchronizing plans based on this communication model will also be
described.
Relevant work: Contract Net, nonlinear planners, distributed planners.
-------
∂02-Jun-86 0655 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA more continued
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 06:55:50 PDT
Date: Mon 2 Jun 86 06:54:07-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: more continued
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211605798.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I forgot to say in yesterday's message that Yoav Shoham has accepted our
offer. He plans to start on Jan. 1, 1987. -Nils
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∂02-Jun-86 0846 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA [Carl Pollard <POLLARD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>: ESCOL 86]
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 08:46:52 PDT
Date: Mon 2 Jun 86 07:40:58-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: [Carl Pollard <POLLARD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>: ESCOL 86]
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Mail-From: POLLARD created at 27-May-86 13:15:20
Date: Tue 27 May 86 13:15:20-PDT
From: Carl Pollard <POLLARD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: ESCOL 86
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
ESCOL 86, Eastern States Conference on Linguistics, will be
jointly sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon
University.
Dates: October 10-12, 1986
Invited Speakers: Charles Fillmore (Berkeley)
Lily Wong Fillmore (Berkeley)
Martin Kay (Xerox PARC)
George Miller (Princeton)
Added Attraction: Demonstrations of NLP Software
Theme of the conference is "Linguistics at work": we invite papers
on computational linguistics or language teaching, as well as on any
topic of general linguistic interest.
Send a 1 page anonymous abstract, with separate return
address, by US Mail to
ESCOL 86
Department of Linguistics
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
or by netmail to
Thomason@c.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA.
Abstract should arrive in Pittsburgh by June 13. Submitted papers will
be scheduled for 20 minutes, with 10 minutes for discussion.
-------
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∂02-Jun-86 0908 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 09:08:41 PDT
Date: Mon 2 Jun 86 09:05:46-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Computer Science
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: cs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211629764.12.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Techniques For 3-D Machine Perception. Machine Intelligence and Pattern
Recognition 3. edited by A. Rosenfeld. Q334.T42 1986.
Informatics: A Propaedeutic View. by Wladyslaw M. Turski. Institue of
Informatics Warsaw Univeristy. Translated by B. Osuchowska. QA76.T8713 1985.
Macintosh Pascal Illustrated. by Scott Kronick. QA76.8.M3K76 1985 c.2
The Complexity Of Parallel Algorithms. Dissertation. by Richard John
Anderson. November 1985. 3781 1986 A. c.2
Rational Interaction: Cooperation Among Intelligent Agents. Dissertation.
by Jeffrey S. Rosenschein. October 1985. 3781 1986 R c.2.
Harry LLull
-------
∂02-Jun-86 0918 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 09:18:35 PDT
Date: Mon 2 Jun 86 09:15:25-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library New Books--Statistics/Math
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: msgs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU, faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211631520.12.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Stochastic Systems. Mathematics In Science And Engineering. volume 169.
by George Adomian. QA274.23.A36 1983 c.3
Probability And Statistical Inference. Volume 1: Probability. Second Edition.
Springer Texts In Statistics. by J. G. Kalbfleisch. QA273.K27 1985 v.1.
Lineare Statistische Modelle Und Optimale Versuchsplane. Studia Mathematica.
by Olaf Krafft. QA279.K72.
Topics In Iteration Theory. Studia Mathematica. by Gyorgy Targonski.
QA297.8T37 1981.
Quantitative Techniques. by C. R. Kothari. University of Rajasthan, Jaipur.
QA276.K67 1986.
Orthogonal Series And Approximation Of Functions. Collection of Papers
Dedicated to the One-hundredth Birthday of Academician N. N. Luzin.
Steklov Institute of Mathematics. Proceedings. QA1.A413 v.164
Applications Of Mathematics In Technology. Proceedings of the German-
Italian Symposium. March 26-30, 1984 Rome. V. Boffi and H. Neunzert
editors. QA911.G446 1984.
Harry LLull
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∂02-Jun-86 1240 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Proposed message
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 12:39:56 PDT
Date: 2 Jun 1986 12:38-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Proposed message
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA] 2-Jun-86 12:38:53.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12211212771.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
I endorse your message and suggest that you should send
it on behalf of the Common Lisp Technical and Steering Committees.
Ron
∂02-Jun-86 1743 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Sr. fac. mtg
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jun 86 17:43:43 PDT
Date: Mon 2 Jun 86 17:42:10-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Sr. fac. mtg
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211723772.12.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Please don't forget the Senior Faculty Mtg tomorrow, Tuesday June 3,
in MJH 252 at 2:30. I'd very much like us to decide on the Jean-Claude Latombe
appointment then (for the robotics position) and hope that everyone will
have had a chance to see his c.v. and evaluation letters.
-Nils
-------
∂02-Jun-86 1808 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
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Date: Mon, 2 Jun 86 16:47:04 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"The Extended CWA and its relationship to parallel circumscription"
By M. Gelfond, (H. and T.) Przymusinski
"Query answering in circumscriptive and closed-world theories"
by T. Przy...
"On the semantics of stratified deductive databases"
by T. Przy...
These are all from Univ. of Texas, El Paso.
---jeff
∂03-Jun-86 0132 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic
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Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 01:28:04-PDT
From: CSD Social Committee
Subject: CSD Picnic
Sender: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
To: csd-list@su-score.arpa
Reply-To: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12211808587.20.WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa>
Reminder: the CSD Picnic is this Wednesday, June 4.
Drinks, munchies, and sports start at 2. Serious
eating starts around 5.
We still are in desperate need of grills. If you
have one, please let us know -- it will spare us
from major headaches and food lines.
One thing omitted from the previous message: we
rely on the generosity of the people who come to
supply salad and dessert, so we'd appreciate it
if you could help us out on this. As we said before,
we supply everything else.
We're looking forward to seeing you there!
CSD Social Committee
-------
∂03-Jun-86 0614 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Next AFLB
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Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 06:10:39-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Next AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12211860028.18.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
This week's AFLB is the last for this academic year.
------------------------------------
5-June-86 : Joe Kilian (MIT)
Almost All Primes Can Be Quickly Certified
We present a new probabilistic primality test. Upon termination the
test outputs "composite" or "prime", along with a short proof of
correctness, which can be verified in deterministic polynomial time.
The test is different from the tests of Miller [M], Solovay-Strassen
[SS], and Rabin [R] in that its assertions of primality are certain,
rather than being correct with high probability or dependent on an
unproven assumption.
We prove that the proposed test terminates in expected polynomial time
on all but at most an exponentially vanishing fraction of the inputs
of length $k$, for every $k$.
This implies:
* There exist an infinite set of primes which can be recognized in
expected polynomial time.
* Large certified primes can be generated in expected polynomial time.
Under a plausible condition on the distribution of primes in "small"
intervals, our test can be shown to terminate in expected polynomial
time on *every input*.
The methods employed are from the theory of elliptic curves over
finite fields.
This is joint work with Shafi Goldwasser.
***** Time and place: June 5, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
Regular AFLB meetings are on Thursdays, at 12:30pm, in MJ352. If you
have a topic you'd like to talk about please let me know. (Electronic
mail: patashnik@su-sushi.arpa, phone: (415) 723-1787). Contributions
are wanted and welcome. Although all time slots for this academic
year have been filled, we may have a few during the summer. The file
[SUSHI]<patashnik.aflb>aflb.bboard contains more information about
future and past AFLB meetings and topics.
--Oren Patashnik
-------
∂03-Jun-86 1045 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA two disk (floppy) pc
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jun 86 10:45:14 PDT
Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 10:30:52-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: two disk (floppy) pc
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
anyone got one around here i can borrow for about an hour?
thanks....rich
-------
∂03-Jun-86 1151 RPG Japan
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Stop the presses! I just talked to a group of Japanese visitors,
and they thought that Ida was too young, and that JEIDA was the
wrong way to go to get the Japanese to go along with the standard.
I'll have more details later tonight - I'm on my way to the airport.
-rpg-
∂03-Jun-86 1155 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA EQRs
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Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 11:49:59-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: EQRs
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211921804.29.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
End Quarter Reports are here. Please stop by my office (MJH030) to
pick yours up. Please return them to me filled out as soon as you
possibly can -- orange ones (graduating students) are due Thursday
June 12th (but the sooner the better), and blue ones (everybody else)
are due June 16th.
-Gina
-------
∂03-Jun-86 1239 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA [Bob Knight <KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>: [Angie Van Pelt <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>: XEROX DEMONSTRATION]]
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Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 12:10:17-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: [Bob Knight <KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>: [Angie Van Pelt <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>: XEROX DEMONSTRATION]]
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Return-Path: <KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Received: from SRI-NIC.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Tue 3 Jun 86 08:23:51-PDT
Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 08:26:00-PDT
From: Bob Knight <KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: [Angie Van Pelt <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>: XEROX DEMONSTRATION]
To: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12211884670.27.KNIGHT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
You might wanna check this out...
Bob
---------------
Return-Path: <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>
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Date: Tue 27 May 86 07:39:54-PDT
From: Angie Van Pelt <VANPELT@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: XEROX DEMONSTRATION
To: sri-bboards@SRI-AI.ARPA
cc: vanpelt@SRI-AI.ARPA
XEROX CORPORATION - will be conducting an open house at SRI June 4th and
5th. Featured will be Professional Workstations which integrate text
and graphics, Laser printers for distributed printing requirements, as
well as Artificial Intelligent workstations designed for both the
developer and end user. The sessions will be held in the micro computer
evaluation room (PN321) from 8:30 to 5:00 each day. Refreshments will
be provided.
-------
-------
-------
∂03-Jun-86 1341 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japan
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 3 Jun 86 16:40:55-EDT
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1986 16:40 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12211941979.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japan
In-reply-to: Msg of 3 Jun 1986 14:51-EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG at SU-AI.ARPA>
OK, nothing has happened in public yet and I've sent nothing to Ida, so
we'll wait for the rest of Dick's input.
-- Scott
∂03-Jun-86 1647 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:LES@SU-AI.ARPA Courtesy Computer Accounts
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jun 86 16:46:58 PDT
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Date: 03 Jun 86 1627 PDT
From: Les Earnest <LES@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Courtesy Computer Accounts
To: AC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: Hanrahan@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Last December, the Computer Science Faculty approved a policy for courtesy
accounts that gives the following purposes for such accounts.
"It is the policy of CSD to provide limited access to departmental computer
resources at no cost to certain people with close ties to the department.
The purpose of this access is to facilitate communication with department
members and to provide access to information resources at Stanford. The
departmental purpose is to stimulate exchanges of information with outside
members of computer research and teaching communities and to engender
goodwill."
Courtesy accounts that had not been used in 1985 were subsequently purged.
We now wish to implement the rest of the policy by reviewing the remaining
courtesy accounts.
There are three types of courtesy accounts.
(1) "software maintainers" are people who provide services on certain
systems and who are granted charge-free accounts on those systems
by the system administrator.
(2) "project affiliates" are granted computer accounts by a principal
investigator and normally run on the computer(s) used by the project.
If that computer is a cost center, then the charges are billed to
the PI's account and the PI is obligated to review the charges
periodically to ensure ongoing appropriateness.
(3) "departmental affiliates" are people whose computer accounts are
supported by departmental gift accounts. All department affiliates
must be approved by the Chairman.
The following list shows everyone who currently holds an account as either
a software maintainer or departmental affiliate who also is listed in the
Departmental data base with no title or with the nondescript title "SAIL
User." The source of their current support is given in the "Account"
column below, where "CS Gifts" means the departmental gift account
1-DMA601, "CS Forum" means the Forum funds in account 1-DMA612 and "CF"
means the computer facilities account 9-DMA078 (presumably for software
maintainers).
Many of these people have been given accounts at some time in the past for
reasons that are now forgotten. From now on we plan to keep track of both
the reason for each account and the person who made the recommendation.
In cases where we cannot find a valid reason for a courtesy account, the
holder will be politely informed that the account will be closed.
Principal Investigators who would like to support one or more of these
individuals with project funds are requested to say so. Recommendations
are also in order for people whose accounts should be retained as software
maintainers or departmental affiliates; such recommendations should
include a designation of the computer(s) on which accounts should be
provided. You may also nominate additional people for guest accounts.
Please direct all offers of support and recommendations for departmental
or computer facility guest accounts to Katie Hanrahan (Hanrahan@Score),
who will collect and organize this material. Please send any questions
about procedures to me.
Les Earnest (Les@Sail).
----------------------------------------------------
NAME LOGIN ID ACCOUNT
Aho, Alfred >> AHO@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Allen, John >> JRA@SAIL CF
Was SAIL staff
Andrews, Angus >> ANDREWS@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Barcklay, Robert >> BARCKLAY@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
>> BJB@SU-AI CS Gifts
>> barcklay@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Bartels, Richard >> BARTELS@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Bell, Alan >> BELL@ALTOS CF
Berc, Lance >> lance@SU-NAVAJO CF
Benjamin, Jimmy >> benjamin@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Bowerman, Tom >> TRB@SU-AI CS Gifts
Brent, Richard >> BRENT@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Broder, Andrei Z. >> AZB@SU-AI CS Gifts
Buckley, Michael J. >> BUCKLEY@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Cantrell, Tonia >> TONIA@SU-SCORE CF
Chiappa, J. Noel >> jnc@SU-NAVAJO CF
Ching, Greg >> CHING@SU-SCORE CF
>> ching@SU-NAVAJO CF
Clarkson, Kenneth >> CLARKSON@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Coleman, Martin >> mcoleman@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Cota-Robles, Erik >> cotarobl@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Diffie, Whit >> WD@SU-AI CS Gifts
Was SAIL staff, EE PhD student
Duffy, Gavan >> GD@SU-AI CF
Edozien, Joseph >> EDOZIEN@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Was MSAI
Eldridge, Tim >> TWE@SAIL CF
G.ELDRE@SCORE CF
Falcao, Veronica G. >> cs108@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Feldman, Jerry >> JAF@SU-AI CS Gifts
Was Visiting Professor
Filman, Bob >> REF@SAIL CS Gifts
Was PhD Student, SAIL
Fournier, Alain >> fournier@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Finkel, Raphael >> RF@SAIL CS Gifts
Was PhD Student, SAIL
Gini, Maria >> MLG@SU-AI CS Gifts
Was Visiting Scholar, SAIL
Gini, Pina >> GG@SU-AI CS Gifts
Was Visiting Scholar, SAIL
Ginsparg, Jerry >> JJ@SAIL CS Gifts
Goodfellow, Geof >> GFF@SAIL CF
Griss, Martin >> G.M-GRISS@SU-SCORE CF
>> griss@SU-NAVAJO CF
Guests, Score >> G@SU-SCORE CF
Haberler, Michael >> HABERLER@ALTOS CF
Hearn, Tony >> ACH@SAIL CF
Was Physics faculty & SAIL associate; now at Rand Corp.
Hegarty, Paul >> HEGARTY@SU-SCORE CF
Helliwell, Richard >> RPH@SAIL CF
Was SAIL Staff
Hewitt, Carl >> CDR@SU-AI CS Gifts
>> HEWITT@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
MIT faculty
Hoyt, Charley >> ZOO@SU-AI CF
Hurd, Cuthbert >> CHURD@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Johnson, J. Q. >> JQJ@SU-SCORE CF
>> JQJ@SU-AI CF
>> JQJ@ALTOS CF
>> jqj@SU-NAVAJO CF
Kahrs, Mark >> MWK@SU-AI CS Gifts
Former SAIL staff, current student at U. Rochester
Kang, Keesok >> kang@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Kant, Elaine >> EK@SAIL CS Gifts
Was CS PhD student
Kerr, Jeffrey R. >> JRK@SU-AI CS Forum
Former ME PhD Student
Kirsch, Steve >> SK@SU-AI CS Gifts
>> KIRSCH@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Former MIT visitor
Knight, Tom >> TK@SU-AI CS Gifts
MIT
Kotok, Alan >> AK@SAIL CF
Lee, Dan >> LEE@SU-AI CS Gifts
Leney, James B. >> LENEY@SU-SCORE CF
>> LENEY@ALTOS CF
Lerner, Sandy >> LERNER@SU-SCORE CF
>> SKL@SU-AI CF
Levy, Rachel >> RACHEL@SU-SCORE CF
Lieberman, Jerry >> GJL@SU-SCORE CF
Loftus, Cynthia J. >> CJLOFTUS@SU-SCORE CF
Low, Jim >> JRL@SAIL CS Gifts
Was PhD student, SAIL
Manuck, Richard >> RIC@SU-AI CS Gifts
>> MANUCK@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Librarian, Math. Sci.
Metcalfe, R. R. >> METCALFE@ALTOS CF
Moses, Thomas R. >> TRM@SU-AI CF
>> MOSES@SU-SCORE CF
Nelson, Marcea >> NELSON@SU-SCORE CF
Nisbet, Jim >> NIZ@SU-AI CF
Nowicki, Elizabeth >> hurd@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Former CS Masters Student
Nugent, Todd >> nugent@SU-NAVAJO CF
Oppen, Derek >> DCO@SU-AI CS Gifts
>> oppen@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Was Research Associate, SAIL
Paetzold, Kevin >> KWP@SU-AI CF
Panofsky, Ted >> TED@SAIL CF
Was SAIL Staff
Poole, Dave >> DWP@SU-AI CS Gifts
Former system programmer, SAIL
Poteet, Monroe T. >> poteet@SU-NAVAJO CF
Ricart, Glenn >> DGR@SU-AI CS Gifts
Ries, Michael R. >> RIES@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Former CS Masters Student
Samet, Hanan >> HJS@SAIL CS Gifts
Was CS PhD Student, now U. Maryland faculty
Satz, Greg L. >> GS@SU-AI CF
>> SATZ@SU-SCORE CF
>> SATZ@ALTOS CF
>> satz@SU-NAVAJO CF
Sawamoto, Jun >> sawamoto@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Former CS Masters Student
Schaeffer, George >> gschaef@SU-NAVAJO CS Gifts
Scheinman, Vic >> VDS@SU-AI CS Gifts
Former ME PhD student at SAIL
Schulman, Bob >> BMS@SU-AI CS Forum
Former CS Masters Student
Segal, Mark >> SEGAL@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Selker, Ted >> SELKER@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Was Instructor
Shaw, David >> DES@SU-AI CS Gifts
Columbia U.
Shih, Kitty M. >> shih@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Shore, Andrew I. >> shore@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS PhD Student
Shreve, Dorothy E. >> SHREVE@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Siegel, Jeremy A. >> jas@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Silverstein, Glenn >> SILVERSTEIN@SU-SCORE CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Siroker, Marianne >> MAS@SU-AI CS Gifts
Was CS Secretary
Spurgeon, Bud >> SPURGEON@SU-SCORE CF
>> spurgeon@SU-NAVAJO CF
Stallman, Richard >> RMS@SAIL CF
Steele, Guy >> GLS@SAIL CF
Former CMU faculty
Strong, Alex >> strong@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS PhD Student
Stubbs, Bert >> STUBBS@ALTOS CF
Swinehart, Dan >> DCS@SAIL CF
Former PhD student, now at Xerox PARC
Teague, Calvin C. >> CCT@SU-SCORE CF
Thille, Nick >> THILLE@SU-SCORE CF
Tovar, >> TVR@SU-AI CF
>> TVR@ALTOS CF
>> tvr@SU-NAVAJO CF
Van Widenfelt, Rolf A. >> rolf@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
Was CS Masters Student
Waldinger, Richard >> RJW@SU-AI CS Gifts
Is CS Consulting Faculty Member
Instructor
SRI AI group
Weinstein, Lauren >> UCL@SAIL CF
White, Jon >> G.JONL@SU-SCORE CS Gifts
Wong, Ping >> wong@SU-NAVAJO CS Forum
∂03-Jun-86 2209 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic Directions
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jun 86 22:09:15 PDT
Received: from su-sushi.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 3 Jun 86 22:05:25-PDT
Date: Tue 3 Jun 86 22:04:46-PDT
From: CSD Social Committee
Subject: CSD Picnic Directions
Sender: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
To: csd-list@su-score.arpa
Reply-To: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12212033721.43.WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa>
Here are directions to the CSD Picnic at Burgess Park on Wednesday, June 4.
First is a map of sorts, followed by directions for cars and bikes. Printed
copies of the directions will be at the receptionist's desk in MJH and KSL.
The picnic area is marked by asterisks in the map (if you can't find them,
read the directions). Remember, things start at 2, with real food starting
at 5. See you there!
CSD Social Committee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
El Camino Real-> | # <-Railroad
←←←N | #
/| | # | <-Alma
/ | | # |
/ |←←←←←←←←|←←←#←←|←←←←←←←←←|←←←←←←Ravenswood
University Dr-> | Menlo | # | |
| Ave | # | | <-Laurel St
| | # | *** |
Middle Ave←←←←←←←←←|←←←←←←←←| # |←←←***←←←|
| | | # | Burgess |
| | # |←←←←←←←←←|←←←←←←←←←←←Willow←Rd←←
| | # | |
bike bridge-> ) | # |
| | # <-Railroad ) <-bike bridge
Willow Rd←←←←←←←←|←←←←← | # |←←
|| |\ # \
|| <- Pasteur | \# |
\←←←←||←←←← | #\ | <-Waverly
\ \ <- Welch Rd | # \ <-Alma |
Campus Dr-> \←←←←←←←←|← | # | |
| ↑Quarry | # |←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←|←←←Lytton
| | # | |
MJH ←←←←←←←←←|←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←|←←←#←←←|←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←|←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Palm | | # | University |
| | #
| #
El Camino Real-> | # <-Railroad
By car:
Take El Camino north from Campus. Turn right on Ravenswood,
cross the tracks, and turn right again on Alma. Turn left on
Burgess (at the end of the park), and the picnic area will be on
your left.
By bike (route 1):
Heading from MJH on Serra or Palm, take a left on Campus, go
past the med school, and turn right on Welch Rd. Turn left on Pasteur
and then right on Willow. A short distance down Willow is a bike
path on the left (labeled "<- bike bridge to Menlo Park" or some such).
Follow the path across the bridge, and continue along the road (San
Mateo Dr) until you hit Middle Ave. Take a right on Middle, go to
the 4-way stop, and turn left on University Drive. Turn right on
Menlo Ave (just before Draeger's) and cross El Camino. Upon crossing
El Camino, you'll be on Ravenswood, so (as in the car directions),
turn right on Alma (it's not bad in that area), and left on Burgess
at the end of the park. The picnic area will be on your left.
By bike (route 2):
Head into Palo Alto on Palm/University. You might want to
switch to Lytton once in PA to avoid getting run over. Take a left
at Waverly (on Lytton there's a sign that says something about a
bike bridge to Menlo Park). Follow Waverly until it ends, at which
point you jog left and head over the bike bridge. The road on the
other side of the bridge leads to Willow Rd. Turn left on Willow,
and right on Laurel. Take a left at Burgess, and the picnic area
will be on your right.
-------
∂04-Jun-86 0902 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting cancelled
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Jun 86 09:02:23 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Wed, 4 Jun 86 08:53:11 pdt
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 86 08:53:11 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting cancelled
To: nail@diablo
I won't be able to make the Thursday meeting this week,
so unless soneone else wants to chair it, it's cancelled.
See you on the 12th.
---jeff
∂04-Jun-86 1224 RPG Japan
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Yesterday a Japanese tour group came through Lucid, and the
discussion turned towards standardization. I mentioned that
we were thinking of asking JEIDA to appoint a member. One of the
people there was Prof. Haruki Ueno from Tokyo Denki University,
and he said he was Ida's professor. He strongly stated that
although Ida is a good guy, he is too young to command the respect
of the Japanese computing community. Ueno and others pointed out that
unless we worked through the Japanese Information Processing Society,
the process would not be taken seriously. I don't know anything
about this society, but I became a little alarmed by what I heard.
Any thoughts?
-rpg-
∂04-Jun-86 1453 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa CSD Picnic -- last message
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Jun 86 14:53:03 PDT
Received: from su-sushi.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 4 Jun 86 14:42:05-PDT
Date: Wed 4 Jun 86 14:41:45-PDT
From: CSD Social Committee
Subject: CSD Picnic -- last message
Sender: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
To: csd-list@su-score.arpa
Reply-To: WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12212215217.40.WASHINGTON@su-sushi.arpa>
Remember that the CSD Picnic is this afternoon!
We are still in need of a couple things -- we need chicken and
charcoal tongs, and long-handled spatulas. If you have them
and are willing to lend them, bring them or let us know.
CSD Social Committee
-------
∂04-Jun-86 1502 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japan
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Jun 86 15:02:44 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 4 Jun 86 18:02:33-EDT
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1986 18:02 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12212218988.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japan
In-reply-to: Msg of 4 Jun 1986 15:24-EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG at SU-AI.ARPA>
This is the sort of thing I was afraid of. It may be that there's a
university/industry split in Japan, with Ida and the JEIDA people on one
side and JIPS on the other. Or it may be more complex than that. My
fear is that there may be nobody who is both senior enough to command
the proper respect and also interested in Common Lisp and willing to
devote soem effort to it. I'm not sure what we do then. Maybe ask JIPS
to appoint someone, even if he's only a figurehead, and proceed that
way.
We really do need to get some more data points from senior people over
there, I guess.
-- Scott
∂04-Jun-86 1840 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, June 5, No. 19
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 4 Jun 86 18:39:57 PDT
Date: Wed 4 Jun 86 17:39:58-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, June 5, No. 19
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
June 5, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 19
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, June 5, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall Reading: ``Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect''
Conference Room by A.N. Whitehead
Discussion led by Carol Cleland (Cleland@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall On the Nature of the Intentional
Trailer Classroom Ivan Blair (Blair@csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall AFT, Past and Prospects
Room G-19 Julius Moravcsik (Julius@csli)
(Abstract on page 2)
--------------
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, June 12, 1986
12 noon No TINLunch
Ventura Hall
Conference Room
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Ordinals and Mathematical Structure
Trailer Classroom Chris Menzel (Menzel@csli)
(Abstract on page 3)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall To be announced
Room G-19
--------------
!
Page 2 CSLI Calendar June 5, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
ANNOUNCEMENT
Please note that as in past years, CSLI will not have regularly
scheduled Thursday activities during the summer months. The last
regularly scheduled events will be held Thursday, June 9, 1986.
Events will resume next September.
--------
THIS WEEK'S TINLUNCH
``Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect''
by A.N. Whitehead
Discussion led by Carol Cleland (Cleland@csli)
According to Whitehead, there is no relationship between a ``symbol''
and its ``meaning'' which determines which is symbol and which is
meaning, or even that there shall be a referential relation between
the two. For Whitehead "symbolic reference" is an actual process or
activity on the part of a percipient whereby "symbol" and "meaning"
are united. This is in contrast to traditional accounts of the
referential relation as denotation.
----------
THIS WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM
AFT, Past and Prospects
Julius Moravcsik (Julius@csli)
AFT was introduced as a theory of lexical representation with the
following distinguishing features: a) Meanings determine extension
only partially, b) Meaning structures are composed of (at most) four
components c) by talking about the four meaning components we can give
the theory of lexical representation more empirical explanatory power.
This year's work expanded the theory considerably, showing how it ties in
with direct reference theory, with semantic predicate structure analysis,
and with accounts of linguistic competence. In the talk examples will be
given, showing how AFT analysis yields an interesting account of
verb-semantics and predicate argument structure, and what additional
factors are needed in order to specify fully reference.
Page 3 CSLI Calendar June 5, 1986
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
----------
NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR
Ordinals and Mathematical Structure
Chris Menzel (Menzel@csli)
This talk will have two components, one semantical and the other
philosophical. I will begin with an account of the semantics of ordinals
in English as they occur in NPs like `The third man on the moon' and
`Seventeen of the first one hundred tickets'. The account will be
developed within the framework of generalized quantifiers, augmented by
work of Godehard Link on plurals.
I will then move to the philosophical problem that started me thinking
about these semantical issues in the first place, viz., the nature of
number. An influential movement in the philosophy of mathematics known
as ``structuralism'' claims that mathematics is the study of abstract
structure per se, and not of a realm of peculiarly mathematical objects
like ordinal numbers at all. Indeed, structuralists argue, any attempt
to find such objects is necessarily wrong-headed. For to identify any
particular objects as (say) THE ordinal numbers is in effect just to pick
out an INSTANCE of the structure which is the proper subject matter of
arithmetic (viz., the structure exemplified by all omega-sequences), and
not the structure itself.
I think structuralism is half right. Much of mathematics is in fact the
study of abstract structure, but I will argue that when we get clear
about what this comes to, there are natural accounts to be given of
several types of mathematical objects. In particular, I will revive an
old neglected doctrine of Russell's that the ordinal numbers are
(roughly) abstract relations between objects and structured situations of
a certain kind. I'll then point out why this doesn't run afoul of the
structuralist argument above. I'll close by showing that this view of
the ordinals is implicit in the semantics given in the first part of the
talk.
-------
∂05-Jun-86 0941 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Metaphilosophy issue on Computers and Ethics--Where to find on campus
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Jun 86 09:41:07 PDT
Date: Thu 5 Jun 86 09:37:13-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Metaphilosophy issue on Computers and Ethics--Where to find on campus
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, msgs@Playfair.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12212421923.34.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
For those who read various electronic discussion group messages, you may have
seen a reference to volume 16 issue 4, October 1985 of Metaphilosophy which
is devoted to Computers and Ethics. I have made a preliminary check and it
appears that on the Stanford campus this journal is only located in the
philosophy department (Tanner Library) which has irregular hours of access.
If you want to see the article you can either go to Tanner or you could
try SUL's service called FASTBOOK. If you dial 3-FAST, you can leave your
name, department etc and request V 16 no. 4 Oct. 1985 of Metaphilosophy be
checked out in your name and sent to the library closest to you (Math/CS,
Green, Engineering etc.) If for some reason Tanner will not let the journal
go out, you can request through 3-FAST that the journal be photocopied and
sent to your office. However if you request a photocopy you will have to
pay for the copying but as I said it will be delivered to your office.
I will make a request to Green that they add Metaphilosophy to their
collections.
Harry LLull
(Fastbook is a good service but I don't guarantee nor have any control
over how fast fast is)
-------
∂05-Jun-86 1113 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA pc software
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Jun 86 11:13:31 PDT
Date: Thu 5 Jun 86 11:04:41-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: pc software
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I'm starting a pc software library similar to the one we have for the
Macs. If you have any interesting pc software you'd like to donate
or software you need please send me a message.
..Rich
-------
∂05-Jun-86 1522 RPG Japanese
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I got this response to a note to Hiroshi Okuno, the lead guy on
the TAO machine project at NTT, who was recommended to me
by Ueno as a contact person for Japanese standardization.
Dick,
I think that Prof. Eichi Wada, Univ. of Tokyo, is the right person
to organize the Lisp Standarization committee in Japan. I sent
several messages to persuade him to organize such a committee and
information on ANSI and ISO standarization of Lisp, but I haven't
received any reply from him. He is the chairman of the programming
language committee of IFIP in Japan (sorry, I don't know the precise
name of the committee, maybe SC22). All Japanese committees of IFIP
belong to IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japanese, Japanese
equivalent to ACM.) He is also the chairman of WGSYM of IPSJ and
Prof. Ida is one of the co-chairmen. (I was the former co-chairman.)
JEIDA is a private organization concering Lisp Standarization. As you
know, Prof. Ida is the chairman of JEIDA Lisp Subset Committee.
Prof. Wada attended the First Lisp Conference and discussed with Guy.
I don't know whether gls remembered him.
The network address of Prof. Wada is
wada%utokyo-relay.csnet@relay.cs.net
His postal address is
Department of Mathematical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
University of Tokyo
Hongo, Bunkyo-ku
Tokyo 113, Japan
The postal address of IPSJ is
Information Processing Society of Japan
3-5-8 Shiba-Park, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105, Japan
I'd advise you to send a letter both to Prof. Wada and to IPSJ.
By the way, where did you met with Prof. Ueno? He is one of my best
advisers and friends.
∂05-Jun-86 1532 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jon Traugott
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 5 Jun 86 15:32:20 PDT
Date: Thu 5 Jun 86 15:25:33-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jon Traugott
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 5-Jun-86 15:25:33.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEDUCTIVE SYNTHESIS OF SORTING PROGRAMS
Jon Traugott (JCT@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 9
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Using the deductive synthesis framework developed by Manna and
Waldinger we have derived a wide variety of recursive sorting
programs. These derivations represent the first application of the
deductive framework to the derivation of nontrivial algorithms. While
the programs given were derived manually, we ultimately hope that a
computer implementation of the system (of which none currently exists)
will find similar programs automatically. Our derivations are intended
to suggest this possibility; the proofs are short in relation to
program complexity (on the order of 20 steps per procedure) and
individual derivation steps are uncontrived. We also present a new
rule for the generation of auxiliary procedures, a common "eureka"
step in program construction.
-------
∂06-Jun-86 1252 BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Site Visit
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 12:51:57 PDT
Date: Fri 6 Jun 86 12:46:42-PDT
From: Betsy Macken <BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Site Visit
To: researchers@SU-CSLI.ARPA
The site visit for CSLI's third year review of progress on the SL
grant is Tuesday, June 24. It will be held in the Ventura Seminar
Room. The schedule and members of the Review Committee are below.
SDF gave us the beginning and ending times, requested that John give
an hour overview and half hour wrap-up, and requested that the
other presenters be new faces (i.e., new to the Board). As you will
see, the amount of time SDF allowed for individual presentations of
research is very short compared to the amount of research we would
like them to know about.
John and the PIs are very anxious for the Review Committee to be aware
of ALL the research going on here, and so, besides discussing other
research in John's overview and providing the Committee with written
details in the Third Year Report, John will suggest to the Committee
that they consider reviewing CSLI for the full academic year of
1986-87. He will suggest that throughout the year members of the
Committee return for longer visits so that they can spend time with
individual researchers and attend some of our research activities.
Would as many as possible of you plan to work at Ventura on June 24?
We want to give a visual impression of the size and scope of work
going on here, and to drive home the fact that what they are learning
in this one-day visit is only the "tip of the iceberg." We want them
to be fully convinced that there is no way they can learn about
everything going on here in one day.
The schedule is:
8:30 Coffee and pastries
9:00 John's overview
10:00 Break
10:15 Martha Pollack
10:45 Bill Croft
11:15 Sandy Pentland
11:45 Lunch
1:30 Ron Kaplan
2:00 John Etchemendy
2:30 John's wrap-up
3:00 Break
3:15 Closed session of the Review Committee
4:00 Review Committee leaves
The Review Committee is:
Dr. Osamu Fujimura
Dr. Bill Woods
Dr. Michael Godfrey
Mr. Brian Oakley
Mr. Edwin Huddleson, Jr.
General Donald Putt
Dr. Ralph Tyler
Mr. Charles Smith
Dr. Carl York
Dr. Roberta Ishihara
Thanks,
Betsy
-------
∂06-Jun-86 1615 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 16:15:36 PDT
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 6 Jun 86 16:12:52-PDT
Date: 06 Jun 86 1608 PDT
From: Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Vijay Vazirani will talk on `Randomized Reducibilities'.
Wednesday, June 11, 1986, 1:30 in
Faculty are urged to make appointments to meet with him,
as he is being considered for a position here.
∂06-Jun-86 1620 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 16:20:09 PDT
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 6 Jun 86 16:13:15-PDT
Date: 06 Jun 86 1607 PDT
From: Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Vijay Vazirani will talk on `Randomized Reducibilities'.
Wednesday, June 11, 1986, 1:30 in Psychology, room 50
∂06-Jun-86 1655 @su-sushi.arpa:PHY@SU-AI.ARPA
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 16:55:31 PDT
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by su-sushi.arpa with TCP; Fri 6 Jun 86 16:49:58-PDT
Date: 06 Jun 86 1651 PDT
From: Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>
To: aflb.local@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
to: aflb.local@sushi
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Vijay Vazirani will talk on `Randomized Reducibilities'.
Wednesday, June 11, 1986, 1:30 in Psychology, room 50
∂06-Jun-86 1843 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #16
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 18:43:18 PDT
Date: Friday, June 6, 1986 10:18AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #16
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 6 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 16
Today's Topics:
New book
Request for information
Reduce?
Prolog test suite wanted
Income Tax Planning
Income Tax Planning system
Income Tax Planning
Depth First Iterative Deepening in parallel
Depth First Iterative Deepening in parallel
Depth First Iterative Deepening in Prolog
Examples of logical variables
"assert" considered harmful?
"assert" considered harmful?
eliminating duplicate solutions in Prolog
Standard behavior?
Standard behavior?
Standard behavior?
Standard behavior?
\+ \+ hack
Prolog programmers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 16 May 86 19:25:00 GMT
From: Mozetic@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: New book
Addison-Wesley published a new book:
Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence
by Ivan Bratko
The first part introduces Prolog and shows how Prolog programs
are developed.
The second part applies Prolog to some central areas of AI,
and introduces fundamental AI techniques through complete
Prolog programs. Throughout the book there is a lot of
exercies and sample programs. The following is a table of
contents:
THE PROLOG LANGUAGE
1. An Overview of Prolog
2. Syntax and Meaning of Prolog Programs
3. Lists, Operators, Arithmetic
4. Using Structures: Example Programs
5. Controlling Backtracking
6. Input and Output
7. More Built-in Procedures
8. Programming Style and Technique
PROLOG IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
9. Operations on Data Structures
10. Advanced Tree Representations
11. Basic Problem-Solving Strategies
12. Best-first: A Heuristic Search Principle
13. Problem Reduction and AND/OR Graphs
14. Expert Systems
15. Game Playing
16. Pattern-Directed Programming
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 86 14:25:38 GMT
From: (Jacob Levy) <Jaakov@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Request for information
Dear fellow AIListers and PrologListers,
I'm interested in obtaining the latest references you
may have to articles concerned with Parallel Logic
Programming languages. If you have recently written
an article concerned with parallel execution of Prolog
or about a committed-choice non-deterministic LP language,
I'm interested to read it, or at least to receive a
pointer to the article. By RECENT I mean articles which
have been published in 1985 and 1986 or which are about
to appear. I am interested in any and all sub-topics of
the fields listed above.
Thank you very much ahead of time for your response,
-- Jacob Levy (Rusty Red)
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 86 01:43:00 GMT
From: decvax!ima!inmet!bhyde@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Reduce?
Consider this.
: plus←reduce([1,2,3],Result)?
N = 6.
:
Not too hard to write.
But what if I want to write a more general reduce
like this one:
: reduce( 0, % Intial value
Left, Right, % Input variables in the subexpressions
InnerResult is Left + Right, % The unit reduction.
InnerResult, % Result of subexpressions.
[1, 2, 3], Result )?
N = 6.
:
I am unable to see how to write this (with out asserting
a new clause during the execution).
This is a very general function once you have it. Any
ideas?
-- Ben Hyde,
Cambridge
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 18:48:34 GMT
From: KDJ <sdcsvax!ncr-sd!se-sd!kdj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Prolog test suite wanted
We are looking for test suites for prolog compilers. We
are interested in any available test suite, either public
domain or commercial. Please send any information you
have to me.
Thanks you for any help.
-- Doug Johnston
NCR
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 86 03:57:34 GMT
From: David Sherman <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo
Subject: Income Tax Planning
First, thanks to everyone who responded to my plea for help
in avoiding circularity in my definition of tptype. Most people
suggested using two different predicates, one for stated facts
and one for conclusions. It turns out not to be quite so simple,
but I think that suggestion contains the seeds of the solution
I need. I'm still working on finalizing it.
Second, I've developed an interesting predicate which I call
"aggregate" which I'd like to share with the net. It comes from
the tendency of the Income Tax Act to say things like "the
aggregate of his taxable capital gains for the year". I wanted
to be able to take an arbitrary predicate which puts a number
into its last argument, call it as many times as will succeed,
and total up the numbers. Thus, if I have
taxablecapitalgain(Taxpayer, Year, TCG)
which itself is defined in terms of more basic things
(like transactions, dispositions, proceeds, cost and
so on), then I can say
aggregate(taxablecapitalgain, fred, 1986, Aggr).
and get fred's 1986 taxable capital gains returned in Aggr.
Here's my code. I have no idea whether it will be useful to
anyone, but I'm curious as to what those more experienced
with Prolog think of it. It's probably either ingenious or
stupid, but it does work. It uses the "findall" predicate
from Clocksin & Mellish chapter 7.
aggregate(Goal, Arg1, Arg2, Aggr) :-
Z =.. [Goal, Arg1, Arg2, Amount],
findall(Amount, call(Z), List),
listtotal(List, Aggr).
(3 other copies of "aggregate" exist, one with only
Arg1, one with Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, and one with 4
arguments for the Goal other than the final Amount.)
listtotal([], 0).
listtotal([H|T], Total) :-
integer(H),
listtotal(T, Ttotal),
Total is H + Ttotal.
Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
[a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d]
[b,c,d] [c,d].
I've played with it for a while and can't get a handle on
the approach to take. Can anyone help? (The application is
generating every possible group of taxpayers from the list
of those who own shares in a corporation, so as to determine
whether any of them is a "related group" as defined in the
Act.)
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in knowing more about
my project, I'll be happy to mail or post more. It's a
comprehensive corporate tax planning system based on the
Canadian Income Tax Act.
-- Dave Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 23:44:50 GMT
From: ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxf!mhuxi!mhuhk
Subject: Income Tax Planning system
> From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
> Subject: miscellany re income tax planning system
> ...
> Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
> for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
> for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
> [a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d]
> [b,c,d] [c,d].
As a first attempt to solve your problem, you could use the
following "included(X,[a,b,c,d])" predicate:
/* included(Set,SuperSet). True if all elements of Set in
/* SuperSet, whatever the order of the elements is.
*/
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
del(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
However, this predicate generates all the permutations of
the possible solutions (i.e. [a,b,c] and [a,c,b] will be
generated among other solutions). To eliminate these
permutations, you can use a slightly different version of
the "del" predicate:
/* delUpTo(Element,OriginalList,ResultingList). Deletes
/* first elements of OriginalList until it finds Element,
/* then put result in ResultingList.
*/
delUpTo(X,[X|Rest],Rest).
delUpTo(X,[←|ButOne],Rest) :- delUpTo(X,ButOne,Rest).
/* included(Set,SuperSet). True if all elements of Set
/* in SuperSet,in same order. Accepts [], [X] & full set.
*/
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
delUpTo(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
There is still a small problem. "included" generates some
undesired solutions (i.e. empty list, single element lists
and full set). You can filter them:
/* subset(Set,SuperSet). Like "included", but rejects [],
[X] & full set.
*/
subset(Set,SuperSet) :-
included(Set,SuperSet),
filtered(Set,SuperSet).
filtered( [] , ← ) :- !,fail.
filtered( [←] , ← ) :- !,fail.
filtered(FullSet,FullSet) :- !,fail.
filtered( ← , ← ).
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
delUpTo(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
delUpTo(X,[X|Rest],Rest).
delUpTo(X,[←|ButOne],Rest) :- delUpTo(X,ButOne,Rest).
As you mentioned, you can use the "findall" predicate to
generate a list of all solutions:
findall(X,subset(X,[a,b,c,d]),ListOfSolutions)
Hope this helps.
-- B. Ibrahim
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 20:33:31 GMT
From: Professor John Hughes <allegra!princeton!caip
Subject: Income Tax Planning
> From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
> Subject: miscellany re income tax planning system
> ...
> Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
> for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
> for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
> [a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d] [b,c,d]
> [c,d].
This should do the trick:
included(Subset,Set) is true if Subset is a subset of Set
included([],Set).
included([X|Subset],Set):-append(←,[X|Rest],Set),
included(Subset,Rest).
It only includes subsets whose elements are in the
same order as in the original list.
------------------------------
Date: 21 May 86 17:08:09 GMT
From: decwrl!logic.dec.com!vantreeck@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening in parallel
I've read that parallel processor implementations of PROLOG
machines use some variant of breadth first search. I was
wondering if anybody has designed a parallel implementation
using DFID (Depth First Iterative Deepening). Because it has
been proven that DFID is the asymptotically optimal brute-force
tree search algorithm (asymptotically optimal in cost of
solution, space, and time), I was thinking that perhaps it may
have usefulness in parallelism.
Would it be worth while for me to try and develop an DFID-PROLOG
for a single processor, e.g., on my Apple Macintosh? Or are their
some problems that would would make such a PROLOG to large for
the Mac? Is the algorithm applicable to a parallel PROLOG?
-- George Van Treeck
DEC
PS: If you're not familiar with the algorithm, it's
description and proof of optimality can be found
in: ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE 27(1985) 97-109
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 19:19:19 GMT
From: Max Hailperin <allegra!princeton!caip!lll-crg
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening in parallel
Well, I've devoted the last three days to working on
the idea of a depth-first iterative-deepening Prolog,
and it's potential for parallel implementation. The
results are far from optimistic, particularly as far
as parallelism goes.
There are some applications which could be much more
cleanly programmed in DFID-prolog then normal Prolog.
(Read "programmed" as programmed with realistic
efficiency.) In particular, many puzzle-solving
programs fall into this category. As far as I can tell,
not much else does.
However, I also found that the DFID search can be quite
cleanly programmed in Prolog in a way that keeps the
distinction between logic and control fairly clear.
Thus, I would guess that DFID doesn't warrant a modified
Prolog interpreter, but rather merely inclusion in Prolog
programmers' "bag of tricks."
I also discovered that (contrary to my original claims)
parallel deepening is *not* a good use for parallelism.
The reason is simple: almost all the time in DFID search
is in the last iteration (that's why DFID is asymptotically
optimal). This means regardless of the depth of the search
or the number of processors available, DFPD's speedup over
DFID can be at most (1-1/b)↑-2 (where b is the branching
factor). Don't be fooled into thinking that for small b
this is a significant speedup: this is merely saying that
for small b DFID performs especially poorly.
This means that even considering parallel processors, DFID
is best considered an option for Prolog programmers and not
for Prolog implementors.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 18:09:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!reddy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening in Prolog
DFID can be viewed as an efficient implementation of
Breadth-First search. It has relevance to single
solution applications as well as multiple solution
applications. For multiple solution applications,
one naturally continues searching deeper levels even
after one solution has been found. The solutions
obtained by each search should be seen as increasingly
better approximations to the set of all solutions:
S0, S1, S2, ..... Sinfinity
Whichever way it is used, it is naturally better than
pure depth-first search, because it is complete whereas
depth-first is not.
Mark Stickel has implemented a theorem prover using a
variant of DFID.
See:
Stickel, A Prolog technology theorem prover, 1984 Intl symp
on logic programming, Atlantic City.
Stickel and Tyson, An analysis of consecutively bounded
depth-first search with applications in automated deduction
(I think) IJCAI 85.
-- Uday Reddy
reddy@uiuc.arpa, uiucdcs!reddy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 86 20:03:12 CDT
From: Uday S. Reddy <reddy@a.CS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Examples of logical variables
I am looking for some simple (at most one page long),
but interesting examples of the use of logical variables.
Some of the well-known examples
are
(i) difference lists, for appending, double ended lists,
queues etc [Clark & Gregory, Clocksin]
(ii) symbol tables for name translation [Warren, Reddy]
(iii) serialized coding [Warren]
(iv) partially determined messages [Shapiro]
(v) type inference and other inference rule based programs
[Despeyroux, Smolka, Reddy]
(vi) owner-coupled sets (orthogonal lists?) [Lindstrom]
Are there others I am missing?
-- Uday Reddy
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 86 02:50:32 GMT
From: David Sherman <hplabs!pesnta!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Saumya Debray mentioned recently on the net that good Prolog
programmers don't make much use of assert and retract.
Although my exposure to Prolog has been limited, I've always
felt that somehow this must be true - assert and retract start
mucking with the very predicates that Prolog's trying to use.
I can sort of imagine the Dijkstras of the Prolog world
intoning "Assert Considered Harmful" and explaining why, like
GOTO in conventional programming languages, assert and retract
really shouldn't be used much.
But now I wonder. I'm developing this Canadian income tax
planning system. I find that on even a simple set of facts it
has to do several thousand predicate calls (matches, logical
inferences, whatever you call them), and I'm nowhere near done
implementing all the rules I want to put in. When I look at the
logic, I find it's doing the same analysis over and over for
certain legal conclusions that are really "facts" for other
rules to deal with. For example:
related(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2) :-
tptype(Taxpayer2, corporation),
controls(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2).
Now, "controls" can be viewed as a fact when considering whether
T1 and T2 are related, but actually it's a predicate that takes a
whole lot of analysis (in its simplest incarnation, it looks for
all the outstanding common shares in T2, looks for the owners of
those shares to match T1, totals up the two numbers and checks to
see if T1's shares exceed 50% of the total).
Once I've determined that T1 controls T2, should I "asserta" that
as a fact, so it no longer needs to take much time? And having
done so, do I then "asserta" the fact that they are related? Many
of the rules which I'm implementing have an initial test of related
-ness or control, and obviously the analysis will be much more
efficient if the program can decide almost instantly whether to
take a particular analysis path or not.
There's a further complication, too. Most of the rules
need to know whether a given pair of taxpayers are related
*at a particular point in time*. So if I start using assert,
I can imagine that I'll have to run a set of asserts for
each relevant time period during the several transactions
which the system would be analysing (since control will
change due to the transactions in corporate reorganizations,
for example).
Comments?
-- Dave Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 86 18:19:30 GMT
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
In article <1229@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
>[...] When I look at the logic, I find it's doing the same
>analysis over and over for certain legal conclusions that are
>really "facts" for other rules to deal with. For example:
> related(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2) :-
> tptype(Taxpayer2, corporation),
> controls(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2).
>Now, "controls" can be viewed as a fact when considering whether
>a T1 and T2 are related, but actually it's a predicate that takes
>whole lot of analysis (in its simplest incarnation, it looks for
>all.
Using assert and retract as a caching mechanism for inferences
has far reaching implications. What you really want to say is:
in this fiscal year, A controls B, but your are telling this
using a predicate (assert) that really means "It is a theorem
that A controls B".
Under the logical interpretation, what you have asserted in one
execution should be present in the next execution of your
program. This would break under your use of 'assert', because
what is true in one fiscal year may not be true in the next.
You may know that all information is related to only one fiscal
year and, under that assumption, you may convince yourself that
no undesirable inference will occur because of your extra
assertions. But I consider this to be 'programming' if the
assumptions made (about time, say) are not or cannot be put as
axioms in the knowledge base. Furthermore, your reasoning probably
requires knowledge of the underlying implementation of 'assert'
Happy new June!
-- Jean-Francois Lamy
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 86 05:52:16 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip
Subject: eliminating duplicate solutions in Prolog
In article <126@sbcs.UUCP> debray@sbcs.UUCP writes:
>.... I'm thinking of the rather
>mundane fact that any "real" system, to be useful,
>must interact with the outside world, and hence
>necessarily have side effects like "read" and "write".
I/o must do side effects, of course, but it is quite
possible to hide this from a logic program, so that it
appears to be in a completely "logical" environment.
Example: Input could be done in a logical fashion by
having a special kind of list with elements
corresponding to successive objects read from the
outside world. That is, the list would initially be an
uninstantiated variable. Attempts to use the variable
would cause an object to be read in and the variable
would be bound to a pair of the first element and another
uninstantiated variable. Attempts to use the rest of the
list would cause the process to be repeated.
That is, to the program, the list would look like it had
everything read in on it from the start, but actually
things would be read in only as they were needed.
Of course, special precautions would have to be taken to
make sure this worked when the program backtracked, but
it is quite possible. (In fact, I have implemented input
working in this way).
Output could be done in a similar way, with objects being
output as a list was bound.
In both cases the program would think it was processing
or creating a list, while it was actually reading or
writing.
------------------------------
Date: 29 May 86 05:58:38 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip
Subject: Standard behavior?
There are indeed two resolution proofs of a([]), but
as the two proofs produce indentical bindings (in this
case, none), it is not obvious that you'd want two
matches rather than one.
The problem gets worse if you give the query a(X). Again
you have two resolution proofs, but with different
bindings. As one of the proofs subsumes the other, you
could argue for a single match in this case as well
(with the most general binding). I would prefer the single
match in both cases.
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 02:28:59 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip
Subject: Standard behavior?
The reason why cut, var and nonvar cannot be "described
logically" is that they are non-logical (or meta-logical,
if you wish) primitives, that is primitives used to
control the search for proofs.
The meaning of these primitives are dependent of the
particular way an implementation looks for proofs. With a
different implementation you could be forced to give a
different meaning to cut, var and nonvar, or even find
that they couldn't be given any meaning at all.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 15:55:41 GMT
From: Randy Goebel <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!
Subject: Standard behavior?
The standard implementation of Prolog provides a
standard meaning for the primitives described as
non-logical. These primitives have an interpretation
in a semantic domain that includes Prolog proofs (and
partial proofs) as objects. Such a formalization, if
produced, would provide a standard specification for
``non-logical'' primitives of ordinary Prolog
implementations.
I don't believe that anyone really believes that any
Prolog primitive is inherently unformalizable?
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 02:05:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!reddy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
To rggoebel@watdragon:
You can try explaining cut, var and nonvar logically.
If you do it successfully, you could become a star of
the logic programming community.
------------------------------
Date: Sat 24 May 86 08:39:32-CDT
From: Dave Plummer <ATP.PLUMMER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: \+ \+ hack
The \+ \+ p(X) hack does more than save space as suggested
by Emneufeld@ucbvax.berkeley.edu in the V4 #14 of this
Digest. The difference between \+ \+ p(X) and p(X) is that
if p(X) succeeds by binding X, \+ \+ p(X) also succeeds but
does not make the binding.
Cheers,
-- Dave
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 10:28:42 GMT
From: Roger Cordes <ulysses!unc!mcnc!ncsu!fcstools
Subject: Prolog programmers
While I regret increasing the noise-to-signal ratio of
this group, I must offer the following as refutation,
extracted from "Programming with P-Shell", by Newton S.
Lee, as published in the Summer, 1986 issue of "IEEE
Expert", p. 51:
"In Prolog, it is denoted as
a :- b1, b2, ..., bn (n>=0)
where the head of the clause (to the left of :-) is the
unnegated atom and the body (to the right of :-) consists
of all the negated atoms."
Humorless, indeed!
-- Roger L. Cordes, Jr.
William G. Daniel & Associates
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂06-Jun-86 2017 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #16
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 86 20:17:28 PDT
Date: Friday, June 6, 1986 6:18AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #16
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 6 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 16
Today's Topics:
Announcement - New book,
Queries - References & Reduce & Test Suite,
Implementation - Income Tax Planning,
& Depth First Iterative Deepening & Logical Vars,
"assert" & Harm & Duplicate Solutions & Standard Behavior,
& Standard behavior & \+ \+ hack,
Humor - Prolog programmers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 16 May 86 19:25:00 GMT
From: Mozetic@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: New book
Addison-Wesley published a new book:
Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence
by Ivan Bratko
The first part introduces Prolog and shows how Prolog programs
are developed.
The second part applies Prolog to some central areas of AI,
and introduces fundamental AI techniques through complete
Prolog programs. Throughout the book there is a lot of
exercies and sample programs. The following is a table of
contents:
THE PROLOG LANGUAGE
1. An Overview of Prolog
2. Syntax and Meaning of Prolog Programs
3. Lists, Operators, Arithmetic
4. Using Structures: Example Programs
5. Controlling Backtracking
6. Input and Output
7. More Built-in Procedures
8. Programming Style and Technique
PROLOG IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
9. Operations on Data Structures
10. Advanced Tree Representations
11. Basic Problem-Solving Strategies
12. Best-first: A Heuristic Search Principle
13. Problem Reduction and AND/OR Graphs
14. Expert Systems
15. Game Playing
16. Pattern-Directed Programming
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 86 14:25:38 GMT
From: Jacob Levy <Jaakov@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Request for information
Dear fellow AIListers and PrologListers,
I'm interested in obtaining the latest references you
may have to articles concerned with Parallel Logic
Programming languages. If you have recently written
an article concerned with parallel execution of Prolog
or about a committed-choice non-deterministic LP language,
I'm interested to read it, or at least to receive a
pointer to the article. By RECENT I mean articles which
have been published in 1985 and 1986 or which are about
to appear. I am interested in any and all sub-topics of
the fields listed above.
Thank you very much ahead of time for your response,
-- Jacob Levy (Rusty Red)
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 86 01:43:00 GMT
From: decvax!ima!inmet!bhyde@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Reduce?
Consider this.
: plus←reduce([1,2,3],Result)?
N = 6.
:
Not too hard to write.
But what if I want to write a more general reduce
like this one:
: reduce( 0, % Intial value
Left, Right, % Input variables in the subexpressions
InnerResult is Left + Right, % The unit reduction.
InnerResult, % Result of subexpressions.
[1, 2, 3], Result )?
N = 6.
:
I am unable to see how to write this (with out asserting
a new clause during the execution).
This is a very general function once you have it. Any
ideas?
-- Ben Hyde,
Cambridge
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 18:48:34 GMT
From: KDJ <sdcsvax!ncr-sd!se-sd!kdj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Test suite wanted
We are looking for test suites for Prolog compilers. We
are interested in any available test suite, either public
domain or commercial. Please send any information you
have to me.
Thanks you for any help.
-- Doug Johnston
NCR
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 86 03:57:34 GMT
From: David Sherman <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo
Subject: Income Tax Planning
First, thanks to everyone who responded to my plea for help
in avoiding circularity in my definition of tptype. Most people
suggested using two different predicates, one for stated facts
and one for conclusions. It turns out not to be quite so simple,
but I think that suggestion contains the seeds of the solution
I need. I'm still working on finalizing it.
Second, I've developed an interesting predicate which I call
"aggregate" which I'd like to share with the net. It comes from
the tendency of the Income Tax Act to say things like "the
aggregate of his taxable capital gains for the year". I wanted
to be able to take an arbitrary predicate which puts a number
into its last argument, call it as many times as will succeed,
and total up the numbers. Thus, if I have
taxablecapitalgain(Taxpayer, Year, TCG)
which itself is defined in terms of more basic things
(like transactions, dispositions, proceeds, cost and
so on), then I can say
aggregate(taxablecapitalgain, fred, 1986, Aggr).
and get fred's 1986 taxable capital gains returned in Aggr.
Here's my code. I have no idea whether it will be useful to
anyone, but I'm curious as to what those more experienced
with Prolog think of it. It's probably either ingenious or
stupid, but it does work. It uses the "findall" predicate
from Clocksin & Mellish chapter 7.
aggregate(Goal, Arg1, Arg2, Aggr) :-
Z =.. [Goal, Arg1, Arg2, Amount],
findall(Amount, call(Z), List),
listtotal(List, Aggr).
(3 other copies of "aggregate" exist, one with only
Arg1, one with Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, and one with 4
arguments for the Goal other than the final Amount.)
listtotal([], 0).
listtotal([H|T], Total) :-
integer(H),
listtotal(T, Ttotal),
Total is H + Ttotal.
Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
[a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d]
[b,c,d] [c,d].
I've played with it for a while and can't get a handle on
the approach to take. Can anyone help? (The application is
generating every possible group of taxpayers from the list
of those who own shares in a corporation, so as to determine
whether any of them is a "related group" as defined in the
Act.)
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in knowing more about
my project, I'll be happy to mail or post more. It's a
comprehensive corporate tax planning system based on the
Canadian Income Tax Act.
-- Dave Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 23:44:50 GMT
From: ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxf!mhuxi!mhuhk
Subject: Income Tax Planning system
> From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
> Subject: miscellany re income tax planning system
> ...
> Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
> for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
> for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
> [a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d]
> [b,c,d] [c,d].
As a first attempt to solve your problem, you could use the
following "included(X,[a,b,c,d])" predicate:
/* included(Set,SuperSet). True if all elements of Set in
/* SuperSet, whatever the order of the elements is.
*/
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
del(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
However, this predicate generates all the permutations of
the possible solutions (i.e. [a,b,c] and [a,c,b] will be
generated among other solutions). To eliminate these
permutations, you can use a slightly different version of
the "del" predicate:
/* delUpTo(Element,OriginalList,ResultingList). Deletes
/* first elements of OriginalList until it finds Element,
/* then put result in ResultingList.
*/
delUpTo(X,[X|Rest],Rest).
delUpTo(X,[←|ButOne],Rest) :- delUpTo(X,ButOne,Rest).
/* included(Set,SuperSet). True if all elements of Set
/* in SuperSet,in same order. Accepts [], [X] & full set.
*/
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
delUpTo(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
There is still a small problem. "included" generates some
undesired solutions (i.e. empty list, single element lists
and full set). You can filter them:
/* subset(Set,SuperSet). Like "included", but rejects [],
[X] & full set.
*/
subset(Set,SuperSet) :-
included(Set,SuperSet),
filtered(Set,SuperSet).
filtered( [] , ← ) :- !,fail.
filtered( [←] , ← ) :- !,fail.
filtered(FullSet,FullSet) :- !,fail.
filtered( ← , ← ).
included([X|Rest],SuperSet) :-
member(X,SuperSet),
delUpTo(X,SuperSet,SuperRest),
included(Rest,SuperRest).
included([],←).
delUpTo(X,[X|Rest],Rest).
delUpTo(X,[←|ButOne],Rest) :- delUpTo(X,ButOne,Rest).
As you mentioned, you can use the "findall" predicate to
generate a list of all solutions:
findall(X,subset(X,[a,b,c,d]),ListOfSolutions)
Hope this helps.
-- B. Ibrahim
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 20:33:31 GMT
From: Professor John Hughes <allegra!princeton!caip
Subject: Income Tax Planning
> From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
> Subject: miscellany re income tax planning system
> ...
> Third, I'm currently wrestling with the task of generating,
> for a list, every list which is a subset of that list. Thus,
> for [a,b,c,d], I want findall to be able to find each of
> [a,b] [a,c] [a,d] [a,b,c] [a,b,d] [a,c,d] [b,c] [b,d] [b,c,d]
> [c,d].
This should do the trick:
included(Subset,Set) is true if Subset is a subset of Set
included([],Set).
included([X|Subset],Set):-append(←,[X|Rest],Set),
included(Subset,Rest).
It only includes subsets whose elements are in the
same order as in the original list.
------------------------------
Date: 21 May 86 17:08:09 GMT
From: decwrl!logic.dec.com!vantreeck@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening
I've read that parallel processor implementations of PROLOG
machines use some variant of breadth first search. I was
wondering if anybody has designed a parallel implementation
using DFID (Depth First Iterative Deepening). Because it has
been proven that DFID is the asymptotically optimal brute-force
tree search algorithm (asymptotically optimal in cost of
solution, space, and time), I was thinking that perhaps it may
have usefulness in parallelism.
Would it be worth while for me to try and develop an DFID-PROLOG
for a single processor, e.g., on my Apple Macintosh? Or are their
some problems that would would make such a PROLOG to large for
the Mac? Is the algorithm applicable to a parallel PROLOG?
-- George Van Treeck
DEC
PS: If you're not familiar with the algorithm, it's
description and proof of optimality can be found
in: ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE 27(1985) 97-109
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 19:19:19 GMT
From: Max Hailperin <allegra!princeton!caip!lll-crg
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening
Well, I've devoted the last three days to working on
the idea of a depth-first iterative-deepening Prolog,
and it's potential for parallel implementation. The
results are far from optimistic, particularly as far
as parallelism goes.
There are some applications which could be much more
cleanly programmed in DFID-prolog then normal Prolog.
(Read "programmed" as programmed with realistic
efficiency.) In particular, many puzzle-solving
programs fall into this category. As far as I can tell,
not much else does.
However, I also found that the DFID search can be quite
cleanly programmed in Prolog in a way that keeps the
distinction between logic and control fairly clear.
Thus, I would guess that DFID doesn't warrant a modified
Prolog interpreter, but rather merely inclusion in Prolog
programmers' "bag of tricks."
I also discovered that (contrary to my original claims)
parallel deepening is *not* a good use for parallelism.
The reason is simple: almost all the time in DFID search
is in the last iteration (that's why DFID is asymptotically
optimal). This means regardless of the depth of the search
or the number of processors available, DFPD's speedup over
DFID can be at most (1-1/b)↑-2 (where b is the branching
factor). Don't be fooled into thinking that for small b
this is a significant speedup: this is merely saying that
for small b DFID performs especially poorly.
This means that even considering parallel processors, DFID
is best considered an option for Prolog programmers and not
for Prolog implementors.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 18:09:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!reddy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening in Prolog
DFID can be viewed as an efficient implementation of
Breadth-First search. It has relevance to single
solution applications as well as multiple solution
applications. For multiple solution applications,
one naturally continues searching deeper levels even
after one solution has been found. The solutions
obtained by each search should be seen as increasingly
better approximations to the set of all solutions:
S0, S1, S2, ..... Sinfinity
Whichever way it is used, it is naturally better than
pure depth-first search, because it is complete whereas
depth-first is not.
Mark Stickel has implemented a theorem prover using a
variant of DFID.
See:
Stickel, A Prolog technology theorem prover, 1984 Intl symp
on logic programming, Atlantic City.
Stickel and Tyson, An analysis of consecutively bounded
depth-first search with applications in automated deduction
(I think) IJCAI 85.
-- Uday Reddy
reddy@uiuc.arpa, uiucdcs!reddy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 86 20:03:12 CDT
From: Uday S. Reddy <reddy@a.CS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Examples of logical variables
I am looking for some simple (at most one page long),
but interesting examples of the use of logical variables.
Some of the well-known examples
are
(i) difference lists, for appending, double ended lists,
queues etc [Clark & Gregory, Clocksin]
(ii) symbol tables for name translation [Warren, Reddy]
(iii) serialized coding [Warren]
(iv) partially determined messages [Shapiro]
(v) type inference and other inference rule based programs
[Despeyroux, Smolka, Reddy]
(vi) owner-coupled sets (orthogonal lists?) [Lindstrom]
Are there others I am missing?
-- Uday Reddy
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 86 02:50:32 GMT
From: David Sherman <hplabs!pesnta!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Saumya Debray mentioned recently on the net that good Prolog
programmers don't make much use of assert and retract.
Although my exposure to Prolog has been limited, I've always
felt that somehow this must be true - assert and retract start
mucking with the very predicates that Prolog's trying to use.
I can sort of imagine the Dijkstras of the Prolog world
intoning "Assert Considered Harmful" and explaining why, like
GOTO in conventional programming languages, assert and retract
really shouldn't be used much.
But now I wonder. I'm developing this Canadian income tax
planning system. I find that on even a simple set of facts it
has to do several thousand predicate calls (matches, logical
inferences, whatever you call them), and I'm nowhere near done
implementing all the rules I want to put in. When I look at the
logic, I find it's doing the same analysis over and over for
certain legal conclusions that are really "facts" for other
rules to deal with. For example:
related(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2) :-
tptype(Taxpayer2, corporation),
controls(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2).
Now, "controls" can be viewed as a fact when considering whether
T1 and T2 are related, but actually it's a predicate that takes a
whole lot of analysis (in its simplest incarnation, it looks for
all the outstanding common shares in T2, looks for the owners of
those shares to match T1, totals up the two numbers and checks to
see if T1's shares exceed 50% of the total).
Once I've determined that T1 controls T2, should I "asserta" that
as a fact, so it no longer needs to take much time? And having
done so, do I then "asserta" the fact that they are related? Many
of the rules which I'm implementing have an initial test of related
-ness or control, and obviously the analysis will be much more
efficient if the program can decide almost instantly whether to
take a particular analysis path or not.
There's a further complication, too. Most of the rules
need to know whether a given pair of taxpayers are related
*at a particular point in time*. So if I start using assert,
I can imagine that I'll have to run a set of asserts for
each relevant time period during the several transactions
which the system would be analysing (since control will
change due to the transactions in corporate reorganizations,
for example).
Comments?
-- Dave Sherman
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 86 18:19:30 GMT
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
In article <1229@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes:
>[...] When I look at the logic, I find it's doing the same
>analysis over and over for certain legal conclusions that are
>really "facts" for other rules to deal with. For example:
> related(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2) :-
> tptype(Taxpayer2, corporation),
> controls(Taxpayer1, Taxpayer2).
>Now, "controls" can be viewed as a fact when considering whether
>a T1 and T2 are related, but actually it's a predicate that takes
>whole lot of analysis (in its simplest incarnation, it looks for
>all.
Using assert and retract as a caching mechanism for inferences
has far reaching implications. What you really want to say is:
in this fiscal year, A controls B, but your are telling this
using a predicate (assert) that really means "It is a theorem
that A controls B".
Under the logical interpretation, what you have asserted in one
execution should be present in the next execution of your
program. This would break under your use of 'assert', because
what is true in one fiscal year may not be true in the next.
You may know that all information is related to only one fiscal
year and, under that assumption, you may convince yourself that
no undesirable inference will occur because of your extra
assertions. But I consider this to be 'programming' if the
assumptions made (about time, say) are not or cannot be put as
axioms in the knowledge base. Furthermore, your reasoning probably
requires knowledge of the underlying implementation of 'assert'
Happy new June!
-- Jean-Francois Lamy
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 86 05:52:16 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip>
Subject: Eliminating duplicate solutions
In article <126@sbcs.UUCP> debray@sbcs.UUCP writes:
>.... I'm thinking of the rather
>mundane fact that any "real" system, to be useful,
>must interact with the outside world, and hence
>necessarily have side effects like "read" and "write".
I/o must do side effects, of course, but it is quite
possible to hide this from a logic program, so that it
appears to be in a completely "logical" environment.
Example: Input could be done in a logical fashion by
having a special kind of list with elements
corresponding to successive objects read from the
outside world. That is, the list would initially be an
uninstantiated variable. Attempts to use the variable
would cause an object to be read in and the variable
would be bound to a pair of the first element and another
uninstantiated variable. Attempts to use the rest of the
list would cause the process to be repeated.
That is, to the program, the list would look like it had
everything read in on it from the start, but actually
things would be read in only as they were needed.
Of course, special precautions would have to be taken to
make sure this worked when the program backtracked, but
it is quite possible. (In fact, I have implemented input
working in this way).
Output could be done in a similar way, with objects being
output as a list was bound.
In both cases the program would think it was processing
or creating a list, while it was actually reading or
writing.
------------------------------
Date: 29 May 86 05:58:38 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip>
Subject: Standard behavior?
There are indeed two resolution proofs of a([]), but
as the two proofs produce indentical bindings (in this
case, none), it is not obvious that you'd want two
matches rather than one.
The problem gets worse if you give the query a(X). Again
you have two resolution proofs, but with different
bindings. As one of the proofs subsumes the other, you
could argue for a single match in this case as well
(with the most general binding). I would prefer the single
match in both cases.
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 86 02:28:59 GMT
From: Lars-Henrik Eriksson <allegra!princeton!caip>
Subject: Standard behavior?
The reason why cut, var and nonvar cannot be "described
logically" is that they are non-logical (or meta-logical,
if you wish) primitives, that is primitives used to
control the search for proofs.
The meaning of these primitives are dependent of the
particular way an implementation looks for proofs. With a
different implementation you could be forced to give a
different meaning to cut, var and nonvar, or even find
that they couldn't be given any meaning at all.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 15:55:41 GMT
From: Randy Goebel <ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!
Subject: Standard behavior?
The standard implementation of Prolog provides a
standard meaning for the primitives described as
non-logical. These primitives have an interpretation
in a semantic domain that includes Prolog proofs (and
partial proofs) as objects. Such a formalization, if
produced, would provide a standard specification for
``non-logical'' primitives of ordinary Prolog
implementations.
I don't believe that anyone really believes that any
Prolog primitive is inherently unformalizable?
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 02:05:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!reddy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
To rggoebel@watdragon:
You can try explaining cut, var and nonvar logically.
If you do it successfully, you could become a star of
the logic programming community.
------------------------------
Date: Sat 24 May 86 08:39:32-CDT
From: Dave Plummer <ATP.PLUMMER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: \+ \+ hack
The \+ \+ p(X) hack does more than save space as suggested
by Emneufeld@ucbvax.berkeley.edu in the V4 #14 of this
Digest. The difference between \+ \+ p(X) and p(X) is that
if p(X) succeeds by binding X, \+ \+ p(X) also succeeds but
does not make the binding.
Cheers,
-- Dave
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 10:28:42 GMT
From: Roger Cordes <ulysses!unc!mcnc!ncsu!fcstools
Subject: Prolog programmers
While I regret increasing the noise-to-signal ratio of
this group, I must offer the following as refutation,
extracted from "Programming with P-Shell", by Newton S.
Lee, as published in the Summer, 1986 issue of "IEEE
Expert", p. 51:
"In Prolog, it is denoted as
a :- b1, b2, ..., bn (n>=0)
where the head of the clause (to the left of :-) is the
unnegated atom and the body (to the right of :-) consists
of all the negated atoms."
Humorless, indeed!
-- Roger L. Cordes, Jr.
William G. Daniel & Associates
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂08-Jun-86 1130 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Jun 86 11:30:02 PDT
Date: Sun 8 Jun 86 11:27:30-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: fac mtg
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213228431.10.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Don't forget the general faculty meeting to approve degree candidates
at 2:30 pm in MJH 146 on Tuesday, June 10. Besides approving degree
candidates we will hear a report from Les Earnest about policies for
approving computer accts for outside of CSD people. I would also like
to bring up as a short discussion item the suggestion by Gordon Bell
and Charles Brownstein of NSF that Stanford "lead the way" in preparing
a document outlining where computer science research is going (ought to
be going) in the next decade or so. If anyone has agenda items to
suggest, please forward them to Anne Richardson. (Recall that we have
scheduled a "Black Friday" and a short faculty mtg to discuss the
PhD requirements on Friday, June 27 at 2:30.) -Nils
-------
∂08-Jun-86 1638 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLUG '86
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Jun 86 16:38:17 PDT
Date: Sun 8 Jun 86 16:36:05-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: SLUG '86
To: ksl-symbolics@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213284606.31.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
This is a report on the 1986 National Meeting of the Symbolics Lisp
User's Group. There were approximately 420 people in attendance at the
Georgetown University site for the three day symposium. I've included
here the asspects of the meetings relevant to the KSL. If you have a
specific question, please don't hesitate to ask me.
Russell Noftsker, president of Symbolics made the following points
during his talk or during the Q&A after it:
- Symbolics has an installed base of about 2000 machines.
- Symbolics made 12.5% net profit last year, and 7.2% the year before.
- When asked about future pricing, he talked about increased
performance.
- He wouldn't comment on timing for the VLSI machine from Symbolics.
- He stated that support for current generation 3600 hardware will
continue "as long as needed". One audience member cynically
paraphrased this as "as long as we can make money on it".
Larry Rostetter of Software Support and Mike Hilgenberg of Hardware
Service gave talks about their divisions, but announced nothing
radically differenct from what is already known, except that NFEP
upgrades are now priced at $1,500 each instead of $6,000. Contact me
for details, and see the SLUG mailing list for a summary of a follow up
birds-of-a-feather session on hardware maintenance.
Jody Hukee of Software Support conducted a reverse Q&A. She received
the following responses to "What would you like to see":
- Better docs, including:
- improved index,
- better docs on "restricted" sources,
- more and better examples.
A book called "Lisp Lore" was mentioned from the audience as being a
good intro to using the Symbolics machines, but I didn't catch the
reference.
- Disk formatting tools so that a service person doesn't have to come
out everytime a bad block develops or a world load is lost.
- A more Zmacs based interactor.
- Email distribution of new software.
- Word processing tools (ie. the "writers tools" used for the on-line
doc).
- Office automation tools to obviate the need for a PC or Mac on the
desk with the Symbolics.
Next David Moon talked about New Flavors. Contact me for more
details, but briefly, New Flavors:
- is almost totally compatibile with old Flavors. However, all code
will need recompilation, and a few obscure things will not work.
- Generic functions are now the preferred paradigm, rather than message
passing, though message passing still works, and is still used in
many places in the system. Most system interfaces will support both.
- Method combination (especially declaring new types) has been greatly
simplified.
- Instances will follow changes in the flavor (ie. if you add an
instance variable old instances will have it added later).
- There are sundry editor and CP commands to update old syntax to new,
and to kill off old methods.
There was a substantial amount of time given to the new user
interface functionality. The most interesting thing here seems to be
the idea of "presentation" and "acceptance" of objects. More or less
congruent to the type hierarchy there is a "presentation type"
hierarchy. Each presentation type has information associated with it
defining behavior for it when it is selected with the mouse. Thus you
can say "present this as a pathname" and it will be printed out as
before, but will be mouse sensitive. In this case, clicking left might
cause the file named by the pathname to be typed out. Also, there are
reading contexts for "accepting" objects. If a pathname is being
"accepted", then everything visable that was presented as a pathname (or
can be interpreted as a pathname) can be selected with the mouse.
Additionally, the default type of window retains a history so that it is
possible to scroll back to previous interactions and pick up objects out
of them (including strings).
It seems that Symbolics has done a lot of work towards providing the
"visual presentation" side of the user interface, but they still are
sadly lacking in "dynamic screen management" side of things, since the
user is still expected to think in terms of one window or tool at a
time.
Also of note are the addition of horizontal scrolling, and a lattice
graphing tool.
There were several presentations from users on topics such as object
oriented programming, processes and windows, the SHARK window system
from ADS (Interlisp-D like, but with some odd features), and environment
customization. Contact me for more info on any of these.
Disappointingly, most of the information in the several sessions on
networking was straight from the documentation, but contact me if you
have a specific question.
The G machine development was discussed in some detail on Friday,
however the session went quickly and there were no notes. However, I
can describe what I remember/noted with anyone interested.
-- Rich
-------
∂08-Jun-86 2058 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jon Traugott
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Jun 86 20:58:21 PDT
Date: Sun 8 Jun 86 20:52:32-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: PLANLUNCH reminder -- Jon Traugott
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 8-Jun-86 20:52:32.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEDUCTIVE SYNTHESIS OF SORTING PROGRAMS
Jon Traugott (JCT@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 9
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
Using the deductive synthesis framework developed by Manna and
Waldinger we have derived a wide variety of recursive sorting
programs. These derivations represent the first application of the
deductive framework to the derivation of nontrivial algorithms. While
the programs given were derived manually, we ultimately hope that a
computer implementation of the system (of which none currently exists)
will find similar programs automatically. Our derivations are intended
to suggest this possibility; the proofs are short in relation to
program complexity (on the order of 20 steps per procedure) and
individual derivation steps are uncontrived. We also present a new
rule for the generation of auxiliary procedures, a common "eureka"
step in program construction.
-------
∂09-Jun-86 0037 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:LES@SU-AI.ARPA Computer Facilities Policies
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 00:37:49 PDT
Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Mon 9 Jun 86 00:25:16-PDT
Date: 09 Jun 86 0026 PDT
From: Les Earnest <LES@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Computer Facilities Policies
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Regarding the list of current courtesy computer account holders that was
distributed a week ago, if you wish to offer accounts to any of these
people, or to nominate them for departmental support, please respond not
later than Friday, June 13. Accounts that no longer appear to be
appropriate will be terminated shortly thereafter.
The proposed policy given below has been developed by the Facilities
Committee and specifies administrative responsibilities within the
department for computer equipment. A related draft form also is attached;
it is intended for use by non-exempt staff members who need to take
terminals home.
We have relied on common-sense assumptions of responsibility for
administering equipment in the past. The purpose of this policy is to
formalize and clarify these assumptions so as to avoid potential
misunderstandings. It will be proposed for adoption at the next faculty
meeting, on Tuesday June 10. If you have any questions or recommended
changes to this policy, I would appreciate hearing from you as soon as
possible.
Les Earnest
Chairman, Facilities Committee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Department of Computer Science
Proposed Policy on Administration
of
Computer Equipment
SCOPE. This policy assigns normal responsibilities for administration of
computer equipment within the Department. It is subordinate to general
University policies as well as the legal and contractual obligations of
the University.
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT REGISTER. A central register of all capital equipment
assigned to the department will be maintained by the Computer Facilities
Group. All packing slips that include capital equipment purchased under
departmental accounts will be forwarded promptly by the recipient to the
Computer Facilities Group. The capital equipment register will be audited
annually by the Department to confirm accuracy and completeness.
CONTROL. Administrative control of equipment purchased with general
departmental funds rests with the Department Chairman. Control of
research equipment acquired under grants and contracts rests with the
Principal Investigator who obtained the funds under which it was acquired.
If there is more than one principal investigator on a given contract or
grant, one of them shall be designated as the controlling authority for each
piece of equipment at the time it is received; this must be done in a
written agreement signed by all PIs and sent to the Computer Facilities
Group. Failing that, the first-named PI in the grant or contract application
shall be the controlling authority. Control of equipment purchased with
unrestricted funds rests with the person who controls those funds.
TRANSFERS. When anyone who controls equipment leaves Stanford, the
disposition of any of that equipment that still belongs to an outside
agency is determined by that agency. Under certain circumstances,
Stanford-owned equipment may be transferred to the person's new
institution; any requests of this sort will be decided by the Stanford
Dean of Research. Otherwise, the disposition of such equipment will be
decided by the Department Chairman. If the Chairman determines that the
same research program is to be carried on by a different investigator,
then control of the equipment will be transferred to that investigator.
Otherwise, the equipment will be considered part of the departmental pool
that can be temporarily assigned by the Chairman to any projects.
OFF-CAMPUS USE. Computer terminals, modems and other such equipment can
be assigned to individuals for use off-campus only by the controlling
authority. The recipient must sign an agreement accepting responsibility
for the equipment, promising to report any damage or theft promptly, and
promising to return it on demand of the controlling authority or upon the
recipient's separation from the project for which it was assigned.
Non-exempt staff must sign a special agreement affirming compliance with
labor laws. The controlling authority is responsible for seeing that
complete and timely records are kept of all such equipment loans, returns
and transfers, including verification at least annually on June 1 that the
equipment is still in the hands of the person who accepted it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Equipment Loan Agreement for Non-exempt Staff
I wish to temporarily use the equipment listed below off-campus and
understand that I may use it only under the conditions checked below and
with the approval of my supervisor.
Equipment to be used: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←.
[Check one.]
←← This equipment is to be used in support of overtime work that is part of
my responsibilities at Stanford. I will keep an accurate account of all
such time spent on my work and will forward time sheets showing this work
to my supervisor at the end of each month.
←← This equipment is to be used in support of my responsibilities at
Stanford. I understand that my working hours on-campus will be reduced by
any time spent working off-campus on a day-by-day basis. I will keep an
accurate account of all time spent on my work and will forward time sheets
showing this work to my supervisor at the end of each month.
←← I wish to use this equipment as part of a self-education program, to learn
about ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←. This activity is of my own choosing
and is not a part of my Stanford responsibilities; consequently, I expect
no compensation for time spent on this activity. I agree that I will NOT
use this equipment in connection with any of my Stanford responsibilities
without first getting written approval from my supervisor under one of the
alternative arrangements listed above.
Expected completion date: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←.
Employee signature: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← Date: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Employee name (printed):←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
APPROVED.
Supervisor Signature: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← Date: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Supervisor name (printed):←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
∂09-Jun-86 0128 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #17
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 01:28:31 PDT
Date: Saturday, June 7, 1986 11:07AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #17
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Monday, 9 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 17
Today's Topics:
Query - TRO & Micros,
Application - Income Tax Planning,
Implementations - Assert & DFID & Standard Behavior & Tricks
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 19:59:24 GMT
From: MorrisseyTJ <tim@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: TRO in C-Prolog
Has anyone implemented TRO (tail recursion optimization)
for C-Prolog?
-- Tim Morrissey
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 86 02:12:05 GMT
From: FJ Hirsch <fjh@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: prolog for ibm pc?
I am looking for information about Turbo Prolog or
other implementations of prolog for the IBM PC
(AT&T 6300). Pointers to reviews or personal
experiences would be appreciated.
Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 14:46:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!gooley@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: looking for Prolog
UNSW Prolog is *not* a variant of C-Prolog. It was
developed independently,has a slightly different
syntax, behaves quite differently in some situations,
does not try to fake a tagged architecture, lacks
many bells and whistles, and (according to a letter
in a recent issue of "Computer Architecture News"
[the ACM SIGARCH bulletin]) is about half as fast
when run on a VAX-11/780. Its chief advantages are
simplicity, modularity (relatively easy to modify
for instrumentation, except that the source lacks
comments), and portability. It's my opinion that
it will run on any 32-bit machine under UNIX with
only trivial changes, and, with a little work, on
anything that has a C compiler (I ported it to our
Gould PN9050 and had only to change a few pathnames).
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 86 18:13:28 GMT
From: MorrisseyTJ <ihnp4!drutx!druhi!tim@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
In article <1229@lsuc.UUCP>, dave@lsuc.UUCP writes:
> Saumya Debray mentioned recently on the net
> that good Prolog programmers don't make much use of
> assert and retract. [text deleted]
> When I look at the logic, I find it's doing the same
> analysis over and over for certain legal conclusions
> that are really "facts" for other rules to deal with.
> [text deleted]
> Once I've determined that T1 controls T2, should I
> "asserta" that as a fact, so it no longer needs to
> take much time? [text deleted]
Is this an example of lemmas?
I would like to believe that a formal mechanism for managing
and applying previously proved goals could significantly
improve the speed of large programs. However, I do see many
issues like:
- knowing when the lemmas are no longer valid
- making the time cost cheap enough to cause overall speedup
- keeping the space cost "low enough"
- knowing when *not* to store lemmas (I/O, external conditions)
Although it is easy to misuse assert and retract, I think
Prolog is very valuable as a database language. Databases
for practical applications can easily have dozens of relations
and change very often.
Something I find dearly missing from Prolog are uniform
semantics for side-effects. It seems "ugly" that applications
and even Prolog support code use predicates like:
set←xxx(Value)
get←xxx(Value)
or
add←xxx(Key,Value)
find←xxx(Key,Value)
del←xxx(Key)
Just some food for thought.
-- Tim Morrissey
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 20:22:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsb!goldfain@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Income Tax Planning
Your "aggregate" predicate looks pretty clever to me ... it
certainly uses some of the deeper concepts of Prolog
(functor-building and calling, etc.) I can suggest one
improvement in elegance, since you mention you wrote a new
aggregate predicate for each number of arguments. You could
rewrite aggregate to always expect three arguments, the first
is the "Goal" as before, the second "ArgList", and the third
"Aggr" to hold the result. Then you could use this form for
goals with any number of arguments:
aggregate(Goal, ArgList, Aggr) :-
append([Goal | ArgList], [Amount], Funct),
Z =.. Funct,
findall(Amount, call(Z), List),
listtotal(List, Aggr).
I haven't actually tried this code, but something
close to it should work. I am using UNSW Prolog,
here.
As to your other question, here is some code that works
for me.
This is the function you want: group([a, b, c, d], X)?
returns X instantiated to the list of all subsets of
[a, b, c, d] excepting the null set, singleton sets,
and the set [a, b, c, d] itself.
groups([], []).
groups([H | T], Result) :-
length([H | T], Full),
powerset([H | T], Sets),
filter(Full, Sets, Result).
This takes a set (written as a list) as its first argument
and returns the set of all NONEMPTY subsets of it in its
second argument. Example:
powerset([a, b, c], X)? gives :
X = [[c], [b,c], [b], [a,c], [a,b,c], [a,b], [a]]
argument. Warning: it returns with every member of the
power set EXCEPT the null set. (It does return the set
itself as one of the subsets, unless the set itself is
the null set.)
powerset([], []).
powerset([H | T], Result) :-
powerset(T, Set1),
include(H, Set1, Set2),
append(Set1, Set2, Result).
This builds a new "powerset" from a new element and a
"sub-powerset".
include(Item, [], [[Item]]).
include(Item, [H | T], [[Item | H] | Rest]) :- include(Item, T, Rest).
A very-often used predicate, which should be pre-defined.
append([], X, X).
append([H | T], X, [H | Rest]) :- append(T, X, Rest).
The "powerset" routine returns too much for our purposes,
so we filter out singleton sets and the whole set.
filter(←, [], []).
filter(Full, [Set | More], Result) :-
length(Set, 1), !, filter(Full, More, Result).
filter(Full, [Set | More], Result) :-
length(Set, Full), !, filter(Full, More, Result).
filter(Full, [Okay | More], [Okay | Rest]) :- filter(Full, More, Rest).
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 14:21:47 GMT
From: Micha Meier <!micha@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening
Some points to a possible implementation of DFID search
in Prolog:
1] The DFID algorithm always finds the solution; so does
a useful Prolog program, unless it goes into an infinite
loop. This means that DFID can never find a solution in
a shorter time than the usual Prolog: either Prolog's
depth-first search is faster or Prolog fails to find
anything and it loops. The same holds then for a parallell
implementation of DFID, it could only be a way to prevent
infinite loops in a better time than a serial DFID rather
than speeding up the search in comparison with Prolog.
2] DFID always finds the optimal solution, the usual Prolog
finds *any* and maybe all solutions if necessary. If the
user wants to find all solutions and the usual Prolog loops,
DFID will loop as well; therefore the use of DFID could be
only restricted.
3] As Max says, the predicates would have to be divided into
two groups, ordered and unordered; this would be the case
in any non-sequential processing of the subgoals. If we allow
ordered predicates to call the unordered ones and vice versa
then the distribution of processors in a parallell execution
is no more so easy. There is maybe a simple solution to this
problem, otherwise one direction of calls between the two
classes of predicates must be forbidden - is it a significant
restriction?
-- Micha
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 14:57:47 GMT
From: Max Hailperin <!max@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening
Micha's comments aren't all wrong, but they certainly aren't
100% correct either. The big point he misses is this:
If there is a branch of the tree to the left of the solution
that is much deeper than the solution, but still finite, DFID
is more efficient than depth-first search.
This -- not questions of completeness -- is the argument for
DFID which interests me. Naturally this case only arises in
some class of programs, but that's the point -- I'm curious
whether that class of programs is interesting.
The point about ordered and unordered predicates calling each
other is a bit confused. In reality there is no problem. If
an unordered predicate calls an ordered predicate, and that
ordered predicate fails because its execution was truncated,
some solutions to the unordered predicate are lost -- but
this doesn't matter. If an ordered predicate calls an unordered
predicate, and the execution is truncated, the outer ordered'
predicate fails, because of the general rule I proposed in my
last note. Thus the right thing always happens.
Much of the time all the programmer wants is one solution, any
solution. In this case it doesn't matter whether it is the
leftmost or shallowest (= "optimal"). If we can get the
shallowest faster than the leftmost (or if they are the same,
and we can get it faster by looking for the shallowest), than
that's good.
Naturally if you really want all solutions, DFID has nothing
to offer. This can be viewed as a consequence of my execution
rule for bagof.
By the way, the proposed modified Prolog does not offer one
control structure DFID can support that has been proposed in
the context of other parallel Prologs: an unordered, one-solution
predicate.
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 86 12:38:26 GMT
From: Max Hailperin <!max@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening
George Van Treeck raised the interesting question of
depth-first iterative-deepening (DFID) search's applicability
to Prolog execution in general and parallel execution in
particular. A quick check with the gurus around here
(ECRC is a major center of Prolog activity) came up with no
knowledge of any existing literature on DFID and Prolog. But
of course there might be some. What follows are my own comments,
in the absence of any literature.
DFID could be integrated into a Prolog interpreter. The language
it interpreted would have to be a bit modified, as the standard
Prolog control structures and side-effect primitives wouldn't
work. The smallest possible change in language definition (I
think) would be:
- declaration of ordered vs. unordered predicates
- cuts only allowed in ordered predicates
- no side-effects (assert, retract, I/O).
The three non-obvious points in the design of such an
interpreter are
- negation as failure
- bagof
- ordered predicates.
The implementation of these three features has to take as
its guiding rule: truncating the search at a particular depth
may only eliminate solutions, never add any. Concretely this
means that when executing not(X), you have to keep a record of
whether the cutoff-depth is reached in executing X. If so,
then not(X) should fail even if X failed. This is because X
might have succeeded given a greater cutoff-depth. The same
technique is necessary for bagof: if it is possible that not
all members of the bag were found, the bagof should fail.
Similarly, if a clause of an ordered predicate fails, but had
been prematurely truncated by the cutoff-depth, the whole
predicate should fail, even if clauses remain.
The next question is whether DFID would do any good. In
today's Prolog programs it wouldn't, because the average
branching factor is extremely low (between 1 and 2). The
graph in the article in Artificial Intelligence shows quite
clearly how big a loss DFID search is with such a low
branching factor. Moreover Prolog programmers are very
clever about always putting the easiest clauses first, and
also use non-logical constructs to direct the search.
Prolog execution is not a brute-force search in a
well-balanced tree. So for normal Prolog programs, DFID
would make the execution slower rather than faster.
Whether the class of programs no one writes with today's
Prologs but would write if they had a DFID Prolog is an
interesting class of programs is an open question. Note,
however, that DFID can also be used for only those portions
of a program which would benefit from it. There have also
been proposals for adding heuristic control information to
Prolog's search. This would encourage programmers to use
Prolog's built-in search rather than programming their own.
Thus some amount of optimism about DFID's applicability
may be justified.
Finally comes the question of parallel execution (my own
specialty). *If* DFID were useful (see the paragraph above),
or in fact if it even came close to the performance of normal
depth-first search, then a parallel version could be a
practical way of exploiting parallel processing for logic
programming. For example, if we could find interesting
programs that a DFID Prolog executed at half the speed of
normal Prolog, then by using 20 processors we could hope to
get an order-of-magnitude speedup over normal Prolog.
This possibility is so interesting because DFID has an
extremely easy, low overhead parallel version. The idea is
that each depth-first search is still sequential, but the
search for the proper depth is done in parallel. This "DFPD"
(depth-first parallel-deepening) strategy might for example
have processor A search to a depth of 1 in parallel with
processor B searching to a depth of 2. As soon as A is done,
it starts searching to a depth of 3. In general: each time
a processor is free, it starts a depth-first search with
the next untaken cutoff-depth. This has a much lower
communication and coordination overhead than OR-parallel
Prologs.
Returning to my original caution: DFPD is only a speedup
over DFID, *not necessarily* over other forms of search.
With a finite number of processors, there will be many
realistic programs (virtually all of today's Prolog
programs) for which even a normal single-processor
depth-first search will be faster than DFPD. (In the
infinite-processor case DFPD can be no worse than
depth-first search.) Thus this is only a useful use of
parallelism if we write programs for which DFID performs
at least comparably to depth-first search.
Conclusions:
1] a DFID Prolog is easily implementable, though not for
normal Prolog.
2] today's Prolog programs would not benefit from DFID
(in fact, they would suffer)
3] it is possible that conclusion 2 can be changed
(particularly if Prolog is extended to accept heuristic
control information)
4] if conclusion 2 were changed, generalizing DFID to DFPD
would be an easy way to make use of parallel processing
(actually it's not necessary that conclusion 2 be changed
-- DFID need only approach depth-first search in efficiency,
not surpass it)
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 19:05:50 GMT
From: decwrl!vantreeck@logic.dec.com@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Flames about a DFID question
>1] The copious use of cut in PROLOG indicates that
>programmers are frequently interested in only a
>single, first, solution. I thought perhaps DFID
>might be a way of finding a single, first solution
>in very large PROLOG search spaces.
>For example, a program to synthesize new chemicals
>might be find DFID useful for finding the shortest
>synthesise pathway (very large branching factor in a
>very large search space).
The last note wasn't clear about finding solutions
with DFID. I didn't mean to imply that DFID would only
find one solution. DFID could easilly backtrack and
find the next most least cost solution. I just meant
that it might be a quicker way to find that first single
solution in cases cases where the search space is very
large.
--George
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 18:10:43 GMT
From: decwrl!vantreeck@logic.dec.com@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Flames over a DFID question
>(I suspect anyway that this is another of George's
>attempts to bring flames into the network, right? :-)
No! I was just asking questions. I don't understand why
asking if an algorithm (DFID) is applicable to parallel
PROLOGs should be construed as an attempt to raise
tempers. My reasons for asking were:
1] The copious use of cut in PROLOG indicates that
programmers are frequently interested in only a single,
first, solution. I thought perhaps DFID might be a way
of finding a single, first solution in very large PROLOG
search spaces. For example, a program to synthesize new
chemicals might be find DFID useful for finding the
shortest synthesise pathway (very large branching factor
in a very large search space).
2] I've heard logicians complain that PROLOG doesn't
adhere to logic because the order of rules should not
affect whether a proof is found, e.g., sometimes
PROLOG programs go into an endless recursion if the rules
aren't ordered correctly. I never expected flames because
an algorithm like DFID might search and find a proof
regardless of the ordering of rules (was that the flame?).
I thought a predicate called 'dfid/1' could act sort of
like 'call/1' where the proof of dfid would use a different
search strategy (assumes there is no order dependent code
in the proof of DFID).
I'm ignorant about parallel or concurrent implementations
of PROLOG and was just seeking enlightenment -- not flames.
Thank you for the thoughtful replies; they were very
helpful. The replies seem to indicate that most PROLOG
programs have a very small branching factor which would
make DFID more of liability than an asset.
-- George Van Treeck
DEC
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 86 23:10:42 GMT
From: Tom Blenko <hplabs!sdcrdcf!burdvax!blenko@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In article <1163@sicsten.UUCP> lhe@sicsten.UUCP (Lars-Henrik
>Eriksson) writes:
>In article <1021@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP
>writes:
>>I don't believe that cut, var, and nonvar cannot be
>>described logically, just because they aren't in Prolog
>>implementations.
>The reason why cut, var and nonvar cannot be "described
>logically" is that they are non-logical (or meta-logical,
>if you wish) primitives,
>that is primitives used to control the search for proofs.
The meaning of these primitives are dependent of the
particular way an implementation looks for proofs. With a
different implementation you could be forced to give a
different meaning to cut, var and nonvar, or even find
that they couldn't be given any meaning at all.
I disagree with the latter comment. If call() and negation
-by-failure are provided, I claim that you can define
if-then-else() (with your favorite syntax, say P->Q;R),
and that if-then-else() is more expressive than cut().
In particular, you need a scoping construct for cut()
to make it as expressive as if-then-else().
It is a short exercise to show that that var() and
nonvar() can be expressed using call() and cut()
(or if-then-else()).
So the discussion reduces to establishing the logical
or non-logical character of call() and negation-by
-failure(). I will speculate that the meaning of
call() can be captured by a suitable application of
first-order logic, due to its definition in terms of
constructive proofs (I have something along the lines
of Perlis' AIJ (1985) article in mind here). I am
side-stepping the problem of incompleteness of
logic-programming interpreters w.r.t resolution.
-- Tom
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 86 14:00:24 GMT
From: Saumya Debray <debray@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Standard behavior? (semantics of nonlogical primitives)
>In article <1021@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP writes:
>>I don't believe that cut, var, and
>>nonvar cannot be described logically, just because they aren't
>>in Prolog implementations.
>
>The reason why cut, var and nonvar cannot be "described
>logically" is that they are non-logical (or meta-logical,
>if you wish) primitives, that is primitives used to
>control the search for proofs.
Perhaps you mean "... cannot be described logically using
first order predicate calculus".
>The meaning of these primitives are dependent of the
>particular way an implementation looks for proofs. With a
>different implementation you could be forced to give a
>different meaning to cut, var and nonvar, or even find that
>they couldn't be given any meaning at all.
If the constructs are in any way "understandable", you ought
to be able to find mathematical models for them. In the case
of "cut", "var" etc. there's a good chance these won't look
like the Herbrand models we Prolog hackers are accustomed to,
of course, but that's rather different from saying that they
couldn't be given any meaning at all.
There has, in fact, been some work on giving the semantics
of Prolog (i.e. textual order on literals and clauses + Cut)
using classical denotational semantics, in terms of continuous
functions over CPOs.
References are:
- Jones & Mycroft,
"Stepwise Development of Denotational and Operational
Semantics for Prolog", Proc. 1st ISLP, Atlantic City,
Feb 1984.
- Debray & Mishra,
"Denotational and Operational Semantics for Prolog",
Proc. Conf. on Formal Description of Programming
Concepts, Lyngby, Denmark, Aug 1986 (to appear).
-- Saumya Debray
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 86 23:03:59-EDT (Tue)
From: Zerksis D. Umrigar <Zerksis%sutcase.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC>
Subject: Hacker Tricks
Some hacks of dirty Prolog which come to mind...
a] Creating a term with fresh variables - assert and then
retract it from the database. Depending on your Prolog
implmentation, it may be slower than ripping the term apart
(using =..) and sticking in fresh variables.
b] Using lists and search-trees with unbound variables
representing the empty list/search-tree. Some time ago, I ran
tests on DEC-10 Prolog to compare this with cleaner structures
(using [] and say 'empty'). I found that the cleaner code was
better in both memory and time! Hence this is definitely a
useless hack. However using unbound tails for difference-lists
is definitely worthwhile.
c] The following is a rather special purpose hack, but may be
useful. Given variable-free terms, one needs to keep track of
which equivalence classes they belong to. The user asserts
equality (say a=b), to make the program record the fact that
terms 'a' and 'b' belong to the same equivalence class. The u
ser can also query equality (say a?b) to ask the program
whether 'a' and 'b' belong to the same equivalence class.
The solution is to store the name of its equivalence class along
with each term - however, use an unbound logical variable for
the name of each equivalence class. When an equality is asserted,
use Prolog's unification to bind the two unbound variables
representing the names of the eq. classes together. To query
equality, use == to check whether the names of the two eq.
classes are the same.
In the worst case, linear reference chains would be created,
resulting in time linear in the number of asserted equalities
when answering an equality query. This compares with lg(n)
time for Tarjan's Union-Find algorithm. However, the above
method is extremely simple to program in Prolog, the worst-case
may not occur too often for a particular application and the
constant associated with the above time estimates will probably
be smaller than for an implementation of Tarjan's algorithm.
d) Thinking of the lack of occurs check as a "feature" rather
than a bug of Prolog (there is a paper by Colmerauer on infinite
trees in Logic Prog. ed. by Clark & Tarnlund). The best
application I found of this "feature" was to create recursive
(looping) binding environments when writing an interpreter for
Henderson's Lispkit Lisp.
Finally, a question, possibly related to (d).
Prolog seems ideally suited to manipulate tree-structured
data. Is it possible to handle doubly-linked structures?
- one in which one can access equally easily a "parent"
from its "child" and a "child" from its "parent". I can
use unification without the occurs check to create such
structures. However, in the absence of destructive assignment
in Prolog, updating part of the structure seems to imply
updating the entire structure. I find that rather unsatisfactory.
One can get around this problem by using lists with unbound
vars as tails (as in b) to hold the lists of "parents" and
"children" of a node. However, deleting a node gets messy:
my solution is to use a logical var. as a boolean - unbound
= 'not deleted' and bound = 'deleted'. Is there a cleaner
solution?
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂09-Jun-86 0946 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Freshman Advisors
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 09:45:54 PDT
Date: Mon 9 Jun 86 09:43:36-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Freshman Advisors
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213471659.39.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
So far, Stuart Reges and I are the only ones who have volunteered to advise
incoming freshmen this next academic year. We badly need some more faculty
members (about 4 or 5 more) from the CS department who would like to meet
with freshmen occasionally next year to help plan course schedules (and life!).
The job is not time-consuming and is quite rewarding. There are student
"advising associates" who know everything about course requirements and
so on. Every faculty member/advising associate team has about five students
to advise. Send me a note in the next day or so if you would like to do this.
(The Dean has asked me to "appoint" people if we do not get enough volunteers.)
Thanks, -Nils
-------
∂09-Jun-86 1022 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa summertime is here
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 10:22:42 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Mon, 9 Jun 86 10:08:58 pdt
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 10:08:58 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: summertime is here
To: nail@diablo
I don't seem ever to be able to make a NAIL! meeting.
This time, my small son is graduating from 6th grade at
11AM on Thursday.
Jeff Naughton wanted a parting shot to talk about recursion
simplification, so I would like to meet at 1:30PM this Thursday 6/12.
We'll meet in 301 MJH unless that is unavailable for some reason.
For the summer, it looks like a number of regular attendees will
be away from campus, and it probably doesn't pay to hold
regular meetings.
With luck, we'll start things up in the fall.
---jeff
∂09-Jun-86 1240 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA AFT meeting
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 12:40:00 PDT
Date: Mon 9 Jun 86 12:36:02-PDT
From: Julius
Subject: AFT meeting
Sender: EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Reply-To: julius@su-csli.arpa
Tel: (415) 723-3561
I want to thank all of those who came yesterday to the AFT
presentation. I appreciated the many useful comments. There will be no
meetings of the AFT group during the summer, but next fall when I am
at the "other center" up the hill, there will be several small
workshops which will be for those interested in AFT. Further notice
will go out in Sept.. Have a nice summer. Julius.
-------
∂09-Jun-86 1340 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA two outages
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 13:40:46 PDT
Date: Mon 9 Jun 86 13:38:25-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: two outages
To: ksl-explorer@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213514408.26.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
The consoles of X16, X17, and X18 will be unavailable for a few
hours tomorrow, Tuesday the 10'th while power is being installed in
the partitions. Files on them should still be accessable through
the net.
X1 is moving to the new Medical School Office Building, and so will
be unavailable for a while. Since the fonts the Explorers use for
printing on the Imagens are on X1, some printing will not work. X1
should be back on the air later this afternoon. However, you will need
to make sure you have the latest version of KSL-Patches loaded in order
to talk to it, as well as the more recent Net-Config. If you can't
print by later this evening, call me at 3-2225.
-- Rich
-------
∂09-Jun-86 1540 LEORA@SU-CSLI.ARPA ventura printer
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 15:40:39 PDT
Date: Mon 9 Jun 86 15:26:20-PDT
From: Leora Weitzman <LEORA@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: ventura printer
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
the printer by the receptionist desk in ventura is broken. send files
to /unit:1 (in Casita) instead.
-------
∂09-Jun-86 1607 REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA still need advisors
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 16:07:11 PDT
Date: Mon 9 Jun 86 16:04:33-PDT
From: Stuart Reges <REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: still need advisors
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 030C, 723-9798
Message-ID: <12213541010.25.REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
| still need 2 or 3 faculty advisors for next year. Please speak up if you
are willing to advise. I am considering asking Nils to make this a
committee assi⊗gnment (implying that it would lead to release from other
committee duties), so let me know if you are interested under this option.
-------
∂09-Jun-86 1709 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jun 86 17:08:54 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Mon, 9 Jun 86 17:00:16 pdt
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 17:00:16 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Declarative error diagnosis"
J. W. Lloyd, U. Melbourne
The errors referred to are errors in logic programs.
∂10-Jun-86 0150 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #18
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 01:47:00 PDT
Date: Monday, June 9, 1986 5:39PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 326-5550
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #18
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Tuesday, 10 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 18
Today's Topics:
Review - Turbo-P,
Implementations - Assert & KBES Tools,
LP Library - Update
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu Jun 5 21:45:42 1986
From: Herm Fischer <hermix!fischer@rand-unix.ARPA>
Reply-to: HFischer@ada20
Subject: Borland Turbo Prolog
I received a copy of Borland Turbo Prolog, and have
a few initial impressions to convey. (I presently
have been mostly using UNSW prolog under Xenix on
the PC/AT.)
It is a true compiler, and code executes quite fast.
Some examples of LIPS (logical inferences per second)
of test programs (from the net):
TEST PC-AT* PC-CONVERTABLE
FUNCTION UNSW** TURBO TURBO
naive reverse (30 items list) 550 9920 4509
quicksort (reverse order list) 385 8760*** 2390
quicksort (ordered list) 495 8736 3559
---------------
* - PC/AT has 14.6 MHz crystal installed
PC Convertable (new laptop) is unmodified
** - UNSW interpreter timings under Xenix 3.0 version, huge
mem. model Turbo-Prolog timings under MSDOS 3.2
*** - seems inconsistant, but that's the empirical number
>From the speed, and the presence of a full set of features,
I'd say this is one of the first Prolog compilers which is
truly usable for real applications. (It is a bit amazing to
me to have 4500 lips running in a laptop battery powered
computer!)
Features include a very nice user interface (multi-window
system); debugging is done with a trace in one window, the
printed dialog output in another, and the source code in a
third window... the source code steps thru as the trace
progresses, allowing reediting and recompiling from the
middle of a trace without loosing the contents of the
screen windows. The window system is also usable by
applications.
The language is typed, leading to some conversion
difficulties for old Prolog programs with sloppy naming
habits. Ada programmers will love it; Prolog hackers
may have to learn new habits. Typing allows defining
types, weak subtypes, and enforced rules of parameter
checks. This should be a real benefit to developers of
code which must be maintained by crews of programmers
other than the original authors... (though a bit of a
pain for quick and dirty work or conversion of old code)
The syntax is true Clocksin & Mellish.
Some features missing in the first release include arg
and functor (said to be comming out "real soon maybe"),
parentheses nesting of subgoals (hardly ever used
anyway), and findall/bagof restricted to simple atoms
and lists of elements.
I expect this product to legitimize Prolog for the semi
mass market!
-- Herm Fischer
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 11:15:18 EST
From: munnari!basser.oz!anand@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: 'assert' considered harmful
People tend to use 'assert' as caching mechanism
for inferences because of the absence of a built-in
predicate, say, 'assume', which can perform the task
which David Sherman wants. 'assume' can be seen as a
default rule. As long as you have no information that
will invalidate rule X, you can assume(X). In this
case it is equivalent to saying that as long as the
year is 1986, assume(control(Taxpayer1,Taxpayer2)).
If the year is 1987 and Taxpayer1 no longer controls
Taxpayer2 then some of the inferences drawn earlier
may no longer be valid in the new context. The necessary
changes which have to be done to the knowledge-base is
precisely what TMS or ATMS(Assumption based Truth
Maintenance System) does. Of course, assert cannot be
used instead of assume, because what is asserted is a
THEOREM(true at all times) and not an assumption.
By the way, is anyone over the net aware of a Prolog
implementation with a built-in TMS or ATMS like mechanism,
which provides facilities for 'assuming' and 'retracting'
assumptions.
PS: Let us remember that GOTO was given up(more or less)
because of the availability of better control structures
like FOR & WHILE loops. So if we want 'assert' not to be
misused, let us assert that we need 'assume' and not
assume that 'assert' will do the job for us.
-- Anand S.Rao
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 86 18:20:54 GMT
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley
Subject: Monkeys & bananas
>From: VERACSD@USC-ISI.ARPA
>Subject: Benchmarking KBES-Toools
>
>I have come across some recent benchmarks from NASA (U.S.
>Gov't MEMORANDUM from the FM7/AI Section, April 3, 1986)
>which compared various KBES tools' (ART, OP, KEE & CLIPS)
>times for solving the MONKEY-AND-BANANA problem. (This
>toy problem is explained in detail along with OPS source
>in Brownston et. al.'s "Programming Expert Systems in OPS5".)
>
>Although the benchmarks include backward-chaining solutions
>to the problem in both KEE and ART (along with forward
>chaining counterparts), there is no PROLOG implementation
>in the comparison. I am very interested in a PROLOG
>comparison, and am in the process of implementing one.
Here is a Prolog solution. It uses much the same logic
as the Brownston book (i.e. forward chaining), though
I've only used "working memory" (the State variables)
for states not goals - this makes it much easier to
incorporate subgoals, which is the reason there are
basically 6 rules (equivalent to 14 Horn Clauses)
rather than 26 in the OPS5 version (though there are
also 21 subsidiary clauses). I've also removed the
"state independent assertions" (light & heavy) from
state, though they could be there. The Prolog solution
takes 92 lines compared with 201 (non-comment) lines
for OPS5. This includes the code for "modify" etc.
which is not included in the OPS5 total. There are
various packages on the market which are implemented
in Prolog but provide the same kind of facilities.
>(By the way, the time to beat is 1.2 secs. for a
>forward-chaining implementation using ART on a
>3640 with 4MB main-memory.)
That's pretty easy. The code below runs in about
0.32 secs on a VAX 750 using the CProlog
interpreter. With a compiler on the DEC 20
you should be able to do an order of magnitude
faster (most of the time is probably spent in i/o
anyway).
I've included the timing routines at the end. You
may have to alter the "cputime" routine to fit your
local Prolog system.
-- Chris Moss
Imperial College
/*
monkey & bananas problem from Brownston & al:
Programming Expert Systems in OPS5 (Addison
Wesley 1985)
*/
test(X) :-
problem(X, Goal, State),
(goal(Goal,State,NewS) ->
writeline(['Congratulations, the goals are satisfied'])
; writeline(['Impossible, the goal',Goal,'cannot be achieved']),fail).
problem(general, hold(bananas),
[monkey([7,7],couch,blanket),
obj(bananas,[9,9],ceiling),
obj(couch,[7,7],floor),
obj(ladder,[4,3],floor),
obj(blanket,[7,7],←)]).
light(bananas).
light(ladder).
light(blanket).
heavy(couch).
/* goal(X,State,New) :-
writeline([goal,X,in,State]), fail.
*/
goal(hold(Object), State,NewS) :-
hold(Object, State) ->
NewS=State
; light(Object) ->
approach(Object, State, State2),
goal(hold(nil), State2,State3),
modify(hold(Object),State3,State4),
modify(on(Object,monkey),State4,NewS),
writeline([monkey,grabs,Object])
; Object=nil,
hold(Obj,State),
modify(hold(nil),State,State2),
modify(on(Obj,floor),State2,NewS),
writeline([monkey,drops,Obj]).
goal(at(Loc), State, NewS) :-
at(Loc,State) ->
NewS=State
; goal(on(floor), State, State2),
goal(hold(nil), State2, State3),
modify(at(Loc),State3,NewS),
writeline([monkey,walks,to,Loc]).
goal(at(Object,Loc), State,NewS) :-
at(Object,Loc,State) ->
NewS=State
; goal(hold(Object),State,State2),
goal(on(floor),State2,State3),
modify(at(Loc),State3,State4),
modify(at(Object,Loc),State4,NewS),
writeline([monkey,carries,Object,to,Loc]).
goal(on(Object), State, NewS) :-
ison(Object, State) ->
NewS=State
; Object=floor ->
modify(on(floor),State,NewS),
writeline([monkey,jumps,to,floor])
; object(Object),
goal(hold(nil),State,State2),
at(Object, Loc, State2),
goal(at(Loc),State2,State3),
modify(on(Obj),State3,NewS),
writeline([monkey,climbs,on,Object]).
/* goal(X,State,New) :-
writeline(['** fail goal',X,in,State]),
fail.
*/
approach(Object, State, NewS) :-
ison(Object,ceiling,State) ->
at(Object,Loc,State),
goal(at(ladder,Loc),State,State2),
goal(on(ladder), State2, NewS)
; at(Object,Loc,State),
/* window : support routines */
goal(at(Loc),State,NewS).
at(Loc,State) :-
inn(monkey(Loc,←,←),State).
at(Object,Loc,State) :-
inn(obj(Object,Loc,←),State).
hold(Object,State) :-
inn(monkey(←,←,Object),State).
ison(On,State) :-
inn(monkey(←,On,←),State).
ison(Object,On,State) :-
inn(obj(Object,←,On),State).
modify(at(Loc),State,NewS) :-
change(monkey(←,On,Holds),monkey(Loc,On,Holds),State,NewS).
modify(at(Object,Loc), State,NewS) :-
change(obj(Object,←,On),obj(Object,Loc,On),State,NewS).
modify(hold(Object),State,NewS) :-
change(monkey(At,On,←), monkey(At,On,Object),State, NewS).
modify(on(Object), State,NewS) :-
change(monkey(At,←,Holds), monkey(At,Object,Holds),State, NewS).
modify(on(Object,On), State, NewS) :-
change(obj(Object,At,←), obj(Object,At,On),State, NewS).
object(X) :- heavy(X) ; light(X).
inn(X, [X|←]).
inn(X, [←|Y]) :- inn(X,Y).
change(Old,New,[Old|List], [New|List]).
change(Old,New, [Other|List], [Other|Newlist]) :-
change(Old,New, List, Newlist).
writeline([]) :- nl.
writeline([A|B]) :-
write(A), write(' '),
writeline(B).
/* timing code */
testit(X) :- cputime(S1), test,
cputime(S2), test2,
cputime(S3),
X is (S2-S1-S3+S2)/10.
/* this works for Cprolog but maybe not for others */
cputime(X) :- X is cputime.
for(X,X,Y).
for(X,Y,Z) :- Y < Z, Y1 is Y+1, for(X,Y1,Z).
test :- for(X,1,10), test1, fail.
test.
test1 :- test(general), !.
test2 :- for(X,1,10), dummy, fail.
test2.
dummy.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 86 08:12:00 EST
From: "CUGINI, JOHN" <cugini@nbs-vms.ARPA>
Subject: C-Prolog manual enhancements
For what it's worth, here are some things we've developed to
enhance/correct the C-Prolog manual for version 1.5. I haven't
seen anything like this around, so here's hoping this will
save everyone from doing the same work. There are four chunks:
1. a table of contents
2. an errata sheet
3. an improved summary of evaluable predicates, including several
ones missing from the original, and page references
4. a syntax summary
Feel free to copy/improve, etc.
John Cugini <Cugini@nbs-vms>
Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology
National Bureau of Standards
Table of Contents
C-Prolog User's Manual, Version 1.5
1 Using C-Prolog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Using C-Prolog -- Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Access to C-Prolog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Reading-in Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Directives: Questions and Commands . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 Saving A Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.7 Restoring A Saved Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.8 Program Execution And Interruption . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.9 Nested Executions -- Break and Abort . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.10 Exiting From The Interpreter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Prolog Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1 Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 Syntax Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4 Using a Terminal without Lower-Case . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 The Meaning of Prolog Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1 Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Declarative and Procedural Semantics . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Occurs Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4 The Cut Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4 Debugging Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1 The Procedure Box Control Flow Model . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 Basic Debugging Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3 Tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4 Spy Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.5 Format of Debugging Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.6 Options Available during Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.7 Reconsulting during Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5 Evaluable Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1 Input and Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1.1 Reading-in Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1.2 File Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1.3 Input and Output of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.1.4 Character Input/Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2 Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.3 Convenience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.4 Extra Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.5 Meta-Logical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.6 Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.7 Comparison of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.8 Modification of the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.9 Information about the State of the Program . . . . . . . 32
5.10 Internal Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.11 Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.12 Environmental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.13 Preprocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Appendix I -- Summary of Evaluable Predicates . . . . . . . . . 36
!
Errata for C-Prolog User's Manual, Version 1.5
Page Description
---- -----------
23 Undocumented predicate "append(F)" for appending to files
should appear here.
24 Example should be X = 3, not X = 5.
25 Symbol for integer bitwise disjunction is "\/".
25 Note left-shift is zero-fill, right-shift is fill with
value of leading bit.
26 Symbol for X numerically not equal to Y is "=\="
32 Undocumented predicate current←op(Priority, Type, Name)
should appear here.
36 atomic(T) true for atom, number or DB reference.
-- There are two more undocumented evaluable predicates:
c([Head | Tail], Head, Tail) (like Lisp cons) and
length (List, N) to get length of list.
!
C-Prolog Predicate Index
Predicate Page Description
--------- ---- -----------
abolish(F,N) 31 Abolish the procedure named F arity N.
abort 6, 34 Abort execution of the current directive.
* append(F) 23 open file F to be appended to.
arg(N,T,A) 28 The Nth argument of term T is A.
assert(C) 31 Assert clause C.
assert(C,R) 31 Assert clause C, ref. R.
asserta(C) 31 Assert C as first clause.
asserta(C,R) 31 Assert C as first clause, ref. R.
assertz(C) 31 Assert C as last clause.
assertz(C,R) 31 Assert C as last clause, ref. R.
atom(T) 27 Term T is an atom.
atomic(T) 27 Term T is an atom, number, or DB reference.
bagof(X,P,B) 29 The bag of Xs such that P is provable is B.
break 6, 34 Break at the next procedure call.
* c(L,H,T) 26 List L has head H and tail T (Lisp cons).
call(P) 28 Execute the procedure call P.
clause(P,Q) 31 There is a clause, head P, body Q.
clause(P,Q,R) 31 There is an clause, head P, body Q, ref R.
close(F) 22 Close file F.
compare(C,X,Y) 30 C is the result of comparing terms X and Y.
consult(F) 22 Extend the program with clauses from file F.
cputime 25 CPU time since C-Prolog was started, in seconds.
current←atom(A) 32 One of the currently defined atoms is A.
current←functor(A,T) 32 A current functor is named A, m.g. term T.
* current←op(P,T,A) 8, 32 A current op is named A, of type T, priority P.
current←predicate(A,P) 32 A current predicate is named A, m.g. goal P.
db←reference(T) 27 T is a database reference.
debug 17, 33 Switch on debugging.
debugging 17, 34 Output debugging status information.
display(T) 23 Display term T on the terminal.
erase(R) 32 Erase the clause or record, ref. R.
erased(R) 33 The object with ref. R has been erased.
expanded←exprs(O,N) 26 Expression expansion if N=on.
expand←term(T,X) 35 Term T is a shorthand which expands to term X.
exists(F) 22 The file F exists.
fail 27 Backtrack immediately.
fileerrors 22 Enable reporting of file errors.
functor(T,F,N) 27 The top functor of term T has name F, arity N.
get(C) 23 The next non-blank character input is C.
get0(C) 23 The next character input is C.
halt 6 Halt Prolog, exit to the monitor.
heapused 25 Heap space in use, in bytes.
instance(R,T) 33 A m.g. instance of the record ref. R is T.
integer(T) 27 Term T is an integer.
Y is X 26 Y is the value of arithmetic expression X.
keysort(L,S) 30 The list L sorted by key yields S.
leash(M) 17, 33 Set leashing mode to M.
* length(L,N) 26 List L is of length N.
listing 32 List the current program.
listing(P) 32 List the procedure(s) P.
* undocumented
!
Predicate Page Description
--------- ---- -----------
name(A,L) 28 The name of atom or number A is string L.
nl 23 Output a new line.
nodebug 17, 33 Switch off debugging.
nofileerrors 22 Disable reporting of file errors.
nonvar(T) 27 Term T is a non-variable.
nospy Spec 18, 33 Remove spy-points from the procedure(s) P.
not(P) 26 see \+ P, below.
number(T) 27 Term T is a number.
op(P,T,A) 8, 34 Make atom A an operator of type T precedence P.
primitive(T) 27 T is a number or a database reference
print(T) 23 Portray or else write the term T.
prompt(A,B) 34 Change the prompt from A to B.
put(C) 23 The next character output is C.
read(T) 23 Read term T.
reconsult(F) 22 Update the program with procedures from file F.
recorda(K,T,R) 32 Make term T the first record under key K, ref. R.
recorded(K,T,R) 32 Term T is recorded under key K, ref. R.
recordz(K,T,R) 32 Make term T the last record under key K, ref. R.
rename(F,G) 23 Rename file F to G.
repeat 27 Succeed repeatedly.
retract(C) 31 Erase the first clause of form C.
save(F) 5, 34 Save the current state of Prolog in file F.
save(F,When) 34 Like save(F), but When says how returned.
see(F) 22 Make file F the current input stream.
seeing(F) 22 The current input stream is named F.
seen 22 Close the current input stream.
setof(X,P,B) 29 The set of Xs such that P is provable is B.
sh 35 Start a recursive shell
skip(C) 23 Skip input characters until after character C.
sort(L,S) 30 The list L sorted into order yields S.
spy Spec 18, 33 Set spy-points on the procedure(s) P.
statistics 35 Display execution statistics.
system(S) 34 Execute command S.
tab(N) 23 Output N spaces.
tell(F) 22 Make file F the current output stream.
telling(F) 22 The current output stream is named F.
told 22 Close the current output stream.
trace 17, 33 Switch on debugging and start tracing.
true 26 Succeed.
var(T) 27 Term T is a variable.
write(T) 23 Write the term T.
writeq(T) 23 Write the term T, quoting names if necessary.
!
Predicate Page Description
--------- ---- -----------
'LC' 11, 34 The following Prolog text uses lower case.
'NOLC' 11, 34 The following Prolog text uses upper case only.
P,Q 26 P and (then) Q.
P;Q 26 P or (else) Q.
P -> Q ; R 27 if P then Q else R.
P -> Q 27 if P then Q else fail.
! 14, 26 Cut any choices taken in the current procedure.
\+ P 26 Goal P is not provable. (i.e., not(P) ).
X↑P 29 There exists an X, such that P is provable.
X+Y, X-Y, X*Y, X/Y 24 Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
X//Y 24 Integer division
X mod Y 24 X (integer) modulo Y
-X 25 Unary minus
X↑Y 25 Involution
X/\Y 25 Integer bitwise conjunction
X\/Y 25 Integer bitwise disjunction
X<<Y 25 Integer bitwise left shift of X by Y places
X>>Y 25 Integer bitwise right shift of X by Y places
\X 25 Integer bitwise negation
mathematical functions: 25 exp,log,log10,sqrt,sin,cos,tan,asin,acos,atan,floor
X<Y 26 As numbers, X is less than Y.
X=<Y 26 As numbers, X is less than or equal to Y.
X>Y 26 As numbers, X is greater than Y.
X>=Y 26 As numbers, X is greater than or equal to Y.
X=:=Y 26 As numbers, the values of X and Y are equal.
X=\=Y 26 As numbers, the values of X and Y are not equal.
X=Y 26 Terms X and Y are equal (i.e. unified).
T=..L 28 The functor and args. of term T comprise list L.
X==Y 30 Terms X and Y are strictly identical.
X\==Y 30 Terms X and Y are not strictly identical.
X@<Y 30 Term X precedes term Y.
X@=<Y 30 Term X precedes or is identical Y.
X@>Y 30 Term X follows term Y.
X@>=Y 30 Term X follows or is identical to term Y.
[Car|Cdr] or [1,2,3] 7 As a term, a list ( [] is the null list.)
.(Car, Cdr) 7 As a term, a list, de-sugared
[F1,F2,...] 3, 22 Perform the consult(s) for files F1, F2,..
[-F1,-F2,...] 3, 22 Perform the reconsult(s) for files F1, F2,..
[X] 26 Evaluates to X, if X is an integer.
!
C-Prolog syntax
Meta-symbols:
{} for grouping, | for "or", /* for comments */
* for 0-n occurences, ? for 0-1, + for 1-n
----- micro-level -----
term = constant | variable | compound-term
constant = number | atom
number = sign? digit+ rest-of-number
sign = plus | minus
atom = atom-character character*
| single-quote character+ single-quote
atom-character = lowercase-letter | most-special-characters
variable = named-variable | anon-variable
named-variable = uppercase-letter character*
| underline character+
anon-variable = underline
compound-term = functor arg-list | operator-expr
/* User-defined or built-in.
Some of the built-ins are
arithmetic, not logical. */
functor = atom
arg-list = (argument {, argument}* )
argument = term
operator-expr = prefix-op | postfix-op | infix-op
prefix-op = operator argument
postfix-op = argument operator
infix-op = argument operator argument
operator = functor /* see page 9 for built-ins */
----- macro-level -----
program = clause+
clause = {positive-clause | negative-clause} period
positive-clause = unit-clause | nonunit-clause
unit-clause = head
head = literal
literal = predicate arg-list?
predicate = functor
nonunit-clause = head body
body = :- disjunct {; disjunct}*
disjunct = conjunct {, conjunct}*
conjunct = goal
goal = literal | (clause) /* can nest with parens */
negative-clause = query
query = body
(or directive)
procedure for P = set of clauses for whose head the functor is P
!
Prolog data types form a half-lattice:
term
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
nonvar simple
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
literal atomic var
/ \ (constant) |\
/ \ / | \ | \
/ \ / | \ | \
/ \ / | \ | \
compound \ / | \ | \
term \ / | \ | \
\ / | \ | \
atom number DB-ref named anonymous
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
integer float
-------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂10-Jun-86 0656 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 06:56:35 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 10 Jun 86 09:56:35-EDT
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1986 09:56 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12213703387.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
We'd better make some firm plans for meetings in and around the Lisp
conference, if we intend to have any. RPG has tentatively scheduled a
meeting on Object-Oriented stuff on the afternoon of Aug 6, after the
conference ends. What else do we need? A meeting among ourselves (as
many as are presnt in Boston)? Some sort of formal session having to do
with X3J13? An open Q&A session for interested members of the public?
Any sort of session during the conference itself? (Probably too late to
schedule that now.) The only big free slot seems to be Tuesday night,
and if we don't move soon, people will have firm travel plans that will
preclude anything before or after.
-- Scott
∂10-Jun-86 0656 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 06:56:47 PDT
Date: 10 Jun 1986 06:56-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]10-Jun-86 06:56:06.MATHIS>
PRIVATE MESSAGE
I have just returned from the EuLisp meeting in Bath, England, on
June 2, 1986. I have three reports which I will send to you from
that meeting. One is a two page summary, another is a preprint of
their paper for the August Lisp Conference, and the third is a
draft of their proposal. These are hard copy documents so I need
regular mailing addresses. I have good addresses for Fahlman,
Gabriel, Moon, Ohlander, Squires, and Weinreb (in the mail this
afternoon). Anybody else who wants copies should give me a good
mailing address.
The first two discuss their subsetting idea as mostly a
definitional approach to defining their level-2 language, which
should be very much like Common Lisp. There was very little talk
of implementing their level-0 (sort of like Scheme), but there
did seem to be some concern about implementations and useability
of their level-1. The meeting brought out some disagreement
between the members of the group about doing things the Common
Lisp way or doing things the "right" way. When an ISO group is
formed, some Common Lisp decisions will have to be revisited in
forming a consensus, but don't be surprised if a lot of the
Europeans back the existing Common Lisp approach (and of course
others oppose it). The ones who wanted to change a lot of things
did not seem to have very strong support within the group (but
remember they were on their good behavior for a foreign visitor).
The third report is the beginning draft of their proposal. This
is a very private document of theirs which they must have assumed
I would circulate, but I wouldn't want to make a big deal about
it. It was mainly drafted by Herbert Stoyan of Erlangen, Germany.
Some parts of it have evidently been lost in electronic
transmission and editing. They hope to have it finished by their
next meeting (early July) and have it available at the August
Lisp meeting in Boston. There is some real anti-Common Lisp
phrasing in it, to which a number of the people at the meeting
objected.
Attendance: Jeff Dalton (AI Appls Inst, Edinburgh); John Fitch
(Univ of Bath); Timm Krumnack (Krupp-Atlas Elecktronik, Germany);
Eugen Neidl (Lab de Marcoussis, France, they are building a Lisp
machine); Andy Norman (Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol, England);
Julian Padget (Univ Bath); Pete Richards (Systems Designers,
Surrey, England, really representing the Symbolics Users Group);
Herbert Stoyan (Univ of Erlangen, Germany); John Sturdy (Univ
Bath, grad student); Quyen Tran (AFNOR, France); Sam Valentine
(Systems Designers, Surrey, England, representing POPLOG); John
Williams (Univ of Sussex, doing Lisp for POPLOG); and Robert
Mathis.
Chailloux was not able to be there. Fitch and Stoyan seemed to be
the leaders of the revisionist group. Padget seemed more neutral.
Dalton seemed more of the Common Lisp defender. The industry
people were mostly listeners. There was very little technical
discussion (but the agenda had been set up that way). I was
there more to listen, but it was clear to me that some of their
arguments were weak (and conversely some were not). The sooner
we can start meeting together, the sooner all of you can begin to
work on them (and vice versa).
I still have to work out the ISO convenorship thing with
Chailloux and France. I have talked with him on the phone since
the meeting. There seems to be a real feeling of exclusion of
Europeans from the Common Lisp decision making. We will need to
expand our committees and we need to think of other ways to
include them.
-- Bob Mathis
∂10-Jun-86 0735 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD Lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 07:35:17 PDT
Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 07:32:55-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213710014.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Today is the final lunch until Fall. Come one! Come all! MJH 146 at 12:15.
-------
∂10-Jun-86 0742 @GUIDO.THINK.COM:gls@AQUINAS.THINK.COM Mailing address
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 10:42 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Mailing address
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]10-Jun-86 06:56:06.MATHIS>
Message-Id: <860610104253.5.GLS@GUIDO.THINK.COM>
Guy L. Steele Jr.
Thinking Machines Corporation
245 First Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
(617)876-1111
∂10-Jun-86 0935 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA Pierre is at LOTS
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Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 09:31:42-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Pierre is at LOTS
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Pierre is at LOTS. Please direct your messages about things that are not
working, etc. to me or the appropriate bug list.
thanks...rich
-------
∂10-Jun-86 0943 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
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Date: 10 Jun 86 09:31 PDT
Sender: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
In-reply-to: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA's message of 10 Jun 86 06:56 PDT
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)
Message-ID: <860610-093149-1794@Xerox>
Mailing Address
Daniel G. Bobrow
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Road
Palo Alto, Ca 94304
US
-- danny
∂10-Jun-86 0943 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Plans for Lisp Conference
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Date: 10 Jun 86 09:33 PDT
Sender: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Plans for Lisp Conference
In-reply-to: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>'s message of Tue,
10 Jun 86 09:56 EDT
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)
Message-ID: <860610-093310-1800@Xerox>
I can be around on Thursday, if necessary after the Lisp conference.
-- danny
∂10-Jun-86 1229 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Plans for Lisp Conference
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 12:29:06 PDT
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 15:23 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12213703387.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860610152336.0.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Perhaps we should have a (prepared) announcement, to the attendees,
simply explaining what the present state of things is. I'd imagine
there'd be some interested people who do not have access to the
Common-Lisp mailing list, and there isn't any good was to disseminate
status information to them. We'd have to keep it short, in order to fit
into the conference schedule, and in deference to all the functional
programming mathematicians who don't care about Common Lisp anyway.
We'd also have to be careful about what we say vis a vis European
involvement and any other such touchy subjects.
∂10-Jun-86 1256 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 10 Jun 86 15:55:57-EDT
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1986 15:55 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12213768800.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
In-reply-to: Msg of 10 Jun 1986 09:56-EDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
Bob,
I'm glad to hear that you survived the encunter at Bath. I'd be
interested in your views on whether the Eulisp group is going to hang
together once they get into hard choices. How deep are the splits?
A couple of reactions to your note:
When an ISO group is
formed, some Common Lisp decisions will have to be revisited in
forming a consensus, but don't be surprised if a lot of the
Europeans back the existing Common Lisp approach (and of course
others oppose it). The ones who wanted to change a lot of things
did not seem to have very strong support within the group (but
remember they were on their good behavior for a foreign visitor).
I've got no problem with revisiting some Common Lisp decisions. There's
never any harm in talking about things. I will have a big problem with
changing any of these decisions on purely aesthetic grounds. If the
Europeans intend to ignore the effect of changes on existing code and
implementations, then no consensus will be possible, since their goals
for this effort are fundamentally incompatible with ours.
There seems to be a real feeling of exclusion of
Europeans from the Common Lisp decision making.
The Europeans were excluded from the initial Common Lisp design process
for three reasons: (1) Lousy netmail connections to Britain at the time,
and none to the continent, (2) nobody over there expressed any interest
in participating, (3) it didn't occur to anyone in our group to seek out
possible European players. That's all history now; it can't be changed.
We should continue to empahsize that any Europeans who subscribe to our
goal of refining and standardizing the existing Common Lisp design
(perhaps by developing a multi-level spec) are more than welcome to
participate and, if it is someone with a sufficient reputation, to be on
the technical or steering committee.
We should continue to emphasize that if their goals are fundamentally
incompatible with ours, they are welcome to develop their own separate
language, as long as they don't try to stop us from doing what we need
to do.
We should be willing to talk about any changes they want to make, but
should make clear that we are not going to condier changes without
considering their cost to existing users and implementors.
What more can we do? As far as I'm concerned, Chailloux is welcome to
join the technical committee whenever he wants to, but not if he doesn't
agree with its goals.
-- Scott
∂10-Jun-86 1316 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 13:16:10 PDT
Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 13:11:40-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213771682.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As Phyllis is out sick - would those planning to meet with Vijay Vazirani
tomorrow (June 11) please respond to me (including those that have already
responded to Phyllis).
Thanks,
Anne
---------------
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Date: 06 Jun 86 1608 PDT
From: Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Vijay Vazirani will talk on `Randomized Reducibilities'.
Wednesday, June 11, 1986, 1:30 in
Faculty are urged to make appointments to meet with him,
as he is being considered for a position here.
-------
∂10-Jun-86 1353 ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 16:54:05 EDT
From: Alan Bawden <ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: EuLisp meeting in Bath -- Private Message
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-reply-to: Msg of 10 Jun 1986 06:56-PDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
Message-ID: <[AI.AI.MIT.EDU].54621.860610.ALAN>
[ Cc'd to cl-steering for the benefit of anyone else who might have reason
to be collecting our addresses... ]
Alan Bawden
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Room NE43-723
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 253-8843
∂10-Jun-86 1449 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades (again)
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Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 14:43:27-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: grades (again)
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213788390.26.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
This is to remind you that I need grades as soon as possible.
The very-desperately-needed grades are the ones on the orange
grade sheets. The less-desperately-needed-grades are on the blue
grade sheets. Please keep in mind that the sooner I get the orange
grades, the easier it is for everyone to graduate on time and all
that good stuff.
If your grades are laready in, thanks, and you can ignore this
message.
-Gina
-------
∂10-Jun-86 1449 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades (again)
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Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 14:43:27-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: grades (again)
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213788390.26.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
This is to remind you that I need grades as soon as possible.
The very-desperately-needed grades are the ones on the orange
grade sheets. The less-desperately-needed-grades are on the blue
grade sheets. Please keep in mind that the sooner I get the orange
grades, the easier it is for everyone to graduate on time and all
that good stuff.
If your grades are laready in, thanks, and you can ignore this
message.
-Gina
-------
∂10-Jun-86 1548 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
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Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 15:42:00-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>:]
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213799050.17.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We are also looking for those wishing to participate either in lunch or in
dinner with Vijay Vazirani tomorrow.
-Anne
---------------
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Received: from SU-AI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Fri 6 Jun 86 16:12:52-PDT
Date: 06 Jun 86 1608 PDT
From: Phyllis Winkler <PHY@SU-AI.ARPA>
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
SPECIAL SEMINAR
Vijay Vazirani will talk on `Randomized Reducibilities'.
Wednesday, June 11, 1986, 1:30 in
Faculty are urged to make appointments to meet with him,
as he is being considered for a position here.
-------
∂10-Jun-86 1607 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Connection Machine
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 16:07:18 PDT
Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 15:47:41-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Connection Machine
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA, stan@SRI-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12213800082.38.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There is a possibility that Stanford/SRI together could get a
Connection Machine through DARPA. I had previously sounded a few
people out about whether or not they (as PIs) were going to be
proposing to DARPA research that would require or benefit from having
a Connection Machine. I believe I'm correct in summarizing
responses by saying that people thought they would in fact make good
use of one if it were here, but that they didn't plan to propose to
buy one or to base their research centrally around one.
Stan Rosenschein at SRI has been talking to Steve Squires (DARPA) and
Marvin Denicoff (Thinking Machines) about the possibility of getting
a machine. Stan has some research involving robot control, and also
there is some vision research at SRI; both projects are anxious to
use a Connection Machine. DARPA thinks that a combined SRI/Stanford
proposal would have a good chance of getting funded and that the funds
would not subtract from other research projects that DARPA would otherwise
fund. (The Connection Machine money is in some sense "new money.")
Unless someone at Stanford wants to play a lead role in proposing to
obtain a Connection Machine, it seems to me appropriate for us to
support Stan in his attempts to get one. For us to "support Stan"
means that there would have to be some faculty members here who have
some ideas of what they would do with such a machine if it were
in the area---that is, if it were at SRI. I suspect that having such
a machine around might be useful to a number of projects; I can think
of some things I would like to do with it.
Please let me know if you have ideas for the use of such a machine
(with a cc to Stan Rosenschein, stan@sri-ai). Thanks, -Nils
-------
∂10-Jun-86 1907 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 10 Jun 86 22:06:38-EDT
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1986 22:06 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12213836291.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
In-reply-to: Msg of 10 Jun 1986 15:23-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Well, if it is just going to be an announcement of what has happened,
maybe we can print up a bunch of fliers to be handed out with the
registration material and not waste people's time by having someone read
this aloud. Given that things have kind of slipped and it is now rather
late, maybe we should just have whatever internal meetings we need, plus
the object-oriented meeting that Dick already proposed. But I believe
that Bob Mathis wants to do some sort of official X3J13 thing while most
of the potentially-interested parties are nearby.
-- Scott
∂10-Jun-86 2122 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu MFCS 1986, Bratislava
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From: ottmann%germany.csnet%germany.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
To: theory <@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA:theory@CRYS.WISC.EDU>
Subject: MFCS 1986, Bratislava
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 10 Jun 86 22:28:12 CDT (Tue)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
INFORMATION BULLETIN POZOR! Ma sa tlacit!
Vybrat pismena, medzery,
urobit rozlozenie textu
TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
=========================================================================
M F C S '86
MATHEMATICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
COMPUTER
SCIENCE
AUGUST 25 - 29, 1986
BRATISLAVA
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
ASSOCIATION OF SLOVAK
MATHEMATICIANS AND PHYSICISTS
SLOVAK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
The International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science
M F C S '86
is the twelfth in the series of MFCS symposia organized in Czechoslovakia
and Poland.
The aim of these symposia is to bring together specialists in theoretical
fields of computer science from various countries and to stimulate mathe-
matical research in theoretical computer science.
The scope of the conference includes the main theoretical aspects of computer
science, such as algorithms and data structures, models of computation, com-
plexity and computability theory, automata and formal languages, theory of
logical design and layout of VLSI systems, parallel and distributed computing,
cryptography, semantics and logic of programs, theory of data bases and know-
ledge based systems, theory of robotics and artificial intelligence.
In accordance with tradition, the scientific program of the symposium will
include 15 invited talks covering areas of current interest and 49 short
communications selected by the Program Committee on the basis of originality
and relevance from a total of 115 submitted papers.
The symposium is being organized by the Association of Slovak Mathematicians
and Physicists of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the
following institutions:
Komensky University, Bratislava; Institute of Technical Cybernetics of the
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; VUSEI-AR, Bratislava; Computing Centre
of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; Purkyne University, Brno;
Safarik University, Kosice; Charles University, Prague; Slovak Technical Uni-
versity, Bratislava.
SYMPOSIUM CHAIRMAN
Branislav Rovan
PROGRAM CHAIRMAN
Jozef Gruska
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
A. Adachi /Tokio/, G. Ausiello /Rome/, E. Boerger /Pisa/, L. Budach
/Berlin/, J.W. de Bakker /Amsterdam/, A.P. Ershov /Novosibirsk/,
R. Freivalds /Riga/, T. Gergely /Budapest/, J. Gruska /Bratislava/,
I. Guessarian /Paris/, P. Hajek /Prague/, M. Nivat /Paris/, T. Ottmann
/Karlsruhe/, F.P. Preparata /Urbana/, H. Rasiowa /Warsaw/, B. Rovan
/Bratislava/, A. Salomaa /Turku/, I.H. Sudborough /Richardson/,
J. van Leeuwen /Utrecht/, E. Wagner /Yorktown Heights/, W. Wechler
/Dresden/, J. Wiedermann /Bratislava/, D. Wood /Waterloo/
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Z. Bousa, A. Cerny /secretary/, Z. Durayova, J. Gruska, J. Hromkovic
/secretary/, S. Hudak, V. Jankovic, E. Kubincova, P. Mikulecky, B. Rovan,
P. Ruzicka, H. Stefanova, I. Vrto, J. Wiedermann
SECRETARIAL OFFICE
MFCS '86
Department of Theoretical Cybernetics
Komensky University
Mlynska dolina
842 15 BRATISLAVA
Czechoslovakia
Telephone: 320 003
Telex: 093502
AUGUST 25
=========
8.45 - 9.00 Opening
MORNING - INVITED PAPERS
Chairman: R.M. Burstall
9.00 - 9.45 J. Hopcraft /Ithaca/:
The promise of electronic prototyping
Coffee Break
10.15 - 11.00 J. Tiuryn /Warsaw/:
Higher-order arrays and stacks in programming and application
of complexity theory to logics of programs
11.15 - 12.00 M. Broy /Passau/:
Particial interpretations and higher order abstract types
AFTERNOON - CONTRIBUTIONS
Session A:
----------
Chairman: P. van Emde Boas
14.15 - 14.35 H. Alt /Hildesheim/, T.Hagerup, K. Melhorn /Saarbruecken/,
F.P. Preparata /Urbana/:
Simulation of idealized parallel computers on more
realistic ones
14.45 - 15.05 B. Becker /Saarbruecken/:
Efficient testing of optimal time adders
15.15 - 15.35 S.P. Jukna /Vilnius/:
Lower bounds on the complexity of local circuits
Coffee Break
16.05 - 16.25 J. Hromkovic /Bratislava/:
A new appproach to defining the communication complexity
for VLSI
16.35 - 16.55 S. Bublitz, U. Schurfeld /Frankfurt a. M./, B. Voigt /Bielefeld/,
I. Wegener /Frankfurt a. M./:
Properties of complexity measures for PRAMs and WRAMs
17.05 - 17.25 L. Steiger, W. Nehrlich /Berlin/:
The centers of context-sensitive languages
Session B:
----------
Chairwoman: I. Guessarian
14.15 - 14.35 D. Mery /Metz/:
A proof system to derive eventuality properties under
justice hypothesis
14.45 - 15.05 M.A. Abdallah /London, Canada/:
Al-Khowarizmi: A formal system for higher-order logic
programming
15.15 - 15.35 S. Graf /St. Martin d'Heres/:
A Complete intereference system for an algebra of regular
acceptance model
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 E. Cazanescu /Bucharest/:
Iterative systems of equations
16.35 - 16.55 Z.W. Ras /Knoxville/, M. Zemankova /Charlotte/:
Learning in knowledge based systems, a probabilistic approach
17.05 - 17.25 E. Astesiano, G. Reggio /Geneva/, M. Wirsing /Passau/:
Relational specifications and observational semantics
EVENING - SOCIAL PROGRAM
19.00 Welcome party
AUGUST 26
=========
MORNING - INVITED PAPERS
Chairman: I.H. Sudborough
9.00 - 9..45 P. van Emde Boas /Amsterdam/:
A semantical model for integration and modularization
of rules
Coffee break
10.15 - 11.00 O. Ibarra /Minneapolis/:
Systolic arrays: techniques and complexity
11.15 - 12.00 K. Hirose /Waseda/:
An approach to proof checkers
AFTERNOON - CONTRIBUTIONS
Session A:
----------
Chairman: J. Hopcroft
14.15 - 14.35 T. Gundermann, G. Wechsung /Jena/:
Nondeterministic Turing machines with modified acceptance
14.45 - 15.05 K.-J. Lange /Hamburg/:
Two characterization of the logarithmic alternation
hierarchy
15.15 - 15.35 Ch. Meinel /Berlin/:
A characterization of the L-NL problem in Sipsers
constant-depth, polynomial-size hierarchy
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 K. Kriegel /Berlin/:
The space complexity of the accessibility problem for
undirect graphs with log n bounded genus
16.35 - 16.55 H. Fleischhack /Dortmund/:
P-genericity and strong P-genericity
17.05 - 17.25 I. Korec /Bratislava/:
Undecidable problems concerning generalized Pascal triangles
of commutative algebras
17.30 - 17.55 A. Kucera /Prague/:
An alternative, priority-free, solution to Post's problem
Session B:
----------
Chairman: M. Broy
14.15 - 14.35 P. Spirakis /Patras/:
The parallel complexity of deadlock detection
14.45 - 15.05 B. Gamate /Rennes/:
Safe implementation equivalence for asynchronous
nondeterministic processes
15.15 - 15.35 B. Rozoy /Caen/:
Model and complexity of termination for distributed
computations
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 R.R. Howell, E. Rosier /Austin/:
An analysis of the nonemptiness problem for classes of
reserval-bounded multicounter machines
16.35 - 16.55 V. Geffert /Kosice/:
Grammars with context dependency restricted
to synchronization
17.05 - 17.25 H. Vogler /Leiden/:
The OI-hierarchy is closed under control
AUGUST 27
=========
MORNING - INVITED PAPERS
Chairman: T. Ottmann
9.00 - 9.45 R.M. Burstall /Edinburgh/:
Type checking and volume in "Pebble"
Coffee break
10.15 - 11.00 M. Chytil /Prague/:
Kins of context-free languages
11.15 - 12.00 D.T. Lee /Evanston/:
Geometric location problems and their complexity
AFTERNOON - TRIP
14.00 - 17.00 Trip
EVENING - SPECIAL TALK
Chairwoman: H. Rasiowa
20.00 G. Hotz /Saarbruecken/:
Complexity in natural Sciences
AUGUST 28
=========
MORNING - INVITED PAPERS
Chairman: M. Chytil
9.00 - 9.45 J. von zur Gathen /Toronto/:
Parallel arithmetic computations
Coffee break
10.15 - 11.00 J. Berstel /Paris/:
Recent results in the theory of rational sets
11.15 - 12.00 S. Micali /Cambridge/:
Title to be announced
AFTERNOON - CONTRIBUTIONS
Session A:
----------
Chairman: A. Salomaa
14.15 - 14.35 K. Culik /Waterloo/, J. Karhumaki /Turku/:
The equivalence of finite valued transducers is decidable
14.45 - 15.05 V. Koubek, A. Riha /Prague/:
Regular augmentation of automata and transducers
15.15 - 15.35 M. Chrobak, W. Rytter /Warsaw/:
Unique decipherability for partially commutative alphabet
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 W. Kuich /Vienna/:
Matrix systems and principal cones of algebraic power series
16.35 - 16.55 F. Romian, J. Sakarovitch /Paris/:
One-sided Dyck reduction over two letter alphabet and deter-
ministic contex-free languages
17.05 - 17.25 Z. Esik, F. Gecseg /Szeged/, P. Doemoesi, J. Virag /Debrecen/:
Homomorphic realization of automata with composition
Session B:
----------
Chairman: G. Hotz
14.15 - 14.35 B. Durian /Zilina/:
Quicksort without a stack
14.45 - 15.05 S. Dvorak /Roznov p. R./, B. Durian /Zilina/:
Towards an efficient merging
15.15 - 15.35 T. Fisher /Berlin/:
Refined bounds on the complexity of sorting and selection
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 L.Kolar /Bratislava/:
Optimal sorting of seven element sets
16.35 - 16.55 J. Tarhio, E. Ukkonen /Helsinki/:
A greedy algorithm for constructing shortest common superstrings
17.05 - 17.25 F. Hinz /Aachen/:
Regular chain code picture languages of non-linear descriptional
complexity
EVENING - SOCIAL PROGRAM
19.00 Conference dinner
AUGUST 29
=========
MORNING - INVITED PAPERS
Chairman: D. Wood
9.00 - 9.45 H. Ehrig /West-Berlin/:
Algebraic theory of module specification with constrains
Coffee break
10.15 - 11.00 R. Freivalds /Riga/, F. Ablaev /Kazan/:
Why sometimes probabilistic algorithms can be more effective
11.15 - 12.00 J.I. Munro /Waterloo/:
Developing implicit data structures
AFTERNOON - CONTRIBUTIONS
Session A:
----------
Chairman: G. Wechsung
14.15 - 14.35 V. Rutenburg /Stanford/:
Complexity of generalized graph coloring
14.45 - 15.05 A. Goralcikova, V. Koubek /Prague/:
Some improved parallelism for graphs
15.15 - 15.35 L. Kucera /Prague/, A. Marchetti-Spaccamela, M. Protasi,
M. Talamo /Roma/:
Near optimal algorithms for finding minimum Steiner trees on
random graphs
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 K. Diks /Warsaw/:
A fast parallel algorithm for six-colouring of planar graphs
16.35 - 16.55 A. Hemmerling /Greifswald/:
Remark on the power of compass
17.05 - 17.25 A. Weber, H. Seidl /Frankfurt a. M./:
On the degree of ambiguity of finite automata
Session B:
----------
Chairman: A. Adachi
14.15 - 14.35 Th. Fisher, K. Wolfrum /Berlin/:
On the inherent combinatorial complexity of geometric problems
in d-dimensional space
14.45 - 15.05 P. Flajolet /Rocquencourt/:
The evolution of two stacs in bounded space and random walks
in a triangle
15.15 - 15.35 W. Skarbek /Tripoli/:
Generating ordered trees
Coffee break
16.05 - 16.25 Ch. Frougny /Paris/:
Fibonacci numeration systems and rational functions
16.35 - 16.55 A.L. Chistov /Leningrad/:
Polynomial complexity of the Newton-Puiseux algorithm
17.05 - 17.25 I. Kramosil /Prague/:
On some types of pseudorandom sequences
I N F O R M A T I O N
---------------------
LOCATION
--------
The symposium will be held at Druzba - congress centre of the Komemsky Univer-
sity, nabrezie gen. L. Svobodu 33, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
REGISTRATION OFFICE
-------------------
The registration office will be located in the lobby of the Druzba congress
centre /telephone 321 968/ and will be open from 9.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m.
on Sunday, August 24 and from 8.00 a.m. to 12.00 a.m. on Monday, August 25.
TRANSPORTATION
--------------
Only few international flights land at Bratislava. The nearest international
airports are Prague, Vienna /Austria/, and Budapest /Hungary/. Bratislava can
be reached from Prague by air, by train or by bus /the ticket reservation is
necessary in this case/; from Vienna by bus /directly from Vienna airport/ or
by train; from Budapest by train.
One can get to Druzba centre from the air terminal "Reduta" by tram No 4 or
12, from the main railway station by tram No 1. From the bus terminal take bus
No 30 to its terminal "Most SNP" and then change for tram No 4 or 12.
A municipal transport ticket costs Kcs 1,-- and it can be bought in the railway
station hall, in the bus terminal hall or in one of the wending machines at
important bus or tram stops.
A taxi from the airport to Druzba costs about Kcs 80,--.
ACCOMMODATION AND MEALS
-----------------------
All participants will be accomodated at the Drusba congress centre of the
Komensky University. The rooms are of double and triple occupancy. The lodging
is reserved from Sunday, August 24 evening, till Saturday, August 30 morning.
Daily rates are from Kcs 180 /$ 18/ to Kcs 270 /$ 27/ for double room and
Kcs 180 /$ 18/ for triple room. There is a limited number of single rooms
available with daily rates from Kcs 175 /$ 17.50/ to Kcs 262 /$ 26/.
The cost for two meals /breakfast and lunch/ per day for each participant and
for one meal /breakfast/ per day for each accompanying person, covering also a
cold dinner on Sunday, August 24, is included in the registration fee. The first
breakfast will be served on Monday, August 25, the last meal will be the break-
fast on Saturday, August 30. If you wish to be served other meals during the
symposium /lunches, dinners/ please apply for them at the presentation.
REGISTRATION FEE
----------------
The registration fee amounts to Kcs 1150 /$ 115/ if paid before June 10, 1986,
and Kcs 1400 /$ 140/ after this date. The registration fee for every accom-
panying adult is Kcs 350 /$ 35/ if paid before June 10, and Kcs 450 /$ 450/
after this date.
The registration fee covers all materials, the social program, refreshments
in breaks between sessions, breakfasts, and lunches. The registration fee for
accompanying persons covers the social program and breakfast only.
REGISTRATION
------------
Those wishing to participate in the MFCS '86 symposium should pay the registra-
tion fee and accommodation, complete the enclosed registration card and mail it
together with the certification of remittance to the secretarial office to reach
it not later than June 15, 1986. Registration will be confirmed.
The number of participants is limited and the Organizing Committee reserves the
right of replacing anyone who does not return his registration card by June 15
by another person on the waiting list. Those who have received the registration
card but cannot attend the symposium are kindly requested to return the blank
registration card at their earliest convenience.
PAYMENT
-------
Checks should be made payable to
Ceskoslovenska obchodna banka
Bratislava
Account: JSMF 101848-019, VS 258.
Participants from the countries with convertible currency are required to pay
the fees in US dollars or in an equivalent currency. Czechoslovak participants
should follow the instructions on the attached sheet.
REFUNDS
-------
If the cancellation is received before August 1, 1986 80 % of the accommodation
fee and the registration fee except Kcs 200 /$ 20/ will be refunded. No refund
can be made to participants cancelling after August 1, 1986. They will obtain
the symposium documentation by mail.
VISA AND EXCHANGE
-----------------
A Czechoslovak entry visa is necessary for visitors from most countries. Each
participant who needs a Czechoslovak visa should apply for it as soon as
possible to the Czechoslovak Embassy preferably in the country of residence.
Should there arise any difficulties in obtaining the Czechoslovak visa the
Organizing Committee should be notified immediately /preferably by cable/.
Each participant will be sent an invitation voucher immediately after the
photocopy of the remittance certification reaches the secretarial office.
Please, present the invitation voucher when applying for Czechoslovak entry
visa and when crossing the Czechoslovak border, to be exempted from the obli-
gatory money exchange.
S O C I A L P R O G R A M
---------------------------
All participants and accompanying persons are invited to take part in the
following activities:
PARTIES
-------
Monday, August 25, 7.00 p.m.
Welcome party
Bratilava Castle
/evening dress desirable/
Thursday, August 28, 7.00 p.m.
Conference dinner
folk wine-tavern "Velki Frantiskani"
TRIP
----
Wednesday, August 27, 2.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m.
Bus tour around the places of historical interest
in Bratislava and visit of the ruin of the ancient
Devin Castle
PROGRAM FOR ACCOMPANYING PERSONS
--------------------------------
The following program is intended for registered accompanying persons provided
there is a sufficient interest:
Tuesday, August 26, 9.00 a.m. - 4.00 p.m.
Bus tour to Lednice - a South Moravian castle
from the 13th century with collections of
paintings and historical furniture and visit
to the beautiful surroundings
Wednesday, August 27, 2.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m.
Trip
Thursday, August 28, 10.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m.
Bus tour to Carpathian region - a traditional
hiring and leisure place near Bratislava,
visit to "Robber Cottage" inn.
PROCEEDINGS
-----------
The proceedings of the symposium will be published by Springer-Verlag as a
volume of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Each registered participant
will receive a copy upon presentation. Additional copies may be ordered direct-
ly from Springer-Verlag.
PRESENTATION
------------
For the oral presentation an overhead projector /two for invited lectures/
25 x 25 cm, a slide projector 5 x 5 cm, and a blackboard will be available.
The language of the symposium is English.
CLIMATE
-------
In late August the temperature ranges between 17 C /63 - 77 F/ during the day
and the weather tends to be stable and sunny, but be prepared for possible rain.
FROM THE HISTORY
----------------
Bratislava is one of the oldest cities in Europe. Its favourable position on
Danube, at an important trade routes crossing, resulted in a permanent settle-
ment very early. The first written reference to "Brezelauspurc" is found in
connection with the battle of 907. Following the fall of the Great Moravian
Empire the Castle of Bratislava became one of the most important border strong-
holds of the new Hungarian state. The cultural activity of the city in the
Middle Ages culminated in the founding of the university Academia Istropolitana
in 1465. Following the defeat of Hungarians by Turks in 1526 Bratislava became
the capital and coronation city of Hungarian kings. In 1919 Bratislava became a
part of the new Czechoslovak republic. Today, Bratislava with 400 000 inhabi-
tants is the capital of Slovakia.
--------------
TN Message #48
--------------
∂10-Jun-86 2303 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:binford@su-whitney.arpa Connection Machine
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jun 86 23:03:08 PDT
Received: from su-whitney.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 10 Jun 86 23:00:23-PDT
Received: by su-whitney.arpa with Sendmail; Tue, 10 Jun 86 23:01:28 pdt
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 23:01:28 pdt
From: Tom Binford <binford@su-whitney.ARPA>
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, stan@SRI-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Nils Nilsson's message of Tue 10 Jun 86 15:47:41-PDT
Subject: Connection Machine
There may be some possibility which is limited by the
separation.
We certainly have use for a connection machine in our
computer vision and mobile robot research. I don't know
whether how useful it would be at SRI. The prime use for
us is for real time operations. We could use it only on canned
data at SRI since the bandwidth between the two sites is low.
Even that would not be very useful since we need to display
output, which could only be done with low bandwidth.
∂11-Jun-86 0135 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #19
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 01:35:16 PDT
Date: Tuesday, June 10, 1986 10:22AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #19
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Wednesday, 11 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 19
Today's Topics:
Implementation - DIFD & Standardization,
Behavior & Assert & Higher Order Predicates,
LP Library - Benchmarks
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 9:53:31 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%cam.cl@ucl-cs>
Subject: Iterative Deepening Parallel Prolog (Digest V4 #16)
I have been experimenting with an iterative deepening
parallel system for several weeks together with Hyan
Alshawi. Complexity results are not as favourable as those
cited in the AI Journal article (mentioned in previous
Prolog Digest). We are currently writing up our results
and will keep you informed if you're interested.
-- William Clocksin
Cambridge, England.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 86 17:32:03 GMT
From: Chris Moss <cdsm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Prolog Standardization
Several people have asked me about the Prolog standard,
so I thought I would circulate some information.
A committee has been running for somewhat more than a
year now, and we are hoping to produce a draft for
comments by September of this year. It broadly follows
Clocksin & Mellish but we are trying to clean it up and
add a few important features such as modules. The French
standards body AFNOR also has a committee and we are in
joint consultation with them. The ISO committee SC/22 is
looking at AI languages - i.e. LISP & Prolog - but are
leaving the lead on Prolog to the BSI (British Standards
Institution) and will probably ask them to lead the
working group. ANSI has evidently no interest in
standardizing Prolog.
The secretary of the British Standards committee for
Prolog is
Roger Scowen,
National Physical Laboratory,
Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW
U.K.
Mail address: krg0@alvey.uk
Phone: (1) 977 3222 Ext 6956
Anyone who wants to keep in touch with what the working
group is doing can write to Roger and ask to be put on
the mailing list and is asked to make a contribution
towards the (voluminous) paperwork. There are several US
companies coming to meetings.
-- Chris Moss
Imperial College, London.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jun 86 00:19:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!reddy@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Standard behavior?
/* Written 6:10 pm Jun 1, 1986 by blenko@burdvax.UUCP*/
So the discussion reduces to establishing the logical or
non-logical character of call() and negation-by-failure().
I will speculate that the meaning of call() can be captured
by a suitable application of first-order logic, due to its
definition in terms of constructive proofs (I have something
along the lines of Perlis' AIJ (1985) article in mind here).
I am side-stepping the problem of incompleteness of logic
programming interpreters w.r.t resolution.
-- Tom
/* End of text from uiucdcs:net.lang.prolog */
We should be careful about what we mean by negation-by
failure. If it is applied to ground atoms, it is certainly
logical (see for example Lloyd's book). But when it is
applied to non-ground atoms, it messes up with the
quantification of variables in the atoms. Hence, it should
not be surprising that it is possible to define cut etc
using it.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 86 12:35:35 GMT
From: Saumya Debray <Debray%suny-sbcs@csnet-relay>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful? (extension tables)
> When I look at the logic [of an income tax planning
> system], I find it's doing the same analysis over and
> over for certain legal conclusions that are really
>"facts" for other rules to deal with.
...
> Once I've determined that T1 controls T2, should I
> "asserta" that as a fact, so it no longer needs to
> take much time?
As Jean-Francois Lamy mentioned, "assert" is an overkill
if all one wants is the ability to remember what's already
been proved. One of the features in the Prolog system
we're developing at Stony Brook is the ability to declare
that certain predicates should have "extension tables"
or "recall tables" maintained. This is basically a table
where each entry is of the form < Call, [Return←1, ...,
Return←k] >. Any call to that predicate is first looked
up in the table: if a return value is already present, the
call can return immediately with the appropriate answer
without having to recompute it; otherwise, the call is made,
and if/when it returns, this <call, return> pair is entered
in the table for later use. The idea is similar to that of
"memo functions" (though the implementation is quite a bit
more complex). While the implementation of the extension
table facility uses assert, this is of no concern to the
programmer, who can continue to write pure code.
-- Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 86 17:35:31 GMT
From: Jamie Andrews <Andrews@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
I would say that if your only interest in Prolog is
as a programming language with neat features like
backtracking and logic variables, then by all means
go ahead and use "assert" and "retract". Just be
aware of how they affect the control flow in the
program.
It should be of little concern to applications
programmers that these features destroy the declarative
reading of the program, unless they have to prove to
their bosses that their applications are rigourously
correct. However, there are ways of implementing global
variables and assert-and-retract-like behaviour in a
completely declarative setting; see Shapiro's papers
about concurrent Prolog and message-passing. (The
object-oriented approach Shapiro advocates also explains
I/O nicely.)
--Jamie.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 16:19:37 mdt
From: ted%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: Aggregation and the use of assert/retract
Aggregate as described in the previous Prolog Digest
is a perfectly reasonable higher order function, but
it can be written more economically as follows:
aggregate(Var,Goal,Total) :-
findall(Var,Goal,List),
reduce(add,0,List,Total).
add(X,Y,Z) :- Z is X+Y.
reduce(Combiner,Initial,[],Initial).
reduce(Combiner,Initial,[First|More],Total) :-
reduce(Combiner,Initial,More,SubTotal),
Z =.. [Combiner,First,SubTotal,Total],Z.
The pertinent points are that aggregate/3 will handle
Goal's of any arity in the same way that findall does,
and that reduce is a higher order function will produce
products, sums or other arbitrary binary reductions of
a list.
Specific uses of aggregate include,
aggregate(taxablecapitalgain(fred,1986,Tax),Tax, Aggr).
As far as the use of assert's and retract's is concerned,
the verdict is not yet in as to whether they are the
logic programmer's vice corresponding to goto's, but
their are specific coding practices which make them much
less confusing. In particular, it is generally good
practice to never assert/retract any clauses that are in
the original source code. Thus,
% set up some shortcuts
assert(is←foo(a)),assert(is←foo(d)),assert(is←foo(f))...
... other code ...
foo(X) :- is←foo(X). % check for shortcut
foo(X) :- compute←fooness(X),assert(is←foo(X)).
... other code ...
cleanup :- retractall(is←foo/1).
is the preferable usage. These practices have the
following benefits:
a) cleanup is guaranteed to restore the program to
the initial state; there is no confusion about
which clauses have been added and which preexisted.
b) versions of prolog which require declarations for
dynamic procedures are much happier with this style
of coding. Quintus prolog is one such implementation.
c) the famous brain dead prolog (turbo prolog) allows
only facts to be asserted/retracted and sometimes
vomits when the distinction between facts and rules
is muddied.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 13:13:01 mdt
From: ted%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: higher order predicates and reduction
% defined below are two predicates which provide the general
% reduction capability referred to in a recent Prolog Digest.
% Please feel free to comment on or poke fun at them.
%
% typical idioms using reduce and fast←reduce would be things
% like
%
% findall(Tax,taxable←income(fred,86,Tax),S),
% reduce(0,Sum is Left+Right,Left,Right,S,Sum),
% write(total←income(Sum)),nl.
%
% or
%
% add←up(A,B,C) :- C is A+B.
% findall(Tax,taxable←income(fred,86,Tax),S),
% fast←reduce(0,add,S,Sum),
% write(total←income(Sum)),nl.
%
% reduce(Initial,Reduction,Left,Right,List,Result)
%
% this higher order predicate produces the general
% reduction of List. Reduction is an expression containing
% Left,Right and Result. If List is empty, then Initial is
% returned, otherwise the reduction of the tail of List is
% computed and unified with Right, the head of List is
% unified with Left and Result is computed using Result.
%
% Unfortunately, at each level of recursion, reduce must
% form 4 new variables with the same inter-relationships
% shown by Reduction, Left, Right and Result.
% trivial case, return the initial value
reduce(Initial,←Reduction,←Left,←Right,[],Initial).
% in fancier cases do some reduction work
reduce(Initial,Reduction,Left,Right,[First|More],Result) :-
% checked for safety
var(Left),var(Right),var(Result),
% produce a new copy of the reduction
change([Left,Right,Result],[Nleft,Nright,Right],Reduction,Nred),
% reduce the remainder of the list with the new variables
reduce(Initial,Nred,Nleft,Nright,More,Right),
% couldn't do this before the call to change
Left = First,
% do the actual reduction
Reduction.
% perform a change of variables in a general structure
change(Old,New,In,Out) :-
var(In),!, % is the just a variable?
change←var(Old,New,In,Out). % handle it as special case
% from here on, we dont worry about variables too much
change(←Old,←New,[],[]). % trivial list is unchanged
change(Old,New,[F|M],[Fs|Ms]) :-
change(Old,New,F,Fs), % change first
change(Old,New,M,Ms). % change the rest
change(←Old,←New,Atom,Atom) :- % atoms are unchanged
atom(Atom),!.
change(Old,New,Term,Nterm) :- % terms are
Term =.. List, % decomposed into lists,
change(Old,New,List,Nlist), % changed,
Nterm =.. Nlist. % and reconstituted
% unification can screw us up in this predicate
change←var([],[],In,In). % trivial case
% found a substitution
change←var([Old|←],[New|←],F,New) :-
F == Old. % test must use ==, not
unification
% not found, but we still
have hope
change←var([←|Old],[←|New],In,Out) :-
change←var(Old,New,In,Out).
% fast←reduce(Initial,Op,List,Result)
%
% fast←reduce is a faster version of reduce which
% sidesteps the need to explicitly produce a new
% instantiation of the reduction by forcing the user
% to provide a reduction in a standardized form.
% Op is assumed to be a predicate with three
% arguments, those being the left and right operands
% of the reduction, and the result respectively.
fast←reduce(Initial,←,[],Initial).
fast←reduce(Initial,Op,[Left|More],Result) :-
% reduce the tail of the list
fast←reduce(Initial,Op,More,Right),
% and add in the head
% Z(Left,Right,Result) is the desired result
Z =.. [Op,Left,Right,Result],Z.
------------------------------
Date: Sat Jun 7 22:56:59 1986
From: Herm Fischer <hermix!fischer@rand-unix.ARPA>
Subject: Turbo prolog
Attached to the end of this message are two files,
"lips", which I swiped from the net and modified for
UNSW, and after that, "lips.turbo" which include the
modifications for Turbo Prolog (mostly declaring the
types of the predicates, and changing the cputime
calls... Maybe you or one of the readers can spot
any goofs I did in making the routines up... I'll
attach, after "lips" and before "lips.turbo" a unix
diff of the two just in case it helps...
I've now succeeded in porting an application to Turbo
Prolog; this is a program which accepts a Prolog
database describing a graphical picture of the structure
of an Ada program (using Ray Buhr's notation from
"System Design with Ada"). The program uses some
simple rules to generate templates of Ada code
representing the top level real time tasking structure
and packaging structure of the corresponding Ada code.
This is a back end to a graphics editor I'm productizing...
Impressions:
(1) The UNSW version of my program was an unstructured mess.
(Done by a grad student, but not carefully reviewd for style
by me.) Having to declare types for the predicates forced
me to clean up the code, and make predicate parameters
consistent. It seemed difficult but the resulting program
is still "almost" UNSW compatible, but much cleaner.
("Almost" means that to be accepted by UNSW Xenix/Unix
versions a SED script is needed to strip off the strong
typing declarations, change ";" or's into "|" or's,
findall to bagof, and some other very very minor trivia.)
(2) The interpreted version translates code slowly; as
you watch the Ada coming out on the screen it seems to be
around a few lines per second of generated Ada. On the PC
Convertible Laptop, the same code gets output to a disk
file in basically an eyeblink (or writes to screen at
screen write speed). That's fast!
(3) I finally figured out how to get findall (ersatz bagof)
to build lists of data structures; you need to declare a
"type" domain for the data structure and then it will work
(e.g., findall(X,f(X),L) where X is a structure such as
f(data←str(A,B,C)) :- ...). My sloppy stuff was doing
findall([A,B,C],(f(A),g(B),h(C)),L) stuff, which wouldn't
pass the compile-time typing checks ...
(4) As much as I like Unix, debugging prolog under unix
means vi/emacs-ing some predicates, tracing them, re-editing
them, etc, with a hard-copy of the listing in my lap. Under
Borland, you have multiple windows (like on a lisp machine),
with one viewing traces, one having the cursor step its way
through the source and include files, and another receiving
the standard out (write predicates). It's very nice, and
seems to be a sort of incremental compiler. Even getting
error messages from the compiler is pain-free, because the
message is in the text-editor window of the source code,
you correct it, hit a function button and it continues
compiling. Thats quite removed from going back into a text
editor on Unix to fix code, then tracing, etc...
-- Herm Fischer
----cut here for lips (UNSW Unix version)-----
% File : LIPS.PL
% Author : Micha Meier unido!ecrcvax!Micha@seismo
% Purpose : Testing the speed of naive reverse and
% quicksort of an arbitrary long list.
% On systems without reals it is necessary
% to multiply I (inferences no.) by the
% time unit, e.g. 1000 if cputime is in
% miliseconds.
ticks←per←sec(X) :-
X is 1000 / 18.
test :- write('list length : '),
read(X),
conslist(X, List),
% T1 is cputime,
cputime(T1),
nreverse(List, ←),
% T2 is cputime,
cputime(T2),
T is T2 - T1,
ticks←per←sec(Ticks),
I is (X*(X+3))/2 + 1,
LIPS is I/T*Ticks,
write(' LIPS of naive reverse: '),
write(LIPS),
nl,
% T3 is cputime,
cputime(T3),
qsort(List, ←, []),
% T4 is cputime,
cputime(T4),
TT is T4 - T3,
II is (X*(X+5))/2 + 1,
LIPS1 is II/TT*Ticks,
write(' LIPS of quicksort (reverse order): '),
write(LIPS1),
nl,
% T5 is cputime,
cputime(T5),
qsort1(List, ←, []),
% T6 is cputime,
cputime(T6),
TTT is T6 - T5,
III is (X+1)*(X+1),
LIPS2 is III/TTT*Ticks,
write(' LIPS of quicksort (ordered): '),
write(LIPS2),
nl.
nreverse([], []).
nreverse([X|L0],L) :- nreverse(L0, L1),
concatenate(L1, [X], L).
concatenate([], L, L).
concatenate([X|L1], L2, [X|L3]) :- concatenate(L1, L2, L3).
conslist(0, []) :- !.
conslist(N, [N|L]) :-
N1 is N-1,
conslist(N1, L).
qsort([X|L], R, R0) :-
partition(L, X, L1, L2),
qsort(L2, R1, R0),
qsort(L1, R, [X|R1]).
qsort([], R, R).
partition([X|L], Y, [X|L1], L2) :-
X < Y,
!,
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition([X|L], Y, L1, [X|L2]) :-
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition([], ←, [], []).
qsort1([X|L], R, R0) :-
partition1(L, X, L1, L2),
qsort1(L2, R1, R0),
qsort1(L1, R, [X|R1]).
qsort1([], R, R).
partition1([X|L], Y, [X|L1], L2) :-
X > Y,
!,
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition1([X|L], Y, L1, [X|L2]) :-
partition1(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition1([], ←, [], []).
-------(cut here for diff lips lips.turbo)------
1,7c1,9
< % File : LIPS.PL
< % Author : Micha Meier unido!ecrcvax!Micha@seismo
< % Purpose : Testing the speed of naive reverse and
< % quicksort ofan arbitrary long list.
< % On systems without reals it is necessary
< % to multiply Iquicksort ofquicksort of
< % quicksort of (inferences no.) by the time
< % unit, e.g. 1000 if cputime
< % is in miliseconds.
> /*
> File : LIPS.PL
> Author : Micha Meier unido!ecrcvax!Micha@seismo
> Purpose : Testing the speed of naive reverse and
> aquicksort of n arbitrary long list.
> On systems without reals it is necessary
> to multiply I (inferences no.) by the time
> unit, e.g. 1000 if cputime is in miliseconds.
> */
8a11,12
> domains
> list = integer*
9a14,28
> predicates
> test
> ticks←per←sec(integer)
> cputime(integer)
> nreverse(list,list)
> concatenate(list,list,list)
> conslist(integer,list)
> qsort(list,list,list)
> partition(list,integer,list,list)
> qsort1(list,list,list)
> partition1(list,integer,list,list)
> null
>
> clauses
>
11c30
< X is 1000 / 18.
---
> X = 100.
13,14c32,37
< test :- write('list length : '),
< read(X),
---
> cputime(T) :-
> time(←,M,S,F),
> T = ((M mod 4)*3600)+(S*100)+F.
>
> test :- write("list length : "),
> readint(X),
16d38
< % T1 is cputime,
19d40
< % T2 is cputime,
21c42
< T is T2 - T1,
---
> T = T2 - T1,
23,25c44,46
< I is (X*(X+3))/2 + 1,
< LIPS is I/T*Ticks,
< write(' LIPS of naive reverse: '),
---
> I = (X*(X+3))/2 + 1,
> LIPS = I/T*Ticks,
> write(" LIPS of naive reverse: "),
28d48
< % T3 is cputime,
31d50
< % T4 is cputime,
33,36c52,55
< TT is T4 - T3,
< II is (X*(X+5))/2 + 1,
< LIPS1 is II/TT*Ticks,
< write(' LIPS of quicksort (reverse order): '),
---
> TT = T4 - T3,
> II = (X*(X+5))/2 + 1,
> LIPS1 = II/TT*Ticks,
> write(" LIPS of quicksort (reverse order): "),
39d57
< % T5 is cputime,
42d59
< % T6 is cputime,
44,47c61,64
< TTT is T6 - T5,
< III is (X+1)*(X+1),
< LIPS2 is III/TTT*Ticks,
< write(' LIPS of quicksort (ordered): '),
---
> TTT = T6 - T5,
> III = (X+1)*(X+1),
> LIPS2 = III/TTT*Ticks,
> write(" LIPS of quicksort (ordered): "),
60c77
< N1 is N-1,
---
> N1 = N-1,
71a89
> null, /* turbo bug kludge */
85a104
> null, /* turbo bug kludge */
-------(cut here for lips.turbo)------
/*
File : LIPS.PL
Author : Micha Meier unido!ecrcvax!Micha@seismo
Purpose : Testing the speed of naive reverse and
quicksort of an arbitrary long list.
On systems without reals it is necessary
to multiply I (inferences no.) by the
time unit, e.g. 1000 if cputime is in
milliseconds.
*/
domains
list = integer*
predicates
test
ticks←per←sec(integer)
cputime(integer)
nreverse(list,list)
concatenate(list,list,list)
conslist(integer,list)
qsort(list,list,list)
partition(list,integer,list,list)
qsort1(list,list,list)
partition1(list,integer,list,list)
null
clauses
ticks←per←sec(X) :-
X = 100.
cputime(T) :-
time(←,M,S,F),
T = ((M mod 4)*3600)+(S*100)+F.
test :- write("list length : "),
readint(X),
conslist(X, List),
cputime(T1),
nreverse(List, ←),
cputime(T2),
T = T2 - T1,
ticks←per←sec(Ticks),
I = (X*(X+3))/2 + 1,
LIPS = I/T*Ticks,
write(" LIPS of naive reverse: "),
write(LIPS),
nl,
cputime(T3),
qsort(List, ←, []),
cputime(T4),
TT = T4 - T3,
II = (X*(X+5))/2 + 1,
LIPS1 = II/TT*Ticks,
write(" LIPS of quicksort (reverse order): "),
write(LIPS1),
nl,
cputime(T5),
qsort1(List, ←, []),
cputime(T6),
TTT = T6 - T5,
III = (X+1)*(X+1),
LIPS2 = III/TTT*Ticks,
write(" LIPS of quicksort (ordered): "),
write(LIPS2),
nl.
nreverse([], []).
nreverse([X|L0],L) :- nreverse(L0, L1),
concatenate(L1, [X], L).
concatenate([], L, L).
concatenate([X|L1], L2, [X|L3]) :- concatenate(L1, L2, L3).
conslist(0, []) :- !.
conslist(N, [N|L]) :-
N1 = N-1,
conslist(N1, L).
qsort([X|L], R, R0) :-
partition(L, X, L1, L2),
qsort(L2, R1, R0),
qsort(L1, R, [X|R1]).
qsort([], R, R).
partition([X|L], Y, [X|L1], L2) :-
X < Y,
!,
null, /* turbo bug kludge */
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition([X|L], Y, L1, [X|L2]) :-
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition([], ←, [], []).
qsort1([X|L], R, R0) :-
partition1(L, X, L1, L2),
qsort1(L2, R1, R0),
qsort1(L1, R, [X|R1]).
qsort1([], R, R).
partition1([X|L], Y, [X|L1], L2) :-
X > Y,
!,
null, /* turbo bug kludge */
partition(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition1([X|L], Y, L1, [X|L2]) :-
partition1(L, Y, L1, L2).
partition1([], ←, [], []).
null.
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂11-Jun-86 1015 DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Plans for Lisp Conference
Received: from SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 10:15:14 PDT
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 13:16 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12213836291.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860611131606.2.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Yes, I think you're right. Having such a handout sounds like a good
idea. Maybe a lot of the text from it can be taken from some of the
mail that you've already written, that you distributed to Common-Lisp.
∂11-Jun-86 1137 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH - Matt Ginsberg
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 11:37:41 PDT
Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 11:27:30-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH - Matt Ginsberg
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 11-Jun-86 11:27:30.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POSSIBLE WORLDS PLANNING
Matt Ginsberg (SJG@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 16
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
The size of the search space is perhaps the most intractable of all of
the problems facing a general-purpose planner. Some planning methods
(means-ends analysis being typical) address this problem by
encouraging the system designer to give the planner domain-specific
information (perhaps in the form of a difference table) to help govern
this search.
This paper presents a domain-independent approach to this problem
based on the examination of possible worlds in which the planning goal
has been achieved. Although a weak method, the ideas presented lead
to considerable savings in many examples; in addition, the natural
implementation of this approach has the attractive property that
incremental efforts in controlling the search provide incremental
improvements in performance. This is in contract to many other
approaches to the control of search or inference, which may require
large expenditures of effort before any benefits are realized.
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1141 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Plans for Lisp Conference
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 11:41:40 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 11 Jun 86 14:41:18-EDT
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1986 14:41 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214017347.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
In-reply-to: Msg of 11 Jun 1986 13:16-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
OK, so far we've got an informational handout, RPG's proposed meeting
on object-oriented stuff (which he should announce ASAP), and nothing
more. We committee types can meet informally, I guess. I can see
several conference sessions I wouldn't mind skipping.
Is there anything else? A question and answer session might be more
trouble than it is worth. A formal X3J13 meeting may or may not be
required at this time.
-- Scott
∂11-Jun-86 1409 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Plans for Lisp Conference
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 14:09:42 PDT
Date: 11 Jun 1986 13:16-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Plans for Lisp Conference
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]11-Jun-86 13:16:55.MATHIS>
There cannot be anything official for X3J13 since its first
meeting is to be September 23 and 24 in Washington. I was
planning to have a handout or some other kind of information
about that meeting. Scott and I should probably make a single
page (front and back) write-up that would give the status and
invite appropriate participation. We could talk about its
contents over the net and then Scott and I could finalize it near
the end of July. (I plan to be in Pittsburgh July 21-25.)
The EuLisp people think they are having a meeting in Boston and
when we talked about plans I got the feeling they wanted it to be
a joint meeting. If you add the Japanese, we're talking thirty
or more people -- that's too many for last minute arrangements.
If Tuesday night is available and meets most of our schedules, we
should go with it. The first decision is a time. The EuLisp
people still hadn't made their arrangements either. I'm hoping
that we will get together in small groups throughout the
conference to meet with people and explain what we are doing, but
I think we are going to need an organized group meeting too.
-- Bob
∂11-Jun-86 1410 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 14:10:02 PDT
Date: 11 Jun 1986 13:39-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]11-Jun-86 13:39:33.MATHIS>
About the possibility of changing things in Common Lisp. Lots of
notations in mathematics were pretty arbitrary initially, but now
no one would think of changing them. The same applies to some
decisions in Common Lisp. (I think most of the decisions were
well founded and convincing arguments for them just need to be
reexplained; I'm talking about the weakest decisions.) At this
point the argument has to be much stronger than "this is the way
it should have been done originally" -- all these kind of
decisions have to be considered in their time context.
One topic that came up at the Bath meeting and on the net is the
relationship between NIL and () and their CAR, CDR, symbolp, etc.
[This was just a side comment when we had a break for coffee, so
I didn't get everything.] I would be at a loss to explain why
things are the way they are except to say that as people wrote
programs these were convenient ways for it to work and now that's
just the way people write programs.
I view standardization as very practical and related to the
marketplace, it is not language (re)design.
-- Bob
∂11-Jun-86 1410 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Japanese and European participation
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 14:10:25 PDT
Date: 11 Jun 1986 14:00-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Japanese and European participation
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]11-Jun-86 14:00:24.MATHIS>
From Japan we may need to include a number of people. Ida seems
connected into the standards establishment. That is not the same
as being the most influential for Common Lisp's acceptance in a
broader community. From all our talk it seems we want Ida and
some others. I think we should invite Ida to participate and
help us find the other appropriate people.
I think we should invite Chailloux to join us too. It would be
appropriate for Scott to correspond with him or phone him to talk
about what's involved. There may be a couple of other Europeans,
but let's start with Chailloux. He'll be concerned about a
willingness to discuss the "European view" and trying to blunt US
dominance. [About US dominance -- I pointed out in a low key way
that the US was prepared to participate very actively in any ISO
language standardization effort and that having a European
convenor was not the way, necessarily, to smooth things out. I
tried to portray myself as about the most acceptable neutral
broker that they were likely to get.]
We need to do something on both the Japanese and European
participation. Since we expect most of the people we are
considering to be at the Boston meeting, we should have invited
their participation before then. We should have another round of
commenting on the net that concludes with the rest of you saying
"Bob and Scott do it."
-- Bob
∂11-Jun-86 1421 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Xerox Tour/Presentation
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 14:21:49 PDT
Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 14:18:47-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Xerox Tour/Presentation
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12214046044.25.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Nils received an invitation from Xerox to participate in a tour and
presentation of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center on Wednesday, July 16
starting at 8:30 a.m. and concluding with a luncheon from noon to 1:30 p.m.
This event is to include Engineering Deans, Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science Department Heads and Career Planning Directors from
Cal Poly, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford and San Jose State.
Nils will be unable to attend this event and would like to offer this
opportunity to interested faculty. If interested, please contact me
(Richardson@score). I will need to RSVP to Xerox by June 25.
-Anne
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1449 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 14:49:21 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 11 Jun 86 17:32:58-EDT
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1986 17:32 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214048576.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 11 Jun 1986 16:39-EDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
Since you ask about the NIL business, the dual identity of NIL as both a
symbol and a list, and the business about CAR and CDR of NIL being legal
(both evaluate to NIL), this is a useful but terribly ugly hack. It is
useful because you can use lists as data structures and access, for
example, the CADDR of a list, even if that list has been truncated and
has no CADDR under the old rules. The problem is that once people start
using this hack, it is very hard to fix up their code not to use it.
You never are sure that you've found all the places where the assumption
comes into play.
The feature first appeared in Interlisp, I think. It was adopted in
Maclisp sometime in the mid-70's so that Interlisp code could be
imported more easily, and the convention speard from there onto the Lisp
machine (though there was a switch on the Lisp Machine to disable this
feature).
We debated for many months whether to get rid of this overloading of NIL
and to split up the concepts of NIL and the empty list into separate
items. This was one of the few decisions that almost tore the Common
Lisp effort apart. Finally, we decided that we would go with the status
quo in Maclisp, ugly as it was, so that people moving old code to Common
Lisp would not be driven crazy by subtle bugs. This was traumatic for
all of us -- the first of many victories of pragmatism over beauty. I
doubt that a proposal to re-open this question would get very far; there
has been too much blood spilled on both sides of the issue.
-- Scott
∂11-Jun-86 1537 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Calendar, June 12, No. 20
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 15:37:37 PDT
Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 14:55:33-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Calendar, June 12, No. 20
To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
June 12, 1986 Stanford Vol. 1, No. 20
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
←←←←←←←←←←←←
CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, June 12, 1986
12 noon TINLunch
Ventura Hall No TINLunch
Conference Room
2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar
Ventura Hall Ordinals and Mathematical Structure
Trailer Classroom Chris Menzel (Menzel@csli)
3:30 p.m. Tea
Ventura Hall
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall No colloquium
Room G-19
--------------
ANNOUNCEMENT
Please note that as in past years, CSLI will not have regularly
scheduled Thursday activities during the summer months. The last
regularly scheduled events will be held Thursday, June 12, 1986.
Events will resume next September. The CSLI calendar will also be
suspended for the summer.
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1538 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:Zaenen.pa@Xerox.COM [Zaenen.pa: [jacobs%kbsvax.tcpip@ge-crd.arpa: upcoming talk]]
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jun 86 15:38:11 PDT
Received: from Xerox.COM by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Wed 11 Jun 86 15:28:20-PDT
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 11 JUN 86 15:27:59 PDT
Date: 11 Jun 86 15:27 PDT
From: Zaenen.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: [Zaenen.pa: [jacobs%kbsvax.tcpip@ge-crd.arpa: upcoming talk]]
To: FRIENDS@SU-CSLI.ARPA, folks@su-csli.arpa,linguists@su-csli.arpa
Message-ID: <860611-152759-1389@Xerox>
NOTE THE FOLLOWING PUBLIC TALK OF THE LEXICAL PROJECT:
monday June 16th at 10 a.m. in Ventura Hall
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Jacobs:
Language Analysis in Not-so-Limited Domains
A fundamental problem in natural language analysis is the quantity of
specialized knowledge that appears necessary to understand language
in a particular domain. Interfaces for specialized domains have proven
successful, yet the amount of engineering required to develop these
interfaces is often prohibitive. A design which takes advantage of
general as well as specialized knowledge impacts both the portability
of the natural language interface and the ease with which the interface
can be extended within the domain.
Two aspects of language analysis systems are of particular importance
with respect to this extensibility and adaptability. The first is the
design of the lexicon, and the manner in which specialized lexical knowledge
is handled. The second is in the method by which knowledge is combined
during semantic interpretation. This combination, called concretion,
uses specialized lexical knowledge to guide the semantic interpretation
process.
Paul Jacobs
∂11-Jun-86 1539 admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU UCB Cognitive Science Speaker--Petr Sgall--6/17, 2:00
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 15:25:47 PDT
From: admin%cogsci@berkeley.edu (Cognitive Science Program)
Message-Id: <8606112225.AA20361@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU>
To: allmsgs@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU, cogsci-friends@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU,
seminars@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: UCB Cognitive Science Speaker--Petr Sgall--6/17, 2:00
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Summer 1986
Cognitive Science Speaker
Tuesday, June 17, 2:00 p.m.
Building T-4, Old Library
``Topic, focus, and their semantic relevance''
Petr Sgall
Charles University, Prague
Abstract
Within a dependency-based description, the articulation of
the sentence into topic and focus, as well as the hierarchy of
communicative dynamism (deep word order), can be represented in
a relatively simple way suitable for typologically different
languages. The description allows for the underlying sentence
representations to be immediately included in the description
of discourse patterns. The topic-focus articulation is respon-
sible for semantic differences concerning the scope of quantif-
iers and of negation, as well as a holistic reading of some
sentences. It is argued that these representations make it
possible to proceed toward logical representations of different
kinds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ELSEWHERE ON CAMPUS
Petr Sgall will also be speaking in the Linguistics Department
(642-2757) and the Department of Slavic Languages and Litera-
ture (642-2979). Please call those departments for details.
∂11-Jun-86 1551 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Japanese and European participation
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Date: 11 Jun 1986 15:48-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Japanese and European participation
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]11-Jun-86 15:48:27.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]11-Jun-86 14:00:24.MATHIS>
Bob,
I certainly trust your and Scott's judgement. Go to it.
Ron
P.S. What are the dates of the Lisp Conference that we are all
talking about?
∂11-Jun-86 1632 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades
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Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 16:25:49-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: grades
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12214069168.18.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I still need many many grades for graduating students.
Ideally, I'd like them today -- but first thing tomorrow
morning is good too. (Please no later than 10:00am).
Thanks.
-Gina
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1632 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA grades
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Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 16:25:49-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: grades
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12214069168.18.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I still need many many grades for graduating students.
Ideally, I'd like them today -- but first thing tomorrow
morning is good too. (Please no later than 10:00am).
Thanks.
-Gina
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1637 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA imagen vs. lineprinter
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Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 16:28:56-PDT
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: imagen vs. lineprinter
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
It cost virtually nothing to print a page on the lineprinter compared
to what it costs on the imagen. Please, whenever possible, use the
lineprinter. It's a wonderful machine. It works fast. It goes chugachuga
chuga in a most pleasing way when it spits out your copy. Your pages
come nicely connected which prevents getting them out of order. And
use of the lineprinter helps prevent heartburn--namely mine, when I look
at the monthly user-usage records for the imagen which Rich is now
supplying.
-------
∂11-Jun-86 1702 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 16:47:51 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper recieved
To: nail@diablo
"On the Computation of the Transitive Closure of Relational Operators"
Y. E. Ioannidis, Berkeley.
Seems to use the method of repeated squaring to compute TC.
By the way, don't forget that the meeting tomorrow is at 1:30PM,
not 11AM. 301 is the room.
---jeff
∂11-Jun-86 2015 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu AEGEAN WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING (AWOC'86) :URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 17:24:09 cdt
From: Fillia Makedon <makedon%utd-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: udi%rsch.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: AEGEAN WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING (AWOC'86) :URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 11 Jun 86 19:13:58 CDT (Wed)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
AEGEAN WORKSHOP ON COMPUTING (AWOC'86) :URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT
The local organizing committee of AWOC'86 (Loutraki, Greece, July 8-11)
has asked me to distribute the following urgent message:
l. All those persons interested in participating in the VLSI algorithms
and architectures workshop (AWOC'86) this summer must send in as soon
as possible, via EXPRESS MAIL their registration for the conference and the
hotel. It is expected that there will be an increased number of tourists
(mainly Europeans) who will visit Greece this summer, and especially in
July. Hotels in the area are already fully booked and it will be almost
impossible finding a room in the town of Loutraki. Hotel reservations for
the conference hotel (Poseidon) must be sent in Special Delivery or
phoned in: 011-3061-273496 / 225073 and then mailed in later. If this is
not done, you cannot be guaranteed a room.
2. The hotel prices listed in the final announcement include:
5 nights and all three meals, not 3 nights as mistakingly quoted at
an earlier message.
3. The tremendous tightening of airport security in Greece, as well as the
fact that it is one of the few European touristic spots where radioactivity
has had a little effect, has made it one of the obvious choices for European
tourists. Please notify colleagues who you know are interested in attending
AWOC but have not sent in their registration yet.
--------------
TN Message #49
--------------
∂12-Jun-86 0331 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #20
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Date: Wednesday, June 11, 1986 11:16AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #20
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 12 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 20
Today's Topics:
Query - Reversibility of LP,
Implementation - Assert & Vars,
Announcement - SLP '86 Schedule
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 18:14:07 pdt
From: Tom Dietterich <tgd%oregon-state.csnet@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject: Reversibility of logic programs
I am a newcomer to the Prolog Digest, so please excuse me
if I am raising an issue previously discussed.
Does anyone know of any work on the issue of "reversibility"
of logic programs? Everyone who first encounters Prolog is
intrigued by the way that "append" can compute any one of
its arguments given the other two. Clocksin and Mellish
call this "relational programming" and it is indeed a
powerful form of programming. I'd be interested in pointers
to any papers (or previous issues of Prolog Digest) that
discussed necessary or sufficient conditions for program
reversibility and any hints on good programming style for
reversible programs. [It is clear that efficiency must be
a consideration in any definition of reversibility, because
I can make any Prolog program reversible by placing
generators in front of it that generate all possible
bindings for its missing variables and then just use the
program to test for correctness.]
Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 86 12:15:15-EDT (Tue)
From: Zerksis Umrigar <Zerksis%syr-cis-aos.csnet@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
A discussion of using assert in a manner which preserves logical
semantics can be found in "Introduction to Logic Programming" by
Christopher Hogger, pp. 120-124. (Incidentally, this book also
contains a very readable introduction to Prolog implementation).
There is one application for which I have found non-logical
assert/retract absolutely necessary. This is when a procedure
A wishes to analyze the cause of failure for procedure B. A
solution is to have B assert its reason for failure into the
database. Then when A realizes that B has failed, it retrieves
the reason for failure from the database.
I encountered this situation when I used staged-dfs (appears
similar to the DFID algorithm being discussed in this Digest)
to build a Prolog type interpreter F-Prolog (Symp. on Logic
Programming, 85) for full first-order logic. When some
procedure failed, I asserted whether it was a "real" failure
or a "control" failure (because of the current depth-bound
being exceeded). The top-level interpreter could then decide
whether it was worthwhile to increase the depth-bound.
-- Zerksis
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 1986 06:35-EDT
From: Vijay.Saraswat@k.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: The value of variables.
Uday: What can I say? You are asking for an
enumeration of that is easy in logic programming
languages!
1] The value of variables in working memory.
It is instructive to regard the current resolvent
as working memory, rules as productions that may
key on single WMEs, the Prolog firing rule as a
varient of SAL, the conflict-resolution strategy
that orders instantiations by recency of elements,
and then salience of productions (where salience
is a total ordering defined by clause-ordering)
and unification as pattern-matching WMEs to
LHS elements in rules. Moreover, there are
natural notions of success (empty working
memory), failure (no instantiation for in
conflict set for latest WME) and backtracking
(remove the production instantiation chosen
last, and try the Conflict resolution
strategy again).
(Many authors have noted this analogy.)
This analogy is even more helpful when the
oversequential commitment in Prolog is
avoided. Concurrent logic programming
languages such as CP[!,|,&], with the
notion of extended clauses, which is simply
negative hyperresolution, and the data-
type bags (enabled by AC-unfication)
easily give a computational mechanism that
may be used either for forward- or for
backward-chaining. See my thesis proposal
for more details.
There are some very interesting programs that
may be written because variables now exist
in working memory. For example COnstraint
language programs a la Steele, may really be
thought of as production system programs:
but they work only if variables are allowed in
working memory. There is a natural notion of
expressing algebraic manipulations of sub-networks
naturally using extended clauses: again possible
only because of variables in WM.
2] Variables for (variant of) DISJOINT FIND-SAME UNION.
Variables may be used if the following operations are
desired:
Given n distinct elements, each initially in their
own set, the operations are:
1] FIND-SAME: Determine if two given elements are
in the same set. (X==Y)
2] UNION two (possibly same) sets. (X=Y)
FIND-SAME/UNION has a large number of applications.
(NOte that FIND-SAME/UNION may be implemented in
linear time on a sequential machine using the
linear unification algorithm, rather than
O(n.G(n) needed for DISJOINT FIND UNION.)
(See Umrigar's note in last Digest for the
same idea.)
Using it, we have:
THEOREM: Finding connected components of an undirected
graph is exactly as hard as variable-variable unification.
Corollary: Variable-variable unification is in NC.
(Variable-variable unfication is the unification of two
n-ary terms where the subterms are (possibly not distinct)
variables.) The best algorithm I know of currently is
due to Clyde Kruskal (thanks Deepak!) which gives linear
speed-up for P upto O(E↑(0.5 -e)) for any fixed e.
This is an important subcase, not discussed in the Dwork
et al paper on the complexity of Unification. (They do
discuss term matching and term equivalence.)
3] Use of inifinite unification for algorithms on directed
graphs.
Fast depth-first search may be done by representing a
(possibly cyclic, directed) graph as a term, with a variable
at each node, keeping a counter incremented on every visit
to a node, and unifying the counter with the variable at
the node on every visit. Time taken is O(E+V) (no looping).
Similar idea may be used to determine if two DFAs are
equivalent.
4] In general, being able to unify two variables is a pretty
powerful technique: it comes closest to the ACTOR's notion of
being able to send an ACTOR in a message. The literature on
Conc. Logic Progg. languages is full of straightforward uses
of this, which have been given catchy names (e.g. `short-circuit
technique').
For instance it helps reduce the
complexity of distributed maxima finding in a ring of
processes from O(n log n) messages to O(n) unifications,
where each unification is either a variable-term
unification or a variable-variable unification.
(See Thesis Proposal.)
5] Lastly, I offer the following (constraint-based,
concurrent, logic, CP[!,|,&]) program for the N-queens
as proof of the power of the logical variable.
Imagine the world consisting of square cells,
(each cell hvaing an i,j coordinate) linked to
each of its six neighbours by four different wires. (A wire
is a logical variable.) (An N-square board has N*N cells.)
Thus all cells in the same row
have the same wire as their horizontal wire. Ditto for
columns and diagonals (left and right). Imagine that
you have written a straightforward tail-recursive program
to spawn such a network of cells. (This program simply
spawns the network row by row,
right shifting its left diagonal wires and left-shifting
its right diagonal wires by one, each time it moves to
the next row, introducing a new logical variable at the
end each time. It keeps the vertical wires unchanged
throughout, and introduces a new horizontal wire for
each row.)
Now, to obtain a solution to the n-queens problem, we
simply have to specify the behaviour of the cell.
The behaviour is as follows:
1] Each cell may non-deterministically guess that it
has a queen. If it does, it "sends" its Row number (I)
on the Left Diagonal, Right Diagonal and Vertical
wires, and its Column number on the Horizontal wire.
(Sending simply means unifying.)
2] Each Cell, NOT ON THE MAIN LEFT DIAGONAL, may non-
deterministically decide to terminate.
3] Each cell on the main left diagonal (i=j) may
terminate ONLY IF it receives some message down its
Horizontal Wire and some messgae down its Vertical wire.
This guarantees that on successful termination, there
will be exactly N queens placed.
This is the entire program. All valid N-queen placements
may be obtained. Note that any time, any non-dominated
square may decide it has a queen. There is no inherent
sequentiality in the program.
A minor modification of this is a pure
Horn Clause specification of the N-queens problem, and
may run on a Prolog processor without looping. (In fact
it runs considerably faster than the program that
computes by arithmetic on indices whether a square is
dominated by previously placed queens, even though it is
doing exactly the same search.)
For more discussion on this, please wait for my
forthcoming thesis. (December). If you want the actual
code, send me mail.
I am afraid there may be many more examples which don't
come to mind immediately.
Cheers,
-- Vijay Saraswat
Carnegie-Mellon University
Carnegie Group Inc
------------------------------
Date: Tue 10 Jun 86 15:18:20-MDT
From: Robert Keller <Keller@UTAH-20.ARPA>
Subject: SLP '86 Schedule
SCHEDULE
SLP '86
Third IEEE Symposium on
LOGIC PROGRAMMING
September 21-25, 1986
Westin Hotel Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Conference Chairperson
Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah
Program Chairperson
Robert M. Keller, University of Utah
Local Arrangements Chairperson
Thomas C. Henderson, University of Utah
Tutorials Chairperson
George Luger, University of New Mexico
Exhibits Chairperson
Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
Program Committee
Francois Bancilhon, MCC
John Conery, U. of Oregon
Al Despain, U.C. Berkeley
Herve Gallaire, ECRC, Munich
Seif Haridi, SICS, Stockholm
Lynette Hirschman, SDC
Peter Kogge, IBM, Owego
William Kornfeld, Quintus Systems
Gary Lindstrom, University of Utah
George Luger, University of New Mexico
Rikio Onai, ICOT/NTT, Tokyo
Ross Overbeek, Argonne National Lab.
Mark Stickel, SRI International
Sten Ake Tarnlund, Uppsala University
SUNDAY, September 21
19:00 - 22:00 Symposium and tutorial registration
MONDAY, September 22
08:00 - 09:00 Symposium and tutorial registration
09:00 - 17:30 TUTORIALS (concurrent) Please see abstracts later.
George Luger Introduction to AI Programming in Prolog
University of New Mexico
David Scott Warren Building Prolog Interpreters
SUNY, Stony Brook
Neil Ostlund Theory of Parallelism, with Applications to
Romas Aleliunas Logic Programming
University of Waterloo
12:00 - 17:30 Exhibit set up time
18:00 - 22:00 Symposium registration
20:00 - 22:00 Reception
TUESDAY, September 23
08:00 - 12:30 Symposium registration
09:00 Exhibits open
09:00 - 09:30 Welcome and announcements
09:30 - 10:30 INVITED SPEAKER:
W. W. Bledsoe, MCC
Some Thoughts on Proof Discovery
11:00 - 12:30 SESSION 1: Applications
The Logic of Tensed Statements in English -
an Application of Logic Programming
Peter Ohrstrom, University of Aalborg
Nils Klarlund, University of Aarhus
Incremental Flavor-Mixing of Meta-Interpreters for
Expert System Construction
Leon Sterling and Randall D. Beer
Case Western Reserve University
The Phoning Philosopher's Problem or
Logic Programming for Telecommunications Applications
J.L. Armstrong, N.A. Elshiewy, and R. Virding
Ericsson Telecom
14:00 - 15:30 SESSION 2: Secondary Storage
EDUCE - A Marriage of Convenience:
Prolog and a Relational DBMS
Jorge Bocca, ECRC, Munich
Paging Strategy for Prolog Based Dynamic Virtual Memory
Mark Ross, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
K. Ramamohanarao, University of Melbourne
A Logical Treatment of Secondary Storage
Anthony J. Kusalik, University of Saskatchewan
Ian T. Foster, Imperial College, London
16:00 - 17:30 SESSION 3: Compilation
Compiling Control
Maurice Bruynooghe, Danny De Schreye, Bruno Krekels
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Automatic Mode Inference for Prolog Programs
Saumya K. Debray, David S. Warren
SUNY at Stony Brook
IDEAL: an Ideal DEductive Applicative Language
Pier Giorgio Bosco, Elio Giovannetti
C.S.E.L.T., Torino
17:30 - 19:30 Reception
20:30 - 22:30 Panel (Wm. Kornfeld, moderator)
Logic Programming for Systems Programming
WEDNESDAY, September 24
09:00 - 10:00 INVITED SPEAKER:
Sten Ake Tarnlund, Uppsala University
Logic Programming - A Logical View
10:30 - 12:00 SESSION 4: Theory
A Theory of Modules for Logic Programming
Dale Miller
University of Pennsylvania
Building-In Classical Equality into Prolog
P. Hoddinott, E.W. Elcock
The University of Western Ontario
Negation as Failure Using Tight Derivations
for General Logic Programs
Allen Van Gelder
Stanford University
13:30 - 15:00 SESSION 5: Control
Characterisation of Terminating Logic Programs
Thomas Vasak, The University of New South Wales
John Potter, New South Wales Institute of Technology
An Execution Model for Committed-Choice
Non-Deterministic Languages
Jim Crammond
Heriot-Watt University
Timestamped Term Representation in Implementing Prolog
Heikki Mannila, Esko Ukkonen
University of Helsinki
15:30 - 22:00 Excursion
THURSDAY, September 25
09:00 - 10:30 SESSION 6: Unification
Refutation Methods for Horn Clauses with Equality
Based on E-Unification
Jean H. Gallier and Stan Raatz
University of Pennsylvania
An Algorithm for Unification in Equational Theories
Alberto Martelli, Gianfranco Rossi
Universita' di Torino
An Implementation of Narrowing: the RITE Way
Alan Josephson and Nachum Dershowitz
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11:00 - 12:30 SESSION 7: Parallelism
Selecting the Backtrack Literal in the
AND Process of the AND/OR Process Model
Nam S. Woo and Kwang-Moo Choe
AT & T Bell Laboratories
Distributed Semi-Intelligent Backtracking for a
Stack-based AND-parallel Prolog
Peter Borgwardt, Tektronix Labs
Doris Rea, University of Minnesota
The Sync Model for Parallel Execution of Logic Programming
Pey-yun Peggy Li and Alain J. Martin
California Institute of Technology
14:00 - 15:30 SESSION 8: Performance
Redundancy in Function-Free Recursive Rules
Jeff Naughton
Stanford University
Performance Evaluation of a Storage Model for
OR-Parallel Execution
Andrzej Ciepelewski and Bogumil Hausman
Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS)
MALI: A Memory with a Real-Time Garbage Collector
for Implementing Logic Programming Languages
Yves Bekkers, Bernard Canet, Olivier Ridoux, Lucien Ungaro
IRISA/INRIA Rennes
16:00 - 17:30 SESSION 9: Warren Abstract Machine
A High Performance LOW RISC Machine
for Logic Programming
J.W. Mills
Arizona State University
Register Allocation in a Prolog Machine
Saumya K. Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
Garbage Cut for Garbage Collection of Iterative Programs
Jonas Barklund and Hakan Millroth
Uppsala University
EXHIBITS:
An exhibit area including displays by publishers, equipment
manufacturers, and software houses will accompany the Symposium.
The list of exhibitors includes: Arity, Addison-Wesley, Elsevier,
Expert Systems, Logicware, Overbeek Enterprises, Prolog Systems,
Quintus, and Symbolics. For more information, please contact:
Dr. Ross A. Overbeek
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Ave.
Argonne, IL 60439
312/972-7856
ACCOMODATIONS:
The Westin Hotel Utah is a gracious turn of the century hotel
with Mobil 4-Star and AAA 5-Star ratings. The Temple Square
Hotel, located one city block away, offers basic comforts for
budget-conscious attendees.
MEALS AND SOCIAL EVENTS:
Symposium registrants (excluding students and retired members)
will receive tickets for lunches on September 23, 24, and 25,
receptions on September 22 and 23, and an excursion the afternoon
of September 24. The excursion will comprise a steam train trip
through scenic Provo Canyon, and a barbeque at Deer Valley
Resort, Park City, Utah.
Tutorial registrants will receive lunch tickets for September 22.
TRAVEL:
The Official Carrier for SLP '86 is United Airlines, and the
Official Travel Agent is Morris Travel (361 West Lawndale Drive,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115, phone 1-800-621-3535). Special
airfares are available to SLP '86 attendees. Contact Morris
Travel for details.
A courtesy limousine is available from Salt Lake International
Airport to both symposium hotels, running every half hour from
6:30 to 23:00. The taxi fare is approximately $10.
CLIMATE:
Salt Lake City generally has warm weather in September, although
evenings may be cool. A warm jacket should be brought for the
excursion. Some rain is normal this time of year.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
SLP '86 Symposium and Tutorial Registration Coupon:
Advance symposium and tutorial registration is available until
September 1, 1986. No refunds will be made after that date. Send
a check or money order (no currency will be accepted) payable to
"Third IEEE Symposium on Logic Programming" to:
Third IEEE Symposium on Logic Programming
IEEE Computer Society
1730 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-1903
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Circle applicable items:
Symposium Registration: Advance On-Site
IEEE Computer Society members $185 $215
Non-members $230 $270
Full-time student members $ 50 $ 50
Full-time student non-members $ 65 $ 65
Retired members $ 50 $ 50
Tutorial Registration:
(circle which tutorial: "Luger", "Warren", or "Ostlund")
Advance On-Site
IEEE Computer Society members $140 $170
Non-members $175 $215
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SLP '86 Hotel Reservation Coupon:
Mail or Call: phone 801-531-1000, telex 389434
Westin Hotel Utah
Main and South Temple Streets
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
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A deposit of one night's room or credit card guarantee is
required for arrivals after 6pm.
Room Rates (circle your choice):
Westin Hotel Utah Temple Square Hotel
single room $60 $30
double room $70 $36
Reservations must be made mentioning SLP '86 by August 31, 1986
to guarantee these special rates.
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SLP '86 TUTORIAL ABSTRACTS
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROLOG INTERPRETERS AND COMPILERS
DAVID SCOTT WARREN
SUNY AT STONY BROOK
Prolog is by far the most used of various logic programming
languages that have been proposed. The reason for this is the
existence of very efficient implementations. This tutorial will
show in detail how this efficiency is achieved.
The first half of this tutorial will concentrate on Prolog
compilation. The approach is first to define a Prolog Virtual
Machine (PVM), which can be implemented in software, microcode,
hardware, or by translation to the language of an existing
machine. We will describe in detail the PVM defined by D.H.D.
Warren (SRI Technical Note 309) and discuss how its data objects
can be represented efficiently. We will also cover issues of
compilation of Prolog source programs into efficient PVM
programs.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PROLOG:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THEORETICAL
ISSUES IN AI WITH PROLOG EXAMPLES
GEORGE F. LUGER
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
This tutorial is intended to introduce the important concepts of
both Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming. To
accomplish this task, the theoretical issues involved in AI
problem solving are presented and discussed. These issues are
exemplified with programs written in Prolog that implement the
core ideas. Finally, the design of a Prolog interpreter as
Resolution Refutation system is presented.
The main ideas from AI problem solving that are presented
include: 1) An introduction of AI as representation and search.
2) An introduction of the Predicate Calculus as the main
representation formalism for Artificial Intelligence. 3) Simple
examples of Predicate Calculus representations, including a
relational data base. 4) Unification and its role both in
Predicate Calculus and Prolog. 5) Recursion, the control
mechanism for searching trees and graphs, 6) The design of search
strategies, especially depth first, breadth first and best first
or "heuristic" techniques, and 7) The Production System and its
use both for organizing search in a Prolog data base, as well as
the basic data structure for "rule based" Expert Systems.
The above topics are presented with simple Prolog program
implementations, including a Production System code for
demonstrating search strategies. The final topic presented is an
analysis of the Prolog interpreter and an analysis of this
approach to the more general issue of logic programming.
Resolution is considered as an inference strategy and its use in
a refutation system for "answer extraction" is presented. More
general issues in AI problem solving, such as the relation of
"logic" to "functional" programming are also discussed.
PARALLELISM IN LOGIC PROGRAMMING
NEIL OSTLUND
ROMAS ALELIUNAS
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
The fields of parallel processing and logic programming have
independently attracted great interest among computing
professionals recently, and there is currently considerable
activity at the interface, i.e. in applying the concepts of
parallel computing to logic programming and, more specifically
yet, to Prolog. The application of parallelism to Logic
Programming takes two basic but related directions. The first
involves leaving the semantics of sequential programming, say
ordinary Prolog, as intact as possible, and uses parallelism,
hidden from the programmer, to improve execution speed. This has
traditionally been a difficult problem requiring very intelligent
compilers. It may be an easier problem with logic programming
since parallelism is not artificially made sequential, as with
many applications expressed in procedural languages. The second
direction involves adding new parallel programming primitives to
Logic Programming to allow the programmer to explicitly express
the parallelism in an application.
This tutorial will assume a basic knowledge of Logic Programming,
but will describe current research in parallel computer
architectures, and will survey many of the new parallel machines,
including shared-memory architectures (RP3, for example) and
non-shared-memory architectures (hypercube machines, for
example). The tutorial will then describe many of the current
proposals for parallelism in Logic Programming, including those
that allow the programmer to express the parallelism and those
that hide the parallelism from the programmer. Included will be
such proposals as Concurrent Prolog, Parlog, Guarded Horn Clauses
(GHC), and Delta-Prolog. An attempt will be made to partially
evaluate many of these proposals for parallelism in Logic
Programming, both from a pragmatic architectural viewpoint as
well as from a semantic viewpoint.
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂12-Jun-86 1218 SELLS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Summer Meetings of Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure Project
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 12:18:42 PDT
Date: Thu 12 Jun 86 12:06:12-PDT
From: Peter Sells <Sells@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Summer Meetings of Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure Project
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA, linguists@SU-CSLI.ARPA, bresnan@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
sells@SU-CSLI.ARPA, zaenen.pa@XEROX.COM, zaenen@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
coleman@SU-CSLI.ARPA, iida@SU-CSLI.ARPA, jkanerva@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
zec@SU-CSLI.ARPA, johnson@SU-CSLI.ARPA, goldberg@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
abd-rabbo@SU-CSLI.ARPA, mchombo@SU-CSLI.ARPA, saiki.pa@XEROX.COM,
wescoat.pa@XEROX.COM, mco%ucbcogsci@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU,
kiparsky@SU-CSLI.ARPA, wechsler@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
dahlstro%ucbcogsci@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU,
ackerman%ucbcogsci@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU, dalrymple@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
stonham@SU-CSLI.ARPA, culy@SU-CSLI.ARPA, hong@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
droberts@SU-CSLI.ARPA, joshi@SU-CSLI.ARPA, moshi@SU-CSLI.ARPA,
yucho@SU-CSLI.ARPA, hanson@SU-CSLI.ARPA
(Apologies to those of you who recieve this message more than once.)
Annie Zaenen and I are proposing to organize a summer session of meetings
of the Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure project, whose aim will
be to investigate the cross-linguistic properties of reflexive pronouns
and, more generally, reflexive constructions. The theoretical focus will
be on the interplay between morphology, syntax, and semantics, modelled
after (but not tied to) the approach taken in the paper "Reflexivization
Variation" by Sells, Zaenen, and Zec. We feel that we have a nicely
focussed and coherent topic here, and one whose study is highly relevant to
many current theoretical proposals.
We will be reading some central papers and discussing them, but we also
hope to get original work going and/or revitalized quickly, with a view of
putting together a collection of papers that will in effect be case-studies
of reflexive constructions in a variety of languages, with a strong
theoretical content as well.
We suggest a preparatory planning meeting for 10.30 on Thursday June 26th,
(last year Thursday mornings seemed to work well) with meetings beginning
the following week and then every other week thereafter, for about 2 hours.
We encourage (and indeed cannot get anywhere without) student participation
in this working group, which promises to be very exciting. So please plan
to come, and before then, send any comments and suggestions to sells@csli.
Peter Sells
-------
∂12-Jun-86 1302 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Lisp Conference
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 13:02:05 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 12 Jun 86 15:38:59-EDT
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1986 15:10 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214284895.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Lisp Conference
So what I seem to be hearing is the following:
1. We put out an announcement letter and make it available at conference
registration. This will describe how to participate in X3J13, among
other things. Mathis and I will work on this.
2. RPG will announce the Object-Oriented session once he has worked out
the details.
3. We will find some time for all of us (at least, all who make it to
Boston) to get together. Try to keep Tuesday night open.
4. We will talk with the Eulisp people and see if they want to have a
joint meeting.
5. That's all. No other public activities related to Common Lisp.
Right?
-- Scott
∂12-Jun-86 1515 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM EuLisp
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 15:15:03 PDT
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 20854; Thu 12-Jun-86 17:32:28 EDT
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 86 17:34 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: EuLisp
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12214048576.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860612173406.7.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1986 17:32 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I doubt that a proposal to re-open this question would get very far; there
has been too much blood spilled on both sides of the issue.
Right. It's sort of a shame that so much of the recent Common-Lisp mail
has been proposals to reopen all kinds of questions. It's gotten to the
point where it's hard to find the interesting messages among all the
"Gee, why is Common Lisp like this, it really ought to be like that"
mail. I don't know what to do about this.
∂12-Jun-86 1651 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU EuLisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 16:51:31 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 12 Jun 86 19:51:03-EDT
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1986 19:51 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214335899.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 12 Jun 1986 17:34-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Right. It's sort of a shame that so much of the recent Common-Lisp mail
has been proposals to reopen all kinds of questions. It's gotten to the
point where it's hard to find the interesting messages among all the
"Gee, why is Common Lisp like this, it really ought to be like that"
mail. I don't know what to do about this.
All this will go away when we start making actual decisions on actual
issues. Idle speculation like this will get shot down early by the moderator
(me), unless the person in question makes clear that it is discussion
for the future and not aimed at the current standardization effort.
I've been trying to get everything set so that I can start putting major
amounts of time into this, but I've had a few higher-priority things to
clean up first (e.g. CMU's DARPA Basic Research proposal isn't quite
finalized yet, though it's getting very close).
Anyway, I'll start cracking the whip or pounding on the hull or whatever
I'm supposed to do RSN (Real Soon Now).
-- Scott
∂12-Jun-86 1933 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:reid@decwrl.DEC.COM opera reviews
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 19:33:46 PDT
Received: from sonora.DEC.COM by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Thu 12 Jun 86 19:31:30-PDT
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id AA10921; Thu, 12 Jun 86 19:14:33 pdt
From: reid@decwrl.DEC.COM (Brian Reid)
Message-Id: <8606130214.AA10921@saturn.DEC.COM>
Date: 12 Jun 1986 1914-PDT (Thursday)
To: faculty@score.stanford.edu
Subject: opera reviews
I want to make sure everybody sees the *rave* reviews that Iris Fraser,
a.k.a. Mrs. David Cheriton, is getting for her starring role as Adina
in "L'elisir d'Amore" at Opera San Jose. Check the Mercury-News' entertainment
section for details.
∂12-Jun-86 2234 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Common Lisp Meeting]
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 22:34:14 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 13 Jun 86 01:34:08-EDT
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1986 01:34 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214398356.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Common Lisp Meeting]
I just got this from Ida. My answer to him follows...
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 86 12:13:18+0900
From: Masayuki Ida <a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: fahlman, ida at UTOKYO-RELAY.CSNET
Re: Common Lisp Meeting
Dear Prof. Fahlman,
I will go to USA to attend Lisp conf at MIT, and to attend AAAI86.
I guess there will be a Common Lisp Meeting.
I want to attend it.
Furthermore, I want to present a short speech on the meeting about the current
status of the Common Lisp related activity in Japan.
I feel I have a resposibility to play a role of the interface between USA and Japan for the matter.
I do not know who is the best person to send this mail,
but I am sending it to you only.
Because I think you are one of the best person of Common Lisp with university
background.
If will be granted, I have the following item to speak.
1) What is our subsetting. We can distribute the copies at the speech.
2) What is our on-going decision on Kanji and string/character extension.
3) What is the current status in japan.
Last fall 1985, we made a questionnare about the CommonLisp/AI, including
a question like what language do you use, what is you opinion about Common lisp,
what langauge features are good in Common Lisp,...
We have formed AI Association from april.
We are now starting a working committee for JIS which is correspondent to
the action of ISO.
And Other things.
Can I have your frank opinion or suggestion ?
Should I ask it to other person ?
Or, I can not have a speech ?
Thank you.
Masayuki Ida
ida%utokyo-relay.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
(I can also get a mail through this return path)
∂12-Jun-86 2236 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [Fahlman: Common Lisp Meeting]
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 22:35:47 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 13 Jun 86 01:35:41-EDT
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1986 01:35 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214398638.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: [Fahlman: Common Lisp Meeting]
Date: Friday, 13 June 1986 01:32-EDT
From: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman>
To: ida%utokyo-relay.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
cc: fahlman
Re: Common Lisp Meeting
Professor Ida,
I am pleased to hear that you will be at the Lisp Conference. Those of us on
the technical and steering committees in the U.S. very much want to meet
with you to discuss what sort of formal liaison should exist between the
Japanese Common Lisp community and our group. We welcome Japanese
participation in the design discussions and hope that there will be more
of it, but we also want to include one or more Japanese members on our
technical and steering committees, or set up parallel committees in the
U.S. and Japan that would work closely together, or something like that.
We have talked to a few of our colleagues in Japan about how to proceed
with this. Some have suggested that we should invite your JEIDA
committee to nominate someone to join our committee. Others have felt
that we must carefully observe the proper formal procedures in dealing
with the Japanese and have said that it is important to involve some
very senior people in this process, even if they do not have much time
or energy to spend on Common Lisp. We want to make it clear that we
view Japan as a very important partner in the standardization effort,
but we don't know what the proper formal steps are or what groups should
be consulted. I would very much appreciate hearing your views on how we
should handle this. Is this new JIS committee on Lisp the right group
for us to deal with?
On the issue of a general Common Lisp meeting at the Lisp Conference, I
don't think there will be one. We got started rather late in thinking
about this, and now it is rather late to set up such a meeting. There
is no time left during the conference, so a meeting would have to be the
day before the conference or the day after. Many people already have
travel plans and would be unable to stay for an extra day. So I am
afraid that there will not be an opportunity for you to present your
three topics to a general Common Lisp meeting.
Dick Gabriel is about to announce that there will be an open meeting on
Wednesday afternoon (August 6), after the Lisp Conference is over, to
discuss Object-Oriented programming in Common Lisp. The technical and
steering committees will be meeting at some time during the conference,
perhaps on Tuesday night, and I am sure that you would be welcome to
join us in this meeting and to tell us about the situation in Japan.
The Eulisp group plans to meet at some time during the Boston conference
as well, and many of us will attend that meeting if they allow us to; we
hope that we can make peace with those people without agreeing to let
them put radical changes into Common Lisp. The first formal meeting of
the ANSI committee, X3J13, will be in Washington on September 23 and 24.
The rules of ANSI make it impossible for this to occur at the time of
the Lisp Conference. We will be handing out a printed announcement with
the Lisp Conference registration materials that will describe what has
been done on standardization in the U.S. and that invites everyone to
participate in X3J13 if they want to.
In my view, complex issues like subsetting and extended character sets
are best handled by netmail. I plan to start detailed technical
discussions on a number of issues very soon, and I hope that we work out
a detailed agreement on how to handle this the Boston meeting. Some
discussion has occurred already, as you have seen, though nothing has
been settled. Since this extension exists mostly to accommodate Kanji,
we certainly won't adopt anything that the Japanese Lisp community
doesn't like.
Best regards,
Scott Fahlman
∂12-Jun-86 2254 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Programme - ICALP 86
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jun 86 22:54:35 PDT
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Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 12:41:25-EDT
From: "Debra A. Jenkins" <JENKINS@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Programme - ICALP 86
To: theory@CRYS.WISC.EDU
Message-Id: <12213995549.39.JENKINS@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 13 Jun 86 00:14:07 CDT (Fri)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
PROGRAMME
13th COLLOQUIUM ON AUTOMATA,
LANGUAGES AND PROGRAMMING
July 15-19, 1986
RENNES
FRANCE
8:15 Registration
9:00 Opening Session
L. Kott (France)
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Session 1
President / Chairperson
W. Brauer (F.R.G.)
9:15 Les ambiguites de la purete
M.P. Schutzenberger (France)
Conference invitee
10:15 Break
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Session 2
President/Chairperson
M.P. Schutzenberger (France)
10:45 Automates alternants, theories
monadiques faibles des arbres et leur complexite
D.E. Muller (USA), P.E. Schupp,
A. O. Saoudi (France)
11:10 Semigroupes de matrices de torsion et
transductions rationnelles
J. P. Mascle (France)
11:35 Semigroups and Languages of dot-depth 2
H. Straubing (USA)
12:00 End of session/Lunch
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 3
President/Chairperson
U. Montanari (Italy)
1400 Knowledge, belief and time
S. Kraus, D. Lehman (Israel)
1425 A compositional reformulation of Owicki-Greis's partial
correctness logic for a parallel while language
C. Stirling (U.K.)
1450 A timed model for communicating sequential processes
G.M. Reed, A. W. Roscoe (U.K.)
1515 Refusal testing
I.C.C. Phillips (U.K.)
1540 Pause/Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 4
President/Chairperson
W. Thomas (F.R.G)
1600 Subpolynomial complexity classes of real functions
and real numbers
N. th. Muller (F.R.G.)
1625 Lower bounds by recursion theoretic arguments
U. Schoning (F.R.G.)
1715 Decompositions of nondeterministic reductions
1740 End of session
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 5
President/Chairperson
L. Kott (France)
9:00 On nontermination of Knuth-Bendix algorithm
M. Hermann (Tchecoslovaquia)
9:25 E-unification algorithms for a class of confluent term rewriting
systems
J.H. You, P. A. Subrahmanyam (USA)
9:50 Une restriction forte de la procedure de completion inductive
L. Fribourg (France)
10:15 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 6
President/Chairperson
K. Mehlhorn (F.R.G.)
10:45 Comparaison d'algorithmes controlant les acces concurrents a
une base de donnees: une approche combinatoire
D. Arques, J. Francon, M. T. Guichet, P. Guichet (France)
11:10 Lower bounds for dynamic range query problems that permit
subtraction
D. E. Williard (USA)
11:35 A trade off between search and update time for the implicit
dictionary problem
A. Borodin (Canada), F. Meyer auf der Heide (F.R.G.), F. E.
Fich, E. Upfal, A. Wigderson (USA)
12:00 End of Session/Lunch
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 7
President/Chairperson
R. Sethi (USA)
1400 On fixed-points clones
D. Niwinksi (Poland)
1425 Etude syntaxique des parties reconnaissable de mots infinis
J. P. Pecuchet (France)
1450 Sous-ensemble reconnaissable d'un monoide partiellement
commutatif libre
Y. Metivier (France)
1515 On discerning words by automata
P. Goralcik, V. Kubek (Tchecoslovaquia)
1540 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 8
President/Chairperson
Ph. Flajolet
1600 Some further results on digital search trees
P. Kirschenhofer
H. Prodingen (Austria)
1625 Min cut is NP-complete for edge weighted trees
B. Moinen (F.R.G.)
I. H. Sudborough (USA)
1650 A parallel vertex insertion algorithm for minimum spanning trees
P. Varman, K. Doshi (USA)
1730 EATCS
General Meeting
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Section 9
President/ Chairperson
J. Diaz (Spain)
9:00 Hierarchical planarity testing algorithms
T. Lengauer (F.R.G.)
9:25 A very fast, practical algorithm for finding a negative cycle
in a digraph
A. Tsakalidis (Greece), P. Spirakis (F.R.G.)
9:50 An improved algorithm for transitive closure on acyclic
digraph
K. Simon (F.R.G.)
10:15 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 10
President/Chairperson
M. Nivat (France)
10:45 Synthesis and equivalence of concurrent systems
B. Lisper (Sweden)
11:10 A better approach to detection of locally-indicative
stability.
N. Francez, N. Shavit (Israel)
11:35 A termination detector for static and dynamic distributed
systems with asynchronous non-first-in-first-out communication
T.H. Lai (USA)
12:00 End of the Session/Lunch
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Free Afternoon
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 11
President/Chairperson
G. Rozenberg (Netherlands)
9:00 Tapes versus pointers a study in implementing fast algorithms
A. Schonhage(F.R.G.)
Invited Lecture
10:00 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Section 12
President/Chairperson
A. Schonhague (F.R.G.)
10:20 Un algorithme determinant les melanges de deux mots
J. C. Spehner (France)
10:45 The set union problem with backtracking
H. Mannila, E. Ukkonen (Finland)
11:10 Characterizations of PUNC and precomputation
E. W. Allender (USA)
11:35 Correspondence between ternary simulation and binary race
analysis in gate networks
J. A. Brzozowski, C. J. Seger (Canada)
12:00 End of the Session/Lunch
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 13
President/Chairperson
C. Hansel (France)
1400 Intersections of some families of languages
F. J. Brandenburg (F.R.G.)
1425 Ensembles finis biprefixes de chemins dans un graphe
C. de Felice (France)
1450 A rational equivalence relation hierarchy
J. H. Johnson (Canada)
1515 Compter avec des fonctions rationelles
C. Choffrut
M. P. Schutzenberger (France)
1540 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 14
President/ Chairperson
L. Guibas (USA)
1600 On exponential lowness
1625 Complexity classes without machines: on complete language
for UP
J. Hartmanis, L. Hemachandra (USA)
1650 More complicated questions about maxima and minima of some
closures of NP
K. Wagner (F.R.G.)
1715 Containment separation, complete sets and immunity of
complexity classes
J. Hartmanis, M. Li, Y. Yosha (USA)
1740 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 15
President/Chairperson
J. Karhumaki (Canada)
1800 Dynamique symbolique, theorie des automates et codage
G. Hansel (France)
1900 End of Session
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 16
President/Chairperson
A. Restivo (Italy)
9:00 Efficient computation of low-order Voroni diagrams via
convex hulls
F. Aurenhammer (Austria)
9:25 A more efficient algorithm for lattice basis reduction
C.P. Schnorr (F. R. G.)
9:50 Classification of all the minimal bilinear algorithms for
computing the coefficients of the product of two
polynomials modulo a polynomial
Z. Galil (Israel), A. Averbuch, S. Winograd (USA)
10:15 Break
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Session 17
President/Chairperson
D. Perrin (France)
10:45 Tradeoffs for language recognition on parallel computing
models
J. Hromkovic (Tchecoslovaquia)
11:10 On the complexity of deciding fair termination of
probabilistic concurrent finite-state programs
L. E. Rosier, H. Yen (USA)
11:35 Parallel RAMs with owned global memory and deterministic
context-free language recognition
P. W. Dymond, W. L. Ruzzo (USA)
12:00 End of the Colloquium
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Location of the Colloquium
Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu
35042 Rennes Cedex
Tel: 99 36 20 00
Telex: UNIRISA 950473 F
Registration
VAT 18,60 included
Before June 15 After June 15
Participants 1000 FF 1500 FF
Registration Procedures
Prospective participants to the Colloquium should complete the
enclosed registration form and return it with the registration fee
to:
INRIA
Bureau des Colloques
Domaine de Voluceau-Rocquencourt B.P. 105
78153 Le Chesnay Cedex- France
Tel: (33) (1) 39 63 56 00
Telex: 697 033 F
Registration form without any payment will not be taken into account.
Payment:
All payments MUST be made in French francs to the order of:
Agent Comptable de I'INRIA
Postal Cheque: CCP- Paris 90 9945 B
Bank transfer: State your name and reference to the Colloquium.
Cancellation
Fees will be returned in full for any written cancellation received
before June 28th (postmarked stamp). There will be no entitlement for
later cancellation.
Travel
A 20 percent discount may be obtained from SNCF for a round trip
ticket within France. Reduced rate tickets will be sent to
participants requesting them on the registration form.
Transportation
1) A free shuttle bus service will be available mornings and
evenings during the Colloquium between Rennes-downtown and Campus de
Beaulieu.
2) Regular shuttle buses (line No. 11) will provide transportation
Rennes-downtown "Place de Republique"/ Campus de Beaulieu
"Tournebride"
3) An information form with time schedules and map will be sent to
registered participants
Planes:
There are no regular shuttle buses between Rennes airport and
downtown. To reach downtown use a taxi (approximative fare: 45 FF)
Proceedings will be published by Springer Verlag. Proceedings will
be available at the beginning of the Colloquium.
Official Languages:
English and French
Evening Events
On July 14 at 8 pm a cocktail party will be organized in honor of the
participants
On July 16, at 8:30 pm participants will be invited to a banquet.
Refreshments
Drinks will be available during the breaks.
Lunches will be served at the Campus be Beaulieu during the
Colloquium.
Programs for the accompanying persons:
Several excursion programs are proposed.
Secretariat
The secretariat will be available all during the Colloquium.
--------------
TN Message #50
--------------
∂13-Jun-86 0122 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #21
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jun 86 01:22:23 PDT
Date: Thursday, June 12, 1986 9:09AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #21
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 13 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 21
Today's Topics:
Implementation - Assert & Truth Maintenance & DFID,
& Behavior & Arithmetic
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: wed, 11 jun 86 09:29:27 pdt
From: Tom Dietterich <tgd%oregon-state.csnet@csnet-relay>
Subject: Assert, Assume, and Truth Maintenance
genesereth and his students at stanford have a version
of their mrs system (which is a logic programming system
embedded in lisp) that contains both an assumption mechanism
(called residue) and an assumption-based tms. it also
contains a caching mechanism. strictly speaking, caching
does not require making assumptions. but caching can
interact with negation-as-failure whenever changes are
made to the database.
at oregon state, we have developed a forward-chaining logic
programming system that we call forlog. it is based on
dekleer's assumption-based truth maintenance system and so,
by default, caches all inferences. it also supports the
making and retracting of assumptions (of course), as well
as true negation, true equality, and built-in temporal
reasoning
mechanisms.
-- Tom Dietterich
Department of Computer Science
Oregon State University
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 86 02:29:29 GMT
From: Thomas Sj|land <!alf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Depth First Iterative Deepening in parallel Prologs
I agree with earlier statements that DFPD is rather useless
as an approach for or-parallel logic programming systems. It
has one interesting point though:
It is hard to think of an or-parallel scheme which has a
simpler implementation than this one. The needed communication
is minimal and the variable representation is optimal ( =
Warren's for instance). The price you pay is reexecution. In
all other schemes I have seen (in our lab there is work going
on considering a handful (sic!)) there are considerable measures
taken as to either reach a highly flexible variable
representation (Haridi/Ciepielweski /Hausman proposes hashing
etc.) or trying to avoid copying through more or less smart
heuristics or even specialized hardware (Khayri/Fahlen/Karlsson).
All of these schemes involve a considerable amount of
communication, at least compared to DFPD.
An implementation of a DFPD Horn Clause prover ("pure
Prolog") could show useful in the sense that any proposed
"smart" scheme has to be at least as good as the DFPD
scheme (for at least some subclass of programs and queries)
to be taken seriously. It is also interesting to notice
that DFPD is complete, whereas most of the "smarter" schemes
are not.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jun 86 13:39:34 GMT
From: Gilbert Cockton <!gilbert@ucbvax.berkeley>
Subject: Standard behavior?
In all humility, and with a strong chance of getting
it all wrong here I go:
var(X) = All t in Term: can←unify(t,X)
where can←unify is true if a most general unifier can
be found for both its arguments.
nonvar(X) = Exists t in Term: NOT(can←unify(t,X))
Dirty structures like lists with uninstantiated tails
(as in the unit time queue trick) are nonvar under
these definitions.
I've had minimal training in Logic, so I don't know
if the set of all Terms is an ok construct. Seems ok
to me.
This leaves cut, which is definitely meta-logical.
------------------------------
Date: Thu 12 Jun 86 11:51:38-EDT
From: Vijay <Vijay.Saraswat@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Subject: Arithmetic without infinitely many symbols.
As another illustration of how variables may be
used to good effect, here is a set of routines that
implement Presburger arithmetic (=, <, addition)
for the integers by using a] a representation of
numbers as structures built up using a unary
function symbol and b] the idea of a difference list.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with CP[!,|],
here is a brief description of the annotations
that may help you to udnerstand the program:
--This is an AND-parallel and OR-parallel
language: all clauses for all goals in the
currrent resolvent are tried in parallel.
--If a term is decorated with a '!' in the head
of a clause, then unification of the head of the clause
with a goal term suspends until the corresponding argument
in the goal becomes (top-level) instantiated.
--The definition of the !/2 annotation is more complex.
Basically it works like a top-level ==. In this context,
== is adequate, as explained below.
/* This is a module that shows how Presburger
arithmetic may be done in O(1) unifications, using
a unary representation of numbers. We represent a
number by a structure that has two component
terms. Let the term s(s(...m times..(X)...) be
denoted by s↑m(X).
The term s↑m(X)-X represents the positive
number m; the term X-X represents 0 and the term
X-s↑m(X) represents -m.
Let |A| stand for the integer represented by the
term A. Then:
sgn(X,S) holds iff |X| is positive and S=p;
sgn(X,S) holds iff |X| is negative and S=n;
sgn(X,S) holds iff |X| is 0 and S=0.
neg(A,B) holds iff |A|=-|B|,
eq(A,B) holds iff |A|=|B|,
<(A,B) holds iff |A| < |B|,
add(A,B,C) holds iff |A|+|B|=|C|,
sub(A,B,C) holds iff |A|-|B|=|C|.
All these operations can be done in 1 unification.
(The definition of sub/3 and </2 may be partially
evaluated to give a table like that of add/3.)
--A call to sgn, neg and eq takes constant time.
--A call to <, add, sub takes time proportional to
the smaller of the two numbers involved.
Suspension behaviour:
--------------------
--Calls to any predicate (except neg) suspend
until the "input" terms are instantiated to terms
representing numbers.
*/
sgn(X!-Y, p).
sgn(X-Y!, n).
sgn(X!a-X!a, 0). /* i.e. sgn(X-Y, 0):- X==Y | true. */
neg(X-Y, Y-X).
eq(X!a-Y!b, X!a-Y!b).
/* i.e. eq(X1-Y1, X2-Y2):- X1==X2, Y1==Y2 | true. */
<(X, Y):- add(B, A, Y), sgn(A, P).
/* adding two positive numbers. */
add(X!-Y, Y!-Z, X-Z).
/* adding two negative nos. */
add(X-Y!, Y-Z!, X-Z).
/* adding a positive to a negative no. */
add(X!-Y, X-Z!, Z-Y).
/* adding a negative number to a positive no. */
add(X-Y!, X!-Z, Y-Z).
/* adding 0 to a number. */
add(X!a-X!a, Y, Y).
/* adding a number to 0.*/
add(Y, X!a-X!a, Y).
sub(A, X1-Y1, Z):-
add(A, Y1-X1, Z).
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂13-Jun-86 1007 RPG Use of Lucid Manual
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Ok, our lawyers have looked into the situation, and there is
no simple solution until we start to negotiate with ANSI.
That is, there seems to be no default way to set up copyright
protection for Lucid that is reasonble for the committee and suitable for
Lucid. One way to proceed is for Lucid's lawyers to draw up
an agreement that the committee signs and which does the proper
protection. The protection clause will be tough - Lucid will be
able to veto the document if it is felt that it jeopardizes the
Lucid copyright.
On the other hand, I have a large say in what Lucid vetoes. How shall
we proceed?
-rpg-
∂13-Jun-86 1121 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Use of Lucid Manual
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jun 86 11:21:34 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 13 Jun 86 14:16:01-EDT
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1986 14:15 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214537051.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Use of Lucid Manual
In-reply-to: Msg of 13 Jun 1986 13:07-EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG at SU-AI.ARPA>
Can you show us the exact language of the agreement that your lawyers
want?
I've been reluctantly coming around to the view that the easiest way to
proceed is for me to write a new specificaton document from scratch.
I'd rather spend time writing than hassling with lawyers. This document
would be copyrighted by me personally, with an agreement (informal or in
writing, whatever people are happy with) that I will try to make it
reflect precisely the decisions of the technical committee and that I
will handle the rights to this work in accordance with the wishes of the
combined technical and steering committees. We could decide to turn the
copyright over to ANSI or whatever later on. I would not be interested
in getting any money out of this, though if I do the work I would like
to keep my name on the thing in some prominent position -- it helps my
employers at CMU to appreciate that I'm doing SOMETHING with my time.
Given the amount of work this would entail, the document would be as
terse, precise, and technical as I can make it. There would very
definitely be a place for a friendlier manual, perhaps a second edition
of Steele if he wants to create one, but we would all agree that this
new thing is the definitive spec.
To make the MIT contingent happy, it would be done initially in vanilla
80-column ASCII, though we'd probably convert it to TeX at the end.
I'd still prefer to start with Steele's manual or with Lucid's, but that
is looking less and less like a live option.
-- Scott
∂13-Jun-86 1617 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: Exec Council Meeting]
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jun 86 16:17:32 PDT
Date: Fri 13 Jun 86 16:07:46-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: Exec Council Meeting]
To: officers: ;
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12214590171.41.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Mail-From: AAAI-OFFICE created at 13-Jun-86 15:58:49
Date: Fri 13 Jun 86 15:58:48-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Exec Council Meeting
To: aaai-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12214588540.41.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Pat and Raj have suggested that we hold another Executive Council
meeting the day before the Conference, Sunday, August 10. It would
be more informal meeting in which we will be able to discuss the
more strategic issues facing the association. It will be held in
Salon 10 in the Franklin Plaza Hotel commencing at 10:30 am
(we'll serve Brunch) and last until mid-afternoon. Because we are
asking you to arrive a day earlier, the AAAI will reimburse you for
one extra night's stay.
The second Exec Council meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, August 12,
will continue to have the same agenda as the past with reports from
the different standing committees and the annual financial report.
If you can attend the meeting, can you please tell me so that I
can make the necessary arrangements.
Cheers,
Claudia
PS You can send me your expense reports after the conference.
-------
-------
∂13-Jun-86 1621 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA free tech conf registration
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jun 86 16:20:41 PDT
Date: Fri 13 Jun 86 16:13:23-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: free tech conf registration
To: officers: ;
cc: aaaI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12214591193.41.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I should mention that all officers and exec council members will
receive a complimentary tech conference registration. If you have
already submitted your registration, we will prepare a refund after
the conference.
Claudia
-------
∂13-Jun-86 2149 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jun 86 21:49:13 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 14 Jun 86 00:49:10-EDT
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1986 00:49 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214652306.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
Here is Ida's response to the note I sent him. It is a bit hard to
parse, as you will see, but it does contain lots of good information
about the structure of the effort in Japan. I'm still trying to sort it
all out, but it looks like Ida is certainly one of the people we want,
maybe on the steering committee as he suggests. Suggestions are welcome
at this point.
-- Scott
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 86 11:57:40+0900
From: Masayuki Ida <a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: fahlman, ida at UTOKYO-RELAY.CSNET
Re: Lisp standardization
Professor Fahlman,
Thank you for your quick responce to my mail.
Here are my views/opinions/descriptions about the things you wrote to me.
1) My visit to Lisp conference and AAAI conference.
I will visit USA with several persons of our committee as a team.
Scheduled dates are one week stay at Boston from Aug.3 to 10,
and another one week stay at AAAI site, roughly.
1') I will join you at the meeting you suggested. and I am pleased to know
I will be welcomed to discuss and tell the situation in japan.
1'') As I stated in 1), I will be with several colleagues at hotel.
We will have a meeting at the hotel.
So, I want to arrange an invitation to our meeting.
Can you spare your time to join us at Boston ?
2)General steps toward the standardization of computer languages in japan.
There is only one committee for MITI whose name is JIS programming language
standardization or so. All the computer languages are defined by this
committee. But the actual working is not carried by the committee, like
SC22 forms WG for each language. The membership of this top committee
are not opened and I am not the member of this top committee.
I think almost all the members are very senior persons.
From my experinece and my knowledge, the standardization is initially
directed by MITI. This task force is undertaken by Jeida or IPSJ.
After the actual works by Jeida or IPSJ finish, MITI calls the members for
the top JIS committee and ask them to guarantee it. The draft which appear to
the top committee is not actually discused, when the language spec is parallely
defined to ANSI.
Jeida standardization team is carried by Prof. Yoneda (u-tokyo).
IPSJ standardization team is carried by prof. Nakata (u-Tsukuba).
Prof. Nakata is an official member of ISO TC22 as a representative of Japan.
(he gave me a copy of Bob Mathis's proposal of Ad Hoc Group on the preparation
of NWI on Prolog and LISP to ISO/TC97/SC22)
The documents appeared at ISO are send to MITI, then forwarded to several
persons, including Prof. Nakata at least.
He has, currently, a role to catch up the standardization of Fortran, Cobol,...
On the other hand, Prof. Yoneda has a role to establish a standard
for more "fresh" languages, like C, Ada, Lisp,...
MITI select and decide which team is more suitable for any computer languages.
Last tuesday, June 10, I was called by the staff of Prof. Yoneda's committee
at Jeida.
He told me that MITI suggest to start the working committee for Lisp
standardization, and that the committee is under Prof. Yoneda's committee
and I should be the chair of the JIS committee also.
Then I will start the working committee to make a JIS draft with 13 members.
the number of members is prior assigned and given to me.
The scheduled dates of this year is one-a-two-month.
The first meeting will be in July.
Prof.Yoneda (and Prof. Nakata) is very senior person.
I think the formal process in Japan is going just like you mentioned.
I mean I agree your suggestion of your mail. i.e. ANY offical activities for
standardization in Japan need senior persons who have responsibilities to
totally control the whole process, even though he has only a basic knowledge
about the language, and he can not understand the details
or he have no time to spare to learn the language details.
This JIS committee is different from the Common Lisp committee I have been
talking about. But, they are all in Jeida.
And they will be gathered to form a one large committee, I think.
I think it is very usual to form a JIS working committee which is parallel to
ANSI/ISO committee and the JIS committee will communicate with ANSI committee.
3) Member to ANSI committee from Japan
I think the chair of the JIS committee should be a member of ANSI committee for
this case. The reason is to avoid the separation of two standardizations
and to keep ANSI committee can totally control the whole thing.
I think the latter property is important, considering an unfortunate condition.
Further, I even think it might be the best that someone in ANSI committee
will attend Jeida committee.
My current Jeida Common Lisp committee have totaly , over 40 members from
26 different organizations.
They have more knowledge and skill than before.
But KCL persons have a great role and a great infruence to Common Lisp
in Japan. So, technically, Mr. Yuasa or Mr. Hagiya is the best person to
technical committee. I think I am the next to them for the technical matter.
For steering and standardization, I think I am the best person to join.
Last april AI Association of Japan was formed. in my view, this organization
has a relation to Common Lisp as a user organization.
There is also a standardization committee. I was asked by them to be a chair
for the standardization committee. But it is not formed yet. I do not know
whether this group will survive or no now. But as the result of our
questionnair shows, AI application in Japan is 60% based on Lisp or more,
and the most actually used Common Lisp implemetation is VAXlisp,then
Symbolics Lisp, then KCL. We should watch what the user society want.
4) Object oriented facility for Common Lisp.
I have been following CommonLoops.
Last year, before PCL appeared, I designed an interpretation of CommonLoops
and presented a paper on it.
Last Feb, I stayed at Xerox PARC for one week.
I have experienced and somewhat assisted them to improve PCL.
Xerox lawyer permitted me to carry back PCL sources.
Now, I play a role of re-distributor of PCL in Japan.
I am now researching with PCL.
Since 1984 fall, I followed the discussion of o-o-bboard with the permission of
Ken Kahn. Since last summer, I directed some members of my committee to catch
up which is the best for Common Lisp among CommonLoops, objectLisp,...
I think we, japanese are ready to accept the function call generalization
of message sending and defstruct based flavor and so on.
Several researchers in japan, to my surprise, already presented papers for
present Prolog like facility upon CommonLoops-like object oriented facility.
5) Subset.
Personally, I have an opinion that there should be two levels of Lisp
language specification.
Our subset working group will present their polish up of my proposal at July
8th in Japan. This group will make a pilot version of the subset.
This subset can not self-compile itself.
BUt this subset is intended to be fully compatible to the super.
I have several friends in Gold Hill computers.
Last March, I presented our subset draft to Dr. Jerry Barber at his office.
And discussed with him for one or two hours.
I also informed Professor Pat. Winston at his office.
I hope we can make peace with them.
As to EuLisp, here is Dr. Jean Peer Briot from Paris who is now visiting
Japan as a visiting scientist, who has a relation to Chaillox of LeLisp.
I was phoned by him and we met in tokyo.
He told me that he was directed to meet me by Chaillox.
I gave several staffs to him.
6) kanji and character/string
We will polish up our discussion.
I formed a working group for it. members are from ETL, HItachi, NEC, Fujitsu,
Xerox, Symbolics, I and some othe rpersons.
I think we can have some more concrete opinion before I will goto USA.
I do not think it will be integrated into the one and only one opinion
immediately. I think it may need a voting or take a year or so.
Masayuki Ida
∂14-Jun-86 0655 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA EuLisp and Boston
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jun 86 06:55:01 PDT
Date: 14 Jun 1986 06:53-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: EuLisp and Boston
Subject: [ Fitch@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK: Standards meeting at Boston]
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]14-Jun-86 06:53:53.MATHIS>
For your information
Begin forwarded message
Received: FROM CS.UCL.AC.UK BY USC-ISIF.ARPA WITH TCP ; 12 Jun 86 11:15:22 PDT
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 22:53:22 BST
From: Fitch@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
To: rhh%mit-mc.arpa@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
Cc: mathis@usc-isif.arpa, bond!m42!eulisp%ux63.bath.ac.uk@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
Subject: Standards meeting at Boston
Return-Path: <Fitch@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
I heard recently from Bob Mathis that he had contacted you about the
possiblity of holding a meeting during the LISP conference about LISP
standardisation. As you might have heard, there is also considerable
interest in this matter in Europe too, such that there is a group of
people meeting monthly to develop a standards proposal. That european
group generally meets on the first Monday of every month, which in August
coincides with the first day of the LISP conference, therefore it was
agreed that we would try to hold the August meeting of the EuLISP committee
during the Boston meeting. We also feel it is particularly important that
there should be one such standards meeting and so we would like the
general discussion on standards and our monthly meeting (at least those
parts of it that are not too boring and organisational) to be held
jointly. Will it be possible for you to arrange a room for this?
Thanks.
--Julian (Padget)
--------------------
End forwarded message
∂14-Jun-86 1250 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Standards
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jun 86 12:49:58 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 14 Jun 86 15:49:55-EDT
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1986 15:49 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12214816283.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Mathis@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Standards
Bob,
I recieved your packet of material obtained from the Eulisp group.
Thanks.
One point they make is that the creation of a separate Common Lisp
committee under ANSI is in violation of ISO rules and that the British
stadards organization is upset about this. Is this true? Is it
serious? I have found it reassuring to believe that, whatever stupid
thing ISO does, we would at least have an ANSI standard for Common Lisp.
If they can prevent that, while seizing control of the ISO machinery,
then we're back to having a completely informal standard for Common Lisp
that everyone follows, while there is an official ISO standard that is
supported by six people (and 20 countries) worldwide.
Obviously there are a few people in that group have are personally quite
bitter about Common Lisp passing them by. Stoyan, Padgett, and Fitch, I
believe. There were some beautiful examples of venomous writing in
their internal document, all aimed at Common Lisp. They make excellent
use of the Brooks and Gabriel critique as a weapon against us. I don't
know what one does to assuage such intense feelings, except to
reciprocate with as much reasonableness as we can muster and hope that
they dissipate over a period of a year or two.
They repeatedly level three criticisms at the existing Common Lisp:
1. It is big.
2. The current spec is imprecise.
3. It ignores all Lisp developments outside the Maclisp world.
Their solutions:
1. Multi-level definition.
2. Level-0 is to be specified by formal means, probably denotational
semantics, and the higher levels are somehow supposed to inherit
precision from that.
3. Encouraging a more widespread discussion of of Lisp standardization.
My reactions:
1. Yes, it is big. This isn't a problem, in my view. If it were
a problem, it should be solved by one or more true subsets of Common
Lisp, rather than by starting over.
2. Their solution won't work, or at least it is something that has never
worked in the past. The best we can do is to take a
well-tested, widely used Lisp and clean up the problems that
people have discovered.
3. It is demonstrably false that Common Lisp ignored everything outside
the Maclisp tradition. Steele was the co-inventor of Scheme, and we
got input from many other groups. What they are really saying is
"WE weren't consulted about this." That is both true and
regrettable, but throwing away Common Lisp and starting over is
hardly the appropriate remedy, now that Common Lisp has become a de
facto standard supported by every company that matters.
We should have a joint meeting with the Eulisp people in Boston to see
if there is any acceptable way to settle this.
-- Scott
∂14-Jun-86 1556 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Future of CS
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jun 86 15:56:41 PDT
Date: Sat 14 Jun 86 15:55:25-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Future of CS
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12214850068.10.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
When they visited the CSD a couple of weeks ago, Gordon Bell and
Charles Brownstein of NSF suggested that the Stanford CSD might do
NSF (and all of computer science) a great favor by taking the lead
in preparing a document that would recommend important research directions
for computer science over the next few years. (John Hopcroft is coordinating
the writing of a paper describing what computer science IS; this
suggested document in a way would point the way to what computer science
WILL BE--or COULD BE.)
The idea of "pointing the way" resonated with a number of us, and Jeff
Ullman, Gio Wiederhold and I have continued to talk about it. Jeff
has suggested, and I heartily agree, that if we do such a document it
must not be merely our individual opinions stapled together. (We are
all, of course, free to write up opinions and send them into NSF or
anywhere else.) We think it would be instructive and most helpful if
any report we write were one that could stand up to the rigorous
scrutiny and criticism of all of us. Obviously we will need several
people to volunteer to outline and draft sections, but the report will
be most useful if these early drafts benefit from thorough and constructive
readings and revisions by colleagues. One might wonder if we are all
confident enough of our ideas about where our branches of cs ought to
go to subject these ideas to scrutiny. The point is that the ideas will
ultimately be subjected to scrutiny if they are going to have any impact
at all, and we may as well put them in the crucible here first.
Jeff has volunteered to host a gathering of people from the CSD and CSL
who might be willing to discuss where to go from here. People who would
like to initiate some net msg conversations about all of this prior
to getting together can begin by sending to Jeff (Ullman@score) who
will construct a mailing list of interested people and then we can mail
our comments to this mailing list. Jeff will also keep us informed
about a date for getting together in person and talking. -Nils
-------
∂15-Jun-86 2234 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Reminder -- Monday PLANLUNCH -- Matt Ginsberg
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Jun 86 22:34:09 PDT
Date: Sun 15 Jun 86 22:30:58-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Reminder -- Monday PLANLUNCH -- Matt Ginsberg
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 15-Jun-86 22:30:58.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POSSIBLE WORLDS PLANNING
Matt Ginsberg (SJG@SAIL)
Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 16
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room)
The size of the search space is perhaps the most intractable of all of
the problems facing a general-purpose planner. Some planning methods
(means-ends analysis being typical) address this problem by
encouraging the system designer to give the planner domain-specific
information (perhaps in the form of a difference table) to help govern
this search.
This paper presents a domain-independent approach to this problem
based on the examination of possible worlds in which the planning goal
has been achieved. Although a weak method, the ideas presented lead
to considerable savings in many examples; in addition, the natural
implementation of this approach has the attractive property that
incremental efforts in controlling the search provide incremental
improvements in performance. This is in contract to many other
approaches to the control of search or inference, which may require
large expenditures of effort before any benefits are realized.
-------
∂16-Jun-86 0925 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:CSL.GERLACH@su-sierra.arpa CSL Faculty candidate--MacQueen
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 09:25:12 PDT
Received: from su-sierra.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Mon 16 Jun 86 09:23:04-PDT
Date: Mon 16 Jun 86 09:22:36-PDT
From: Sharon Gerlach <CSL.GERLACH@su-sierra.arpa>
Subject: CSL Faculty candidate--MacQueen
To: jparker@su-sierra.arpa, contreras@su-score.arpa,
csl-faculty@su-sierra.arpa, csl-students@su-sierra.arpa,
su-bboard@su-sierra.arpa, faculty@su-score.arpa
cc: csl.gerlach@su-sierra.arpa
Message-ID: <12215302844.19.CSL.GERLACH@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
On Mon. June 23, David MacQueen, a CSL faculty candidate from
Bell Labs, will give a seminar at 11:00 in CIS 101.
He will speak on the following:
TITLE: "Using dependent types to express modular structure"
ABSTRACT:
Several related typed languages for modular programming and data
abstraction have been proposed recently, including Pebble, SOL, and
ML modules. We review and compare the basic type-theoretic ideas
behind these languages and evaluate how they meet the pragmatic
requirements of "programming in the large".
-------
∂16-Jun-86 0944 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA reminder
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 09:44:41 PDT
Date: Mon 16 Jun 86 09:26:49-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: reminder
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12215303614.17.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
All grades are due today by 11:00am.
-Gina
-------
∂16-Jun-86 1006 RPG Various Issues
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I have various comments to make.
First, the Brooks/Gabriel critique is not a devastating problem, because
Brooks is the fourth largest founder of Lucid and Gabriel the largest;
Lucid supplies Common Lisp. As a pure language design, Common Lisp
suffers some, and I believe that our criticisms, in that paper, are
still correct. I think we can repair some of the problems in
Common Lisp easily.
Second, we have yet to begin to attack the European commercial concerns,
most of whom are moving towards Common Lisp. I just received a set
of French articles about Common Lisp and its adoption by French
companies. I doubt that these companies want to have adopted Common Lisp
only to have to abandon it because their countrymen want to have fun.
Third, we cannot ignore the root causes for their standardization effort.
They were passed by; there is fame in being on a standards organization,
even an ad hoc one; various of the people feel they have been screwed -
for example, Padgett submitted a paper to the last L & FP conference,
which we rejected it as not discussing a well-though-out or important
idea, and POPL accepted the paper; and there is national pride involved.
Fourth, I don't see anything wrong with having a layered standard. I would
like to guarantee that the level n version is implementable by the level-0
version, and I'm not sure they've got that right yet.
Fifth, do we know the status of the the-ANSI-route-is-illegal objection?
Mathis should figure this out soon.
Sixth, I'm nervous about having exactly one of us hold the copyright to the
new document - that's how we got into trouble originally. Everyone here,
I'm sure, will agree that Steele has the highest standards, but he
made a mistake-in-retrospect. How can we be sure we don't do that again
unless the copyright is committee-wide?
Seventh, I sent a note to Fitch/Padgett regarding a face-to-face
meeting at the L & FP conference.
-rpg-
∂16-Jun-86 1140 JMC further development of Lisp
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Common Lisp needs to be a standard, and effecting this requires making
only clarifying changes and fixing the worst bugs. However, Lisp isn't
perfect and should be developed further. This is being done by individual
projects, and ideas are being exchanged through the public literature. It
seems to me that much of the European concern (is it called Eulisp?) is
oriented towards a collective effort at a futuristic Lisp. Perhaps some
of the Common Lisp people would be interested in taking part in such an
effort in addition to the Common Lisp standardization. On the other hand,
it may be that the best way to make advances for the next n years is to
avoid any official effort and await the results of the individual
projects. It may even be that the official standardization efforts for
Common Lisp are redundant; perhaps a de facto standard is good enough.
I don't know the answer to either question, and I don't even know how to
get an answer.
∂16-Jun-86 1303 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Various Issues
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 13:03:03 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Mon 16 Jun 86 16:02:44-EDT
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 16:02 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12215342906.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Various Issues
First, the Brooks/Gabriel critique is not a devastating problem...
I agree that your subsequent activities have shown that you two haven't
given up on Common Lisp. I was merely pointing out that the EuLisp
people are finding lots of ammunition in that article for THEIR view
that throwing out Common Lisp and starting over is the right thing to do.
Second, we have yet to begin to attack the European commercial concerns,
most of whom are moving towards Common Lisp.
Good point. I wonder if there's anything we can do to encourage the
pro-Common Lisp Europeans to get involved in standardization efforts in
their respective countries. We could invite some of them to work with
our committee, but that would really infuriate the EuLisp people -- sort
of like giving U.S. aid to the contras.
Third, we cannot ignore the root causes for their standardization effort.
They were passed by; there is fame in being on a standards organization,
even an ad hoc one; various of the people feel they have been screwed -
for example, Padgett submitted a paper to the last L & FP conference,
which we rejected it as not discussing a well-though-out or important
idea, and POPL accepted the paper; and there is national pride involved.
Also a good point. It would be nice to get any or all of these people
involved with the Common Lisp standardization effort now (from which
they would reap appropriate fame), but now that they are all on record as
opposing the concept of standardizing Common Lisp, I don't see them
agreeing to this unless we tell them that they can change whatever they
want.
Fourth, I don't see anything wrong with having a layered standard. I would
like to guarantee that the level n version is implementable by the level-0
version, and I'm not sure they've got that right yet.
I've got no problem with this either, except that it is very easy to
slip in little changes in level 0 that require a total rewrite of the
Common Lisp level. The EuLisp group is making no effort to have the
highest level be the same as the current Common Lisp, and are changing
things like NIL.
Fifth, do we know the status of the the-ANSI-route-is-illegal objection?
Mathis should figure this out soon.
Sixth, I'm nervous about having exactly one of us hold the copyright to the
new document - that's how we got into trouble originally...
If Steele still held the copyright, I don't think there would be a
problem. The problem is that is was assigned to Digital Press, and at
the time several of us assented to this decision, so it was a group
mistake. If I were to hold the copyright, I would guarantee to handle
it however the combined committees tell me to. We still might make
another group mistake, but there's no more danger of that than if we
hold the copyright jointly. Still, it is cleaner to follow McCarthy's
suggestion that we all hold the copyright as an informal partnership.
If someone can work out the legalities, I'm happy to go that way, but I
don't think we can delay any longer. I propose to start building up a
document under my copyright and to assign it to this partnership when
and if we understand how to do that. I'm certainly open to alternative
suggestions.
-- Scott
∂16-Jun-86 1435 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa CS future
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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 86 14:32:35 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: CS future
To: ac@score
Holly and I invite you all for wine and cheese on Monday evening June 30,
starting about 7:30PM. The purpose is to kick around the prospects
for a "futures of CS" report, but the house is big enough that technical
and nontechnical discussions can be supported in parallel.
It would possibly be useful if an electronic discussion were started
before the 30th. I've set up a mailing list futcs@diablo that
EVENTUALLY can be used for this purpose. Unfortunately, I'm
going on vacation tomorrow, and I'll not be able to add all the
names that i should (adding yourself may not work because of weird
host names, these days). Thus, I suggest anyone who wants
to be on it, try sending mail to mailer@diablo
with the SUBJECT:
add <yourname@host> to futcs
from the same host.
The message itself must be blank.
If that doesn't work, send me mail and I'll add your name when I return.
In the meanwhile, sending to ac@score will work, and also remind
people that the discussion is going on.
To get things going, our top-level decisions include the following.
1. What will be the nature of the field 10 years from now?
My particular quandry--there are surely others--concerns the structure
of knowledge in CS. There are disciplines, e.g., history, that
are tightly compartmentalized, e.g., one's field might be
"Medieval European History." Other disciplines, e.g., EE, seem to
have a core of shared knowledge, but then branch out into areas
that are more or less related to the core.
Are we going to find ourselves increasingly specialized?
E.g., are we going to be looking 10 years from now for an expert
in "probabilistic algorithms" or "nonmonotonic reasoning"
or "type systems" and failing as a department if we don't have
one of each? Or are subjects like these going to be part of a
core that every computer scientist knows something about, while
we, or the people we recruit, are branching out into various
applications areas?
2. Where do the boundaries of CS end? Part of Brian Reid's vision
of the 108 sequence is that it serves a role similar to Calculus;
it is essential CS knowledge even for people who are not, and
never intend to be, Computer Scientists. Does this view make sense?
Are people doing applications programming inside or outside of CS?
Does it matter?
3. Is there, in fact, an analogy X:CS = Calculus:Math?
I doubt that X = Freshman programming. Is there something
more about CS that every scientist and engineer has to know?
What? Algorithms? Creative uses of abstraction? Data models?
4. What are the technological changes that are going to make differences
in the world of CS? Obviously, the fact that processors suddenly
got very cheap is going to make a difference. Not only will
parallelism rear its (ugly?) head, but it makes sense to put
single processors in all sorts of funny places: watches, telephones, ??
What impact will this have on the population at large in the next 10
years? Universal email? Electronic banking? Toasters that toast
bread the way THEY like it?
Also, what OTHER trends, perhaps less clear now, are there to influence
practice?
5. A fact I've noticed in theory is that all the easy things have
been done, and progress seems more and more to depend on very
sophisticated Mathematics, at least in comparison with what was
going on 10-15 years ago. Is this trend going to apply to
other fields as well? For example, will deep theorems in topology
turn out to have applications to motion planning? Will algebra
be important in programming language design?
6. While we're on the subject of theory, I have an inkling that
Mathematics is taking an interest in theoretical CS for the first time,
and many things being done in the field could just as well be
classified as Mathematics. Is this trend likely to continue?
Will CS theory be done in Math depts., 10 years from now?
Will it be considered good mathematics by mathematicians?
7. How can we assure our report is taken seriously? I'd like to
come out with a recommendation that whatever it is I'm doing
this year is going to bear fruit next year, and support should
be increased. If the report is taken seriously, my contentions,
and all of ours, should be subjected to the scrutiny that Gordon
Bell, or others in the scientific establishment will apply.
Indeed, can we make this look like anything but a puff for
our own work? Should we be inviting nonStanford people to
join the effort? Use external referees?
8. For that matter, what validity tests can be applied to
any assertion about what will happen 10 years from now?
For example, if I wanted to predict that the P=NP question
would be solved in 10 years, what evidence could I POSSIBLY
offer short of a valid proof? Trend lines, e.g., feature
size for VLSI processes, or numbers of steps to solve PDE's,
are useful, but the assertion that they will continue indefinitely
is always subject to doubt. Do we even know what else is
worth measuring?
---jeff
∂16-Jun-86 1455 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA spraying for ants
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 14:55:05 PDT
Date: Mon 16 Jun 86 14:46:20-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: spraying for ants
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
We will be spraying for ants outside Ventura, Casita, and the trailers
on Thursday morning, June 19th. No spraying will take place inside
the buildings, and, according to the pest control experts, what's
happening outside should not be harmful to people or cats.
I thought that those of you who are particularly sensitive to or
uneasy about pesticides might want to know this is going to happen so
you can stay away.
-------
∂16-Jun-86 1634 DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Various Issues
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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 86 19:35 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Various Issues
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, RPG@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215342906.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860616193558.3.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 16:02 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
First, the Brooks/Gabriel critique is not a devastating problem...
I agree that your subsequent activities have shown that you two haven't
given up on Common Lisp. I was merely pointing out that the EuLisp
people are finding lots of ammunition in that article for THEIR view
that throwing out Common Lisp and starting over is the right thing to do.
In my opinion, their problem is that they think that "designing a new
language" and "establishing a new language ISO standard" are activities
that should be done simultaneously. It's too bad they can't see this.
∂16-Jun-86 1942 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU further development of Lisp
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 19:42:04 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Mon 16 Jun 86 22:41:59-EDT
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 22:41 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12215415589.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: further development of Lisp
In-reply-to: Msg of 16 Jun 1986 14:40-EDT from John McCarthy <JMC at SU-AI.ARPA>
I agree that standardizing Common Lisp and developing new ideas for Lisp
are distinct activities, both worthy. I wish the Europeans agreed. As
Weinreb has pointed out, they seem to muddle together the ideas of
"standard" and "perfect".
I think that their effort would go much better if they were to forget
all about the existence of Common Lisp. They seem to want to build on
Scheme, but are making some concessions in the direction of Common Lisp
(but not the right ones from our point of view).
I think that the Europeans are afraid that they will come up with a
shiny new Lisp, and that this will be ignored by everyone else. They're
probably right. So the plan is to make it THE Lisp standard at ISO, and
thereby to force everyone to use their dialect. Standards organizations
don't work this way -- unpopular standards have always been ignored.
I think that the creation of an official standard for Common Lisp is
important (though not essential). We need some mechanism for resolving
the ambiguities in CLtL and for fixing a few glaring problems, and a
standards effort is one good way of organizing this. If everyone
beleives that we're headed toward a standard and then we get blocked at
the end, I think that people will tend to follow what we've done.
-- Scott
∂16-Jun-86 1944 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Various Issues
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Date: Mon, 16 Jun 86 22:42 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Various Issues
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215342906.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860616224236.3.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 16:02 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
....The EuLisp group is making no effort to have the
highest level be the same as the current Common Lisp, and are changing
things like NIL....
At this point I think we shouldn't assume that what Stoyan's incoherent
document says is what the Eulisp group is doing, especially after Bob
Mathis's report that there was substantial disagreement within the
committee. We may as well give them the benefit of the doubt, for the
moment. I prefer to be selective about how I read their Lisp Conference
paper, at least in public, and put more weight on the conciliatory language
in there than on the suggested changes. The proposed changes in that paper
are obviously half-baked, I think they even admit that in the paper, and
also obviously were written by people with a very shallow understanding of
Common Lisp. I also found it interesting that you have to read that paper
very closely to realize that they are proposing to have a single name space
for functions and variables, rather than Common Lisp's separate name
spaces. Possibly this means that the authors of the paper didn't agree on
this point, so they toned it way down.
Perhaps we can educate them away from certain positions that are not in
fact "in the spirit of Common Lisp", while at the same time benefiting from
their goals (which I think are laudable). Of course, maybe I'm just being
naive and playing right into the bastards' hands. I think reversing the
decisions on NIL or FUNCTION that we arrived at rather painfully does not
serve any of their (stated!) goals in any significant way. Certainly the
reaction of the vast majority of my users would be "I don't care one whit
whether the empty list is a symbol or not, I just want my expert systems or
power plant simulations or speech understanding systems or whatever to
work. Will you Lisp guys -please- make up your minds on one language and
stick to it, so I don't have to keep converting my software!"
On the subject of reaping fame: Is there significant fame to be reaped by
redirecting a bunch of Lisp hackers who are throwing themselves over a
cliff by ignoring formal descriptions and layered specifications, and
forcing them to tread the Right Path?
∂16-Jun-86 2136 JF@su-sushi.arpa reprint giveaway
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 21:36:15 PDT
Date: Mon 16 Jun 86 21:33:15-PDT
From: Joan Feigenbaum <JF@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: reprint giveaway
To: aflb.su@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12215435857.11.JF@su-sushi.arpa>
I just finished cleaning out my office in preparation for moving to Bell.
There are two boxes of reprints (and a few other goodies) on the table in
the room adjoining the lounge in MJH. Please help yourself. I will throw
out the leftovers after it no longer looks like they are diminishing.
If you remove the contents in order to sort through, please put them back
in the box when you're done.
Joan
-------
∂16-Jun-86 2158 MEGIDDO%IBM.COM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
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Received: from IBM-SJ.ARPA by MC.LCS.MIT.EDU 7 Feb 86 14:34:04 EST
Date: 7 Feb 86 10:08:45 PST
From: MEGIDDO@IBM-SJ.ARPA
To: THEORY@WISC-RSR0CH, AILIST@SRI-AI, ARMS-D@MIT-MC,
ARPANET-BBOARDS@MIT-MC, EVOLUTION@KESTREL, MsgGroup@BRL,
NA@SU-SCORE, PHIL-SCI@MIT-MC, POLI-SCI@RUTGERS,
PROLOG@SU-SCORE, MEGIDDO@ibm-sj
First Announcement of a
COMPUTER PROGRAMS TOURNAMENT
(of the Prisoners' Dilemma game)
1. INTRODUCTION
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
This is a first announcement of a tournament for computer programs,
playing the famous Prisoners' Dilemma game. Detailed instructions and
some background information are provided below. The tournament is
organized for the purpose of research and no prizes are offered. It
is intended however that the results and winners' names will be
published with permission from the persons involved. One of the goals
is to see what will happen during a SEQUENCE of tournaments in which
information about the participating programs will be released, so that
participants will be able to revise their programs. The tournament is
open to everyone. However, notice the warnings below. If you have
access to electronic mail then you can participate by submitting a
FORTRAN program according to the instructions below. By doing so you
will also release and waive all your copyright rights and any other
intellectual property rights to your program. It will also be assumed
that you have not violated any rights of any third party. This
announcement also includes some programs that will help you prepare
for the tournament.
2. BACKGROUND
←←←←←←←←←←←←←
The so-called prisoners' dilemma game has drawn the attention
of researchers from many fields: psychology, economics, political
science, philosophy, biology, and mathematics. Computer scientists
are also interested in this game in the context of fundamentals of
distributed systems.
The game is simple to describe, does not require much skill and is yet
extremely interesting from both the theoretical and practical points
of view. By the (one-shot) Prisoners' Dilemma game we refer to a game
as follows. The game is played by two players with symmetric roles.
Each has to choose (independently of the other) between playing action
C ("cooperate") or action D ("defect"). The scores to the two
players, corresponding to the four possible combinations of choices of
actions, are as shown in the following table:
Player 2
C D
---------------
| 3 | 4 |
C | | |
| 3 | 0 |
Player 1 |-------|-------|
| 0 | 1 |
D | | |
| 4 | 1 |
---------------
Thus, both players score 3 if both play C. Both score 1 if both play D.
If one plays C and the other one plays D then the one who plays C scores
0 while the other one scores 4.
The prisoner's dilemma game has been the subject of many experiments.
A tournament was organized several years ago by R. Axelrod who later
published a book on it under the title "The evolution of cooperation"
(Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1984).
Following is some discussion for the benefit of readers who are not
familiar with the fundamental considerations of how to play the game. One
should be careful to distinguish the one-shot game from the REPEATED game
in which the (one-shot) game is played many times, and after each round
both players are informed of each other's actions. Furthermore, one
should distinguish between the infinitely repeated game and the finitely
repeated one. These seem to be quite different from the point of view
of equilibrium. An equilibrium in a 2-person game is a pair (S1,S2) of
strategies (one for each player) such that, given that player i (i=1,2)
is playing Si , the other player, j=3-i, scores the maximum if he plays
Sj .
We are interested here in the finitely repeated game where the number
of rounds is known in advance. We first consider the one-shot game.
The analysis of the one-shot game is obvious. Each of the players
realizes that no matter what his opponent does, it is always better
for him to play D rather than C. Thus, under a very weak assumption
of rationality (namely, players do not choose actions that are
strictly dominated by other actions), the pair of actions (D,D)
remains the only rational choice. The resulting score of (1,1) is
inferior to (3,3), which is possible if the choices are (C,C), and
this is the source of the "dilemma".
To get some insight into the more general case, consider first
the 2-round game. After the first round (in which the players choose
independently C or D) each player is informed of the choice of the
other one and then, once again, the players choose independently C or
D. In this game each player has EIGHT strategies that can be coded in
the form XYZ where each of X,Y and Z equals either C or D. The
interpretation of this notation is as follows. (1) Play X in round 1.
(2) In round 2, play Y if the opponent played C and play Z if the
opponent played D. It is easy to verify that any strategy XYZ is
strictly dominated by XDD (that is, regardless of what was done in
round 1, and regardless of what the opponent does in round 2, it is
better to play D rather than C in round 2. However, there is no
domination relation between the strategies CDD and DDD: if player 2
plays DDD then player 1 is better off playing DDD rather than CDD,
whereas if player 2 plays DDC, player 1 is better off playing CDD
rather than DDD. Of course, strategy DDC for player 2 is dominated by
DDD, but in order for player 1 to deduce that player 2 will not play
DDC, he has to assume that player 2 is capable of discovering this
domination. Under such an assumption player 1 can eliminate 2's DDC.
Thus, if both players are "rational" they are left only with strategy
DDD as a reasonable choice.
A similar process of repeatedly eliminating dominated strategies
applies to the general N-round game. It is dominant for both players
to defect in the last round. Therefore (after we drop all strategies
that play C in the last round), it becomes dominant to defect in round
N-1, and so on. This eventually leaves both players only with the
strategy of always playing D.
The winner in both tournaments run by R. Axelrod was the simple
strategy called "Tit-for-Tat". It starts by playing C and in round i+1
plays whatever the opponent played in round i. It seems like a very good
strategy for playing the repeated dilemma for an indefinite number of
rounds. In the N-round game it is obvious that an improvement over Tit-
for-Tat would be to play Tit-for-Tat except for the last round in which
the optimal play is always to defect.
3. HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE TOURNAMENT?
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
If you think you understand the dilemma quite well and would like to
participate in this tournament then please act according to the following
instructions:
1. Design a strategy of how to play the game when the number of rounds
is known in advance. The strategy should specify what to do in round 1
and at any point of the game, knowing what has been done so far and the
number of rounds left, specify what to do in the next round.
2. Write a FORTRAN subroutine with the following specifications. Give
it a six-letter name, for example, the first four letters of your last
name followed by two initials. Suppose you picked the name JONERJ for
your subroutine. Then the first line of your program should look as
follows.
SUBROUTINE JONERJ (N,J,I,M)
The arguments are defined as follows.
N - This is the total number of rounds to be played. Whenever your
program is called it is told the total number of rounds and
this will not change during a single game.
J - This is the serial number of the round you are supposed to play in
the current call.
I - When J is greater than 1, this argument tells you what your opponent
has played in the previous round. If I=1 it means your opponent has
played C. If J=2 then he played D. Any other value is an error.
M - This is what you return as your play in the current round. M=1 means
you play C. M=2 means you play D. Any other value will result in an
error.
Your subroutine may compute anything you wish. In particular, it may
keep track of the entire history of a single (N-round) game. However,
it will not be able to record past games against any opponent since it
will be unloaded at the end of a single N-round game. Please be
reasonable with respect to the space and time you intend your program to
use. Unreasonable programs will have to be dropped from the tournament
at the discretion of the organizers. Also, if your program ever returns
a faulty play, that is, it returns an M which is neither 1 nor 2, then it
will be dropped from the tournament automatically.
3. Fill in the following information (to be transmitted only by
electronic mail):
NAME:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
AFFILIATION:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
STREET:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
CITY:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← STATE:←←←←←←←←←←←←← Zip:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
COUNTRY:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
TELEPHONE:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS:←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
4. Important notice!
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
| By sending your program to any one of the following |
| addresses you agree to waive and release, to the extent |
| permitted by law, all your copyright rights and other |
| intellectual property rights in your computer program. |
| You also warrant that no portion of your program or its |
| use or distribution, violates or is protected by any |
| copyright or other intellectual property right of any |
| third party. You also warrant you have the right to, |
| and hereby do, grant to IBM a royalty-free license to |
| use your program. If any contestant is a minor under |
| the laws of the state in which contestant resides, at |
| least one of the contestant's parents should sign this |
| warranty and license. IBM may elect to publish the |
| results of the contest; names of participants or their |
| submissions will not be published without the written |
| approval and signature of the individual authors. |
|←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←|
Please transmit your program by March 31, 1986, along with the filled
questionnaire to one of the following addresses:
CSNET or ARPANET: megiddo@ibm-sj
VNET or BITNET : megiddo at almvma
4. TRAINING PROGRAM
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
For your convenience, we include here an interactive program that lets
you play the game with another "player". While playing this interactive
program please remember that your goal is actually to SCORE high and not
necessarily to BEAT the other player. In the tournament, your ability
to affect the player's total score is limited since he plays against many
other players besides you. Thus you will benefit if you will create
"confidence" so that both of you end up playing C very often. You have
the option of either playing yourself or using the subroutine that
represents you. If you use a subroutine then you have to name it MINE
and follow the instructions in Section 3. Simply append it the following
program. It is advised that you use this option to test your own program
before submitting it to the tournament.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTEGER SCORE,SCORE2,CH1,CH2,PRE1,PRE2,CC,DD,CD,DC
C
DATA CC,DD,CD,DC/3,1,0,4/
20 SCORE = 0
SCORE2 = 0
PRE1=1
PRE2=1
WRITE(6,102)
102 FORMAT(' ENTER NUMBER OF ROUNDS YOU WISH TO PLAY (0=END)')
103 FORMAT (I6)
READ (5,*) NR
IF (NR.LE.0) STOP
118 FORMAT(' WILL YOU (1) PLAY OR WILL YOUR SUBROUTINE (2) DO? (1/2)')
430 WRITE (6,118)
READ (5,*) II
IF (II.EQ.2) GO TO 420
IF (II.NE.1) GO TO 430
420 DO 30 JR = 1, NR
104 FORMAT(' ROUND NO.',I6,' OF',I6,' ROUNDS. PLEASE ENTER 1 OR 2')
IF (II.EQ.2) GO TO 440
WRITE (6,104) JR,NR
40 CONTINUE
READ (5,*) CH1
GO TO 450
440 CALL MINE(NR,JR,PRE2,CH1)
IF ((CH1-1)*(CH1-2)) 470,71,470
470 WRITE (6,117)
117 FORMAT (' YOUR SUBROUTINE RETURNED A FAULTY PLAY')
GO TO 20
450 IF ((CH1-1)*(CH1-2)) 70,71,70
70 IF (CH1.EQ.0) GO TO 20
105 FORMAT(' PLEASE ENTER EITHER 1 OR 2 . (0=END)')
WRITE (6,105)
GO TO 40
71 IF (JR-1) 220,220,230
220 CH2 = 1
IF (NR.EQ.1) CH2 = 2
GO TO 300
230 IF (JR-NR) 250,260,260
250 CH2 = PRE1
GO TO 300
260 CH2 = 2
107 FORMAT(' PLAY WAS: YOU=',I3,' OPPONENT=',I3)
300 WRITE(6,107) CH1,CH2
IF (CH1-1) 110,110,120
110 IF (CH2-1) 130,130,140
130 SCORE = SCORE + CC
SCORE2 = SCORE2 + CC
GO TO 35
140 SCORE = SCORE + CD
SCORE2 = SCORE2 + DC
GO TO 35
120 IF (CH2-1) 150,150,160
150 SCORE = SCORE + DC
SCORE2 = SCORE2 + CD
GO TO 35
160 SCORE = SCORE + DD
SCORE2 = SCORE2 + DD
35 WRITE (6,106) SCORE,SCORE2
106 FORMAT (' NEW TOTAL SCORE: YOU=',I5,' OPPONENT=',I5)
PRE1=CH1
PRE2=CH2
30 CONTINUE
GO TO 20
END
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. SAMPLE PROGRAMS
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
For your convenience we include here copies of two sample programs.
The first subroutine, called TIFRTA, plays Tit-for-Tat (see Section 2)
except that it always defects in the last round. The second, called
GRIM, starts playing C but switches to D the first time th opponent has
played D. It also always defects in the last round.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBROUTINE TIFRTA (N,J,IHE,MY)
C
C THIS IS THE TIT-FOR-TAT RULE. IN ROUND 1 PLAY 1. IN ROUND N
C PLAY 0. OTHERWISE, PLAY WHAT THE OPPONENT PLAYED IN THE PRECEDING
C ROUND.
C
C N = TOTAL NUMBER OF ROUNDS
C J = CURRENT ROUND
C IHE = THE CHOICE OF THE OPPONENT IN THE PRECEDING ROUND (1 OR 2)
C MY = MY CHOICE FOR THE CURRENT ROUND (1 OR 2)
C
IF (J-1) 20,20,30
20 MY = 1
IF(N.EQ.1) MY=2
RETURN
30 IF (J-N) 50,60,60
50 MY = IHE
RETURN
60 MY = 2
RETURN
END
C------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBROUTINE GRIM (N,J,IHE,MY)
C
C THIS IS THE GRIM STRATEGY: START WITH C AND SWITCH TO D
C AS SOON AS THE OPPONENT DOES
C
IF (J-1) 10,10,20
10 IX = 1
20 IF (IHE.EQ.2) IX = 2
IF (J.EQ.N) IX = 2
MY = IX
RETURN
END
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
∂16-Jun-86 2335 SELLS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Directed Reading in Government-Binding Theory
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jun 86 23:35:20 PDT
Date: Mon 16 Jun 86 23:27:28-PDT
From: Peter Sells <Sells@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Directed Reading in Government-Binding Theory
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Leora Weitzman and I are planning to do some kind of directed reading thing
this summer on Government-Binding Theory, working through the relevant
chapter of my Lecture Notes book and then moving on to other stuff. If
anyone is interested in joining us, please let me know (sells@csli);
suggestions are of course welcome.
(We probably won't begin for a couple of weeks, and then will meet weekly,
with readings, discussions, and a few exercises here and there I should
think; exactly how it goes will depend on who's doing it.)
-------
∂17-Jun-86 0859 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM further development of Lisp
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jun 86 08:58:53 PDT
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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 86 11:01 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: further development of Lisp
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215415589.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860617110152.9.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 22:41 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I think that the creation of an official standard for Common Lisp is
important (though not essential). We need some mechanism for resolving
the ambiguities in CLtL and for fixing a few glaring problems, and a
standards effort is one good way of organizing this. If everyone
beleives that we're headed toward a standard and then we get blocked at
the end, I think that people will tend to follow what we've done.
I agree. Scott, I am extremely encouraged to see how much initiative
you're taking and how much work you're putting in. I'd really hate to
see you discouraged or exhausted by political battles within ISO. In
fact, anticipation of such problems is exactly the reason we originally
felt we should not get involved with ISO in the first place. I would
much rather see your energy, skill, and experience directed towards
pulling together the mechanisms for resolving ambiguities in CLtL, than
see you get so put off by all the politics that you would rather have
nothing to do with CL any more! So, I respectfully recommend that you
give the ISO/Europe problem a reasonable amount of attention but be
careful not to let it get overwhelming.
In fact, if a good, working process emerges for fixing the ambiguities,
that will further increase people's confidence in the CL standard. In
the long run, that kind of confidence will lead to the kind of
popularity that will make the standard a success.
∂17-Jun-86 1055 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Various Issues
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jun 86 10:55:33 PDT
Date: 17 Jun 1986 10:44-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Various Issues
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]17-Jun-86 10:44:08.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <860616224236.3.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Given that the first stages of CL development is past history, I still want to
make a few comments to set the record straight. I think you who are the
primary architects of CL are chastizing yourselves too much concerning your
failure to get other countries (or even other domestic parties) involved. I
submit that the only reason that CL happened in the first place was your
dedication to an important goal and some support from DARPA. I don't think
that there were many others out there who were willing to put in the sheer
hard work that you were to get the job done. I don't think that the EuLisp
people were organized enough at that time to contribute in a major,
constructive way and I believe there would have been serious danger of
religious wars so that CL may have never happened. I further believe that the
very existence of CL has served to polarize views and motivate others to
develop some standard. Without CL we would probably still see the general
flailing around that went on for many years. While at DARPA, I had the chance
to observe and gather responses from the rest of the community. My
recollections from that period are that, in general, the rest of the Lisp
world had some interest in what was going on in CL but that many never felt
very strongly about what was happening. Of course, this all changed when CL
became real, DARPA put its weight behind it, and vendors started to adopt it
in great numbers. Now everyone feels they should have been a part of it.
Be that as it may, I do think it is important to get CL established as a
standard. As others of you have pointed out, the fact that we are doing so
will motivate vendors to adopt CL. From what has been said, I believe there
is probably a very good chance to get the Japanese on board. They are likely
to regard a standard as a very important issue and one they want to be
involved with. I also think that we should involve the EuLisp in the
standardization process if we can get them to contribute in a constructive
way. Perhaps, if they see the Japanese cooperating, the EuLisp people will be
motivated to do so also.
We need to press on in the most effective way possible to get the
standardization process going. This may take the form of pushing very hard on
the ANSI side of things. If we have that standardization completed, we may be
in a much stronger position vis-a-vis ISO standardization. (Bob can you give
us some opinion on this?)
I wish to second Scott's opinion concerning a copyright. We should get that
done as soon as possible. I think it would be best to have it vested in some
CL organization or partnership of interested parties, but that would require
that some group be formalized. I will talk to the lawyers here to see what it
takes to make this happen. In the meantime, I support Scott's position of
pressing on and getting the copyright in his name. It can be reassigned at a
later date to some CL official body.
I also want to second Dan's observation concerning the amount of work that
Scott is putting into this effort. I welcome his leadership in this matter
and I believe we owe him some gratitude for taking on the time-consuming task
of seeing that we move forward.
Ron
∂17-Jun-86 1459 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Awards
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jun 86 14:59:37 PDT
Date: Tue 17 Jun 86 14:57:01-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Awards
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12215625869.29.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
News Flash! At commencement ceremonies Sunday, Ralph Goren received
the Dinkelspiel Award for his service to undergraduate education through
his work at LOTS. At our CSD ceremony in the Old Union Courtyard later,
Dean Jim Gibbons presented Stuart Reges (in absentia at Princeton) with
the Tau Beta Pi award for excellence in undergraduate advising.
We all know these awards are well deserved and I'm sure we count ourselves
fortunate to have dedicated, successful and energetic people like Ralph
and Stuart around. Thanks for all the work that these awards represent,
Ralph and Stuart, and congratulations! -Nils
-------
∂17-Jun-86 1831 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Technical progress
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jun 86 18:30:56 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Tue 17 Jun 86 21:30:40-EDT
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1986 21:30 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12215664748.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Technical progress
In-reply-to: Msg of 17 Jun 1986 13:44-EDT from OHLANDER at USC-ISIB.ARPA
Thanks to Dan and Ron for the encouragement. Now we must get on with
the real work. The better job we do on the technical side, the less any
of this political stuff will matter.
I'm going to make two files, one for issues to be resolved and one for
decisions of the technical committee. As problems are identified, they
will be put on the first list. I'll pick one or two at a time for
discussion on Common Lisp, and will call for a vote of the technical
committee when things seem to have converged to a specific proposal or
choice between a couple of options. Advice from any of you is welcome
-- what issue to bring up next, etc. -- but it would be helpful if you'd
try not to start new discussions while old ones are still raging. I'll
probably start with something current, like what goes into the LISP
package, and then try to whip through the proposals Steele made in
Boston.
Concurrently, I'll get to work on a document. This will be kept on
view, and again kibitzing is invited. Of course, it is more helpful if
you propose specific changes (or want to rewrite whole sections) than if
you just say that you don't like something.
There are some things that I'd like help on:
I believe that Guy volunteered a while ago to look over the
floating-point stuff (perhaps with help from Hilfinger and others) and
to make a specific proposal on what changes we should make. I have no
competence in this area.
I'd like a couple of volunteers to take a close look at KMP's error
proposal (and the code for it, when it becomes available) to see if this
is really what we want to live with for the next five years or so. I
believe that Moon has already beaten on this extensively, but we need
some other perspectives. I like what I see, in general, but I haven't
had time to think hard about this. Once there is a proposal that
several of us like, we can put it forward for final discussion, voting,
and possible adoption.
Does anyone want to take a crack at the whole knotted mess surrounding
"top-level forms", Eval-When or some replacement for it, and what the
compiler does with various forms at compile, load, and eval time? This
might leak over into consideration of facilities for separate
compilation, package hackery, etc. The point is to sepcify those things
that must be specified in order to make it easy to write portable code
for large, complex systems. If nobody else wants this, I'll get to it
eventually, but help in thinking it all through would be very welcome.
It would be useful if Bobrow and Moon could discuss whether there is
enough common ground between new flavors and Commonloops to support a
usable standard object-oriented facility, with some of the more
controversial things (e.g. the declarative method-combination stuff in
flavors) as add-ons. If there's common ground there, and if we can
satisfy some of the concerns Alan Snyder has raised, maybe we've got
critical mass. It would be very nice if we could have the rough
outlines of a system we could all live with before the Lisp Conference.
If it can't be done, it can't be done, but we should try. I've got a
feeling that if we don't act soon, each group is going to get locked
into its own way of handling this. CommonLoops looks like the winner
for about half the communtiy, but there will be large factions using the
other systems.
I'm happy to have people not on the technical committee working on these
proposals -- some very good people are not on the committee just because
we didn't want to over-represent certain companies -- but I would like
someone on the technical committee to coordinate each of these things.
-- Scott
∂17-Jun-86 2140 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jun 86 21:40:21 PDT
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Date: Wed, 18 Jun 86 00:36 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Technical progress
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215664748.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860618003612.1.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
A good place to start, in looking for issues to be resolved, would
be the messages several people (Kent Pitman is the only name I
remember, I think because he's the only one I know personally)
sent within the past couple of months describing their experience
porting actual, live programs between several actual, live Common
Lisp implementations.
As for agreeing on a standard object-oriented programming system
before the Lisp conference (i.e. in six weeks), I hate to pick on
you when you're volunteering to do so much work, but I have to say
that you're dreaming. Bobrow and I get along pretty well, I think,
but nobody ever made a standard in six weeks. Anything we said in
that time would be vacuous. I don't even understand everything that
Common Loops is trying to do yet. (Is there a better document than
the one from last year? I've been hoping, but I realize it's
difficult to write such things.)
∂18-Jun-86 0148 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #22
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 01:48:08 PDT
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 1986 7:53AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #22
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Wednesday, 18 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 22
Today's Topics:
Query - Thanks,
Implementation - CP NQueens & TProlog & Standardization
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 86 11:49:24 pdt
From: Peter Ludemann <ludemann%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY>
Subject:
I wish to thank the people who responded to my query about
who is working on Warren (and other) logic machines.
One person mentioned work at Stanford on hardware called
PLM and/or SOAR. Also, there was a rumour of work going
on at NEC. Does anyone have any more details, please?
-- Peter Ludemann
------------------------------
Date: Thu 12 Jun 86 20:33:23-EDT
From: Vijay <Vijay.Saraswat@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Subject: N-queens in CP[!,|,&].
Here is the CP[!,|,&] program for the N-queens problem.
/* queens(N,V) holds iff V is the list of N queens such
that a queen is placed at cell location (V[i],i) for
i=1...N. */
queens(N, V):- true |
board(0, N, L, V, R-R).
board(K!, N!, L, V, [O|R]-[NewR|Rt]):- K < N, K1 is K+1 |
line(K1, 0, N, H, V, L, [O|R]),
%Right shift the left lines as you go
%to the next row and left shift the
%right lines, introducing a new line
%at the ends.
board(K1, N, [NewL|L], V, R-Rt).
board(K, K, L, V, R-Rt):- true | true.
line(I, Jmax, Jmax, Hl, Vl, Ll, Rl):- true | true.
line(I, J!, Jmax!, H, [V|Vl], [L|Ll], [R|Rl]) :-
J < Jmax, J1 is J+1 |
cell(I, J1, H, V, L, R),
line(I, J1, Jmax, H, Vl, Ll, Rl).
cell(I!,J!, J, I, I, I):- true & true.
cell(I!,J!, ←, ←, ←, ←):- I =/= J & true.
cell(J!,J!, H!,V!, ←, ←):- true & true.
/*
If it is fair to deduce from the problem specification
that there may be at most one queen per row, then the
program may be considerably simplified,a nd a set of
pure Horn clauses results. These may be executed by a
Prolog processor. Here is the pure Horn clause
specification of the N-queens problem, modulo arithmetic
done for incrementing counters from 1 ... N.*/
queens(N, V):- board(0, N, L, V, R-R).
board(K, N, L, V, [O|R]-[NewR|Rt]):-
K < N, K1 is K+1,
line(K1, 1, N, V,L, [O|R]),
board(K1, N, [NewL|L], V, R-Rt).
board(K, K, L, V, R-Rt).
line(K, N, Nmax, [K|←], [K|←], [K|←]).
line(K, N, Nmax, [←|Ll], [←|Vl], [←|Rl]) :-
N < Nmax, N1 is N+1,
line(K, N1, Nmax, Ll, Vl, Rl).
------------------------------
Date: Thu Jun 12 16:19:22 1986
From: Herm Fischer <hermix!fischer@rand-unix.ARPA>
Subject: Comments to my review of Turbo Prolog
Larry,
Thank you for replying to my review of Borland Turbo Prolog.
I have a few responses to your comments.
(1) There seems to be a question of whether Borland's is
"true" Prolog. I made the comment that the syntax is Clocksin
& Mellish, and by that I meant it was not Micro-Prolog, or
some other varient. Micro-Prolog calls itself a true Prolog
also. So what is Prolog?
Coming from the Ada community, I have become a strong believer
in Standards. Borland, UNSW, and other implementations all
provide some renaming of built-in predicates, and all provide
some varients in the semantics of the built-in predicates. We
need a standard in this area, not just some adherants of one
implementation over another. I gather from industry contacts
that the U.S. does not seem strongly motivated or even care
much to back Prolog standardization. (I understand there are
overseas efforts, but no ANSI interest.) Without a standard
blessed by some coalition of U.S. industry and government, I
have no idea of what a "true" Prolog is.
(2) Conversion of working programs to Borland involves at least
two activities:
(a) converting built-in predicate names, and
(b) imposing typing on a working program.
Being a Unix (Xenix on PC/AT) user, I am not bothered when
built-in predicates are changed; while frustrating, simple
"sed" editing scripts fix that faster than one can reach for
a cup of coffee. Perhaps the next time I do that I'll send
Restivo the "sed" script for all to use. So much for
easy work...
Imposing typing on a working program can vary from being as
easy as using an editor to strip out all "left sides" of a
:- and slightly editing them, to efforts which consume labor
like celestial black holes consume matter. A large number
of Defense Department software shops are busily converting
their software to Ada (which generally requires the same
problem of typing an untyped program). My friends mostly
tell of stories where Ada conversion efforts had to be simply
abandoned and the Ada code written from scratch. I can
concieve of Prolog situations where this is an insurmountable
problem. In my own product, I griped and coped, and felt
that the resulting product was much "cleaner" and no less
"Prolog-ish". (I did not use DCG rules or need =..) In test
cases I tried before, the editor massaging trick was
sufficient.
Turbo-Prolog typed programs should, as far as I can tell,
need only minimum filtering (in the Unix "sed" sense) to be
converted to untyped Prolog.
(3) The few cases I've tried have not run out of memory on
Turbo-P. As to your question of what other Prologs on the PC
can take, my version of the UNSW Prolog for the PC is in huge
model, which under Xenix can take up to 60% of real memory
(and most Xenix AT's now have a couple of megabytes). At
just under $100 for 1 Megabyte of PC/AT memory, who even
cares any longer...
(4) I'd be interested in speed comparisons between a wider
range of Prolog's for the PC, and similar discussions of
conversion difficulties.
(5) As to missing features, it is my personal impression
that Borland is interested and listening. I have heard
several times that they have intents (but not commitments)
to add arg, functor, and those types of features. If you
need specific capabilities, such as DCG and run-time binding
of predicates, perhaps they need to hear constructive
suggestions from the user community.
-- Herm Fischer
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂18-Jun-86 0410 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 04:09:43 PDT
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Received: by rsch.wisc.edu; Wed, 18 Jun 86 01:13:58 CDT
Message-Id: <8606172337.AA13755@rsch.wisc.edu>
Received: from ibm-sj.csnet by rsch.wisc.edu; Tue, 17 Jun 86 18:37:43 CDT
Date: 17 June 1986, 15:25:06 PDT
From: Flaviu Cristian <FLAVIU@IBM.COM>
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 18 Jun 86 01:06:49 CDT (Wed)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Subject: FTCS17 call for papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
FTCS17
THE SEVENTEENTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
ON FAULT-TOLERANT COMPUTING
sponsored by IEEE Computer Society's Technical
Committee on Fault-Tolerant Computing
Portland, Oregon, June 17-19, 1987
The Fault-Tolerant Computing Symposium has, since 1971, become the
most important forum for discussion of the state-of-the-art in
fault-tolerant computing. It addresses all aspects of specifying,
designing, modeling, implementing, testing, diagnosing and evaluating
dependable and fault-tolerant computing systems and their components.
A special theme of the conference will be the practical application of
fault-tolerance to the design of safety critical systems, real-time
systems, switching systems and transaction systems.
Papers relating to the following areas are invited:
a) design methods and basic algorithms for distributed
fault-tolerant systems,
b) specification, design, testing, verification of reliable software,
c) specification, design, testing, verification, and diagnosis of
reliable hardware
d) fault-tolerant hardware system architectures,
e) reliability, availability, safety modeling and measurements,
f) fault-tolerant computing systems for safe process control,
digital switching, manufacturing automation, and on-line
transaction processing.
Authors should submit 6 copies of papers before the submission
deadline November 21, 1986 to the program co-chairmen: Flaviu
Cristian, IBM Research K55/801, 650 Harry Rd., San Jose, Ca
95120-6099, USA, and Jack Goldberg, SRI International, 333
Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, Ca 94025. Papers in areas a, b, and f
should be sent to F. Cristian, and papers in areas c, d, and e to
J. Goldberg.
Papers should be no longer than 5000 words, should include a clear
description of the problem being discussed, comparisons with extant
work, and a section on major original contributions. The front page
should include a contact author's complete mailing address, telephone
number and net address (if available), and should clearly indicate the
paper's word count and the area to which the paper is submitted.
Submissions arriving late or departing from these guidelines risk
rejection without consideration of their merits.
The general chairman for this symposium is John Wensley, August
Systems, USA. The program co-chairmen are: Flaviu Cristian, IBM, USA,
and Jack Goldberg, SRI International, USA. Publicity chaiman is Bella
Bose, USA.
The program committee consists of: Jacob Abraham, USA, Vinod Agarwal,
Canada, Sheldon Akers, USA, Philip Bernstein, USA, Bill Carter, USA,
Jim Gray, USA, Hirokazu Ihara, Japan, Ravi Iyer, USA, Kozo Kinoshita,
Japan, John Knight, USA, Herman Kopetz, Austria, Leslie Lamport, USA,
Jean-Claude Laprie, France, Gerard Le Lann, France, Nancy Leveson,
USA, Barbara Liskov, USA, Bev Littlewood, UK, Ed McCluskey, USA,
Michael Melliar-Smith, USA, David Parnas, Canada, David Rennels, USA,
Richard Shlichting, USA, Fred Schneider, USA, Dan Siewiorek, USA, Dale
Skeen, USA, Basil Smith, USA, Yoshi Tohma, Japan, Wing Toy, USA,
Kishor Trivedi, USA, Ted Williams, USA. Ex Officio member: Tom
Anderson, UK, TC chairman.
--------------
TN Message #51
--------------
∂18-Jun-86 0539 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Re: Standards
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 05:39:26 PDT
Date: 18 Jun 1986 05:38-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Re: Standards
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]18-Jun-86 05:38:31.MATHIS>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12214816283.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
The Uk people were incorrect in their criticism of US actions.
We had to send the proposals through US bodies in the way that we
did because of US internal procedures (they are very different in
each country). Secondly it is not against ISO rules for coutries
to have different standards -- the most notable example is Pascal
and the British make us remember it every chance they get.
The traditional way for programming language standards to be
developed is by the US and then adopted by ISO (eg, Fortran,
Cobol, Ada -- the three biggest). Here we are trying for an ISO
standard dierectly, but must also be prepared to do an ANSI
standard by itself if necessary.
I pointed all this out at the meeting, sorry I forgot to point it
out in my notes.
-- Bob
∂18-Jun-86 0704 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 07:04:27 PDT
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 24278; Wed 18-Jun-86 10:03:27 EDT
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 86 10:06 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Technical progress
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215664748.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860618100611.5.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1986 21:30 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I'll probably start with something current, like what goes into the LISP
package, and then try to whip through the proposals Steele made in
Boston.
It might be best to start with things that seem to least controversial,
for morale purposes. If a bunch of decisions go quickly and smoothly,
we'll all feel better about the process. The recent mail about package
organization seems interminable, possibly because the arguments are
based on rather subjective considerations sometimes.
I'd like a couple of volunteers...
Is CL-Steering the right place to send this request? Perhaps you should
send this to the technical committee.
It would be useful if Bobrow and Moon could discuss whether there is
enough common ground between new flavors and Commonloops...
As far as I have heard, there is still no definition of Commonloops.
I've been interested in it, and would like to discuss and evaluate it,
but without any written definition, it's rather hard. Something whose
form was not unlike CLtL would be fine with me; I don't need a highly
formal mathematical definition of anything. The paper that has been
widely circulated is far from a definition; for example, what are the
generic operations on metaclasses? But so far this is what's been
holding my ability to understand, and say anything intelligent about,
Commonloops. (Note: yes, I have a copy of the source code of the
portable implementation, but it is extremely difficult or impossible to
induce a definition from a specific implementation. Yes, I have tried.)
∂18-Jun-86 0810 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Technical progress
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 08:09:50 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 18 Jun 86 11:09:17-EDT
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1986 11:09 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12215813759.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Technical progress
In-reply-to: Msg of 18 Jun 1986 10:06-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
It might be best to start with things that seem to least controversial,
for morale purposes.
Good point.
I'd like a couple of volunteers...
Is CL-Steering the right place to send this request? Perhaps you should
send this to the technical committee.
Well, I didn't expect any of the steering-only people to volunteer, but
they need to be aware of what we're planning to do, in broad terms.
Once we get down to narrow technical chatter I'll switch to the other
list.
I agree with you and Moon that there's no possible way of producing an
object spec by the time of the Lisp Conference. What I was hoping
(dreaming, perhaps) was that some internal discussion might reveal to us
whether there is a good chance that we might be able to agree on an
object system by the time the rest of this stuff is done, and some ideas
about what that spec might contain. (My internal goal, and it's only a
goal and not a promise, is that we can have a proposed spec for Common
Lisp ready to go by the end of this calendar year.) Or should we just
tell the world that there's no way this will get done and the
standardization of an object-oriented system will have to be done later,
if at all.
It looks to me like CommonLoops and New Flavors overlap substantially.
I realize that many people are suspicious of the multiple-arg dispatch,
but that's looking better and better to me the more I think about it.
(Think hard about doing arithmetic and Macsyma-style stuff with and
without this, and it will start looking very good -- at least, that's
what keeps pulling me back to this.) The declarative combination stuff
from Flavors is controversial, but also probably separable. The Xerox
people have talked with Snyder about his encapsulation concerns, and I
believe they agree there are reasonable ways of accommodating these
things for users who want that kind of protection instead of the
conveneience of default inheritance. (Yes, I know that all of this is
an over-simplification.)
The rest of you may or may not see the world this way, but if you do, I
think that we should be able to say with some confidence that a proposal
could be developed in the course of several months, and we could say
roughly what level of stuff would be within the standard and what would
be add-on. Not to decide is to decide. Six weeks isn't a very long
time, but it seemed worthwhile to take a poke at this, at least to
determine whether there has been any convergence since January. Maybe
it's just too early to start, however, and we'll have to look at this
again in September, after the CommonLoops people and others have
polished their act a bit.
-- Scott
∂18-Jun-86 0815 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Standards
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 08:15:07 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 18 Jun 86 11:14:53-EDT
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1986 11:14 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12215814792.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Standards
In-reply-to: Msg of 18 Jun 1986 08:38-EDT from MATHIS at USC-ISIF.ARPA
That's good news. So if we do a good job technically, I don't see any
way we can be blocked at the ANSI level. If ISO should adopt a
different Lisp standard, we can just say that their Lisp and Common Lisp
are different languages with different goals.
-- Scott
∂18-Jun-86 0916 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Technical progress
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 09:16:12 PDT
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 24440; Wed 18-Jun-86 12:02:57 EDT
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 86 12:05 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Technical progress
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12215813759.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860618120545.1.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
I agree that there is substantial overlap between New Flavors and
CommonLoops, and I also have been expecting that we'd be in discussions
with the CommonLoops designers to try to come up with some kind of
standards proposal. However, I've felt unable to proceed because I
really don't know what CommonLoops is; I only know certain facts and
claims about it, from the paper that's been distributed. Perhaps if you
could help to encourage the CommonLoops designers to come up with a real
description of what CommonLoops is, just what it can do, and just how
you use it.
(Note that I am speaking for myself; I am not certain of all of Moon's
opinions, so please don't assume that he agrees with me on everything.
However, I think that he probably would agree with much of the above.)
∂18-Jun-86 1002 RPG Volunteer
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
I will do EVAL-WHEN.
-rpg-
∂18-Jun-86 1018 WASOW@SU-CSLI.ARPA golden bicycles
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 10:18:18 PDT
Date: Wed 18 Jun 86 10:11:19-PDT
From: Tom Wasow <WASOW@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: golden bicycles
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
This morning I wanted to use one of the gold CSLI bicycles to ride from
Ventura to the quad. I discovered that there was only one on the premises
at Ventura, and it was broken. I walked over to the quad, where I found
four more in the area around Linguistics, Psychology, and Math. I rode
one back, wondering the whole way what had become of the other five
CSLI bicycles. Does anyone out there know?
Tom
-------
∂18-Jun-86 1254 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM Re: Technical progress
Received: from XEROX.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jun 86 12:54:17 PDT
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 18 JUN 86 12:53:54 PDT
Date: 18 Jun 86 12:52 PDT
Sender: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Technical progress
In-reply-to: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>'s
message of Wed, 18 Jun 86 10:06 EDT
To: Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM,DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM
cc: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.COM (Danny Bobrow)
Message-ID: <860618-125354-1783@Xerox>
I agree with Moon that defining a standard in 6 weeks is impossible.
Even if we agreed on everything writing the document would take longer.
I also sympathise with DLW and Moon's desire for a more formal
specification of CommonLoops, particularly the meta-object protocol
(what DLW calls "the generic operations on meta-classes"). We have
begun working on such a document, we will try to make a draft available
in a couple of weeks. Given our first draft of the spec distributed
soon, net traffic can be used to understand areas of potential problems.
If it is desirable we can plan to get together before or concurrent with
the Lisp conference.
With agreement on some of the spec, we might be able to make some
statement about the object-standard at the Lisp conference. If we could
say that we have agreed on the default mechanisms for defining methods
and classes, and that we are working on a meta-object protocol, that
would make it clear that there is enough convergence to allow people to
write programs. They could use either PCL or New Flavors as the
implementation for code that would continue to work.
The major issue is of course meta-objects. I think most of the other
issues are pretty simple. For example:
1) Method Combination: Gregor is currently implementing the user defined
declarative method combination interface specified by Moon. This fits
quite nicely into CommonLoops, although the implementation technique is
quite different when you have meta-objects.
2) Multimethods: are a win for us, and don't interfere with classical
methods.
3) Syntax: We are not wedded to any of our defining form syntax. We
have avoided syntactic conflicts with (New) Flavors to make it easier to
port either kind of program in the face of standardization.
Some uses we have made of metaobject:
Metaclasses have allowed us to define classes for the built-in types,
and hence to define methods specialized to those types. (This could
clearly have been allowed in New Flavors without metaclasses, but it
does make it natural).
We have explored combining logic calls with objects by implementing a
logic-discriminator (one that does unification on its arguments, and
backtracks on "failure").
We have hand waved with Gary Drescher about how one could get some of
his favorite features. Perhaps a meeting with LMI will make that
clearer.
We are quite sympathetic with people who want a standard now. It is
good to know what the future will hold. Let's try to hurry it along as
fast as our little parentheses will travel.
-- danny
∂19-Jun-86 1036 INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA E-Mail
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 10:34:44 PDT
Date: Thu 19 Jun 86 10:28:32-PDT
From: Ingrid Deiwiks <INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: E-Mail
To: Folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Warbucks at SRI is down today, so messages should be sent to SRI-AI.
-------
∂19-Jun-86 1155 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA Printer usage
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 11:54:55 PDT
Date: Thu 19 Jun 86 11:32:46-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Printer usage
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Here are some helpful pointers on printing at CSLI that might help us
save some money (and our printers):
1. You don't have to list your messages. You really don't have to list
your messages on Escher. Messages can be stored on disk and we will
not lose them. The MOVE command in MM will move them to a file where
they can be stored. If you don't know how to do this, please ask me
or a consultant for help. If you must list your mail, please do it on
the chug-a-chug line printer in the copy room.
2. Please try and reserve Escher for final copy. Printers like Escher
are expensive to operate and have a finite life span -- measured in the
total number of pages printed. The present replacement cost for Escher
is over $12,000; per page cost is estimated to be between $.05 and
$.07. Please keep this in mind when you print on it.
3. Please use the line printer whenever possible. The operating costs for
the line printer are very low.
4. We are working on a method of using the Apple Laser writers in the same
way as we now use Escher. While this will not reduce the per page costs
significantly, distributing the printing load over a greater number of
devices should extend their life span.
Thanks for your cooperation. Questions, comments, etc. to me.
Thanks...Rich
-------
∂20-Jun-86 0128 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 01:20:53 PDT
Date: Wednesday, June 18, 1986 7:58AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #23
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 19 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Implementation - DFID & Assert & LIPS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 86 9:24:00 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%computer-lab.cambridge@Cs.Ucl>
Subject: DFID
Several correspondents have discussed DFID and have
suggested some connections with parallel processing of
Prolog. I have been working on a method, which although
not DFID, comes close to what people are discussing. A
few weeks ago a colleague and I decided to write it up;
I attach the Abstract, and we have submitted the paper
for publication.
The multiprocessor design is called the "DelPhi" machine,
because it works by generating oracles. By the way, we
did this work before reading the DIFD paper in AI journal,
so we shall need to tidy up any possible correspondences
between DIFD and the DelPhi Machine.
A Method for Efficiently Executing Horn Clause Programs
Using Multiple Processors
W F Clocksin and H Alshawi
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
28 May 1986
Abstract:
Previous investigations have suggested the use of communicating
multiprocessors for executing logic programs. However, this
strategy lacks efficiency due to competition for memory and
communication bandwidth, and this problem has been largely
neglected. In this paper we propose a realistic model for
executing logic programs with low overhead on multiple
processors. Our proposal does not involve shared memory or
copying computation state between processors. The model
organises computations over the nondeterministic proof tree
so that different processors explore unique deterministic
computation paths independently. We discuss certain
advantages of this approach not enjoyed by other
approaches.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jun 86 05:16:04 GMT
From: !watmath!utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Jamie Andrews writes:
>
> It should be of little concern to applications programmers
> that these features destroy the declarative reading of the
> program, unless they have to prove to their bosses that
> their applications are rigorously correct.
Interesting issue. What happens if I succeed in designing a
tool which can be used for corporate tax planning, and I
want to make it a commercial product? Should it be "provably"
correct before lawyers use it?
What I've done with the problem, incidentally, is do some
initial "setup" work which analyses all of the relationships
stated in the facts and asserts the things it determines to
be true. So, for example, I have the definition of control
(>50% of voting power, etc.) in a predicate called
controls←rule, and the predicate "controls" either exists
as a stated fact (set up by the user) or is asserted at
setup time. Thereafter all tests refer simply to "controls".
Same thing for "related←rule" and "related", which
incidentally solves the thorny problem of circularity caused
by definitions which define related taxpayers in terms of
other related taxpayers - I simply call the setup routine
enough times to make sure all derivative relationships are
asserted. (Hope that isn't too obscure.)
Of course, the thing will get a lot more difficult when I
properly implement time, which is crucial to the system.
But I think it's still reasonable to determine what each
time interval is that's relevant, and make the assertions
relative to those time intervals.
As long as I limit my assertions by restricting the time
interval, then I don't really have to worry about the
difference between "assert" and "assume" which was
mentioned by Anand Rao, do I?
-- Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 86 18:54:12 GMT
From: Micha Meier
Subject: LIPS
Some people seem to have a wrong idea about the speed
of the programs compiled by the up-to-date Prolog
compilers. The following might help to determine the
performance of a good Prolog compiler on a given machine
(measuring naive reverse). The C program simulates the
output of the compiler using many optimizations (not all)
and with no restrictions on Prolog syntax. If your system
is better, congratulations; if it is significantly slower,
you can certainly find a system for your machine which has
a similar performance.
-- Micha
ECRC, D-8000 Muenchen 81,
W. Germany
----cut here----
/*
Measure possible LIPS on the naive reverse example.
LENGTH is the maximal length of the list to reverse
which also determines the stack size (b).
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/times.h>
#define HZ 60.0 /* might need to change this */
#define LENGTH 300
#define a (LENGTH+2)*(LENGTH+2)
#define b a + 6*LENGTH
#define c ((unsigned) 0)
#define d ((unsigned) 0x10000000)
#define e ((unsigned) 0x20000000)
#define f(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xf0000000))
#define g(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xfffffff))
#define h(X) ((unsigned) (X | 0x30000000))
#define i(X) ((unsigned) (X | d))
#define j(k, l) {l = k; while (f(l) == c) {l = m[l];}}
#define n(k, o, l) {l = k; if ((o = f(l)) == c){l = m[l]; o = f(l);} l = g(l);}
#define p(q) if (q < t || (q < u && q > a)) r[v++] = q;
#define s if (w > b) {fprintf(stderr,"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
#define z if (y > a) {fprintf(stderr,"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
unsigned m[b], r[1];
main()
{
register unsigned aa, y, ab, ac, ae, x, ag, t,af, u, w, v, ad;
int ah, length, t0;
struct tms Time;
float Lips;
y = 1, t = 0, u = af = 0, w = a;
printf("List length: ");
scanf("%d", &length);
if (length > LENGTH) {
fprintf(stderr, "\nSorry, this is too much\n");
exit(2);
}
for (ah = 1; ah < length; ah++) {
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y] = i(y+1), y++;
}
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y++] = e;
m[0] = 0, x = i(1), ag = 0;
times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime;
goto aj;
ai: times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime - t0;
if (t0 == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "The time is too short
to measure, sorry\n");
exit(1);
}
Lips = ((length * (length + 3))/2 + 1) / (t0/HZ);
printf("\nLips = %.1f\n", Lips);
exit(0);
aj: n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ag, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = e;
}
else {
m[w] = af, af = w++, m[w++] = ad, w += 3;
s;
m[af+4] = aa++, x = aa++, m[af+3] = ag;
ab = af+2, m[ab] = ag = ab;
goto aj;
}
ak: ag = i(y);
j(m[af+4], aa);
m[y++] = aa, m[y++] = e;
z;
if (u < af) {
j(m[af+2], aa);
if (f(aa) == c) {} else x = aa;
}
ac = m[af+3], ad = m[af+1], af = m[af];
if (af > u) w = af; else w = u;
for(;;) {
n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = ag;
if (af == 0) goto ai; else goto ak;
}
ae = m[aa++], x = m[aa++];
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = i(y), m[y++] = ae, m[y] = y, ac = y++;
z;
}
}
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂20-Jun-86 0139 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Housing Available
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 15:45:36 PDT
Date: Thu 19 Jun 86 13:43:59-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Housing Available
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12216136859.11.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Beginning September 1. Attractive furnished campus garden apartment within
walking distance of quad. Beautiful location. One bedroom, sitting room,
dining room, study, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, garage, adjoining laundry.
Nonsmokers, no pets, no noise. $950 a month. Call 322-2026. Yearly lease.
-------
∂20-Jun-86 0146 LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 17:26:10 PDT
Date: Thu 19 Jun 86 17:22:52-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
To: planlunch.dis: ;
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY PLANNING ISN'T RATIONAL
Terry Winograd (TW@SAIL)
Stanford University
(Computer Science, Linguistics, and CSLI)
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 23
SRI International, Building E, Room EK242 (note room change)
Orthodox AI approaches to describing and achieving intelligent action
are based on a "rationalistic" tradition in which the focus is on a
process of deducing (using a representation of some kind) the
consequences of specific acts (operations) and searching for a sequence
of acts that will lead to a desired result (goal). This works
reasonably well for some limited domains, but falls far short of being a
general theory of intelligent action. It does not work well in the
small (how I operate my finger muscles, or where an amoeba slithers), or
in the large (how I conduct my life or where my research is headed).
Even in the cases of clearly explicit rational planning (e.g. planning a
bank robbery), the relation between plan and execution is not easy to
capture (what happens when the teller sneezes?).
In a recent book written jointly with Fernando Flores, I have proposed a
different basis for looking at action and cognition, focussing on the
"thrownness" of action without reflection, and on the open-endedness of
interpretation. Any alternative such as ours must address several
obvious questions:
Why is the naive view of rational decision-making and action so
intuitively plausible if it isn't right?
How can we account for the evolution of complex behavior which is
effective in an environment?
What implications does it have for AI and the design of computer
systems in general?
I will address these questions and related others, focussing on some
different issues from those raised in my talk to CSLI a couple of weeks
ago on "Why language isn't information".
-------
∂20-Jun-86 0154 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 19:07:54 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 19 Jun 86 22:07:51-EDT
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1986 22:07 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12216195800.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Copyrights
I propose to put the following notice on each of the files that are part
of the new language definition:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 1986 by Scott E. Fahlman
This file is part of a new language definition document for Common Lisp,
which is being developed as a possible basis for official
standardization of Common Lisp. Until this specification has been
completed and approved by a recognized standards organization, it should
be viewed as an informal proposal with no official status. Implementors
who choose to follow this language definition do so at their own risk
and discretion.
Permission is hereby granted to individuals and organizations
participating in the Common Lisp design process to make as many copies
of this file as may be necessary for their own use in this design
activity. This notice must be included in any such copies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does anyone see any problems here, aside from the aforementioned
nervousness about having a single individual hold the copyright (which
we will deal with as soon as we understand how to do so)? This
statement has not been lawyerized.
-- Scott
∂20-Jun-86 0154 gls@Think.COM The Eulisp paper
Received: from GODOT.THINK.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 19:24:59 PDT
Received: from thorlac by Godot.Think.COM via CHAOS; Thu, 19 Jun 86 22:24:53 edt
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 86 22:26 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: The Eulisp paper
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: gls@AQUINAS
Message-Id: <860619222609.4.GLS@THORLAC.THINK.COM>
I have read the Eulisp position paper carefully, and my initial reaction
was similar to Moon's, namely to come down a bit on the side of optimism
and generosity. If I take the paper at face value, ignoring all outside
information about possible politics, grudges, and other motivations,
then I derive the following conclusions:
(1) The proposed program of activity is a perfectly reasonable pursuit,
academically and technically. There's nothing wrong with a formal
definition if someone wants to do the work to pull it off. The notion
of a layered definition is reasonable.
(2) The authors have not carefully read the Common Lisp specification,
for the paper contains a number of egregious errors concerning both the
goals and technical content of Common Lisp. More generally, the authors
put blame on the developers of Common Lisp for ignoring dialects other
than Maclisp, but are themselves ignorant of certain aspects of Lisp
history and fail to give due credit in a number of instances.
(3) The authors confuse the activity of design with the activity of
standardization, and fail to realize that a large committee is much less
effective than a small one. [This is something we failed to realize at
first, too, and the design Common Lisp converged only when the committee
was effectively cut down to a managable size, namely five. My
experience on the ANSI C committee was that no more than a dozen
representatives were really actively involved most of the time; the rest
were just there to listen and vote.]
(4) The authors grossly underestimate the amount of effort involved in
the design and the standardization of a language of the size under
consideration. Common Lisp has been in the works for five years. It
will be at least five years before any Eulisp proposal is in any kind of
shape worth voting on at the ISO level. The documents produced so far
for Eulisp are rather poor, and they tackle the easiest parts (CAR, CDR,
etc.). They are poor not necessarily because of the quality of the
authorship, but merely because polishing a document takes lots of time
and energy, and enough time has not yet passed.
I think the main problem is that the Eulisp folks think that if they
block Common Lisp now, they can take the world by storm within the next
year. This is balderdash. If the authors of the Eulisp paper had a
realistic estimate of how long the Eulisp effort would take, they would
not fear Common Lisp. By 1991 it will be time for a gross revision of
any new Lisp standard anyway. Similarly, Common lisp proponents need
not fear Eulisp except to the extent that it might block timely adoption
of Common Lisp. Common Lisp is almost ready now, and Eulisp is a long
way away.
Do you all think that if all parties could be convinced of this then
they could cooperate on both things within their appropriate time frames?
--Guy
∂20-Jun-86 0219 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Where it all lives
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jun 86 20:13:28 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 19 Jun 86 23:13:31-EDT
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1986 23:13 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12216207760.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Where it all lives
I have set up the appropriate book-keeping files on C.CS.CMU.EDU (a
Dec-20) in directory PRVA:<SLISP.STANDARD>. Everything should be set up
to allow anonymous FTP. Sorry about the ugly directory name. It
happens to be a place where I could get a large amount of file space for
this work without a lot of hassle -- something of an accomplishment at
CMU these days. The files are just shells right now; I'll start filling
them soon.
Once things have taken shape a bit more, I will announce where these
things live to the Common-Lisp list.
People on the ARPAnet should have no problem in accessing these things
directly; others may need tape or hardcopy from time to time. I don't
want to get CMU (and myself) involved in distributing this stuff the
hard way. I'm hoping that ISI can do this, once their DARPA contract
for Common Lisp support is set up, or that some other organization will
be willing to do this.
-- Scott
∂20-Jun-86 0404 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 04:04:33 PDT
Date: Thursday, June 19, 1986 6:33AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #23
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 19 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Implementation - DFID & Assert & LIPS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 86 9:24:00 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%computer-lab.cambridge@Cs.Ucl>
Subject: DFID
Several correspondents have discussed DFID and have
suggested some connections with parallel processing of
Prolog. I have been working on a method, which although
not DFID, comes close to what people are discussing. A
few weeks ago a colleague and I decided to write it up;
I attach the Abstract, and we have submitted the paper
for publication.
The multiprocessor design is called the "DelPhi" machine,
because it works by generating oracles. By the way, we
did this work before reading the DIFD paper in AI journal,
so we shall need to tidy up any possible correspondences
between DIFD and the DelPhi Machine.
A Method for Efficiently Executing Horn Clause Programs
Using Multiple Processors
W F Clocksin and H Alshawi
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
28 May 1986
Abstract:
Previous investigations have suggested the use of communicating
multiprocessors for executing logic programs. However, this
strategy lacks efficiency due to competition for memory and
communication bandwidth, and this problem has been largely
neglected. In this paper we propose a realistic model for
executing logic programs with low overhead on multiple
processors. Our proposal does not involve shared memory or
copying computation state between processors. The model
organises computations over the nondeterministic proof tree
so that different processors explore unique deterministic
computation paths independently. We discuss certain
advantages of this approach not enjoyed by other
approaches.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jun 86 05:16:04 GMT
From: !watmath!utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Jamie Andrews writes:
>
> It should be of little concern to applications programmers
> that these features destroy the declarative reading of the
> program, unless they have to prove to their bosses that
> their applications are rigorously correct.
Interesting issue. What happens if I succeed in designing a
tool which can be used for corporate tax planning, and I
want to make it a commercial product? Should it be "provably"
correct before lawyers use it?
What I've done with the problem, incidentally, is do some
initial "setup" work which analyses all of the relationships
stated in the facts and asserts the things it determines to
be true. So, for example, I have the definition of control
(>50% of voting power, etc.) in a predicate called
controls←rule, and the predicate "controls" either exists
as a stated fact (set up by the user) or is asserted at
setup time. Thereafter all tests refer simply to "controls".
Same thing for "related←rule" and "related", which
incidentally solves the thorny problem of circularity caused
by definitions which define related taxpayers in terms of
other related taxpayers - I simply call the setup routine
enough times to make sure all derivative relationships are
asserted. (Hope that isn't too obscure.)
Of course, the thing will get a lot more difficult when I
properly implement time, which is crucial to the system.
But I think it's still reasonable to determine what each
time interval is that's relevant, and make the assertions
relative to those time intervals.
As long as I limit my assertions by restricting the time
interval, then I don't really have to worry about the
difference between "assert" and "assume" which was
mentioned by Anand Rao, do I?
-- Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 86 18:54:12 GMT
From: Micha Meier
Subject: LIPS
Some people seem to have a wrong idea about the speed
of the programs compiled by the up-to-date Prolog
compilers. The following might help to determine the
performance of a good Prolog compiler on a given machine
(measuring naive reverse). The C program simulates the
output of the compiler using many optimizations (not all)
and with no restrictions on Prolog syntax. If your system
is better, congratulations; if it is significantly slower,
you can certainly find a system for your machine which has
a similar performance.
-- Micha
ECRC, D-8000 Muenchen 81,
W. Germany
----cut here----
/*
Measure possible LIPS on the naive reverse example.
LENGTH is the maximal length of the list to reverse
which also determines the stack size (b).
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/times.h>
#define HZ 60.0 /* might need to change this */
#define LENGTH 300
#define a (LENGTH+2)*(LENGTH+2)
#define b a + 6*LENGTH
#define c ((unsigned) 0)
#define d ((unsigned) 0x10000000)
#define e ((unsigned) 0x20000000)
#define f(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xf0000000))
#define g(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xfffffff))
#define h(X) ((unsigned) (X | 0x30000000))
#define i(X) ((unsigned) (X | d))
#define j(k, l) {l = k; while (f(l) == c) {l = m[l];}}
#define n(k, o, l) {l = k; if ((o = f(l)) == c)
{l = m[l]; o = f(l);} l = g(l);}
#define p(q) if (q < t || (q < u && q > a)) r[v++] = q;
#define s if (w > b) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
#define z if (y > a) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
unsigned m[b], r[1];
main()
{
register unsigned aa, y, ab, ac, ae, x, ag, t,
af, u, w, v, ad;
int ah, length, t0;
struct tms Time;
float Lips;
y = 1, t = 0, u = af = 0, w = a;
printf("List length: ");
scanf("%d", &length);
if (length > LENGTH) {
fprintf(stderr, "\nSorry, this is too much\n");
exit(2);
}
for (ah = 1; ah < length; ah++) {
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y] = i(y+1), y++;
}
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y++] = e;
m[0] = 0, x = i(1), ag = 0;
times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime;
goto aj;
ai: times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime - t0;
if (t0 == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "The time is too short
to measure, sorry\n");
exit(1);
}
Lips = ((length * (length + 3))/2 + 1) / (t0/HZ);
printf("\nLips = %.1f\n", Lips);
exit(0);
aj: n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ag, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = e;
}
else {
m[w] = af, af = w++, m[w++] = ad, w += 3;
s;
m[af+4] = aa++, x = aa++, m[af+3] = ag;
ab = af+2, m[ab] = ag = ab;
goto aj;
}
ak: ag = i(y);
j(m[af+4], aa);
m[y++] = aa, m[y++] = e;
z;
if (u < af) {
j(m[af+2], aa);
if (f(aa) == c) {} else x = aa;
}
ac = m[af+3], ad = m[af+1], af = m[af];
if (af > u) w = af; else w = u;
for(;;) {
n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = ag;
if (af == 0) goto ai; else goto ak;
}
ae = m[aa++], x = m[aa++];
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = i(y), m[y++] = ae, m[y] = y, ac = y++;
z;
}
}
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂20-Jun-86 0517 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 05:17:18 PDT
Date: Thursday, June 19, 1986 6:16AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #23
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 19 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Implementation - DFID & Assert & LIPS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 86 9:24:00 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%computer-lab.cambridge@Cs.Ucl>
Subject: DFID
Several correspondents have discussed DFID and have
suggested some connections with parallel processing of
Prolog. I have been working on a method, which although
not DFID, comes close to what people are discussing. A
few weeks ago a colleague and I decided to write it up;
I attach the Abstract, and we have submitted the paper
for publication.
The multiprocessor design is called the "DelPhi" machine,
because it works by generating oracles. By the way, we
did this work before reading the DIFD paper in AI journal,
so we shall need to tidy up any possible correspondences
between DIFD and the DelPhi Machine.
A Method for Efficiently Executing Horn Clause Programs
Using Multiple Processors
W F Clocksin and H Alshawi
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
28 May 1986
Abstract:
Previous investigations have suggested the use of communicating
multiprocessors for executing logic programs. However, this
strategy lacks efficiency due to competition for memory and
communication bandwidth, and this problem has been largely
neglected. In this paper we propose a realistic model for
executing logic programs with low overhead on multiple
processors. Our proposal does not involve shared memory or
copying computation state between processors. The model
organises computations over the nondeterministic proof tree
so that different processors explore unique deterministic
computation paths independently. We discuss certain
advantages of this approach not enjoyed by other
approaches.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jun 86 05:16:04 GMT
From: !watmath!utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Jamie Andrews writes:
>
> It should be of little concern to applications programmers
> that these features destroy the declarative reading of the
> program, unless they have to prove to their bosses that
> their applications are rigorously correct.
Interesting issue. What happens if I succeed in designing a
tool which can be used for corporate tax planning, and I
want to make it a commercial product? Should it be "provably"
correct before lawyers use it?
What I've done with the problem, incidentally, is do some
initial "setup" work which analyses all of the relationships
stated in the facts and asserts the things it determines to
be true. So, for example, I have the definition of control
(>50% of voting power, etc.) in a predicate called
controls←rule, and the predicate "controls" either exists
as a stated fact (set up by the user) or is asserted at
setup time. Thereafter all tests refer simply to "controls".
Same thing for "related←rule" and "related", which
incidentally solves the thorny problem of circularity caused
by definitions which define related taxpayers in terms of
other related taxpayers - I simply call the setup routine
enough times to make sure all derivative relationships are
asserted. (Hope that isn't too obscure.)
Of course, the thing will get a lot more difficult when I
properly implement time, which is crucial to the system.
But I think it's still reasonable to determine what each
time interval is that's relevant, and make the assertions
relative to those time intervals.
As long as I limit my assertions by restricting the time
interval, then I don't really have to worry about the
difference between "assert" and "assume" which was
mentioned by Anand Rao, do I?
-- Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 86 18:54:12 GMT
From: Micha Meier
Subject: LIPS
Some people seem to have a wrong idea about the speed
of the programs compiled by the up-to-date Prolog
compilers. The following might help to determine the
performance of a good Prolog compiler on a given machine
(measuring naive reverse). The C program simulates the
output of the compiler using many optimizations (not all)
and with no restrictions on Prolog syntax. If your system
is better, congratulations; if it is significantly slower,
you can certainly find a system for your machine which has
a similar performance.
-- Micha
ECRC, D-8000 Muenchen 81,
W. Germany
----cut here----
/*
Measure possible LIPS on the naive reverse example.
LENGTH is the maximal length of the list to reverse
which also determines the stack size (b).
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/times.h>
#define HZ 60.0 /* might need to change this */
#define LENGTH 300
#define a (LENGTH+2)*(LENGTH+2)
#define b a + 6*LENGTH
#define c ((unsigned) 0)
#define d ((unsigned) 0x10000000)
#define e ((unsigned) 0x20000000)
#define f(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xf0000000))
#define g(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xfffffff))
#define h(X) ((unsigned) (X | 0x30000000))
#define i(X) ((unsigned) (X | d))
#define j(k, l) {l = k; while (f(l) == c) {l = m[l];}}
#define n(k, o, l) {l = k; if ((o = f(l)) == c)
{l = m[l]; o = f(l);} l = g(l);}
#define p(q) if (q < t || (q < u && q > a)) r[v++] = q;
#define s if (w > b) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
#define z if (y > a) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
unsigned m[b], r[1];
main()
{
register unsigned aa, y, ab, ac, ae, x, ag, t,
af, u, w, v, ad;
int ah, length, t0;
struct tms Time;
float Lips;
y = 1, t = 0, u = af = 0, w = a;
printf("List length: ");
scanf("%d", &length);
if (length > LENGTH) {
fprintf(stderr, "\nSorry, this is too much\n");
exit(2);
}
for (ah = 1; ah < length; ah++) {
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y] = i(y+1), y++;
}
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y++] = e;
m[0] = 0, x = i(1), ag = 0;
times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime;
goto aj;
ai: times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime - t0;
if (t0 == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "The time is too short
to measure, sorry\n");
exit(1);
}
Lips = ((length * (length + 3))/2 + 1) / (t0/HZ);
printf("\nLips = %.1f\n", Lips);
exit(0);
aj: n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ag, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = e;
}
else {
m[w] = af, af = w++, m[w++] = ad, w += 3;
s;
m[af+4] = aa++, x = aa++, m[af+3] = ag;
ab = af+2, m[ab] = ag = ab;
goto aj;
}
ak: ag = i(y);
j(m[af+4], aa);
m[y++] = aa, m[y++] = e;
z;
if (u < af) {
j(m[af+2], aa);
if (f(aa) == c) {} else x = aa;
}
ac = m[af+3], ad = m[af+1], af = m[af];
if (af > u) w = af; else w = u;
for(;;) {
n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = ag;
if (af == 0) goto ai; else goto ak;
}
ae = m[aa++], x = m[aa++];
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = i(y), m[y++] = ae, m[y] = y, ac = y++;
z;
}
}
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂20-Jun-86 0647 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #23
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 06:46:36 PDT
Date: Thursday, June 19, 1986 6:22AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #23
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 19 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Implementation - DFID & Assert & LIPS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 86 9:24:00 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%computer-lab.cambridge@Cs.Ucl>
Subject: DFID
Several correspondents have discussed DFID and have
suggested some connections with parallel processing of
Prolog. I have been working on a method, which although
not DFID, comes close to what people are discussing. A
few weeks ago a colleague and I decided to write it up;
I attach the Abstract, and we have submitted the paper
for publication.
The multiprocessor design is called the "DelPhi" machine,
because it works by generating oracles. By the way, we
did this work before reading the DIFD paper in AI journal,
so we shall need to tidy up any possible correspondences
between DIFD and the DelPhi Machine.
A Method for Efficiently Executing Horn Clause Programs
Using Multiple Processors
W F Clocksin and H Alshawi
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
28 May 1986
Abstract:
Previous investigations have suggested the use of communicating
multiprocessors for executing logic programs. However, this
strategy lacks efficiency due to competition for memory and
communication bandwidth, and this problem has been largely
neglected. In this paper we propose a realistic model for
executing logic programs with low overhead on multiple
processors. Our proposal does not involve shared memory or
copying computation state between processors. The model
organises computations over the nondeterministic proof tree
so that different processors explore unique deterministic
computation paths independently. We discuss certain
advantages of this approach not enjoyed by other
approaches.
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jun 86 05:16:04 GMT
From: !watmath!utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!dave@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
Jamie Andrews writes:
>
> It should be of little concern to applications programmers
> that these features destroy the declarative reading of the
> program, unless they have to prove to their bosses that
> their applications are rigorously correct.
Interesting issue. What happens if I succeed in designing a
tool which can be used for corporate tax planning, and I
want to make it a commercial product? Should it be "provably"
correct before lawyers use it?
What I've done with the problem, incidentally, is do some
initial "setup" work which analyses all of the relationships
stated in the facts and asserts the things it determines to
be true. So, for example, I have the definition of control
(>50% of voting power, etc.) in a predicate called
controls←rule, and the predicate "controls" either exists
as a stated fact (set up by the user) or is asserted at
setup time. Thereafter all tests refer simply to "controls".
Same thing for "related←rule" and "related", which
incidentally solves the thorny problem of circularity caused
by definitions which define related taxpayers in terms of
other related taxpayers - I simply call the setup routine
enough times to make sure all derivative relationships are
asserted. (Hope that isn't too obscure.)
Of course, the thing will get a lot more difficult when I
properly implement time, which is crucial to the system.
But I think it's still reasonable to determine what each
time interval is that's relevant, and make the assertions
relative to those time intervals.
As long as I limit my assertions by restricting the time
interval, then I don't really have to worry about the
difference between "assert" and "assume" which was
mentioned by Anand Rao, do I?
-- Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 86 18:54:12 GMT
From: Micha Meier
Subject: LIPS
Some people seem to have a wrong idea about the speed
of the programs compiled by the up-to-date Prolog
compilers. The following might help to determine the
performance of a good Prolog compiler on a given machine
(measuring naive reverse). The C program simulates the
output of the compiler using many optimizations (not all)
and with no restrictions on Prolog syntax. If your system
is better, congratulations; if it is significantly slower,
you can certainly find a system for your machine which has
a similar performance.
-- Micha
ECRC, D-8000 Muenchen 81,
W. Germany
----cut here----
/*
Measure possible LIPS on the naive reverse example.
LENGTH is the maximal length of the list to reverse
which also determines the stack size (b).
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/times.h>
#define HZ 60.0 /* might need to change this */
#define LENGTH 300
#define a (LENGTH+2)*(LENGTH+2)
#define b a + 6*LENGTH
#define c ((unsigned) 0)
#define d ((unsigned) 0x10000000)
#define e ((unsigned) 0x20000000)
#define f(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xf0000000))
#define g(X) ((unsigned) (X & 0xfffffff))
#define h(X) ((unsigned) (X | 0x30000000))
#define i(X) ((unsigned) (X | d))
#define j(k, l) {l = k; while (f(l) == c) {l = m[l];}}
#define n(k, o, l) {l = k; if ((o = f(l)) == c)
{l = m[l]; o = f(l);} l = g(l);}
#define p(q) if (q < t || (q < u && q > a)) r[v++] = q;
#define s if (w > b) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
#define z if (y > a) {fprintf(stderr,
"something went wrong\n"); exit(2);}
unsigned m[b], r[1];
main()
{
register unsigned aa, y, ab, ac, ae, x, ag, t,
af, u, w, v, ad;
int ah, length, t0;
struct tms Time;
float Lips;
y = 1, t = 0, u = af = 0, w = a;
printf("List length: ");
scanf("%d", &length);
if (length > LENGTH) {
fprintf(stderr, "\nSorry, this is too much\n");
exit(2);
}
for (ah = 1; ah < length; ah++) {
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y] = i(y+1), y++;
}
m[y++] = h(ah), m[y++] = e;
m[0] = 0, x = i(1), ag = 0;
times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime;
goto aj;
ai: times(&Time);
t0 = Time.tms←utime - t0;
if (t0 == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "The time is too short
to measure, sorry\n");
exit(1);
}
Lips = ((length * (length + 3))/2 + 1) / (t0/HZ);
printf("\nLips = %.1f\n", Lips);
exit(0);
aj: n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ag, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = e;
}
else {
m[w] = af, af = w++, m[w++] = ad, w += 3;
s;
m[af+4] = aa++, x = aa++, m[af+3] = ag;
ab = af+2, m[ab] = ag = ab;
goto aj;
}
ak: ag = i(y);
j(m[af+4], aa);
m[y++] = aa, m[y++] = e;
z;
if (u < af) {
j(m[af+2], aa);
if (f(aa) == c) {} else x = aa;
}
ac = m[af+3], ad = m[af+1], af = m[af];
if (af > u) w = af; else w = u;
for(;;) {
n(x, ab, aa);
if (ab != d) {
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = ag;
if (af == 0) goto ai; else goto ak;
}
ae = m[aa++], x = m[aa++];
n(ac, ab, aa);
p(aa);
m[aa] = i(y), m[y++] = ae, m[y] = y, ac = y++;
z;
}
}
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂20-Jun-86 0744 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Eulisp paper
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 07:44:24 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 20 Jun 86 10:44:27-EDT
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1986 10:44 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12216333537.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Guy Steele <gls@ZARATHUSTRA.THINK.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: The Eulisp paper
In-reply-to: Msg of 19 Jun 1986 22:26-EDT from Guy Steele <gls at Think.COM>
I think that Guy's note captures the essence of the situation very well.
I have felt for some time that the EuLisp group has a better than even
chance of disintegrating when they get to the hard stuff, and when they
realize that there are choices to be made between elegance and
usability. Our group had much more incentive to stay together,
excellent communications, more similarity of goals than they have
exhibited so far, more realistic expectations (since most of the inner
circle had substantial implementation experience for industrial-strength
Lisp systems), and still we just barely hung together through some of
the hardest parts. And it did take five years.
If we can get the Europeans to drop their opposition to Common Lisp
standardization, we achieve our immediate goal, and their long-term
chances of success look much better: they won't have a deadline, lots of
people in the U.S. would like to contribute ideas for the next great
Lisp (if such participation is welcome), and they will be able to go
forward without a lot of concern for compatibility with the past --
there's always Common Lisp if you need to run old code. The only
disadvantage to them is that their Lisp will have to make it mostly on
its merits, and not on political clout. But they don't really have
political clout anyway: if they were to whip up a level-0 spec by year's
end and ram it through ISO, do they really think that people will
abandon Common Lisp and use their thing?
Maybe we can persuade them to see it this way. It may be that the
majority of the Europeans are about ready to see things as Guy describes
them, but I would be surprised if Stoyan, Fitch, and Padgett were
willing to back down in public. We must keep our eyes open for some
face-saving way of producing the desired result.
-- Scott
∂20-Jun-86 1103 TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA SLP '84
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 11:03:21 PDT
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Fri, 20 Jun 86 10:49:11 pdt
Date: Fri 20 Jun 86 10:46:04-PDT
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: SLP '84
To: mugs@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, nail@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Cc: treitel@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-Id: <12216366616.13.TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Does anyone have a copy of the 1984 Symposium on Logic Programming that I could
borrow? Library doesn't seem to have it (it isn't even in the catalog, much
less on the shelves, though the '85 one is).
- Richard
-------
∂20-Jun-86 1439 OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA Re: Copyrights
Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jun 86 14:39:24 PDT
Date: 20 Jun 1986 14:38-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: Copyrights
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISIB.ARPA
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIB.ARPA]20-Jun-86 14:38:56.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12216195800.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
I see no problem with the exception that you pointed out.
I think it should probably be run by a lawyer.
Ron
∂22-Jun-86 1135 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA [Barbara J. Grosz <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>: transitions]
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Jun 86 11:34:51 PDT
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Sun 22 Jun 86 11:27:13-PDT
Date: Sun 22 Jun 86 11:28:11-PDT
From: Barbara J. Grosz <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: [Barbara J. Grosz <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>: transitions]
To: research@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 22-Jun-86 11:28:11.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Reply-To: Grosz@SRI-AI
Return-Path: <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Date: Sun 22 Jun 86 11:03:21-PDT
From: Barbara J. Grosz <GROSZ@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: transitions
To: aic-staff@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA
Cc: nielson@SRI-TSC.ARPA
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 22-Jun-86 11:03:21.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Reply-To: Grosz@SRI-AI
I have decided to accept a position as Professor of Computer Science
in the Division of Applied Science at Harvard. The AIC has been a
wonderful research home for me for close to 13 years and I will miss
my many friends and colleagues here, but I decided it was time to move
East. (So, I'm not completely sane: I like the East.) I'll be here
until the end of August and will save more personal good-byes for
later, but I wanted to let you know.
Barbara
p.s. Have no fear, the PIship of the SRI/CSLI component of project SL
is in fine hands -- David Israel has agreed to take it on.
-------
-------
∂22-Jun-86 1844 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM The Eulisp paper
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Jun 86 18:44:09 PDT
Received: from CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM by ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 27356; Sun 22-Jun-86 13:45:20 EDT
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 86 13:48 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: The Eulisp paper
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12216333537.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860622134836.5.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1986 10:44 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I have felt for some time that the EuLisp group has a better than even
chance of disintegrating when they get to the hard stuff,
I agree. It also seems to me that the more time they spend on politics,
banding together to fight the Americans, the less chance there is of
their disintegrating. Therefore, perhaps our best tactic would be to
try to defuse, defer, or avoid politics and conflict, and encourage them
to work on the technical aspects of their proposal.
On another topic, I just received mail from Japan, with a return address
of JEIDA's office, containing a blue paperback volume, written in
Japanese, designated 61-A-236, entitled "Common Lisp" followed by
Japanese. There's a sticker on it saying "on behalf of Prof. M. Ida".
It contains a great deal of discussion about CommonLoops, Flavors,
CommonObjects (which it refers to as "Snyder"), and ObjectLisp, complete
with what appear to be lots of excerpts from electronic mail by many
well-known people. It looks like it's a comparison. The book also has
a long section with many bar charts, a copy of Ida's subset proposal (in
English), and various other stuff. I presume many or all of you will
get copies. I wonder what it all says.
∂22-Jun-86 1920 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Eulisp paper
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Jun 86 19:18:54 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sun 22 Jun 86 22:18:09-EDT
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1986 22:18 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12216984117.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: The Eulisp paper
In-reply-to: Msg of 22 Jun 1986 13:48-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
I wonder what it all says...
I got one of those books too. It's some sort of script for a new TV
show. Kind of like Dallas, except that instead of an oil company, the
main characters are working for rival companies defining programming
languages. Lots of back-stabbing, mind-altering drugs (mostly Coke),
high-speed CPU chases and crashes, and steamy sex with the Lisp
groupies. Some sort of subplot involving a bunch of Europeans trying to
kidnap the fearless band of hackers and force them to alter the
semantics of NIL. The censors will snip that bit out for U.S.
consumption -- you can't mess around with NIl on American TV. A guest
appearance by Godzilla as the head of JEIDA.
Of course, I don't read Japanese very well, so this might not be 100%
accurate, but as I understand it the little splatty marks mean whatever
they look like, and it all seems pretty clear to me.
-- Scott
∂22-Jun-86 2341 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Jun 86 23:41:31 PDT
Date: Sun 22 Jun 86 23:36:19-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: REMINDER -- Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Terry Winograd
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 22-Jun-86 23:36:19.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY PLANNING ISN'T RATIONAL
Terry Winograd (TW@SAIL)
Stanford University
(Computer Science, Linguistics, and CSLI)
11:00 AM, MONDAY, June 23
SRI International, Building E, Room EK242 (note room change)
Orthodox AI approaches to describing and achieving intelligent action
are based on a "rationalistic" tradition in which the focus is on a
process of deducing (using a representation of some kind) the
consequences of specific acts (operations) and searching for a sequence
of acts that will lead to a desired result (goal). This works
reasonably well for some limited domains, but falls far short of being a
general theory of intelligent action. It does not work well in the
small (how I operate my finger muscles, or where an amoeba slithers), or
in the large (how I conduct my life or where my research is headed).
Even in the cases of clearly explicit rational planning (e.g. planning a
bank robbery), the relation between plan and execution is not easy to
capture (what happens when the teller sneezes?).
In a recent book written jointly with Fernando Flores, I have proposed a
different basis for looking at action and cognition, focussing on the
"thrownness" of action without reflection, and on the open-endedness of
interpretation. Any alternative such as ours must address several
obvious questions:
Why is the naive view of rational decision-making and action so
intuitively plausible if it isn't right?
How can we account for the evolution of complex behavior which is
effective in an environment?
What implications does it have for AI and the design of computer
systems in general?
I will address these questions and related others, focussing on some
different issues from those raised in my talk to CSLI a couple of weeks
ago on "Why language isn't information".
-------
∂23-Jun-86 0140 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #24
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Jun 86 01:40:02 PDT
Date: Saturday, June 21, 1986 7:25AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #24
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Monday, 23 Jun 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 24
Today's Topics:
Puzzles - Challenge,
Implementation - LIPS,
LP Library - Update
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 86 10:13:03 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%computer-lab.cambridge@Cs.Ucl>
Subject: Variables
An earlier note requests contributions on clever uses of
the logical variable. Here is a challenge which I use
in a Prolog lecture course.
Write a program which, given a weighted binary tree,
constructs a copy of the tree. The copy is the same
shape as the original, but all the weights in the copy
are equal, and their value is the maximum weight of the
weights in the original (oh -- weights are integers).
Hint: this can be done in one traversal of the original
tree. Representing trees: a terminal node is n(W,[],[]),
a non-terminal node is n(W,N1,N2) where N1 and N2 are
nodes. W is the integer weight.
Answers to Prolog Digest. I shall reveal a good solution
next week.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 86 20:09:35 mdt
From: Ted%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: LIPS
An interesting side note,
The recent LIPS potential benchmark running on a
SUN-2 gave a result of about 12000 lips after
converting to the more precise ftime call for
timing.
Quintus Prolog runs the naive reverse benchmark
fast enough to report a speed of about 22,000 LIPS
on the same machine.
Both timings were made on an unloaded machine with
2 Mb of memory. Neither appeared to cause much paging
activity.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 86 10:42:00 EST
From: John Cugini <cugini@nbs-vms.ARPA>
Subject: Library of Utilities
I've been developing a library of not-too-complicated
utility predicates, for our use here at ICST. They
are reasonably well documented and tested. In
particular I've tried to be aware of which arguments
may or may not be instantiated, and tried to allow
as many as possible to be var.
Here's an example:
/*
There is a coding convention as follows: the user
callable version of the predicate has a plain name. If
this predicate preceeds "sub-predicates", based on whether
certain arguments are instantiated or not, the names of
the sub-predicates are formed by appending a string of
c,v, or x's, where c indicates argument must be constant
(instantiated), v that it must be a variable, and x that
it may be either.
Further, each main predicate is preceded by documentation
lines, which describe the declarative meaning of the
predicate, and which arguments must be instantiated.
*/
.....
/*
merge(L1, L2, L3) iff L3 is a random merge of L1 and L2,
i.e., order is preserved within L1 and L2 but not between
them. This is like a combination: pick 2 of 5. Eg, for
L1=[1,2,3], and L2=[a,b], L3 can be [1,2,a,3,b],
[a,1,2,b,3],... NG if L3 and (L1 or L2) are var.
*/
merge([], X, X).
merge([E | R], [], [E | R]).
/* pick from L1 */
merge([E1 | R1], [E2 | R2], [E1 | R3]) :-
merge(R1, [E2 | R2], R3).
/* pick from L2 */
merge([E1 | R1], [E2 | R2], [E2 | R3]) :-
merge([E1 | R1], R2, R3).
/* repeat←list(Elem, Number, List) iff List is a list
of Elem repeated Number times. No var restrictions.
*/
repeat←list(Elem, Number, List) :-
(nonvar(Number), var(List)) ->
repeat←list←xcv(Elem, Number, List);
repeat←list←xxx(Elem, Number, List).
repeat←list←xcv(Elem, 0, []).
repeat←list←xcv(Elem, N, [Elem | Rest]) :-
N←minus is N - 1,
!,
N←minus > -1,
repeat←list←xcv(Elem, N←minus, Rest).
repeat←list←xxx(Elem, 0, []).
repeat←list←xxx(Elem, N, [Elem | Rest]) :-
repeat←list←xxx(Elem, N←minus, Rest),
N is N←minus + 1.
/* permute(List1, List2) iff List1 is a permutation
of List2. NG if arg1 is var. */
permute(Whole, [Elem | Rest←of←part]) :-
islist(Whole),
member(Elem, Whole),
efface(Elem, Whole, Reduced←whole),
permute(Reduced←whole, Rest←of←part).
permute([], []).
-------------------------------------------------------
BTW: I add to it pretty regularly, so it's not in any
sense a finished product.
-- John Cugini
Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology
National Bureau of Standards
[ Johns file is available for anonymous file transfer
from SCORE:<Prolog> as Cugini←Utilities.PL
As new versions evolve, they will be announced under
the LP Library section. -ed ]
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂23-Jun-86 2039 JJW Alliant papers
To: Alliant-Users@SU-AI.ARPA
I've received two papers from Alliant: "Multiprocessor Management in
The Concentrix Operating System", by Jack Test; and "A User-tunable
Multiple Processor Scheduler", by Herb Jacobs. Neither is tremendously
exciting, but if you'd like copies, let me know.
∂24-Jun-86 1209 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 12:09:16 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 09:38:47-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Faculty Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: gotelli@SU-SCORE.ARPA, woodward@SU-SCORE.ARPA, drake@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12217402944.10.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
This is to remind everyone that there will be a faculty meeting on Friday,
June 27 following the Black Friday meeting (which is taking place on
Friday just to confuse us all) in MJH 146. (Black Friday is beginning at
2:15.)
-------
∂24-Jun-86 1347 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA spraying for ants
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 13:46:15 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 13:36:49-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: spraying for ants
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: : ;
Ventura, Casita, and the trailers will be sprayed again for ants on
Thursday, June 26th at 5:00 p.m. This time, some spraying will take
place inside the buildings.
The spray is not known to be harmful to humans or other animals, but
if you have worries, put a large sign outside your door and we will not
have your office sprayed.
-------
∂24-Jun-86 1516 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 15:15:58 PDT
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by su-sushi.arpa with TCP; Tue 24 Jun 86 15:10:59-PDT
Received: from IBM.COM by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 24 Jun 86 15:10:44-PDT
Date: 24 June 1986, 14:56:49 PDT
From: Maria Klawe <KLAWE@IBM.COM>
To: aflb.all@su-score
Message-Id: <062486.145652.klawe@ibm.com>
Subject:
Peter Sarnak is organizing a seminar on primality testing,
which will be held in Room 381T of the Stanford Math Dept. building
at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays throughout the summer. The first meeting
will be on July 1st, where Peter will present Gary Miller's primality
testing algorithm. Tentative plans are to cover the papers of Cohen-Lenstra,
Schoof, and Goldwasser-Killian. Anyone who is interested is welcome to
attend.
∂24-Jun-86 1606 CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 16:06:22 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 16:01:04-PDT
From: Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: phd@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: Margaret Jacks 258, 723-1519
Message-ID: <12217472537.42.CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
A hardcopy of the new proposals for the Ph.D. program will
be available by 5:00 p.m. today. All faculty in Jacks will have
a copy put in their mailbox. Most other faculty will receive
it in the next day or so by ID mail. There will also be
copies available at the receptionist's desk.
Victoria
-------
∂24-Jun-86 1615 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 1
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 16:14:54 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 15:28:43-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 1
To: newsreaders@SU-CSLI.ARPA
C S L I M O N T H L Y
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 1986 Vol. 1, No. 4
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A monthly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
------------------
CONTENTS
Meaning and Mechanism
by Stanley Rosenschein part 1
Project Reports
Rational Agency (RatAg)
by Michael Bratman and Amy Lansky part 2
Embedded Computation (EC)
by Brian C. Smith part 3 - 4
Analysis of Graphical Representation
by David Levy part 5
Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure
by Joan Bresnan and Annie Zaenen part 5
AFT Lexical Representation Theory
by Julius Moravcsik part 6
Visual Communication
by Alexander Pentland part 6
John Perry's Inaugural Lecture for
the Henry Waldgrave Stuart Chair part 7
CSLI Postdoctoral Fellows: Peter Sells part 7
CSLI Snapshots: Martha Pollack part 7
New CSLI Publications part 7
------------------
MEANING AND MECHANISM
Stanley Rosenschein
CSLI was founded (and funded) on the conviction that certain strands
of research in philosophy, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and
computer science could be synthesized into a coherent, mathematically
grounded science of language and information and that such a synthesis
would constitute an important intellectual advance with significant
technological consequences. Although it is hard to predict when this
synthesis might be achieved, the process of {\it trying} to achieve it
is itself worth reflecting upon. Rather than attempt to comment on
this process in the large, I would like to report anecdotally and from
a very personal perspective how my own research in artificial
intelligence has been affected by some of the disciplines represented
at CSLI and by the CSLI experience itself.
Paths to AI
The motivations of AI researchers are varied, but, for me, one of the
most important is a desire to see the technological fruits of AI
within my lifetime. The public has been conditioned to expect
machines with the intelligence of C3PO; I would like to do my part to
help science catch up with Lucas. Although my work is sometimes
regarded as theoretical, I approach AI theory from a utilitarian point
of view. With only one lifetime to spend, one's time must be invested
wisely, and I feel that theoretical work is likely to bring a higher
technological return per unit investment of intellectual energy.
When, as an undergraduate, I moved from sociology to computer science,
one of the most refreshing aspects of my new-found field was the way
in which the most complex edifices could be constructed from the
simplest of primitive components. It felt like tinker toys, but with
parts that were more elementary and at the same time more universal: a
nand gate to get all the Boolean functions, Boolean functions and a
delay element to get all finite machines, a finite machine and a tape
of zeroes and ones to get all of computation. The primitives were so
simple and clear; the complexity was entirely in the arrangements of
basic elements. Often these arrangements could themselves be generated
combinatorially from simpler structures, the properties of the whole
following logically from the properties of the parts. Moreover, these
objects were not static like buildings or graphs but rather microcosms
of physical reality that unfolded in the temporal dimension as well as
the spatial with a comforting inexorability and reproducibility. As a
sociology student, I had been frustrated by the vagueness and
ambiguity of the fundamental concepts of that field; computer science
satisfied my desire for certainty and simplicity.
Unfortunately, my real interest was in that segment of computer
science known as AI, where it was vagueness and ambiguity all over
again! From a computer science perspective, of course, AI systems were
simply computer programs exhibiting certain interesting behaviors. As
such, they were amenable to rigorous characterization in strictly
operational terms. I could not escape the feeling, however, that
there was something more to be said about the *content* of the
computations. AI researchers recognized this but often chose to
describe the content of AI systems in vague, mentalistic terms. The
AI literature was filled with words like ``planning,'' ``reasoning,''
``problem-solving,'' ``heuristic search,'' ``knowledge
representation'' and (naturally) ``intelligence.'' After several
years of graduate school I began to realize that although the actual
AI programs were concrete enough, the terms in which they were being
explained were not unlike what I had left behind in the social
sciences. Did AI have no fundamental *technical* concepts from
which everything else could be constructed? I longed for the zeroes,
the ones, and the nand gates!
Still, the goals of AI stirred me in a way that operating systems
couldn't, and I began to search for the ``hard science'' of AI.
Quest for a Formal Framework, Part I: The Road to Logicism
Some observers of the AI scene like to classify AI researchers
according to whether they stress mathematical approaches (the it
neats) or intuitive programming (the scruffies). As might be
expected, I was attracted immediately to the former and began to seek
out islands of neatness in the scruffy seas of AI.
One such island was natural language parsing. I had taken an
undergraduate course in linguistics at Columbia from Labov, who had
communicated both the substantive content of generative grammar and an
enormous enthusiasm for the science of language. The relation between
machines and the (syntactic) structure of languages had been studied
mathematically and thus constituted a natural theoretical bridge
between things ``cognitive'' and things computational. Parse trees
could be easily regarded both as abstract mathematical objects
suitable for characterizing syntactic structures and as data
structures to be represented and manipulated in a machine.
In the case of semantics, the mathematical objects diverged somewhat
from the computational objects. Montague's PTQ, for instance, was
quite impressive in its subtlety and rigor but was filled with
model-theoretic objects that were not suitable to be represented
directly in a machine. Still, it seemed possible to adapt logical
systems like Montague's to the needs of computational linguistics by
having the computer manipulate symbolic formulas (e.g., well-formed
formulas of intensional logic) that stood for the model-theoretic
objects (e.g. functions from possible worlds to truth values). An
obvious strategy for desiging a natural-language system was to have
it parse sentences, translate them into logical formulas, and carry
out deductive operations on the result.
This strategy for language processing fit in well with the prevalent
``neat'' approaches to the broader area of knowledge representation
and reasoning as formulated by John McCarthy, Nils Nilsson, Pat Hayes,
Bob Moore, and others. According to this view, AI research should
proceed roughly as follows: formalize commonsense knowledge in a
suitable logical system (McCarthy's preference is first-order logic
with some accommodation for nonmonotonic reasoning) and program a
computer to manipulate data structures representing formulas of this
logical system. McCarthy's own research has emphasized the content of
the agent's knowledge (striving for what he calls ``epistemological
adequacy'') and has de-emphasized the actual computational strategies
for inference (or what he calls ``heuristic adequacy.'') Other
researchers have taken up the slack by focusing on automated
deduction, which is now an extensive research area in its own right.
Logic certainly seemed precise enough to satisfy my neat instincts,
and in fact, the whole strategy seemed entirely reasonable: Take
commonsense concepts like ``knowledge'' and ``reasoning'' and
operationalize them as precise technical notions like ``formulas'' and
``deduction.''
Formal Architectures for Intelligent Agents
My next few years were spent trying to extend and refine this picture
into an integrated formal model of a rational agent based on the
commonsense concepts of belief, desire, and intention--roughly the
current research program of the Rational Agency group at CSLI. In
the model, these propositional attitudes were to be operationalized
computationally as logical formulas interpreted semantically by the
designer and manipulated formally by the program. Formulas would be
added to and deleted from belief, desire, and intention data bases
according to processes corresponding to belief revision, inference,
planning, etc. These processes would satisfy certain principles or
constraints which would be specified rigorously and would serve as a
precise blueprint for implementing the agent. One example of such a
principle might be that deductive inferences should be sound relative
to the intended interpretation of the belief language. Another might
be that intentions should be ``rational'' relative to beliefs and
desires in some well-defined technical sense. Computational
operations on the data bases would be designed to preserve these
properties as invariants.
With this broad model of rational belief and action in mind, I
decided to try to apply it to the implementation of an actual system:
an experimental mobile robot. Nils Nilsson and I initiated a robot
project modeled after the earlier Shakey project and aimed at
constructing an integrated computer individual that could perceive,
reason, and act in smooth interaction with its environment. At the
practical level, work began at SRI on the construction of the robot
itself (Flakey). At the theoretical level, I began participating in
the planning and practical reasoning seminar at CSLI where
philosophers and AI planning researchers were discussing
belief-desire-intention models and their possible realizations as
computer programs.
As this project progressed, I began to have doubts about the grand
strategy of basing the implementation of AI systems on
folk-psychological notions, especially with propositional attitudes
operationalized as logical formulas in data bases. The reasons for
this were several:
Intractability of deduction. There seemed to be severe
difficulties in adopting automated deduction as a processing strategy,
especially for real-time systems such as the one we were trying to build.
The content of our commonsense knowledge is quite rich by any account.
The inference problem for formal systems that are adequate to express
this content ordinarily exhibits a high degree of compuational
complexity. Heuristic strategies are unsatisfying because it is
difficult to formulate generalizations about when they would work and
when they wouldn't, and engineering practice has taught us not to be
overly optimistic in this regard.
Inapplicability to special-purpose representations. It was
widely assumed, even by the advocates of logical representation
languages, that some parts of a cognitive agent made use of
special-purpose, nonlogical representations. For instance, no one
seriously proposed deduction as the operative mechanism at the lowest
levels of perception, e.g., for stereo matching. I was puzzled by the
question of how semantics could be assigned to these special
representations and why there was discontinuity in the analysis.
Could representations become more logic-like by degrees?
Lack of concrete guidance.} If the component elements of the
abstract specification, e.g., propositions, are not associated
with particular data objects, e.g., formulas, then the attribution of
propositional attitudes seems to be a global constraint that gives
the implementer little guidance in the detailed work of building the
program by parts.
The arbitrariness of interpretation. In most current AI systems,
even those designed by ``neats''and based on logical representations,
the attribution of content to the program's states depends crucially
on the intuitions of the programmer and is not an objective property
of the program.
Quest for a Formal Framework, Part II: Situated Automata
These feelings of frustration in trying to relate mechanism to content
had been growing over time, but they were catalyzed into a new
research direction by a single experience at CSLI. It was a remark
made by Michael Bratman during the planning and practical reasoning
seminar the first year of CSLI. I was in a computational frame of
mind, having just given a talk on how we could describe the
computational state of an agent as encoding beliefs, desires, and
intentions over time. Michael was trying to explain how desires
differed from intentions. ``Intentions control behavior, whereas
desires only influence behavior.'' I recall that utterance as a kind
of conversion experience. My reaction was: What could that possibly
mean computationally? Outputs of a machine are not ``influenced'' by
states of the machine; they functionally depend on them.
Furthermore, at the most mechanistic, automata-theoretic level, the
states of the machine similarly depend on the inputs, i.e., are a
function of them (and the initial state of the machine.) And these
inputs depend on states of the environment. So, indirectly, the
states of the machine depend on the state of the environment. Jon Barwise
and Perry had described how mental states might be viewed as
``classifying'' external situations, and Fred Dretske had developed a
theory of information based on correlation. It seemed reasonable to
define the information encoded in the state of a machine by
considering what states of the environment it was correlated with. A
technical reconstruction of this notion turned out to be virtually
identical to a class of models of knowledge that was being
investigated independently by Joe Halpern and other theoretical
computer scientists studying distributed computation.
The technical consequences of this idea are still being explored, but
one technologically significant one is the elimination of the reliance
on symbolic formulas and deduction as the only way of bridging the gap
between meaning and mechanism. The situated-automata model provides a
mathematical formulation of the relationship between the behavioral
mechanisms of physical systems (such as organisms and computers) and
the propositional information content that can be ascribed to the
states of such systems.
On Balancing Meaning and Mechanism in Theoretical AI
In a sense, the tension between content and mechanism has been with AI
since the beginning and is illustrated by the differing views of two
of AI's founders, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky, on the question of
the essential nature of knowledge in AI systems. McCarthy stresses
the propositional content of an agent's knowledge, while Minsky
stresses the active, dynamic nature of machines that cope, especially
machines constructed out of simpler machines that cope with more
specialized classes of situations. Briefly, McCarthy views knowledge
as a collection of facts about situations, while Minksy holds that
knowledge is a collection of mechanisms for handling situations. This
is not the neat-scruffy distinction in disguise, as there are neat
*and* scruffy theories in both camps. One of the aims of
situated-automata theory is to bridge the gap by defining a rigorous
infromational semantics for arbitrary machines embedded in
environments.
Part of the hidden agenda behind this research is to make it
legitimate for AI theorists concerned with issues of content to again
turn their attention to specific issues of mechanisms while
maintaining semantic rigor. As a computer scientist (and
technologist) I am concerned about the tendency of theoretical
AI researchers to become absorbed in pure logic and philosophy. Some
of the topics which are currently occupying the attention of a large
part of the theoretical AI community are self-reference, non-monotonic
reasoning, formal models of time, causality and action, and the
formalization of other commonsense concepts. Almost any of these
could be studied equally well (perhaps better) by a professional
philosopher or logician. Good work on these topics contributes to our
general understanding of the *content* of reasoning, and is
certainly necessary, but adds little to our understanding of the
mechanisms, except in the trivial sense that any formal theory is
grist for the automated deduction mill.
It concerns me that the most philosophically and logically
sophisticated of AI researchers have let their research agendas become
dominated by non-computational issues. I do not mean by this that
theoretical AI researchers program less than they used to. For all I
know, they program more now than ever before. But an AI researcher is
more than a philosopher with a Lisp machine. The special role of AI
is both to develop the technology of intelligent machines and to
discover instances where the fundamental computational nature of a
mechanism illuminates some otherwise unexplained phenomenon or greatly
simplifies the explanation.
Of course, in retrospect, with the intermingling of computational and
philosophical concerns, it was inevitable that some AI researchers
should take up purely philosophical questions. Undoubtedly there are
instances of drift in the other direction as well. What is clear is
that the tension between meaning and computational mechanism will be
accommodated in a more sophisticated technical way because of the
existence of CSLI and other similar institutions.
-----------
end of part 1 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 1718 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA Re: New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 17:13:26 PDT
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 24 Jun 86 17:08:18-PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 17:06:21-PDT
From: Terry Winograd <WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Re: New Proposals for the Ph.D. Program
To: CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, phd@SU-SCORE.ARPA, WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "Victoria Cheadle <CHEADLE@SU-SCORE.ARPA>" of Tue 24 Jun 86 16:11:35-PDT
Due to a confusion in my previous messages, a draft of the proposal that
was intended for review by the PhD commitee ended up getting distributed
as the final version. The draft that has now been circulated (I was
at a CSLI site visit all day and didn't realize until now that it should
be headed off) is NOT the final version. A new version will hopefully be
ready for the Friday meeting. Comments are still welcome.
Keep tuned to this channel. --t
-------
∂24-Jun-86 1732 BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA THANKS
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 17:32:17 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 17:25:23-PDT
From: Betsy Macken <BETSY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: THANKS
To: researchers@SU-CSLI.ARPA, administration@SU-CSLI.ARPA
As far as we can tell the site visit was a great success! The
presentations could not have been improved in any way, and the
behind-the-scenes work paid off in every detail.
Thanks so much to all of you -- to the presenters who made it clear
beyond a doubt that CSLI has to continue to exist, to the other
researchers whose presence lent moral support and gave a visual image
of the size and scope of CSLI, and to the staff who met the stress of
last minute changes valiantly and whose advance preparations made last
minute changes possible.
Special thanks go to Susan Stucky for the great job on the Report and
making sure it got out in advance of the visit. Whether or not the
visitors read it in advance, that we completed it early was impressive
and allowed us to refer to it as needed.
Betsy
-------
∂24-Jun-86 1748 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 2
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 17:48:43 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 15:30:27-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 2
To: newsreaders@SU-CSLI.ARPA
------------------
PROJECT REPORTS
RATIONAL AGENCY (RatAg)
Michael Bratman and Amy Lansky
Project Participants: Michael Bratman (Project Leader), Philip
Cohen, Lewis Creary, Todd Davies, Charles
Dresser, Michael Georgeff, Pat Hayes,
David Israel, Kurt Konolige, Amy Lansky,
Robert Moore, Nils Nilsson, John Perry,
Martha Pollack
The Rational Agency (RatAg) project has focused on the question:
``What should an architecture or model of a rational agent look
like?'' Philosophers of practical reason and researchers in
artificial intelligence have both been concerned with rational
behavior, the former in describing its general nature in humans, the
latter in building machines that embody it. This working group has
brought together researchers from these two disciplines. Over the
past year we have met biweekly to discuss the components of rational
agency and their interaction. We have found that, while the
philosophical and AI approaches have attacked the problem of
understanding rational agency from quite different perspectives, they
are actually now at a point of convergence. In this report we will
discuss our findings in this regard and present some of our research
results to date.
The Components of Rational Agency
In its basic form, rational behavior is the production of actions
that further the goals of an agent, based on that agent's perception
of the world. Consider the problem of rational behavior facing
someone who, while on her way to her car to drive to a concert,
notices her neighbor unsuccessfully attempting to start his car. The
former agent---let us call her Smith---must form a coherent picture of
the world based upon her beliefs and her perceptions, so that she
comes to believe that her neighbor may need her help. She then needs
to consider her various desires---her wish to test the jumper cables
she recently bought, her wish to be a helpful person and good
neighbor, and her wish to get to the concert on time---to determine
what action she should take. She may decide that, if she stops to
assist her neighbor, she will, by so doing, satisfy the first desire
and contribute to satisfying the second, but will cause the third to
be unsatisfiable; and she may decide that, if she instead continues on
her way to the concert, she will satisfy the third desire but fail to
satisfy the first two. If she thinks that being helpful is the most
important of her relevant desires, she will, if she is rational, form
a further desire, namely, to stop and help her neighbor; this desire
will then result in action.
This story suggests a general framework for describing rational
behavior: a model with three main components---perception, the
psychological attitudes of belief and desire, and action. It also
suggests the kinds of functional dependencies that relate these
components in a rational agent: perception, for example, gives rise to
beliefs; beliefs and desires give rise to further desires; specific
desires give rise to actions. Let us call this the belief-desire (BD)
architecture. The assumption of this sort of commonsense
psychological architecture allows us to account for our explanations
of everyday behavior: ``Smith wanted to be helpful, so she stopped to
give her neighbor a jump start, even though that made her late for the
concert.'' Yet, as specified so far, the architecture is vague---too
vague for AI researchers to incorporate into robots that will behave
as Smith does.
The goal of our research has been to develop a model of rational
agency, providing a detailed and systematic account of the functional
dependencies among perception, psychological attitudes, and rational
action. We have been working on the development of an account that is
sufficient both to drive a model of rational agency---to furnish a
specification, if you will, for an autonomous, rational robot---and to
facilitate a critical look at existing AI systems for planning and
executing actions.
One of the primary questions we have asked is, what exactly are the
primitive components of rationality? From a philosophical
perspective, this is equivalent to asking what the set of primitive
mental states must be to describe human rationality; from an AI
perspective, this is equivalent to asking what the set of primitive
mental operators must be to build an artificial agent who behaves
rationally.
We have agreed that the philospher's traditional 2-parameter model,
containing just beliefs and desires, is insufficient. In particular,
we have begun to see the need for the addition of two more
parameters---intentions and plans (Bratman, 1986, in prep.; Pollack,
1986a, 1986b, 1986c).
One of the most compelling reasons for the addition of these two
components is the fact that agents are `resource bounded'---they
cannot do arbitrarily large computations in finite time. In the next
section we elaborate this argument, as well as cite other reasons for
the addition of intentions and plans to a model of rational agency.
We also discuss our research into the interactions between intentions,
plans, beliefs, and desires in a theory of rationality.
An Architecture of Rational Action
In our exploration of the components of rationality and how they
interconnect, we have begun to see a striking convergence of the
philosophical and AI approaches to this problem.
In the philosophy of practical reason, there is a long tradition of
accepting something like a BD architecture. Within this tradition,
the commonsense notion of intention is seen as directly reducible to
beliefs and desires. However, over the last fifteen years or so,
several philosophers, including Michael Bratman, have begun to argue
that other components must be added to cognitive models of rational
agents (Bratman, 1986, in prep.). Two phenomena have led to these
claims.
The first of these phenomena is resource boundedness. If agents
were not resource bounded, they might, at each instant of time, weigh
all their beliefs and desires in order to determine which action
currently available to them would do the most to advance their goals.
In reality, however, agents do not have an arbitrarily long time to
decide how to act. The world changes around them while they consider,
and they cannot continually re-evaluate the consequences of their
beliefs and desires if they are to keep pace with those changes. Even
assuming that the agent has large computational resources at her
disposal, weighing the situation at hand every few moments would
render her immobile in a rapidly changing world.
A further demand upon rational agents stems from the need to
coordinate their own activities, as well as to coordinate their
activities with those of other agents. Consider again Smith, who
manages to give a lecture, finish writing an article, pick up her
clothes at the cleaner's, and then set out for the concert. In
addition to coordinating her own activities to achieve a complex set
of goals, she needs also to coordinate her activities with those of
others. She may, for example, have arranged to meet her friend Jones
at the library after the concert. Smith counts on Jones's meeting
her; likewise Jones counts on Smith's meeting him. Their expectations
will normally be based on something stronger than simply their beliefs
about each other's desires. For example, it is possible that since
the time Smith last communicated with Jones, something has arisen that
is more desirable to Jones than his meeting Smith. But normally Smith
does not need to stop and consider this possibility.
To meet the challenges presented by our being resource bounded and
our having a need for both social and intrapersonal coordination, our
group has hypothesized that humans are essentially planning creatures,
i.e., that our cognitive architecture includes plans as well as
beliefs and desires. Plans represent precomputed decisions to act in
certain ways. Once Smith has formed a plan to stop on her way to the
concert and assist her neighbor with the flat tire she does not need
to weigh the situation at hand in an unfocused way. Only under
unusual circumstances---for example, noticing that a tow truck is
approaching---does she need to reconsider her plan. The very fact of
having a plan carries with it a certain commitment. Thus, Smith and
Jones can achieve their common goal of meeting at the library after
the concert because each has a plan to do so, and believes that the
other has one also.
So, agents must coordinate their many goal-directed activities, and
must do so in ways that are compatible with their limited capacities
for deliberation and information processing. Together these demands
suggest that agents form plans. But a different type of limitation
that affects agents also influences the nature of their plans. Agents
are neither prescient nor omniscient. The world may change around
them in ways they are not in a position to anticipate; hence highly
detailed plans about the far future will often be of little use and
not worth bothering about.
As a consequence, plans will typically be `partial'. This
partiality reveals itself in at least two different ways. First of
all, one's plan for the future frequently will account for some
periods of time and not for others. A second type of partiality
results from the hierarchical nature of plans. For example, we often
decide first on the relatively general ends of a plan, leaving open to
deliberation more specific questions about means and preliminary
steps. If we view plans as being composed of smaller
elements---`intentions'---we see that it is characteristic for agents
to reason from prior intentions to further ones. In such reasoning an
agent fills in her partial plans in ways required for them
successfully to guide her conduct.
Plans, as we conceive of them, are also subject to two kinds of
constraints: `consistency constraints' and the requirements of
`means-ends coherence'. An agent's plans need to be consistent both
internally and with her beliefs. Roughly speaking, it should be
possible for an agent's plans, taken together, to be executed
successfully in a world in which her beliefs are true. As a result of
this consistency requirement, prior plans not under reconsideration
can be seen to `constrain' subsequent plans, providing what might be
termed a `filter of admissibility' on options. (Cohen and
Hector Levesque have recently attempted to formalize this idea using a
model theoretic approach.) Second, though partial, plans need to be
filled in to a certain extent, as time goes by, with subplans
concerning means, preliminary steps, and relatively specific courses
of action. These subplans must be at least as extensive as the agent
believes necessary to execute the plan successfully. Otherwise the
plan will suffer from means-end incoherence.
In sum, there emerges from recent philosophical work a picture of
the process of `intention formation'. Agents are seen as being
motivated to form intentions to satisfy the requirements of means-end
coherence; they are also seen as being constrained by consistency
requirements to form only those intentions that can pass through the
filter of admissibility established by their prior intentions. But
many details of this picture remain to be worked out. In particular,
philosophers have by and large not addressed the details of the
means-end reasoning process, or what we might call `intention
realization': they have not specified how an agent can decide what
further intentions can count as means to, or preliminary steps for,
his prior intentions. But there is a large body of work within AI
that can be seen as dealing with just this question.
One of the ways the RatAg group has approached the problem of
understanding rational agency has been to actually examine existing AI
planning systems---an approach we have called ``robot psychology''
(Konolige, 1985b). Researchers of AI have taken planning seriously
almost since the field's inception. A number of techniques have been
developed for representing the effects of actions, as well as for
computing an action or actions that will achieve some goal. There are
even approaches to planning that have the capability to deal with
interactions among parts of a plan or among plans (Georgeff, 1985,
1986; Lansky, 1985a, 1985b, in prep.).
Yet there is a real difference between the plans constructed by
most existing AI systems and the sort of plans we discussed earlier.
The plans built by AI systems have often been hierarchical, but they
have not been partial. Instead, most AI planning systems expand plans
to a given level of detail as defined by the ``primitive'' operators
of the system. The level of detail in the plans constructed is
uniform, no matter how far into the future that plan extends.
In practice, however, forming complete plans prior to execution is
usually infeasible. Neither automatic planning systems nor their
designers are prescient or omniscient. Consequently they are unable
to anticipate all the quirks of a real-world environment. Inevitably,
the original capabilities of practical planning systems have had to be
augmented to allow for the monitoring of plan execution and for
replanning.
Although it is certainly important to be able to monitor one's
actions and to replan when the environment turns out to be different
than what one expected, too much replanning can be quite costly. As
we have seen, it is simply ineffective to plan a long way ahead to a
uniform level of detail; it is usually wiser to form a partial plan,
waiting to see what the world is like before expanding further. This
is one desirable feature of rational planners that traditional AI
planning systems do not exhibit. A second desirable feature is the
ability to respond to newly perceived facts that may entirely change
one's task priorities. Traditional AI planning systems, once they
adopt a plan, are unable to change their goal---the most they can do,
if they have some sort of replanning capabilites, is to replan to
achieve the same goal they originally set out to achieve.
In response to these issues there have been recent attempts at
developing mixed planning/execution systems, sometimes called
`reactive planners'. These systems construct plans that are
`partial', in exactly the sense we described earlier. When plans are
initially formed by a reactive planner, they are only expanded to a
level of detail that seems reasonable, given the information available
at the time. Plan expansion is dynamic: details are added during the
execution process itself as more information becomes available. Such
information can also result in the system abandoning its attempts to
achieve an existing goal.
Once planning is allowed to be intermixed with execution, however,
the problem of resource boundedness again rears its head. These new
systems must have some way of ensuring that some execution actually
occurs and that they do not get stuck in continual attempts to compute
the best option, without ever performing it (or even beginning to).
They can best do this, we claim, by incorporating a view of plans akin
to the one we outlined earlier, in which prior plans both pose
additional planning problems and constrain acceptable solutions to
them.
One example of a reactive planning system is the Procedural
Reasoning System (PRS) being developed at SRI International by
Georgeff and Lansky (Georgeff and Lansky, 1986a, 1986b; Georgeff,
Lansky, Bessiere, 1985; Georgeff, Lansky, Schoppers, 1986). It is
instructive to consider briefly how PRS operates. PRS, like any
planning system, begins by adopting a goal G. However, being a
reactive planner, PRS does not then build a complete plan for
achieving G. Rather, G is associated with a precomputed method for
achieving it, which may be either a so-called basic action or a
sequence of subgoals G1, ..., Gn. In the former case, PRS can simply
execute the action. It is when the method associated with G is of the
latter type that the mixed planning/execution nature of PRS becomes
evident. PRS will begin, in this case, by retrieving the methods
associated with G1, selecting one, and executing it. This selection
process can use reflective reasoning to choose the best possible
method for achieving G1. Of course, since the method selected may
itself consist of a sequence of subgoals, the process of method
selection and execution may have to be repeated several times before
G1 is achieved. Only then will the process be repeated for G2. The
low-level actions used to realize a future subgoal, for instance G5,
do not need to be determined prematurely by PRS. This reflects well
the observation made earlier that highly detailed plans about the far
future are not in general worthwhile.
Reflective reasoning is thus used by PRS to fill in the details of
a partial plan by determining the best method for achieving a
previously selected goal. It is also used to allow PRS to change its
goals when the situation warrants it. Whenever PRS is reflecting on
which procedure best meets its needs, it can also decide to abandon
its current plan and do someting else instead. It is therefore able
to modify its plans of action rapidly on the basis of what it
currently perceives.
PRS avoids both the problems of traditional AI planning systems
described above. Of particular interest is its use of reflective
reasoning, which can be seen as embodying a mechanism for the
plan-formation process. Reflective plans can be used to encode the
principles of rational plan formation---principles whose outlines have
been developed in recent philosophical work, and whose further
elaboration we are pursuing.
In particular, we are currently working on a formal description of
PRS strictly in terms of axioms concerning beliefs, desires, and
intentions, as well as their interactions with one another and with
perceptual input and rational action (Georgeff and Lansky, in prep.).
In this analysis, the various components of the existing system are
associated with components of a cognitive model. Axioms that describe
the various active components in the system correspond to principles
of rationality. We intend to continue development of this
axiomatization and to use it as a guide for extending and
restructuring the system. In this way, we hope to expedite the
construction of a rational artificial agent.
Finally, we conclude by looking briefly at our work to date on the
interaction between intentions and beliefs about the future. Both
Konolige and Israel have done substantial work on the combinatorial
properties of the primitive components of rationality (Konolige,
1985a; Israel, in prep. a, in prep. b). Bratman has argued that
agents do not necessarily intend the expected side effects of their
intentions. Cohen and Levesque (1985, in prep. a, in prep. b) have
provided a formal analysis of a concept approximating intention that
shows how an agent's `persistence', modeled as a set of constraints on
intention revision, blocks side effects from being intended. Even a
fanatical agent, who keeps trying to achieve his persistent goal until
he believes it to be satisfied or until he believes it to be
impossible, will not keep trying to achieve what is merely an expected
side effect.
The ability to state conditions under which an agent can drop an
intention points to an analysis of an agent's interlocking commitments
within the agent itself as well as with other agents. Intention
revision can thus be triggered off an agent's dropping intentions, his
believing certain applicability conditions are false, or his believing
that some other agent has dropped (or even adopted) a given intention.
Cohen and Levesque argue that communicative acts such as requesting
and promising should be analyzed in terms of such interlocking
intentions.
References
Bratman, M. 1986. Intention and Commitment. Invited Address, APA
Pacific Division Meetings.
Bratman, M. In preparation. Intention, Plans and Practical Reason.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Cohen, P. and Levesque, H. 1985. Speech Acts and Rationality. In
Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the ACL. Also in M.
Genesereth and M. Ginsberg (Eds.), Proceedings of the Distributed
Artificial Intelligence Workshop.
Cohen, P. and Levesque, H. In preparation, a. Communication as Rational
Interaction.
Cohen, P. and Levesque, H. In preparation, b. Persistence, Intention
and Commitment in Rational Interaction.
Gerogeff, M. 1985. A Theory of Process. In Proceedings of the 1985
Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop. Sea Ranch, Calif.
Georgeff, M., Lansky, A., and Bessiere, P. 1985. A Procedural Logic.
In Proceedings of IJCAI 9, 516--523.
Georgeff, M. 1986. The Representation of Events in Multiagent Domains.
In Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
AAAI.
Georgeff, M. and Lansky, A. 1986a. Procedural Knowledge. To appear in
Proceedings of IEEE Special Issue on Knowledge Representation.
Georgeff, M. and Lansky, A. 1986b. System for Reasoning in Dynamic
Domains: Fault Diagnosis on the Space Shuttle. SRI Tech. Note 375.
Georgeff, M., Lansky A., and Schoppers, M. 1986. Reasoning and
Planning in Dynamic Domains: An Experiment with a Robot. SRI Tech.
Rep.
Georgeff, M. and Lansky, A. In preparation. A Cognitive Representation
of the Procedural Reasoning System. SRI Tech. Rep.
Israel, D. In preparation, a. Intentional Realism Naturalized.
Israel, D. In preparation, b. On the Paradox of the Surprise
Examination: Problems and Beliefs about One's Own Future. SRI Tech.
Rep.
Konolige, K. 1985a. Belief and Incompleteness. In J. Hobbs and R.
Moore (Eds.), Formal Theories of the Commonsense World. Norwood, N.
J.: Ablex, 359--404.
Konolige, K. 1985b. Experimental Robot Psychology. SRI Tech. Note 363.
Lansky, A. 1985a. A `Behavioral' Approach to Multiagent Domains.
In Proceedings of the 1985 Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop.
Sea Ranch, Calif., 159--183.
Lansky, A. 1985b. Behavioral Specification and Planning for Multiagent
Domains. SRI Tech. Note 360.
Lansky, A. In preparation. A Model of Parallel Activity Based on
Events, Structure, Causality, and Time.
Pollack, M. 1986a. Inferring Domain Plans in Question-Answering.
Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Pollack, M. 1986b. A Model of Plan Inference that Distinguishes
Between the Beliefs of Actors and Observers. To appear in Proceedings
of the 24th Annual Meeting of ACL.
Pollack, M. 1986c. Some Requirements for a Model of the Plan Inference
Process in Conversation. In R. Reilly (Ed.), Communication Failure in
Dialogue. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
-----------
end of part 2 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 1904 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol 1., No. 4, part 3
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 19:04:24 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 15:31:43-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol 1., No. 4, part 3
To: newsreaders@SU-CSLI.ARPA
EMBEDDED COMPUTATION (EC)
Brian C. Smith
Project Participants: Curtis Abbott, Carol Cleland, Michael Dixon,
Kenneth Olson, Brian C. Smith (Project Leader),
Tayloe Stansbury
The Embedded Computation (EC) project has two long-term goals: to
develop a theory of computation adequate to the phenomena of situated
agents, and to design specific computational architectures consonant
with that theory. Progress has been made on both fronts. In both
cases we have moved from general intuitions and overall requirements
to a specific conceptual structure in terms of which we are now
working out details.
Theory
In the original proposal for CSLI research, we claimed that
``computation was fundamentally linguistic.'' We have now unpacked
this insight into a set of more specific interlocking claims, in part
because of a richer understanding of the term ``linguistic.''
Initially, we used the phrase ``linguistic'' in a broad sense, as
is common in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and computer
science. We had been impressed with the large number of semantical or
intentional relations (situations where one structure stands for or
signifies another) that arise in even the simplest computational
systems. Examples include the many relations among internal data
structures, visual representations, programs, specifications,
implementations, etc. Given this set of phenomena, it was natural to
view all these structures as analogous to language, for several
reasons. For one thing, this understanding was implicit in technical
jargon (``programming languages,'' ``formal symbol manipulation,''
``mentalese,'' etc.). For another, virtually all well-developed
theoretical techniques for analyzing semantic relations were developed
for purposes of language analysis (especially model theory and various
forms of denotational semantics). Finally, the idea that the internal
structures in a reasoning system should be viewed linguistically is an
explicit and popular hypothesis in AI.
It is an important fact about CSLI, however, that its research
community involves linguists and philosophers who study the
paradigmatic case of language: structures used by humans to
communicate among themselves. From this direction came a pressure to
use ``language'' in a narrower, more focused sense, with specific
properties having to do with communication, public or conventional
use, etc. At the same time, the linguistic approach to internal
states and structures of computational processes came under rather
severe scrutiny, this time from two sources. First, a
nonrepresentational approach to computation is increasingly being
espoused by theoretical computer scientists, including some of those
at CSLI (primarily Joseph Goguen and Jose Meseguer). Second, in
conjunction with others at CSLI, we came to realize that a narrowly
linguistic approach to internal structures was also inadequate in AI
and cognitive psychology.
The result of these pressures was to split our general notion of
language into two parts. On the one hand, we embraced a more general
notion of representation, which included language as a special case,
but also encompassed models, images, simulations, and a wide variety
of other ``semantical'' phenomena. We realized that an analysis of
the full complex of semantical relations in computer systems would
require the prior development of such a theory of representation,
which would include analyses of correspondence, of modeling, and
various related subjects. On the other hand, we also recognized that
these theories would not be specific to computation. As a result, a
project specifically dedicated to those ends (the Representation and
Reasoning project) was split off from the Embedded Computation group,
and was described in an earlier issue of the Monthly (Vol. 1, No. 2).
Given this development, the goal of the Embedded Computation
project is to employ these more general representational techniques in
analyzing computational systems as a whole. The first attempt to
analyze systems in these terms is presented in Brian Smith's paper on
correspondence (1986b) which documents the inadequacy of traditional
semantical techniques (particularly those of model theory), and
proposes a more fine-grained but flexible theory of general
correspondence. The general contextual dependence of computation and
reasoning is also analyzed in Smith's (1986c) paper
that attempts to derive a variety of kinds of computational
self-reference as solutions to the problem posed by an agent's
attempting to extricate itself from its own circumstantial dependence.
A larger project is reported in Smith's book (forthcoming) which
argues that it is impossible to maintain the overwhelmingly popular
view that computation is ``formal,'' no matter what reading of that
term one chooses. In terms of the present analysis, this conclusion
can be interpreted in a variety of ways. First, if ``formal'' is
taken to mean ``independent of context,'' as Jon Barwise has suggested
(in a discussion of logical inference; Barwise, in press), then many
current systems are patently not formal. Smith shows that they also
violate formality if it is taken to mean ``operates independently of
semantic interpretation'' (except in such a weak sense that every
possible physical object, including people, *must* be formal). In this
and several more cases, the point is once again that semantical
techniques originally developed for formal languages are inadequate to
the computational case.
As well as challenging received views of formality, Smith's book
also challenges all three reigning theories of computation (formal
symbol manipulation, recursive function theory, and automata theory).
In contrast, it sketches an alternative theory that rests explicitly
on a representational foundation, and deals directly with physical
embodiment. In this concern with the causal foundation of
computation, and in the rejection of a narrowly ``linguistic''
notion of internal representation, Smith's project is similar to
Stanley Rosenschein and Leslie Kaelbling's work in the Situated
Automata project. The major initial difference between the two has to
do with the stance towards representation: Rosenschein and Kaelbling
explicitly attempt to set representation aside; Smith's approach is to
revamp the very notion of representation in such a way as to make a
representational theory of computation tenable.
As well as paving the way towards new theories of computation, and
new semantical techniques for analyzing current systems and practices,
there is another benefit to viewing language as just one particular
instance of representation more generally: structures that really are
languages can be treated as such, in all their specificity, rather
than being incorporated into a vague, more general notion. In the
computational realm, this naturally leads us to distinguish:
(a) The languages we use to specify, engender, and interact with
computer system
(b) The structure and behavior of computational processes
themselves
Thus a program for an automatic system to land planes at the San
Francisco Airport would be a case of the former; the system itself an
instance of the latter. Both entities, being meaningful,
information-bearing, significant artifacts, require semantical
analysis. Thus we might ask the following sorts of questions about
the former: exactly what signals does it lead the system to send out;
what sorts of scoping mechanisms and variable binding does it employ;
what are the semantics of its if-then-else construct? About the
latter we might ask: what do those signals mean; how many planes can
it track before becoming overloaded; what plane out there in the sky
does some particular data structure actually refer to; does it know
about the hurricane over Oakland?
In traditional computer science these questions would be studied
together. Our approach, however, enables us to treat them separately,
which clarifies a number of issues. Consider, for example, the
important role of context in determining the significance of any
representational structure. The point is that the kinds of context
relevant to the specification-relation are different from the kinds of
context relevant to the process-world relation. For example, the
meaning of the program fragment ``PRE-CLEARED(FLIGHT-PATH[Xj])'' may
depend on definitions in other modules in the whole specification
package. On the other hand, what particular airplane was signified by
a given data structure referred to on the morning of July 27th, 1984,
may depend not on facts about the linguistic context, but on facts
about air traffic in the Bay Area on that date. Similarly, the
mechanisms in which these contextual facts play their determining
roles are clearly of radically different kinds.
The progress we have made in structuring the enterprise, and
identifying different semantical contributions, will greatly help in
our development of a theory of embedded computation. In addition, the
Embedded Computation group will continue to work closely with the
Representation and Reasoning group on specific semantical techniques.
Finally, we also retain a commitment to apply the results of our
analysis in the wider social and intellectual sphere. Two papers of
this sort have been prepared. The first (Smith, 1985) analyzes the
notion of computational ``correctness,'' showing how misleading uses of
this term derive from exactly the sorts of semantical confusion we
have been clarifying---in this case from a combination of an
uncritical use of model-theoretic techniques and a confusion of the
program-process and process-world relations. The second (Smith,
1986a) undertakes an analysis of the very notion of a ``technical
problem,'' arguing that our emerging understanding of situated agents,
representation, and computation challenges the widespread view that
questions about computation divide neatly into ``technical'' and
``social'' categories.
System Design
The second part of the Embedded Computation project focuses on
system design. Two specific systems have been explored in the past
year: a ``Situated Inference Engine,'' (SIE) an architecture, being
developed in collaboration with the Situation Theory and Situation
Semantics (STASS) project, that is designed to manifest a theory of
situated inference; and the ``Membrane'' language, a study in
designing a modern type-based computer language that deals explicitly
with the interacting semantic demands of different kinds of linguistic
interactions with machines.
The Situated Inference Engine
Theories of inference based on mathematical logic are able to
sidestep considerations of various sorts of context. First, as
described in Barwise (in press), the semantic interpretation of
logical formulae is viewed as essentially independent of the context
of use. Thus one does not deal with a formula such as TO-THE-RIGHT(X)
where circumstantial facts are essential to the formula's
interpretation. Second, although proofs are often viewed as sequences
of expressions, those expressions are not treated as linguistic
discourses, in the sense of establishing linguistic contexts that can
be exploited by subsequent expressions. Thus, logical languages
typically do not have the richness of anaphoric constructs that
natural language does or even a notion of subject matter. Third,
inference is viewed as dependent on only a fixed set of premises or
axioms; there is no provision for dealing with unfolding
conversational contexts, with the addition of new or contradictory
information, with explicit requests, etc.
In contrast, human inference---especially if one takes inference
very broadly as the general process of developing semantically
motivated conclusions in appropriate circumstances based on available
information---violates all these assumptions, and as such is a much
more complex subject matter.
It is part of the long-range goal of the EC and STASS projects to
develop a theory of `situated inference' that deals directly with the
sorts of contextual dependence mentioned above, so as at least to
illuminate the more complex human case. This theory will also deal
with a richer analysis of consequence relations, based on different
kinds of involvement relations. Thus the situation of 10's being the
product of 2 and 5 may `logically' involve 10's being even, whereas
someone's talking to the director of CSLI may much more conditionally
involve that person's being in Palo Alto.
The Situated Inference project is an attempt to build a
computational system that is able to engage in simple forms of
situated inference. Although its design may involve such
architectural considerations as the use of parallel computation,
unification, term rewriting rules, constraint-based systems, etc., the
primary goal is to develop semantical techniques adequate to describe
situated inference. The basic model will be conversational---of a
person issuing utterances to the SIE, to which the SIE will produce
appropriate replies. These utterances may be questions, may convey
new information, or may ask the hearer to perform certain actions.
The initial subject domain will be one of schedules and calendars;
thus we imagine saying to the SIE (in an appropriate stylized
language) ``I have an appointment in an hour with Bill Miller,'' or
``Am I free for lunch on Wednesday?'' Both cases involve contextual
interpretation; the design goal is to have the system respond
appropriately to the contextually determined meaning, not merely to
the form of the query.
Though the SIE is at an early stage of development, several
important design issues have emerged. For example, there is a
tendency, in traditional system design, to assume that contextual
dependencies in the input language should be fleshed out
(``disambiguated'') in the course of internalizing queries or
assertions into a form suitable for internal processing. Thus one
might imagine that the noun ``Wednesday,'' in the example given in the
previous paragraph, would be converted to a unique internal identifier
(i.e., with the week or day of the month filled in). On the other
hand, as argued, for example, in Smith (1986c), there are good reasons
to presume that the interpretation of internal structures is itself
contextually sensitive, and that the idea of a ``canonical'' or
``contextually independent'' internal form is ultimately untenable.
For example, imagine designing a ``situated telephone assistant.''
Just because some phone numbers might need to be internally
represented with leading country codes, it does not follow that all of
them do. A far more reasonable design decision would be to assume
that numbers without an explicit representation of country should be
interpreted to be `in whatever country the system itself resides', and
then to provide the facility for the system to make the country code
explicit when that matters. This is not, of course, a radical design
idea; system programmers will recognize it as standard practice. The
point, rather, is to develop our theories of semantics and inference
to the point where they are able to comprehend and explain this
natural use of implicit context in computation and reasoning.
This example illustrates a very general fact about the SIE, which
distinguishes it from previous systems, including not only inference
machines but also natural language understanding systems and query
systems more generally. In particular, the nature of our theoretical
analysis of its structures and operations is quite different, and at
times much more complex than the ingredient structures themselves.
Another example is provided by our analysis of its conversations. We
distinguish four kinds of situation in terms of which to understand
linguistic utterances. In particular, as well as recognizing the
utterance situation itself, we recognize:
o The grammatical situation, containing facts of grammar
and language relevant to the utterance at hand
o The discourse situation, containing facts about references,
historical structure of the discourse, etc.
o The described situation, which is the subject situation
in the world that the utterance is about (such as my lunch
with Bill Miller)
o The background situation, containing large numbers of
constraints, background assumptions, etc.
All of these situations, their constituent facts, relations among
them, etc., play a role in determining the full semantical
significance of the utterance. Relations among utterances, such as
when a reply follows directly from a question, can also be stated in
terms of constraints on instances of this general interpretation
scheme. On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose, in general,
that these four situations need be explicitly represented within the
SIE. For example, the grammatical facts about the language might not
need to be represented explicitly if its parsing mechanism was
``hardwired'' to accept this and only this language. On the other
hand, there will clearly be some facts, such as the name of the person
one is scheduled to meet in an hour, that are likely candidates for
more explicit representation. As the design of the SIE proceeds, we
hope to develop a theoretical framework that will explain how and when
facts need explicit representation, as well as providing guidelines
for the system's moving flexibly from implicit to explicit
representation when circumstances demand (Smith, 1986c).
----------
end of part 3 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 2001 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 4
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 20:00:53 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 15:32:47-PDT
From: Jamie Marks <JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 4
To: newsreaders@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Membrane
The programming of general purpose computers allows a degree of
flexibility in their use that is so far unobtainable in any other way,
and so it is not surprising that the development of languages to
support and facilitate the programming process is a major area of
computer science research. The traditional distinction between
interactive (or ``interpreted'') and batch (or ``compiled'') languages
has become increasingly unrecognizable with the development of
sophisticated programming environments that allow the combination of
interpreted and compiled modes, employ ``run-time'' compilers, and
provide other tools for debugging, monitoring performance, etc. It is
important to note, however, that two quite different models of the
programming process underlie the traditional distinction---one in
which the programmer has a kind of conversation with the computer
aimed at clarifying and solving some problem, the other in which the
programmer translates a relatively clear statement of a problem into
codes acceptable to the computer; codes that will make it behave in a
specified way. It is increasingly being recognized that one should
not have to choose between these two models, but rather that each is
relevant to programming, corresponding to a ``role'' that any language
designed to support it must necessarily play. Call these the
`conversational' and `programmatic' roles, respectively. We believe
the conversational approach taken in the Situated Inference Engine
project can be applied to the programming process more generally,
thereby extending our understanding of how to support that role or
model. The Membrane project, in contrast, is an attempt to develop
the programmatic role in light of the same sorts of general concerns
and ideas laid out above.
Thus, we are concerned with the definition of languages adequate
for describing problems of the sort that arise in programming, and the
development of adequate semantical accounts of them. Curtis Abbott is
focusing his concern on the development of a particular language
called Membrane (Abbott, 1986a, 1986c, 1986d). An important premise
of this work is that the common concern with making a (computing)
machine behave in a particular way should be explicit rather than
being absorbed into a notion of procedure (or function) in which the
computational agent is hidden in the background. Therefore, he wants a
language whose expressions designate objects, not only the ordinary
mathematical objects---functions, sets, lists, numbers, and so on, but
also computational agents and their processes. In this language, it
should be possible to directly express relationships between machines
and processes, among structurally diverse machines that have
recognizably similar behavior, between functions and machines that
compute them, and so on. Although the discipline of being everywhere
explicit about all of these objects and relationships will be
intolerable in a practical setting, we believe the approach needs to
be integrated into the languages that are used for programming rather
than only appearing in theories about it, so that we can be explicit
about them when it is appropriate, and can decide in a principled way
what circumstances justify making certain objects and relationships
implicit.
Abbott uses a notion of ``type'' to organize the domain of abstract
objects that grounds his semantical account of Membrane. There is a
fairly lively controversy in this field about whether the existence of
low complexity decision procedures for typechecking problems should
affect the notion of type itself. In this, we come down heavily on
the side that says it should not. Indeed, we claim that types should
be definable by arbitrary predicates over previously defined types.
In the technical development of our notion of type, we show that this
provision for predicated subtypes allows us to simplify the type
description language somewhat. Specifically, in the
lambda-calculus-based type systems, there is usually one variable
binding operator for type abstraction and another for functional
abstraction, and the type abstraction operator is needed to express
dependent types, such as the type of products of a type, T, and an
object of type T. Given that Type is a type, we can express such
types in Membrane using only the standard function abstraction
operator to define predicates. Another somewhat unorthodox feature of
the work on types is the sort of model given for the system (Abbott,
1986b). This has always been a delicate issue for systems which allow
self-application as exemplified in the type of types being itself a
type. We have found that a model based on Peter Aczel's theory of
nonwellfounded sets allows for a very direct expression of the
circularities involved, without resort to the cleverness that is
needed to give models based on ordered sets.
Even though issues of computability and computational complexity
are less immediate in a semantical account of Membrane than would be
the case for a programming language, the divergence between a usefully
concise formal language and one that is convenient for the standard,
compositional mechanisms of formal semantics becomes evident very
quickly. The approach taken to this problem is to translate
ordinary Membrane expressions into a more basic, unambiguous version
of the language. We have tried to explicate a variety of distinct
mechanisms which can be put together to obtain considerable expressive
flexibility without sacrificing rigor. These include a version of
type-based disambiguation of occurrences of atomic symbols (otherwise
known as ``overloading''), type inference, syntax-directed rewriting,
translation of apparently dependent types into the appropriate
predicated subtypes, etc. We have described each of these mechanisms
and explored the expressive style that results from putting them
together. While we believe the result is a reasonably convenient
language, our method is also intended to emphasize that other
mechanisms could easily be added without changing the language in a
fundamental way, and that we are not too committed to any particular
set of such mechanisms.
Other Projects
As well as pursuing its theoretical goals, the Embedded Computation
project tries to provide a forum in CSLI for the general exploration
and development of theories of a variety of computational subjects,
all within the general spirit of the Situated Language project. One
specific task we have taken on this past year has been the running, in
collaboration with STASS, of a weekly seminar called the Situated
Engine Company. This project was viewed in part as background for the
SIE development, but was also designed to broaden the scope of
possibilities for researchers throughout CSLI who are interested in
building computational models of information processing. The seminar
examined a wide variety of computational architectures:
object-oriented, constraint-based, and logic-based programming
languages; the Connection Machine; knowledge representation languages,
etc. It compared and contrasted the object-orientation of some of
these systems (SmallTalk, KL-ONE, etc.) with the relational
orientation of theories being developed elsewhere at CSLI, e.g.,
(Barwise, 1985; Stucky, 1986).
In addition, the group took on the task of specifying, in a single
integrated account, the full range of semantic facts relevant to a
hypothesized small robot (called ``Gullible'') capable of extremely simple
linguistic and ambulatory behavior in a gridlike world. Several quite
strikingly different solutions were proposed. As was to be expected,
different groups focused on the semantical aspects of greatest
familiarity to them: the structure of the language Gullible used,
abstract characterizations of Gullible's actions and internal states,
etc. The clearest result of the experiment---predicted in
advance---was that no single attempt was even near to being completely
successful. Among the important lessons learned were the following:
the importance of accounting directly for the semantical relations
implicit in abstract set-theoretic modeling, the lack of unanimity on
the best way to describe the internal states or structures of even a
simple computational process, the many different kinds of
circumstantial dependence that affect the meaning and behavior of a
situated agent (Smith, 1986b), etc. It was generally agreed that if
an adequate comprehensive account could be worked out in the coming
year, it would form the basis of a good text introducing what would be
involved in giving a comprehensive semantical analysis of a situated
language-using and information-processing agent.
References
Abbott, C. 1986a. A Formal Semantics for Membrane. ISL Tech. Memo, Xerox
PARC, forthcoming.
Abbott, C. 1986b. A Hyperset Model of a Polymorphic Type System. ISL
Tech. Memo, Xerox PARC, forthcoming.
Abbott, C. 1986c. Motivations for Membrane. ISL Tech. Memo, Xerox
PARC, forthcoming.
Abbott, C. 1986d. A Type System for Membrane. ISL Tech. Memo, Xerox
PARC, forthcoming.
Barwise, K. J. 1985. Notes on Situation Theory. CSLI Summer School
Course.
Barwise, K. J., In press. Information and Circumstance. Notre Dame
Journal of Formal Logic.
Smith, B. C. 1985. The Limits of Correctness. Presented at the
Symposium on Unintentional Nuclear War at the Fifth International
Conference of the International Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War, Budapest. Reprinted in SIGCAS Newsletter (14)4, Dec.
1985. Also Rep. No. CSLI-85-36.
Smith, B. C. 1986a. Computer Science and Star Wars: What Counts as a
Technical Problem? Paper presented at the Sixth Canadian AI
Conference, Montreal, Canada; available from the author.
Smith, B. C. 1986b. The Correspondence Continuum. In Proceedings of
the Sixth Canadian AI Conference, Montreal, Canada. To be submitted
to Artificial Intelligence.
Smith, B. C. 1986c. Varieties of Self-Reference. In J. Halpern (Ed.),
Proceedings of the 1986 Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning
about Knowledge. Los Altos, Calif.: Morgan/Kaufmann, 19--43. Revised
version submitted to Artificial Intelligence.
Smith, B. C. Forthcoming. Is Computation Formal? Cambridge, Mass.:
Bradford Books/The MIT Press.
Stucky, S. 1986. Interpreted Syntax: Part I, The Argument. To be
submitted to Linguistics and Philosophy.
-----------
end of part 4 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 2114 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 5
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ANALYSIS OF GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION
David Levy
Project Participants: David Levy (Project Leader), Geoffrey Nunberg,
Kenneth Olson, Brian C. Smith, Tayloe Stansbury
This project is concerned with the nature of graphical
representation---with documents, in the broadest sense, viewed as
visual, information-bearing artifacts. While various disciplines
touch on aspects of this---linguistics, for example, addresses the
syntactic structure of ``text,'' generally as embodied in spoken (not
written) forms---none has taken the document as a subject matter in
its own right, nor provided the conceptual insights needed to ground
such an enterprise.
Yet this subject has come to assume a seminal role in modern
intellectual and economic life as the computer moves to replace the
pencil, the pen, the typewriter, and the printing press as our
predominant document preparation tool. Every such tool, from the
lowliest text editor on a personal computer, to the most sophisticated
layout engines used to design many of today's newspapers and
magazines, embodies an account of the nature of documents and their
preparation: each specifies the objects, properties, and relations
from which it takes documents to be composed, and provides the user
with a set of operations with which to compose documents.
Unfortunately, all such accounts are largely unprincipled, as a result
of which the tools now built, although impressive feats of
engineering, are idiosyncratic, incomplete, inflexible, difficult to
maintain, and difficult if not impossible to tailor.
During the last year two themes, embodiment and representation,
have assumed some importance in the development of our ideas. It has
been suggested at CSLI, for example, that what are taken to be
constraints on mind are actually constraints imposed by embodiment.
It is argued that theories must properly acknowledge the priority of
physical existence and embodiment over any abstractions derived from
it. In our case, this position manifests itself as a commitment to
the primacy of the document as a physical, information-bearing
(information-embodying) artifact. Abstractions over such physical
entities (such as the notion of ``text'' more about which below) and
representations of them play a secondary, derivative role.
It has also been suggested that the concept of representation may
play an important role in mediating the tension between ``(a) the
ubiquity of information, and (b) the specificity of language.'' As it
turns out, the domain of document preparation is permeated by
representational issues. Documents are, of course, representational
artifacts: the structure of marks, their presence and absence,
represent states of affairs in some domain of discourse. If we are to
come to ``understand'' documents, we must, for example, develop an
account of the alphabet as a system of graphical representation. (One
such attempt can be found in Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art.)
Representation issues also permeate the use of the computer as a
document preparation tool. Much of the power inherent in such tools
derives from the fact that we do not create documents directly, but
rather create representations from which documents can be realized.
As just noted, we have taken as the starting point of our
theoretical endeavor the primacy of actual documents---those physical
things that each of us can read or view. We are working toward a
definition of ``document'' that is broad enough to include books,
papers, and marked CRT screens, but narrow enough to exclude, say,
speech and dance. One of the interesting questions is whether the
concept of activity can be introduced into the definition without
broadening it to the point of vacuity. For the time being we define
documents as some subset (as yet undetermined) of public, visual,
physically-embodied, representing artifacts.
As a physical artifact, a document is characterizable in terms of
its objects, properties and relations (its aspects). Different facets
of documents can be identified by focusing on (abstracting away) only
certain subsets of the full set of aspects. We have identified and
have been analyzing two such clusters and the relationships between
them. These two clusters, which comprise two relatively decomposable
facets of documents, we call the figural and the textual.
The figural facet of a document refers to the purely visual
objects, properties, and relations of which it is composed. We have
been exploring the figural facet, identifying such notions as figure,
ground, surface, and region. This is, roughly, the analogue of the
distinction between phonetics and phonology in linguistics: we have
been developing a visual phonetics to serve as the basis for various
visual phonologies. Such an enterprise has not been of interest to
traditional linguistics because of its concern for the spoken language
as primary and its assumption that written forms are ``direct
transcriptions'' of the spoken.
The textual facet of a document refers to those objects,
properties, and relations that are encoded via the alphabet, plus
punctuation and spacing. Textual aspects include character and word
identity and boundaries, and ``text categories'' such as sentence and
paragraph. Explicitly marked categories like the paragraph, sentence,
and parenthetical either do not exist in the spoken language, or exist
there only implicitly; in the written language, however, they are
structurally no less ``real'' than other categories of grammar, such
as phrases defined over the syntactic properties of their lexical
heads.
We are currently developing the apparatus for a grammatical
description of the distribution of text categories. It is already
clear that the grammar will have to avail itself of several different
sorts of rules: a set of (perhaps context-sensitive) phrase structure
rules that generate text structures, as well as several levels of
``presentation rules'' that determine how text structures will be
realized as figures or visual objects in a particular environment; the
latter, it turns out, must be ordered much like the rules of
phonology. In addition, we are beginning to draw out the interpretive
rules associated with particular formal delimiters.
GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND DISCOURSE STRUCTURE (GTDS)
Joan Bresnan and Annie Zaenen
Project Participants: Khalid Abd-rabbo, Farrell Ackerman, Joan Bresnan
(Project Leader), Young-Mee Cho, Carolyn
Coleman, Christopher Culy, Amy Dahlstrom, Mary
Dalrymple, Keith Denning, Jeffrey Goldberg, Kristin
Hanson, Ki-Sun Hong, Masayo Iida, Sharon
Inkelas, Mark Johnson, Smita Joshi, Jonni
Kanerva, Paul Kiparsky, Will Leben, Marcy
Macken, Sam Mchombo, Lioba Moshi, Catherine
O'Connor, Mariko Saiki, Peter Sells, John
Stonham, Michael Wescoat, Annie Zaenen, Draga Zec
A central goal of this project is to study the interaction between
syntax and other areas of linguistic investigation. Recent work has
been concentrated on the relations holding between the syntax module
and the morphological and discourse modules. While it has often been
pointed out that not all linguistic phenomena can be described in
terms of sentence grammar (in terms of syntax, that is), syntacticians
are often reluctant to widen the scope of their investigations, as
they feel that they have been relatively successful within the
boundaries of syntax proper. Additionally, there is a concern that a
field too broadly defined might lead to accounts that are vague and
ill-defined. As our research has developed, we have found an
integrative approach to be not only feasible but also illuminating.
The general theory that is emerging is not one whose primary concern
has been to reduce all linguistic phenomena to one set of primitives
within a single module of the grammar; like research in a number of
other CSIL projects we are instead attempting to explain the facts as
interactions among a variety of modules in the grammar. This approach
flies in the face of much of current theory in linguistics, for it is
often argued by syntacticians that only very constrained frameworks
can lead to interesting insights. The merit of such research programs
seems to us debatable: concentrating on only one type of ``primitive''
leads one to overlook regularities that do not fit that kind of
representation; a more accommodating framework allows them to be
captured in a more revealing way.
Our starting point has been syntactic theory as exemplified
primarily in Lexical-Functional Grammar. The original proposal aimed
the extension mainly at the discourse level; in practice, interactions
with morphology have also been a point of interest. While our
approach is admittedly cautious, it has the great advantage of
allowing precise accounts of the studied phenomena. In the
organization of the research an important effort was made to include a
substantial number of graduate students. This decision dictated up to
a certain point the concrete shape of the studies undertaken: at least
some of the studies had to take the form of individual papers.
An important unifying theme of this year's research has been the
status and realization of various kinds of pronominal elements.
Pronouns in natural language seem to be a central device in helping
discourse to cohere. Various pronominal forms play various kinds of
functions and appear to reflect the structure of the discourse. As
such, they figure centrally in much of the CSLI research on discourse
and the effect of context quite generally. Following our working
strategy, we are identifying a cluster of properties that pronouns
have across languages. We are figuring out how these systems of
properties interact to predict the complex grammatical structures that
we find. Our research has been wide-ranging, as a quick survey shows:
investigations into the interactions between agreement, anaphora, and
word order in Bantu languages, cross-linguistic investigations on
reflexives, research on Finnish possessives, and control phenomena in
Serbo-Croatian. Below, we summarize the main findings.
The work on Bantu languages centered on a much-debated problem, the
status of object- and subject-markers in Bantu languages: are they
agreement markers, or anaphoric markers (incorporated pronouns)? Both
answers have been put forward in the past. By taking seriously the
interactions among the morphological, syntactic, and discourse
modules, we have been able to give a clearer answer to this question.
Bresnan and Mchombo show that when this question is related to other
characteristics of the language (especially facts of word order, the
discourse functions of TOPIC and FOCUS, and the function of
independent pronouns) an answer can be given that is much more
illuminating than one that would be available if one was restricted to
pure morpho-syntactic facts, such as the verbal morphology and the
presence or absence of full NP subjects and objects (Bresnan and
Mchombo, 1986a). The integrated analysis is worked out for Chichewa
in Bresnan and Mchombo (1986b) and extended to Sesotho in Johnson and
Demuth (1986). Currently, further research is in progress on Kihaya
and Kichaga, as the arguments developed to distinguish between
agreement and anaphora in Chichewa make interesting predictions for
those (and other Bantu) languages.
These results are important not only because they provide fruitful
new ways to distinguish between agreement and anaphora, while
explaining why the two are so closely related, but also because they
provide syntactic criteria for identifying discourse functions (at
least in some languages). In the clear cases, what is learned about
these functions can shed light on other cases, in which the discourse
notions are less clearly reflected in the syntax or the morphology.
The work on reflexives has focused on two aspects, a previously
well-established distinction (between so-called transitive and
intransitive reflexive constructions), and the rather puzzling
extensions of use reflexive morphemes seem to acquire in different
languages. On the first topic Sells, Zaenen and Zec undertook a
cross-linguistic study based on data from English, Finnish, German,
Dutch, Chichewa, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, and Warlpiri, showing that
a simple dichotomy between transitive and intransitive reflexive
constructions is insufficient (Sells, Zaenen, and Zec, 1985). In fact,
they argue that there are at least three different types of
distinction that have to be made: transitivity versus intransitivity
in the lexicon, synthetic versus analytic realization in constituent
structure, and open- versus closed-predicate readings in the
semantics. The study shows that the relations between lexical
structure, constituent structure, and semantic representation are less
directly predictable (and hence more interesting) than is often
assumed. In particular, it does not seem to be possible to predict
from the morphology what the syntactic or semantic status of a
reflexive will be (as has been assumed in much of the previous work on
this topic): forms that are phonologically part of a word can be
lexically and semantically independent entities, and forms that are
free syntactically can be lexically and semantically ``bound.'' The
data also show that reflexives cannot always be treated as bound
variables in the semantics; the consequences of this result are
elaborated further in Sells (1986) in which a more sophisticated
picture of the representation of reflexives and other anaphora is
given.
Extensions in the use of reflexive constructions are well-known
across the world's languages but ill-understood. While we do not yet
have a good theory about these phenomena, the research so far shows
that it is again important to transcend a narrowly defined syntactic
approach, even for the modest goal of describing the data. At one end
of the spectrum of extended uses of the reflexive, Coleman
(1986) gives a detailed description of the two morphological
reflexives of Kunparlang, showing, among other things, that a variety
of uses of one of the markers do have a unified analysis. At the
other end of the syntactic spectrum, Sells concentrates on elucidating
the notion of logophoricity (a property associated with reflexive-like
pronominal elements) in accounts of some nonclause-bounded uses of
reflexives (Sells, 1985). It is shown that the notion of
logophoricity covers three more primitive notions, largely pragmatic
ones. Iida and Sells analyze the logophoric use of a reflexive
word in Japanese and detail the interplay between pragmatic and
syntactic factors in the appropriate use of it (Sells and Iida, 1986).
It seems likely that these extensions into morphology and
pragmatics correlate with the typology proposed in Sells, Zaenen, and
Zec (1985); however, these predictions have not yet been tested in
detail. A workshop on the topic of reflexivization organized by Sells
and Zaenen for the summer of 1986 intends to go deeper into this
matter and related issues.
Another study that deals with the problems of anaphora is reported
in Zec's paper (1986), where it is proposed that the relation between
an argument of the main clause and the subject of the embedded clause
in sentences such as ``John tried to leave'' should be reduced to an
anaphoric relation. This contrasts with other recent proposals (made
most explicitly in work by Chierchia) that claim there is a regular
relation between syntax and semantics in such sentences: the
infinitival complement is a syntactic VP that denotes a semantic
property. Zec shows that the correlation between the entailments that
Chierchia takes to establish this relation between semantic properties
and syntactic VPs does not hold across all languages: in
Serbo-Croatian the complements of ``try'' can be shown to be (tensed)
full clauses, but the semantic entailments are the same as in English.
In other words, it is shown that certain of the readings such
sentences have may result from the special anaphoric status of an
argument as well as from the (syntactic) lack of an argument, and that
Chierchia's evidence in itself cannot serve to choose unequivocally
between a syntactic or semantic representation of the control
relation.
In work on Finnish, Kanerva (1986) presents another case in
which an element that is part of a word phonologically has to be
looked upon syntactically as independent. Kanerva argues against the
view that the possessive morphemes in Finnish should be analyzed as
clitics and gives persuasive phonological and morphological evidence
that they are suffixes. Their syntactic function is, however, the same
as that of a possessive pronoun in English, which is a fact one would
not necessarily expect on a nonintegrated view.
Some of the work described above has been collected and will be
published as the first volumes of Studies in Grammatical Theory and
Discourse Structure. The first volume is virtually ready to go to
press under the title ``Interactions of Morphology, Syntax and
Discourse,'' edited by M. Iida, S. Wechsler, and D. Zec. A second
volume, to be edited by A. Zaenen, is in preparation.
References
Bresnan, J. and Mchombo, S. 1986a. Grammatical and Anaphoric
Agreement. In Paper from the Parasession on Pragmatics and
Grammatical Theory. Chicago Linguistic Society.
Bresnan, J. and Mchombo, S. 1986b. Topic, Pronoun, and Agreement in
Chichewa. To appear in M. Iida, S. Wechsler, and D. Zec (Eds.),
Studies in Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure: Interactions of
Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse, Vol. I. CSLI Working Papers, No. 1.
Stanford: CSLI.
Coleman, C. 1986. Reflexive Morphology in Kunparlang: Interctions of
Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse. To appear in M. Iida, S. Wechsler,
and D. Zec (Eds.), Studies in Grammatical Theory and Discourse
Structure: Interactions of Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse, Vol. I.
CSLI Working Papers, No. 1. Stanford: CSLI.
Kanerva, J. 1986. Morphological Integrity and Syntax: The Evidence
from Finnish Possessive Suffixes. To appear in M. Iida, S. Wechsler,
and D. Zec (Eds.), Studies in Grammatical Theory and Discourse
Structure: Interactions of Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse, Vol. I.
CSLI Working Papers, No. 1. Stanford: CSLI.
Johnson, M. and Demuth, K. 1986. Discourse Functions and Agreement in
the Sotho Languages. Paper presented at the 1986 African Linguistics
Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Sells, P. 1985. The Discourse Representation of Logophoricity.
Presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Linguisitc Society of
America, Seattle. To appear as: On the Nature of `Logophoricity' in
A. Zaenen (Ed.), Studies in Grammatical Theory and Discourse
Structure: Logophoricity and Bound Anaphora. Vol. II. CSLI Working
Papers, No. 2. Stanford: CSLI
Sells, P., Zaenen, A., and Zec, D. 1985. Reflexivization Variation:
Relations between Syntax, Semantics, and Lexical Structure. Presented
at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America,
Seattle. To appear in M. Iida, S. Wechsler, and D. Zec
(Eds.), Studies in Grammatical Theory and Discourse Structure:
Interactions of Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse, Vol. I. CSLI
Working Papers, No. 1. Stanford: CSLI.
Sells, P. 1986. Coreference and Bound Anaphora: A Restatement of the
Facts. Presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the North Eastern
Linguistics Society, McGill University, Montreal. To appear in S.
Berman, J. Choe, and M. McDonough (Eds.), Proceedings of NELS-16.
Amherst: GLSA.
Sells, P. and Iida, M. 1986. Discourse Factors in the Binding of
zibun. Presented at the Workshop on Japanese Linguistics, CSLI. To
appear in the proceedings.
Zec, D. 1986. On the Obligatory Control in Clausal Complements. In
Proceedings of the First Eastern States Conference on Linguistics.
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end of part 5 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 2230 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 6
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Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 6
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AFT LEXICAL REPRESENTATION THEORY Julius Moravcsik
Project Participants: Colleen Crangle, Ann Gardner, Julius
Moravcsik (Project Leader), Stephen Neale,
Ivar Tonisson
AFT is a theory of word-meaning whose distinguishing claims are:
o Meaning only partially determines extension.
o Meaning is divided into four components: constituency,
structure, function, and agency.
o Meanings are attached to words in the process of
explaining what something labelled by a word is.
The key intuitive idea underlying AFT is that humans are
theory-constructing animals. The meaning of a word like ``emergency''
is the combination of factors one would refer to in the course of
explaining what an emergency is. The four components posited by AFT
permit the statement of generalizations that one could not state in
semantic theories that operate only with the notions of synonymy and
homonymy.
Filling in the four components of the meaning structure and filling in
information that will enable us to fix reference involves reasoning
other than the merely deductive variety, so AFT is linked to the
exploration of nonmonotonic reasoning. Likewise, the fourfold
factorization of meaning allows the gradual specification of some
meaning factors, and hence allows for ``change in meaning'' in the
traditional sense of that notion. This is similar to recent ideas of
Winograd's about how context ``creates new meanings.''
The group established the following four goals:
1. To clarify the relation of AFT to compositional semantics
2. To explain how AFT is related to theories of understanding
and mental representation
3. To explore ways in which AFT provides a semantic lexicon
that can be an input to syntax
4. To pinpoint the empirical facts for which AFT seems to
give more satisfactory explanations than alternative
theories
The group considered the relationship between AFT and work within
several other syntactic and semantic frameworks, including procedural
semantics and Lexical-Functional Grammar. They concluded that the
lexicon contains two distinct components---a semantic component and a
syntactic component. As of now there is no clear and systematic way
of relating these, and thematic relations cannot be given a clear and
semantic equivalent in logical semantics of either a standard or a
nonstandard variety. If AFT can give a clear and well-justified
presentation of semantic verb argument-structure, this should be of
use as an input to the determination of thematic relations.
Visiting speakers included Joseph Almog of UCLA, Nathan Salmon of
UCSB, and Scott Soames of Princeton. Almog and Salmon gave convincing
evidence for the claim that with respect to natural kind terms no
purely qualitative specifications can give necessary and sufficient
conditions of application for terms of this sort. One possible
conclusion one can draw from this is that these terms function like
proper names, as ``rigid designators.'' On the other hand, one could
conclude, in line with one of the AFT premises, that these terms have
meanings that do not fully determine extension. We discussed various
reasons for preferring the second conclusion.
Soames discussed semantic competence. His view is that the
specifications of content by theories of semantics should not be taken
as necessarily describing elements and structures that play key roles
in the psychological processing. We agreed that this applies to AFT;
while the brain or mind presumably does not contain labels
corresponding to the elements that AFT singles out, they could well
have psychological reality, in some interesting sense.
We also compared the work of David Dowty and of Dorit Abusch to the
verb and aspect semantics of Dov Gabbay and Moravcsik. They found the
basic semantic categorization of Dowty's system, which was arrived at
on syntactic grounds, to be the same as that of the Gabbay/Moravcsik
system, which was arrived at on semantic grounds. In comparing the
AFT theory with Abusch's suggestions in terms of empirical
predictions, we concluded that the major problem for AFT is the
inclusion of causality into the semantic analysis.
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Alexander Pentland
Project Participants: Alex Pentland, Fred Lakin
(many others attended the project's weekly seminars)
The main goal of the Visual Communication project is to discover
the primitive perceptual and design elements of visual media (``visual
morphemes''), and to use them to build computer tools for visual
communication. Our long-term activities fall into three areas: (1)
developing an understanding of how people reason about, discuss, and
perceive visual situations, (2) applying this understanding to develop
representations capable of supporting natural description, concise
reasoning, and perceptual attunement over broad ranges of visual
situations, and (3) using the resulting representations in the
construction of computer systems for augmenting both visual and
natural language communication.
To date we have concentrated on two domains that make intensive use
of visual communication: (1) designing three-dimensional forms and (2)
group ``blackboard'' activity, such as spontaneously occurs whenever
groups of people attempt to, e.g., organize a research effort or
design a computer system. We feel that these two domains cover a wide
range of the interesting theoretical problems, and are also the most
potentially valuable application areas.
Designing Three-Dimensional Forms
Natural, efficient communication depends upon shared
representations. Current 3-D graphics systems, however, use
representations that are quite distant from those people use. The
result is that construction of 3-D models is much like programming:
meticulous translation from the persons' internal representation to
the machines' representation. For instance, engineers typically
sketch a new part using paper and pencil, and then give the sketch to
a draftsman who uses a Computer Aided Design (CAD) system to complete
the detailed specification of the model.
The use of paper for sketches and computers for final models is bad
for exactly the same reasons that the use of paper for final models is
bad: lack of flexibility in the medium, unneeded duplication of
effort, no library of previous drawings, and so forth. Our idea, then,
was to develop a tool that allows the user to very quickly build or
modify a 3-D model; i.e., to replace the pencil and paper. A user would
directly sketch a 3-D form on the computer, playing with the shape until
it looks right, rather than approaching the modeling task as one of
entering a carefully predefined model into the computer.
We wanted, therefore, a tool that is not specialized to any one
application domain but, like pencil and paper, is equally applicable
to any 3-D modeling task. And further, like pencil and paper, we want
this modeling tool to be generally available: i.e., cheap enough to
sit one on everyones' desk, so that they will actually use it.
We have implemented our first approximation of a solution to these
desiderata in a system called SuperSketch (named for ``sketching'' and
``superquadrics''), which provides an environment for interactively
sketching and rendering 3-D models. The specific major design
criteria for SuperSketch are: (1) a representation that closely
matches the way people naively think about and discuss shape, (2)
effortless interaction approaching that of pencil and paper, and (3)
interactive, ``real-time'' feedback using a Motorola 68020-class
machine without additional hardware.
The representation we have developed describes scene structure in a
manner that is like our naive perceptual notion of ``a part,'' and
allows qualitative description of complex surfaces by means of
physically- and psychologically-meaningful statistical abstractions
(Pentland 1984a, 1986a). The representational system that combines
the fractal functions (Mandelbrot, 1982; Pentland, 1984b), for use in
describing 3-D texture, with superquadric functions (defined below)
for describing the form or shape in a concise and natural manner.
To elaborate, the idea behind this representational system is to
provide a vocabulary of shapes and transformations that will allow us
to model an object world as the relatively simple composition of
component ``parts,'' in much the manner as people seem to do
(Beiderman, 1985; Pentland, 1986a). The most primitive notion in this
represention may be thought of as analogous to a ``lump of clay,'' a
modeling primitive that may be deformed and shaped, but which is
intended to correspond roughly to our naive perceptual notion of ``a
part.'' For this basic modeling element we use a parameterized family
of shapes known as a superquadrics (Barr, 1981). This family of functions
includes cubes, cylinders, spheres, diamonds, and pyramidal shapes as
well as the round-edged shapes intermediate between these standard
shapes. Superquadrics are, therefore, a superset of the modeling
primitives currently in common use.
These basic ``lumps of clay'' (with various symmetries and
profiles) are used as prototypes that are then deformed by stretching,
bending, twisting, or tapering, and then combined using Boolean
operations to form new, complex prototypes that may, recursively,
again be subjected to deformation and Boolean combination. As an
example, the back of a chair is a rounded-edge cube that has been
flattened along one axis, and then bent somewhat to accommodate the
rounded human form. The bottom of the chair is a similar object, but
rotated 90 degrees, and by ``oring'' these two parts together with
elongated rectangular primitives describing the chair legs, we obtain a
complete description of the chair.
Interestingly, we have found that when adult human subjects are
required to describe imagery verbally with completely novel content,
their typical spontaneous strategy is to employ a descriptive system
analogous to this one (Hobbs, 1985). Thus it appears that this
representation may be able to provide considerable insight into the
structure of people's verbal descriptions of shape.
Perhaps most importantly, however, we have discovered (and been
able to both mathematically prove and practically demonstrate) that
the primitive elements of this representation have a unique property
that allows us to *directly recognize* them in the information in the
retinal array, using only very simple mathematical operations
(Pentland, 1986b). Further, this recognition is overconstrained: the
wealth of information in the image array allows ``reliable''recovery of
these basic representational elements. That is, the elements of this
representation have a unique regularity that allows any properly
attuned mechanism to ``reliably'' infer their 3-D shape and
arraingement. Thus descriptions formed in this 3-D shape
representation may be firmly grounded on the facts of the physical
world.
In sum, we have implemented SuperSketch on a Symbolics 3600, and
found that we were able to provide the user with adequate feedback by
devising a new, linear-time hidden line algorithm that allows
real-time display of two engineering views of the scene without need
for special hardware.
We have been able to demonstrate that this representational system
is able to accurately describe a very wide range of natural and
man-made forms in an extremely simple, and therefore useful, manner.
Further, we have found that descriptions couched in this
representation are similar to people's (naive) verbal descriptions and
appear to match people's (naive) perceptual notion of ``a part.'' And
finally, we have shown that descriptions framed in the representation
have markedly facilitated man-machine communication about both natural
and man-made 3-D structures. It appears, therefore, that this
representation gives us the right ``control knobs'' for discussing and
manipulating 3-D forms.
It is clear, however, that the representational framework developed
so far is not complete. It appears that additional modeling
primitives, such as branching structures or particle systems, will be
required to model the way people think about objects such as trees,
hair, fire, or river rapids. Our future work will involve the
integration of these primitives, together with time and motion
primitives, into the framework that we have presented here.
Blackboard Activity
Group conversational graphics, such as occurs when groups get
together to organize a project or design a software product, involves
a public image knowingly utilized by a communicating working group.
Such group discussion and communication is a critical, sometimes
time-consuming phase of the design process, and to date has been
almost completely immune to any sort of technological improvement:
whiteboards are the state of the art.
This particular kind of activity, however, has certain
characteristics which seem to make it an excellent domain from the
standpoint of research into computer-aided text-graphic dialogs (Lakin,
1986). Some of these characteristics are:
o Agility: a challenge for interface and representation that will help
hone our notions of what constitutes the critical variables in
man-machine communication.
o Explicitness: the group would like to have a `complete' record on
the external display, including ``history'' and ``alternate
development'' editing capabilities, that seem to demand computer
enhancement.
o Visual languages: formal, special purpose visual languages are often a
component of group graphics; we have found that these formal languages
can be amenable to automatic interpretation.
Our goal is to make computers understand and assist such
blackboard-like text-graphic dialogs. We began with an analysis of
three specific visual languages used in conversational graphics: DAGS
(directed acyclic graph notation used by some linguists), SIBTRAN
(graphic devices for organizing textual sentence fragments), and the
Visual Grammar Notation---the notation in which the other grammars are
written. We first analyzed the computer parsing of these languages,
i.e., how the computer recovers their underlying syntactic structure.
Once a phrase in a particular visual language has been identified and
parsed, we are left with a higher level representation of the visual
phrase, a representation that we then use to support the communicative
activity. For the visual languages addressed to date, appropriate
action includes: (1) compilation into an internal form representing
the semantics of the phrase, of objects, (2) translation into another
text-graphic language, or (3) assistance for agile manual
manipulation.
The research accomplished to date combines computer graphics,
symbolic computation, and textual linguistics to accomplish ``spatial
parsing'' for such visual languages. (Previous work has parsed
diagrammatic images, which are two-dimensional mathematical
expressions, using a grammar which was visually notated; however, the
expression and the grammar were input by hand.)
We have implemented, on a Symbolics 3600, a text-graphic parser
that utilizes context-free grammars which are both visual and
machine-readable. The parser takes two inputs: a region of image
space and a visual grammar. The parser employs the grammar in
recovering the structure for the graphic communication object lying
within the region.
We have shown how to write grammars using the Visual Grammar
Notation and have written grammars for the three languages mentioned
above as In addition, parsers and interpreters have been written for
all three languages.
References
Barr, A. 1981. Superquadrics and angle-preserving
transformations. IEEE Computer Graphics and Application (1):1-20.
Beiderman, I. 1985. Human image understanding: recent research and
a theory. Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing, Vol 32,
No. 1, pp. 29-73.
Hobbs, J. 1985. Final Report on Commonsense Summer. SRI Artificial
Intelligence Center Technical Note 370.
Lakin, F. 1986. Spatial Parsing for Visual Languages. To
appear in S-K. Chang (Ed.), Visual Languages. New York: Plenum Press.
Mandelbrot, B. 1982. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. San Francisco:
Freeman and Sons.
Pentland, A. 1984a. Perception Of Three-Dimensional Textures.
Investigative Opthomology and Visual Science, (25)3:201.
Pentland A. 1984b. Fractal-Based Description Of Natural Scenes.
IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Recognition,
(6)6:661-674.
Pentland A. 1986a. On Perceiving 3-D Shape and Texture. Presented at
Symposium on Computational Models in Human Vision, Center for Visual
Science, University of Rochester, June 19-21.
Pentland A. 1986b, Perceptual Organization and the Representation
of Natural Scenes. AI Journal, (28)2:1-39.
-----------
end of part 6 of 7
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∂24-Jun-86 2326 JAMIE@SU-CSLI.ARPA CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 7
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jun 86 23:26:51 PDT
Date: Tue 24 Jun 86 15:36:28-PDT
From:
Subject: CSLI Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, part 7
To: newsreaders@SU-CSLI.ARPA
---------------------
JOHN PERRY'S INAUGURAL LECTURE FOR THE HENRY WALDGRAVE STUART CHAIR
As of this academic year, John Perry was appointed Henry Waldgrave
Stuart Professor of Philosophy. The inaugural lecture, ``Meaning and
the Self,'' was held on the evening of May 23. About 150 people
attended the lecture, including Professor Keith Donnellan, Perry's
dissertation advisor when he was a student at Cornell. Donnellan
introduced Perry.
The lecture was about the concept of the self, and various
philosophical approaches to it, especially those of Hume and Kant.
Hume looked for the self but found nothing there. Kant thought it
must be an essential ingredient of almost all our thoughts,
perceptions, and actions. Perry shows how current work on the theory
of meaning suggests a resolution of these seemingly irreconcilable
positions.
A reception was held in Tanner Library following the lecture, where
discussion of the theme of the talk mixed with good food and wine.
The event was a highly memorable one for all concerned.
---------------------
CSLI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
PETER SELLS
Sells received his PhD in Linguistics from the University of
Massachusetts in the summer of 1984, and came directly to CSLI as a
postdoctoral fellow.
He has mainly worked on anaphora, in particular, investigating the
interaction between syntactic and semantic or discourse-based
information; parts of this research appeared as ``Restrictive and
Non-Restrictive Modification'' (CSLI Report No. 28), and ``Coreference
and Bound Anaphora: A Restatement of the Facts'' (to appear in the
Proceedings of the 16th Meeting of the North-Eastern Linguistics
Society). More recently he has devoted his time to a study of the
phenomenon of ``logophoricity,'' through which pronouns are used in
contexts of indirect or secondary discourse; he will shortly be
finishing a paper on this topic.
Sells has worked with other researchers at CSLI, producing a paper
entitled ``Reflexivization Variation'' with Annie Zaenen and Draga
Zec, a cross-linguistic study of reflexive constructions; this will
appear in a collection of CSLI working papers on grammatical theory.
He also presented a paper with Masayo Iida at the Japanese Workshop in
March 1986 (entitled ``Discourse Factors in the Binding of `zibun' ''),
which will appear in the Proceedings.
In the fall of 1984 Sells cotaught two classes at Stanford, one on
Government-Binding Theory with Edit Doron, and one on Generalized
Phrase Structure Grammar with Gerald Gazdar and Ivan Sag. In the
spring of 1985 he gave a series of lectures at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, which were written up as a book in the summer
of 1985 under the title `Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic Theories',
CSLI Lecture Notes No. 3.
He spent the academic year 1985--86 on leave from CSLI, taking
visiting teaching positions at the Departments of Linguistics at
Stanford and the University of Texas at Austin, giving courses on
syntactic theory and anaphora. He plans to continue his study of
logophoricity in his second full year at CSLI, and to begin work on
the syntax, semantics, and computational implementation of various
ellipsis constructions in English.
Sells has clear views on the potential impact of CSLI on linguistics:
``I've often been asked if I think that CSLI will accomplish what the
original proposal suggested might be possible. I don't have a good
view of all of CSLI-related activity, but as far as the linguistics
part of things goes, I feel fairly confident that there will be a
large impact on the field. What we've discovered over the past two
years is that it will take a long time, but in ten years we'll be able
to look back to events that happened here which together put the field
in a somewhat different position. I suspect that the big boom in
machine translation projects in the 60's must have been similar to our
present circumstances; all of a sudden people saw how to put
theoretical and practical knowledge together, and everybody started
doing it. Then they realized that there was a lot about language that
they didn't know. I think we may be in the same position now, but
we're reaching our present limits at a much higher plateau.
The idea of doing linguistics with an emphasis on information
structures (of various kinds) *is* different, at least to my mind,
and we're beginning to ask all kinds of questions we never asked
before. This may not be particular to CSLI, but the thing about CSLI
is that here the research activity is much more focussed, and we have
such a great environment to work in---I mean both CSLI and Stanford.
Stanford is for me the kind of place where you can walk around and
feel in what you see and in the air that some serious work is being
done.''
---------------------
CSLI SNAPSHOTS: MARTHA POLLACK
Martha Pollack has just received her PhD in Computer and
Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania. She
completed her dissertation, entitled ``Inferring Domain Plans in
Question-Answering,'' as an employee of SRI International and as an
active participant in two CSLI projects: Rational Agency; and
Discourse, Intention, and Action. She is to be congratulated for
receiving Penn's Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff Award, awarded for a PhD
dissertation that has resulted in, or could lead to, innovative
applications of computer technology.
Pollack says that it was ``my longstanding interdisciplinary bent
that got me to SRI and CSLI.'' This ``bent'' began as an
undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she originally considered a
double major in mathematics and anthropology, but gave that up to
design a special major called ``Linguistics''! (``Had I been more
creative,'' she notes, ``I might have called it something like
`Information Structures,' or even `Perspectives on the Study of
Language and Information.' '') She completed coursework in
mathematics, computer science, philosophy of language, and
anthropological linguistics, and then, since Dartmouth has no
linguistics department, spent a semester at MIT and Harvard University
studying syntax and semantics. She extended her study of linguistics
for a brief period at Stanford where she worked with Tom Wasow and
Ivan Sag. She then spent 2 years teaching computer programming in
industry before deciding to continue her graduate studies at Penn,
working with Aravind Joshi and Bonnie Webber. Pollack chose Penn
largely because of its active cognitive science group.
At Penn, she met Barbara Grosz, who was there visiting for a
semester. Grosz invited her to spend a summer at SRI's AI
Center---fortuitously it was the summer that CSLI came into existence.
For the next two years, Pollack commuted periodically from
Philadelphia to California to talk with Grosz, as well as with other
CSLI folks pursuing research in areas related to her own, such as Ray
Perrault, Phil Cohen, and Michael Bratman. Since joining SRI last
September, her cross-country commutes have been replaced by much
shorter trips between SRI and Ventura: she's bought a moped for this
purpose, and toys with the idea of moving up to a motor-scooter.
Pollack's current research interests reflect her participation in
the Rational Agency (RatAg) and Discourse, Intention, and Action (DIA)
groups. On the one hand, she is interested in continuing the study of
the principles of rational behavior and the design of systems that
embody those principles. On the other, she is concerned with the
methods in natural languages for conveying intentions. She sees a
synergy between these two lines of research in that some of the most
strenuous demands on a theory of rational behavior seem to arise from
the analysis of communicative behavior, while detailed analysis of
communicative behavior ultimately supposes a theory of intentions and
of rational behavior in the large. Her perspective on this research
is clearly that of a computer scientist: she wants to develop
artificial systems that exhibit rational behavior, including rational
communicative behavior. She notes that ``CSLI has not made me a
philosopher or a linguist: what it has done is enabled me to become a
better informed user of philosophical and linguistic theories.''
---------------------
CSLI PUBLICATIONS
The following reports have recently been published. They may be
obtained by writing to Trudy Vizmanos, CSLI, Ventura Hall, Stanford,
CA 94305 or publications@SU-CSLI.
CSLI-86-43. On Some Formal Properties of Metarules
by Hans Uszkoreit and Stanley Peters
48. A Compilation of Papers on Unification-Based Grammar
Formalisms, Parts I and II
by Stuart M. Shieber, Fernando C. N. Pereira, Lauri
Karttunen, and Martin Kay
49. An Algorithm for Generating Quantifier Scopings
by Jerry R. Hobbs and Stuart M. Shieber
50. Verbs of Change, Causation and Time
by Dorit Abusch
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note:
The next issue of the Monthly will be the October issue.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Elizabeth Macken
Editor
end of part 7 of 7
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∂25-Jun-86 0831 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:jlh@sonoma.stanford.edu Weise
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Date: 25 Jun 1986 0823-PDT (Wednesday)
From: John Hennessy <jlh@sonoma.stanford.edu>
To: csl-faculty@sierra.stanford.edu, faculty@score.stanford.edu
Cc: search@sonoma.stanford.edu, white@sierra.stanford.edu
Subject: Weise
Subject to a few minor details, Daniel Weise has accepted our offer to
join CSL as an Asst. Professor in EE. He will probably arrive sometime
during Fall quarter.
∂25-Jun-86 0954 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM a momentous event (7/1, 2:15 pm, 160-161K)
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Jun 86 09:54:17 PDT
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id AA01356; Wed, 25 Jun 86 09:37:22 pdt
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id AA27582; Wed, 25 Jun 86 09:36:49 pdt
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id AA00554; Wed, 25 Jun 86 09:38:04 pdt
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 86 09:38:04 pdt
From: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM (Leo Guibas)
Message-Id: <8606251638.AA00554@barnum.DEC.COM>
To: src-t@decwrl.DEC.COM, aflb.all@score.stanford.edu
Cc: guibas@decwrl.DEC.COM
Subject: a momentous event (7/1, 2:15 pm, 160-161K)
is about to happen. Jorge Stolfi is having his Ph.D. oral next Tuesday
afternoon. His thesis topic is "Primitives for Computational Geometry". In
this work Jorge shows how, by using a double covering of normal euclidean
space, one can get a geometry with all the nice features of classical
projective geometry, but orientability in addition. Thus one can define
angles, segments, convexity, and many other concepts that are useful in
geometric computing. The resulting collection of primitives forms an
attractive basis from which to implement geometric algorithms. Compared to
its predecessors, this new set deals more gracefully with degenerate cases
and admits of an exact duality.
The talk is Tuesday, July 1, at 2:15 pm, in bldg. 160, room 161K, at
Stanford. A map will be posted outside my office on Tuesday.
Let's all come to cheer Jorge on.
L.
P.S. J. is my first Ph.D. student.
∂25-Jun-86 1140 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH hiatus
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Jun 86 11:39:48 PDT
Date: Wed 25 Jun 86 11:27:01-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: PLANLUNCH hiatus
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 25-Jun-86 11:27:01.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
There will be no PLANLUNCH for the next two weeks. We will resume
however, on JULY 14, with a talk by Kurt Konolige. Anyone wishing
to give a PLANLUNCH seminar (topics may range anywhere from
planning to logic to philosophical issues in knowledge representation
to ....) please let me know.
-Amy Lansky (LANSKY@SRI-AI)
-------
∂25-Jun-86 1414 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA enrollment
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Jun 86 14:14:02 PDT
Date: Wed 25 Jun 86 13:37:08-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: enrollment
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12217708478.33.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Hi.
Could you please count how many students show up to your class, and
send me a message letting me know? All I need is an approxiamte number.
Thanks.
-Gina
-------
∂25-Jun-86 1454 REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA Register classes using LOTS
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Jun 86 14:54:38 PDT
Date: Wed 25 Jun 86 14:47:09-PDT
From: John Reuling <Reuling@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Register classes using LOTS
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA, tas@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: FL@LOTS-A.Stanford.EDU, modica@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Office: 246 Jacks Hall, Stanford; +1 (415) 725-5555
Message-ID: <12217721224.15.REULING@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
If your class is using LOTS this quarter, please be sure to register
with the LOTS Faculty Liaisons as soon as possible. Registration
forms should already have been sent to instructors. If you didn't
get one, contact the faculty liaisons by sending mail to FL@LOTSA
(or to FL%LOTSA@SCORE from non-stanford sites).
-John
-------
∂26-Jun-86 0341 vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
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05:28:17 CDT
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 86 11:49:27 -0200
Received:
To: nail@su-aimvax.ARPA, pods@su-aimvax.ARPA
Subject: International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
International Conference on Database Theory
PROGRAM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Registration and coffee: 8:00am-10:30am
Session 1. 10:30am-1:00pm. Chairperson: Giorgio Ausiello
Database Queries and Programming Constructs (Invited Lecture), Ashok
K. Chandra (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA)
Presentation of the Witold Lipski Award to V.S. Lakshmanan.
Split-Freedom and MVD-Intersection: A New Characterization of
Multivalued Dependencies Having Conflict-Free Covers, V. S. Lakshmanan
(Indian Institute of Science, India)
A Polynomial-time Join Dependency Implication Algorithm for Unary
Multi-valued Dependencies, George Loizou (Birkbeck College, Univ. of
London, UK), P. Thanisch (Lattice Logic, UK)
Horizontal Decompositions Based on Functional-Dependency-Set-
Implications, Paul De Bra (University of Antwerp UIA, Belgium)
Luncheon: 1:00pm-2:30pm
Session 2. 2:30pm-4:00pm. Chairperson: TBA
Introduction to the Theory of Nested Transactions, Nancy A. Lynch
(MIT, USA), Michael Merritt (ATT Bell Laboratories, USA)
The Cost of Locking, Peter K. Rathmann (Stanford University, USA)
Update Serializability in Locking R. C. Hansdah, L. M. Patnaik
(Indian Institute of Science, India)
Coffee Break: 4:00pm-4:30pm.
Session 3. 4:30pm-6:00pm. Chairperson: John Mylopoulos.
Restructuring of Semantic Database Objects and Office Forms, Serge
Abiteboul (INRIA, France), Richard B. Hull (University of Southern
California, USA)
Entity-Relationship Consistency for Relational Schemas, Johann A.
Makowsky, Victor M. Markowitz, N. Rotics (Technion, Israel)
Unsolvable Problems Related to the View Integration Approach,
Bernhard Convent (Universitaat Dortmund, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
Session 4. 9:00am-10:45am. Chairperson: Domenico Sacca`
Logic Programming and Parallel Complexity (Invited Lecture), Paris
Kanellakis (Brown University, USA)
Updating Logical Databases Containing Null Values, Marianne Winslett
Wilkins (Stanford University, USA)
Update Semantics under the Domain Closure Assumption, Laurence Cholvy
(ONERA-CERT-DERI, France)
Coffee Break: 10:45am-11:15am
Session 5. 11:15am-12:45pm. Chairperson: Jan Paredaens
On the Desirability of Gamma-Acyclic BCNF Database Schemes, Edward
P.F. Chan, Hector J. Hernandez (University of Alberta, Canada)
Set Containment Inference, Paolo Atzeni (IASI-CNR, Italy), D. Stott
Parker (UCLA, USA)
Interaction-Free Multivalued Dependency Sets, Dirk Van Gucht (Indiana
University, USA)
Luncheon: 12:45pm-2:30pm
Session 6. 2:30pm-4:00pm. Chairperson: TBA
Efficient Multidimensional Dynamic Hashing for Uniform and Non-Uniform
Record Distributions, Hans-Peter Kriegel, Bernhard Seeger
(Universitaat Wuerzburg, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
List Organizing Strategies Using Stochastic Move-to-Front and
Stochastic Move-to-Rear Operations, B. John Oommen (Carleton
University, Canada), E. R. Hansen (Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.,
USA)
Coffee Break: 3:30pm-4:00pm.
Session 7. 4:00pm-5:30pm. Chairperson: TBA
A Domain Theoretic Approach to Higher-Order Relations, Peter Buneman
(University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Theoretical Foundation of Algebraic Optimization Utilizing
Unnormalized Relations, Marc H. Scholl (Technische Hochschule
Darmstadt, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
Modelling Large Bases of Categorized Data with Acyclic Schemes, F. M.
Malvestuto (ENEA, Italy)
Banquet: 8:00pm-11:00pm
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Session 8. 9:00am-10:45am. Chairperson: TBA
The Generalized Counting Method for Recursive Logic Queries (Invited
Lecture), Carlo Zaniolo (MCC, USA)
Some Extensions to the Closed World Assumption in Databases, Shamim
A. Naqvi (MCC, USA)
Query Processing in Incomplete Logical Databases, Nadine Lerat
(Universite` de Paris-Sud, France)
Filtering Data Flow in Deductive Databases, Michael Kifer (SUNY at
Stony Brook, USA), Eliezer L. Lozinskii (Hebrew University, Israel)
Coffee Break: 11:15am-11:45am
Session 9. 11:45am-12:45pm. Chairperson: TBA.
A New Characterization of Distributed Deadlock in Databases, Ouri
Wolfson (Technion, Israel)
Towards Online Schedulers Based on Pre-Analysis Locking, Georg Lausen
(Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Fed. Rep. of Germany), Eljas
Soisalon-Soininen (University of Helsinki, Finland), Peter Widmayer
(Universitaat Karlsruhe, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
S.Abiteboul (France); G.Ausiello (Italy), chairman; F.Bancilhon
(France, USA); A.D'Atri (Italy); M.Moscarini (Italy); J.Mylopoulos
(Canada); J-M.Nicolas (France, West Germany); J.Nievergelt
(Switzerland); C.H.Papadimitriou (Greece, USA); J.Paredaens (Belgium);
D.Sacca` (Italy); N.Spyratos (France); J.D.Ullman (USA); M.Y.Vardi
(USA).
REGISTRATION
The registration fee can be paid in various ways:
- by bank draft, transferring the amount in Italian Lire (and not in
other currencies) to the account No. 12264, "Paolo Atzeni - Giorgio
Ausiello - ICDT'86", Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Sportello 6392,
CNR, Piazzale A. Moro 7, 00185 Roma, before August 15.
- by international cheque (in Italian or U.S. currency), payable to
"Paolo Atzeni - ICDT'86".
- cash, in Italian Lire, at the registration desk (a bank is
available at the Conference site, open Monday-Friday 8:30am-2:00pm)
Complete the form below (or a facsimile) and return it, with a cheque
for the fee or a copy of the bank draft, as soon as possible, to
ICDT'86 Registration - c/o Paolo Atzeni
IASI-CNR
Viale Manzoni 30
00185 Roma Italy
Do not forget to write your name on the bank draft or cheque.
Registration, except for students, includes technical sessions, one
copy of the preprints of the proceedings, luncheons (Monday and
Tuesday), banquet (Tuesday), and refreshments during the coffee breaks.
Student registration is available to full-time students only, and must
be documented by a faculty member certification or photocopy of student
card, and includes the technical sessions, preprints and refreshments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Accomodation is handled by American Express Co., which has booked
(until July 31) a number of rooms in the following hotels:
- Massimo d'Azeglio (Via Cavour 18, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 460646, TELEX
610556): single Lit. 135000 double Lit. 192000
- Atlantico (Via Cavour 23, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 485951, TELEX
610556): single Lit. 116000 double Lit. 166000
- Nord - Nuova Roma (Via G. Amendola 3, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 465441,
TELEX 610556): single Lit. 86000 double Lit. 130000
While every effort will be made to reserve accomodation in the hotel of
your choice, should that hotel become full, American Express reserves
the right to allocate alternative accomodation.
----------------------------------------------------------------
HOTEL RESERVATION FORM
Please send this form (or a facsimile) with your payment to:
AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. S.p.A.
TOUR OPERATIONS
Piazza di Spagna, 38
00187 Roma Italy
Please reserve:
←←←← single room(s)
←←←← double room(s)
Hotel (see instructions): ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date of arrival: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date of departure: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Name: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Address: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
City, State, ZIP: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Country: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Telephone: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A deposit of Lit.100000 per person is required.
Form of payment (check one):
International draft (enclosed) [ ]
Personal check in US $ (enclosed) [ ]
American Express card (fill in below) [ ]
Card no. ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Expiration date ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Signature ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date ←←←←←←←←←←←
Reservations must be received by July 31st. Afterwards, confirmation
will be subject to availability.
GENERAL INFORMATION
LOCATION: Conference activities will take place in the headquarters of the
Italian Research Council, in front of the main campus of the University
of Rome "La Sapienza":
CNR: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Piazzale Aldo Moro 7
MAIL AND MESSAGES: The official mailing address of ICDT'86 is:
ICDT'86 c/o Paolo Atzeni
IASI-CNR
Viale Manzoni 30
00185 Roma Italy
Telephone (before the conference) +39 (6) 770031
(during the conference) +39 (6) 4993379
Telex: 610076 CNRRM I (Attention: Dr. Atzeni IASI)
During the conference, participants can receive mail at the above
address, but are suggested to have telephone messages directed to the
respective hotels.
TRANSPORTATION: Aeroporto Leonardo Da Vinci, Fiumicino, is Rome
International Airport. ACOTRAL buses leave the airport every 20 or 30
minutes for the downtown air terminal, located in Via Giolitti, at the
main railway station (Stazione Termini). The hotels are within walking
distance from the terminal (300mt). ACOTRAL costs Lit.6000 (about US $
4.00), and tickets must be bought within the airport, before boarding
the bus. Taxi fare from the airport to downtown is about Lit.45000
(about US $ 30) (authorized taxi cabs are yellow and have a license
number; use only yellow taxis and ask for a receipt).
Detailed information on how to get to the conference site (1500 mt.
from the hotels) will be available at the hotels.
BANQUET: The conference banquet will be held at Hotel Columbus, (Via della
Conciliazione 33, near the Vatican). Vegetarian meals will be available
only to preregistrants requesting them. Additional tickets for the
banquet will be available at the registration desk for Lit.50000.
TRAVEL INFORMATION: American Express offers various half-day tours of Rome
every day, in the morning and in the afternoon, for about Lit.
30000-35000 (US $ 20 - 23), and one or two days tours to other
interesting locations. Information requests to American Express can be
sent together with hotel reservations.
CLIMATE: Weather in Rome in September is quite warm, with temperatures
between 25 and 30 degrees C (77 - 86 degrees F).
THINGS TO SEE AND TO DO: Anything you like; the decision problem may be
unsolvable.
The organizers of ICDT'86 would like to thank the following financial
supporters.
- Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
- Enidata S.p.A.
- Selenia S.p.A.
- Universita` di Roma "La Sapienza"
∂26-Jun-86 0810 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
Received: from GODOT.THINK.COM by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jun 86 08:09:27 PDT
Received: from boethius by Godot.Think.COM via CHAOS; Thu, 26 Jun 86 11:09:14 edt
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 86 11:10 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Copyrights
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12216195800.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-Id: <860626111018.5.GLS@BOETHIUS.THINK.COM>
Scott,
In the copyright notice, you might want to add a phrase such as "but
not for profit" in the permission-granting sentence, the point being
that it's not reasonable for a company to print up N copies of these
files and sell them at a profit (selling at cost as a service is
presumably okay). Otherwise it looks okay to me (a non-lawyer).
--Guy
∂26-Jun-86 1009 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jun 86 10:09:12 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 26 Jun 86 13:08:54-EDT
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1986 13:08 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12217932696.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Guy Steele <gls@ZARATHUSTRA.THINK.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 26 Jun 1986 11:10-EDT from Guy Steele <gls at Think.COM>
Thanks, I'll add that. It seems redundant, but can't hurt.
What are your thoughts about producing a second edition of CLtL sometime
after the formal spec is out? I'm assuming that this would be
explicitly non-definitive and would point to the ANSI spec, but would be
more accessible to the casual user, as the current book is. This would
be between you and Digital Press, but I'd like to encourage you to do
this. Pat Winston commented to me that the accessible style of your
book has had a lot to do with the success of the language, and it would
be a shame to leave it behind in favor of something dry and definitive.
I'm inclined to agree.
-- Scott
∂26-Jun-86 1011 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jun 86 10:11:28 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Thu 26 Jun 86 13:11:24-EDT
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1986 13:11 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12217933154.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Guy Steele <gls@ZARATHUSTRA.THINK.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 26 Jun 1986 11:10-EDT from Guy Steele <gls at Think.COM>
Here's revised text for the "permission" part:
Permission is hereby granted to individuals and organizations
participating in the Common Lisp design process to make as many copies
of this file as may be necessary for their own use in this design
activity, provided that such copies are not sold for profit. This
notice must be included in any such copies.
∂26-Jun-86 1053 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jun 86 10:52:54 PDT
Date: Thu 26 Jun 86 10:49:16-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Black Friday/Faculty Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12217940061.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Tomorrow is Black Friday at 2:15 in MJH 146 followed by a faculty meeting
to discuss the PhD Committee proposal. We apologize for calling a faculty
meeting during the summer, but we felt this was too important to put off.
-------
∂26-Jun-86 1055 MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA Copyright notice
Received: from USC-ISIF.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jun 86 10:55:08 PDT
Date: 26 Jun 1986 10:55-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
Subject: Copyright notice
From: MATHIS@USC-ISIF.ARPA
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]26-Jun-86 10:55:03.MATHIS>
In the Ada design files there was also a phrase saying these
drafts should not be referenced. Scott's words already imply the
working nature of the files, but maybe that ought to be
emphasized.
In the X3J13 context we will have to freeze versions as portions
of the draft under consideration. These versions of the files
should probably have an additional notation to that effect
Since I view these as working documents they will probably have
frequent changes. That means they should incorporate a date in
the header. I don't think we want to go into the "change bar"
business between versions though.
You'll notice we all seem to be comfortable with Scott holding
the copyright and most of the comments are about other aspects of
the header.
As to reprints, X3J13 already has about a dozen interested people
who used regular mail to contact me. When we get to the stage of
discussing and voting on drafts, we will have to make some
hardcopies. We don't need to say it in the header, but whatever
distribution X3J13 makes will probably be the most convenient for
anyone until we reach a full draft for X3 and ANSI consideration.
-- Bob
∂26-Jun-86 2253 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
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04:47:32 CDT
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 86 11:50:57 -0200
To: theory@uwisc.arpa
Subject: International Conference on Database Theory 1986 - Program
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 27 Jun 86 00:02:46 CDT (Fri)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
International Conference on Database Theory
PROGRAM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Registration and coffee: 8:00am-10:30am
Session 1. 10:30am-1:00pm. Chairperson: Giorgio Ausiello
Database Queries and Programming Constructs (Invited Lecture), Ashok
K. Chandra (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA)
Presentation of the Witold Lipski Award to V.S. Lakshmanan.
Split-Freedom and MVD-Intersection: A New Characterization of
Multivalued Dependencies Having Conflict-Free Covers, V. S. Lakshmanan
(Indian Institute of Science, India)
A Polynomial-time Join Dependency Implication Algorithm for Unary
Multi-valued Dependencies, George Loizou (Birkbeck College, Univ. of
London, UK), P. Thanisch (Lattice Logic, UK)
Horizontal Decompositions Based on Functional-Dependency-Set-
Implications, Paul De Bra (University of Antwerp UIA, Belgium)
Luncheon: 1:00pm-2:30pm
Session 2. 2:30pm-4:00pm. Chairperson: TBA
Introduction to the Theory of Nested Transactions, Nancy A. Lynch
(MIT, USA), Michael Merritt (ATT Bell Laboratories, USA)
The Cost of Locking, Peter K. Rathmann (Stanford University, USA)
Update Serializability in Locking R. C. Hansdah, L. M. Patnaik
(Indian Institute of Science, India)
Coffee Break: 4:00pm-4:30pm.
Session 3. 4:30pm-6:00pm. Chairperson: John Mylopoulos.
Restructuring of Semantic Database Objects and Office Forms, Serge
Abiteboul (INRIA, France), Richard B. Hull (University of Southern
California, USA)
Entity-Relationship Consistency for Relational Schemas, Johann A.
Makowsky, Victor M. Markowitz, N. Rotics (Technion, Israel)
Unsolvable Problems Related to the View Integration Approach,
Bernhard Convent (Universitaat Dortmund, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
Session 4. 9:00am-10:45am. Chairperson: Domenico Sacca`
Logic Programming and Parallel Complexity (Invited Lecture), Paris
Kanellakis (Brown University, USA)
Updating Logical Databases Containing Null Values, Marianne Winslett
Wilkins (Stanford University, USA)
Update Semantics under the Domain Closure Assumption, Laurence Cholvy
(ONERA-CERT-DERI, France)
Coffee Break: 10:45am-11:15am
Session 5. 11:15am-12:45pm. Chairperson: Jan Paredaens
On the Desirability of Gamma-Acyclic BCNF Database Schemes, Edward
P.F. Chan, Hector J. Hernandez (University of Alberta, Canada)
Set Containment Inference, Paolo Atzeni (IASI-CNR, Italy), D. Stott
Parker (UCLA, USA)
Interaction-Free Multivalued Dependency Sets, Dirk Van Gucht (Indiana
University, USA)
Luncheon: 12:45pm-2:30pm
Session 6. 2:30pm-4:00pm. Chairperson: TBA
Efficient Multidimensional Dynamic Hashing for Uniform and Non-Uniform
Record Distributions, Hans-Peter Kriegel, Bernhard Seeger
(Universitaat Wuerzburg, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
List Organizing Strategies Using Stochastic Move-to-Front and
Stochastic Move-to-Rear Operations, B. John Oommen (Carleton
University, Canada), E. R. Hansen (Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.,
USA)
Coffee Break: 3:30pm-4:00pm.
Session 7. 4:00pm-5:30pm. Chairperson: TBA
A Domain Theoretic Approach to Higher-Order Relations, Peter Buneman
(University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Theoretical Foundation of Algebraic Optimization Utilizing
Unnormalized Relations, Marc H. Scholl (Technische Hochschule
Darmstadt, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
Modelling Large Bases of Categorized Data with Acyclic Schemes, F. M.
Malvestuto (ENEA, Italy)
Banquet: 8:00pm-11:00pm
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Session 8. 9:00am-10:45am. Chairperson: TBA
The Generalized Counting Method for Recursive Logic Queries (Invited
Lecture), Carlo Zaniolo (MCC, USA)
Some Extensions to the Closed World Assumption in Databases, Shamim
A. Naqvi (MCC, USA)
Query Processing in Incomplete Logical Databases, Nadine Lerat
(Universite` de Paris-Sud, France)
Filtering Data Flow in Deductive Databases, Michael Kifer (SUNY at
Stony Brook, USA), Eliezer L. Lozinskii (Hebrew University, Israel)
Coffee Break: 11:15am-11:45am
Session 9. 11:45am-12:45pm. Chairperson: TBA.
A New Characterization of Distributed Deadlock in Databases, Ouri
Wolfson (Technion, Israel)
Towards Online Schedulers Based on Pre-Analysis Locking, Georg Lausen
(Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Fed. Rep. of Germany), Eljas
Soisalon-Soininen (University of Helsinki, Finland), Peter Widmayer
(Universitaat Karlsruhe, Fed. Rep. of Germany)
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
S.Abiteboul (France); G.Ausiello (Italy), chairman; F.Bancilhon
(France, USA); A.D'Atri (Italy); M.Moscarini (Italy); J.Mylopoulos
(Canada); J-M.Nicolas (France, West Germany); J.Nievergelt
(Switzerland); C.H.Papadimitriou (Greece, USA); J.Paredaens (Belgium);
D.Sacca` (Italy); N.Spyratos (France); J.D.Ullman (USA); M.Y.Vardi
(USA).
REGISTRATION
The registration fee can be paid in various ways:
- by bank draft, transferring the amount in Italian Lire (and not in
other currencies) to the account No. 12264, "Paolo Atzeni - Giorgio
Ausiello - ICDT'86", Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Sportello 6392,
CNR, Piazzale A. Moro 7, 00185 Roma, before August 15.
- by international cheque (in Italian or U.S. currency), payable to
"Paolo Atzeni - ICDT'86".
- cash, in Italian Lire, at the registration desk (a bank is
available at the Conference site, open Monday-Friday 8:30am-2:00pm)
Complete the form below (or a facsimile) and return it, with a cheque
for the fee or a copy of the bank draft, as soon as possible, to
ICDT'86 Registration - c/o Paolo Atzeni
IASI-CNR
Viale Manzoni 30
00185 Roma Italy
Do not forget to write your name on the bank draft or cheque.
Registration, except for students, includes technical sessions, one
copy of the preprints of the proceedings, luncheons (Monday and
Tuesday), banquet (Tuesday), and refreshments during the coffee breaks.
Student registration is available to full-time students only, and must
be documented by a faculty member certification or photocopy of student
card, and includes the technical sessions, preprints and refreshments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ICDT'86 REGISTRATION FORM
Registration fee (check one):
Before Aug.15 After Aug.15
Member of IEEE or EATCS: Lit. 180000 [ ] 250000 [ ]
US $ 120 [ ] 165 [ ]
Nonmember: Lit. 200000 [ ] 270000 [ ]
US $ 135 [ ] 180 [ ]
Student: Lit. 75000 [ ] 100000 [ ]
US $ 50 [ ] 65 [ ]
Name: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Affiliation: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Address: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
City, State, ZIP: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Country: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Telephone: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Network address: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Form of payment (please check):
Transfer in Italian Lire by bank draft (enclose copy) [ ]
International check in Lire or US $ (enclose) [ ]
ACCOMODATION
Accomodation is handled by American Express Co., which has booked
(until July 31) a number of rooms in the following hotels:
- Massimo d'Azeglio (Via Cavour 18, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 460646, TELEX
610556): single Lit. 135000 double Lit. 192000
- Atlantico (Via Cavour 23, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 485951, TELEX
610556): single Lit. 116000 double Lit. 166000
- Nord - Nuova Roma (Via G. Amendola 3, 00184 Roma, Tel. +6 465441,
TELEX 610556): single Lit. 86000 double Lit. 130000
While every effort will be made to reserve accomodation in the hotel of
your choice, should that hotel become full, American Express reserves
the right to allocate alternative accomodation.
----------------------------------------------------------------
HOTEL RESERVATION FORM
Please send this form (or a facsimile) with your payment to:
AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. S.p.A.
TOUR OPERATIONS
Piazza di Spagna, 38
00187 Roma Italy
Please reserve:
←←←← single room(s)
←←←← double room(s)
Hotel (see instructions): ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date of arrival: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date of departure: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Name: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Address: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
City, State, ZIP: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Country: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Telephone: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
A deposit of Lit.100000 per person is required.
Form of payment (check one):
International draft (enclosed) [ ]
Personal check in US $ (enclosed) [ ]
American Express card (fill in below) [ ]
Card no. ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Expiration date ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Signature ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Date ←←←←←←←←←←←
Reservations must be received by July 31st. Afterwards, confirmation
will be subject to availability.
GENERAL INFORMATION
LOCATION: Conference activities will take place in the headquarters of the
Italian Research Council, in front of the main campus of the University
of Rome "La Sapienza":
CNR: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Piazzale Aldo Moro 7
MAIL AND MESSAGES: The official mailing address of ICDT'86 is:
ICDT'86 c/o Paolo Atzeni
IASI-CNR
Viale Manzoni 30
00185 Roma Italy
Telephone (before the conference) +39 (6) 770031
(during the conference) +39 (6) 4993379
Telex: 610076 CNRRM I (Attention: Dr. Atzeni IASI)
During the conference, participants can receive mail at the above
address, but are suggested to have telephone messages directed to the
respective hotels.
TRANSPORTATION: Aeroporto Leonardo Da Vinci, Fiumicino, is Rome
International Airport. ACOTRAL buses leave the airport every 20 or 30
minutes for the downtown air terminal, located in Via Giolitti, at the
main railway station (Stazione Termini). The hotels are within walking
distance from the terminal (300mt). ACOTRAL costs Lit.6000 (about US $
4.00), and tickets must be bought within the airport, before boarding
the bus. Taxi fare from the airport to downtown is about Lit.45000
(about US $ 30) (authorized taxi cabs are yellow and have a license
number; use only yellow taxis and ask for a receipt).
Detailed information on how to get to the conference site (1500 mt.
from the hotels) will be available at the hotels.
BANQUET: The conference banquet will be held at Hotel Columbus, (Via della
Conciliazione 33, near the Vatican). Vegetarian meals will be available
only to preregistrants requesting them. Additional tickets for the
banquet will be available at the registration desk for Lit.50000.
TRAVEL INFORMATION: American Express offers various half-day tours of Rome
every day, in the morning and in the afternoon, for about Lit.
30000-35000 (US $ 20 - 23), and one or two days tours to other
interesting locations. Information requests to American Express can be
sent together with hotel reservations.
CLIMATE: Weather in Rome in September is quite warm, with temperatures
between 25 and 30 degrees C (77 - 86 degrees F).
THINGS TO SEE AND TO DO: Anything you like; the decision problem may be
unsolvable.
The organizers of ICDT'86 would like to thank the following financial
supporters.
- Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
- Enidata S.p.A.
- Selenia S.p.A.
- Universita` di Roma "La Sapienza"
--------------
TN Message #52
--------------
∂27-Jun-86 1130 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
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Date: Fri, 27 Jun 86 14:30 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Copyrights
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12217932696.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-Id: <860627143041.5.GLS@BOETHIUS.THINK.COM>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1986 13:08 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Thanks, I'll add that. It seems redundant, but can't hurt.
What are your thoughts about producing a second edition of CLtL sometime
after the formal spec is out? I'm assuming that this would be
explicitly non-definitive and would point to the ANSI spec, but would be
more accessible to the casual user, as the current book is. This would
be between you and Digital Press, but I'd like to encourage you to do
this. Pat Winston commented to me that the accessible style of your
book has had a lot to do with the success of the language, and it would
be a shame to leave it behind in favor of something dry and definitive.
I'm inclined to agree.
-- Scott
Frankly, I have always cherished the hope that a specification could be
definitive without being dry. Now that I've seen how easily CLtL has been
shot full of holes, maybe I should know better. I had thought to invest
most of my effort into helping with the official spec, whatever the starting
point. If you think that on balance it would be useful to have the ANSI
spec and also a second edition of CLtL, then by all means I will see the
latter through.
--Guy
∂27-Jun-86 1204 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 Jun 86 12:04:28 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 27 Jun 86 15:04:26-EDT
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1986 15:04 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12218215878.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Guy Steele <gls@ZARATHUSTRA.THINK.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 Jun 1986 14:30-EDT from Guy Steele <gls at Think.COM>
Frankly, I have always cherished the hope that a specification could be
definitive without being dry.
Well, that's possible, but given that it seems necessary to start the
spec from scratch, I think we'd better concentrate on doing just one job
as well as possible, and not adding a lot of friendliness features. So
"CLtL II" will help to fill a real need. Also, you would have the
option of taking out some of the implementors-only stuff if you care to
-- the careful language about just what is required and to what degree.
Once the spec is in reasonably good shape, it shouldn't be hard for you
to fix up the book; I mention it now because you may want to track the
spec changes rather than doing this in a burst at the end.
-- Scott
∂27-Jun-86 1518 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu
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Date: Tue, 24 Jun 86 12:23:24 cdt
From: Alan Selman <selman%iowa-state.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
To: theory%rsch.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 27 Jun 86 16:36:16 CDT (Fri)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Proceedings of the Structure in Complexity Theory Conference
held at the University of California, Berkeley, June 1986,
appears as volume 223 of the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes
in Computer Science. You may order a copy by writing or
calling S-V as follows.
Call 1-800-526-7254, ask for Susan, ext. 321: order vol. 223
of LNCS. The isbn. no. is 16486-3, and the price is $25.00.
You must prepay by giving a credit card number or by placing
a check in the mail. The mailing address is
Springer-Verlag, 44 Hartz Way, Secaucus, NJ 07094.
--------------
TN Message #53
--------------
∂27-Jun-86 1641 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Copyrights
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 Jun 86 16:41:41 PDT
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Date: Fri, 27 Jun 86 17:05 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Copyrights
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12218215878.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860627170533.2.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Unfortunately, no matter how careful all of us are, it seems inevitable
that CLtL II will contain phrasing that will seem to be, in some way,
contradictory to the phrasing in the official spec, from time to time.
Of course there is no question which one of these takes precedence.
Nevertheless, CLtL reads pretty much like a reference manual, and anyone
reading it would be likely to think that whatever it says can be assumed
to be official Common Lisp. You, as a matter of fact, are probably the
person who has said the most about the evils of having more than one thing
that looks like a Common Lisp reference manual!
On the other hand, a revised CLtL based on the language revisions is
certainly a better thing to have floating around than the original CLtL.
And a more readable version of the spec is valuable in many ways as
well. So I'm not arguing against the revision of the book; just
pointing out the dangers. Maybe we can think of steps to take to
minimize the potential problems.
∂27-Jun-86 1720 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Copyrights
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 Jun 86 17:20:05 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Fri 27 Jun 86 20:19:37-EDT
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1986 20:19 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12218273255.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: "Daniel L. Weinreb" <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Copyrights
In-reply-to: Msg of 27 Jun 1986 17:05-EDT from Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW at QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
You, as a matter of fact, are probably the
person who has said the most about the evils of having more than one thing
that looks like a Common Lisp reference manual!
Well, not exactly. Everyone now treats CLtL as the definitive
definition of Common Lisp, and I have pointed out the confusion that
would be caused if slightly deviant editions of that manual appeared,
all claiming equal status. People would naturally assume that THEIR
copy is definitive. However, if CLtL II were to state clearly and
prominently that the technical committee's document is definitive in the
case of any discrepancies then such confusion couldn't arise except in
the minds of people who don't read the warning label.
Of course, if there are glaring technical errors in CLtL II, it could
cause people a lot of trouble because they would only look in the
ANSI/ISO spec after a problem has screwed them, but with a bit of care
it should be possible to catch any errors that would burn people
frequently.
-- Scott
∂27-Jun-86 1752 DLW@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Copyrights
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Date: Fri, 27 Jun 86 20:52 EDT
From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Copyrights
To: Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12218273255.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860627205253.7.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1986 20:19 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Of course, if there are glaring technical errors in CLtL II, it could
cause people a lot of trouble because they would only look in the
ANSI/ISO spec after a problem has screwed them, but with a bit of care
it should be possible to catch any errors that would burn people
frequently.
Glaring technical errors aren't what I'm worried about. My worry stems
from my observation that the wording in CLtL sometimes seems to carry
certain meanings, but one is not always quite sure. For example, after
several of us here studied all the text about pervasiveness of special
declarations that we could find, we found that we had to piece together
little assertions from here and there in order to answer certain
specific quesetions about how the pervasiveness is defined to work.
After a while, I was not certain that the intent of the design was the
same as what the text seemed to imply. It's this kind of thing that
worried me. I'm afraid someone will read a description of something,
not realize anything is wrong, and walk away with a misimpression, but
feel that since the book is CLtL, what it describes must correspond to
Common Lisp. In other words, I'm worried about passages that look
error-free when you or I read them, but that turn out to have subtle
ambiguities, or even errors, when these passages are consulted to answer
specific questions.
I'm sorry if this is vague; I'm having a hard time expressing it. Since
I have no real constructive suggestions to make, you might as well
forget about my comments. I do want to emphasize that I am not trying
to criticize Steele's writing, which I think is excellent; I view this
problem as more or less inevitable given the kind of book CLtL is trying
to be.
Actually, here's one constructive suggestion: at various point, CLtL II
should say things like "See the ANSI/ISO spec, section 4.2.3.1, for a
complete description" or "... for the official formal description" or
something like that. Then CLtL II could serve as a useful index to the
official spec, and you'd be able to avoid the presumably harder-to-read
spec most of the time, but switch to it readily when there's some subtle
point to be resolved.
∂27-Jun-86 1857 CHRIS@SU-CSLI.ARPA Goodbye
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 27 Jun 86 18:54:54 PDT
Date: Fri 27 Jun 86 18:46:51-PDT
From: Chris Menzel <CHRIS@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Goodbye
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Dear Folks,
I'm leaving to begin an appointment in the philosophy department at
Texas A&M. I want to express my thanks to everyone at CSLI for two
tremendously exciting and rewarding years.
Chris
-------
∂29-Jun-86 2314 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTURE of CS?
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Date: Sun, 29 Jun 86 22:58:07 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: FUTURE of CS?
To: ac@score
Don't forget that everybody is invited to my place tomorrow
(Monday) at 7:30PM for wine, cheese and discussion.
---jeff
∂30-Jun-86 1111 gls@Think.COM Copyrights
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Date: Mon, 30 Jun 86 14:11 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Copyrights
To: DLW@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <860627205253.7.DLW@CHICOPEE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Message-Id: <860630141101.3.GLS@KATHERINE.THINK.COM>
I too am concerned about the subtle discrepancies that can occur. The
number of discrepancies that can occur just within a single document
(CLtL) that is supposedly definitive has been staggering. Despite all
kind words to the contrary, many of these problems are indeed my fault.
Others I am willing to chalk up to "Gee, it's a big difficult mess."
Dan's suggestion that a CLtL II should contain pointers into the formal
spec is a very good point, and might alleviate this problem to some extent.
In other words, don't warn the reader only once that the formal spec takes
precedence, but constantly remind him of the fact in relevant places.
--Guy
∂30-Jun-86 1214 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Date: Mon, 30 Jun 86 12:01:33 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"On the Evaluation of Recursion in Deductive DB SYstems by Efficient
Differential Fixpoint Iteration"
R. BAyer, U. Guntzer, W. Kiessling, Technische U. Munich.
Looks like someone has discovered that you can "differentiate"
relational algebra expressions. If all such people were laid
end-to-end...
---jeff
∂30-Jun-86 1452 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTCS
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Jun 86 14:51:54 PDT
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Date: Mon, 30 Jun 86 14:50:20 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: FUTCS
To: ac@score
So far, only 9 people are on the futcs@diablo list.
Please add yourself or send me mail if you are interested
in this project.
By the way, I know the ac@score list goes to many people who are
not full time faculty members. You definitely ARE invited to
participate, and you are welcome to the meeting at my place
(1023 Cathcart Way, Stanford) tonight at 7:30.
---jeff
∂30-Jun-86 1617 WESTERSTAHL@SU-CSLI.ARPA Goodbye
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Jun 86 16:15:16 PDT
Date: Mon 30 Jun 86 16:05:53-PDT
From: Dag Westerstahl <WESTERSTAHL@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Goodbye
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: Westerstahl@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I'm leaving tomorrow, so I'm saying goodbye to you Folks and thanks for very
good year.
Dag
-------
∂30-Jun-86 1719 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Jun 86 17:19:06 PDT
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Date: Mon, 30 Jun 86 16:59:31 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"A decidable Query Answering Algorithm for Circumscriptive Theories"
T. C. Przymusinski, UT El Paso.
∂30-Jun-86 1744 TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA Message from Nils Nilsson
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Jun 86 17:44:31 PDT
Date: Mon 30 Jun 86 17:40:47-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Message from Nils Nilsson
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12219063552.58.TAJNAI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Dear Faculty Members,
You are cordially invited to attend the second School of Engineering
Sunrise Club meeting on Tuesday, July 22, 1986 at 7:30 a.m. The meeting
will be held at the Tresidder Union Oak Lounge. I will speak on "The
Computer Science Department and its Role in Invention." The Sunrise Club is
designed to provide a common meeting ground for interested students and
faculty and their counterparts in venture capital firms and small or
start-up high technology companies. There are currently 20 members.
The benefits to us are an increased pool of fellowship funds (the
$2500 annual gift made by the corporate members goes for fellowships), and
an opportunity to exchange information with an important local group of
engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Since we must have a fairly accurate head count in order to plan
the breakfast, please respond to Diaz@score, or Fullerton@Sierra.
Sincerely yours,
Nils Nilsson
-------
∂01-Jul-86 1115 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu PODC registration reminder
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Date: 30 June 1986, 14:47:58 PDT
From: "Joseph Y. Halpern" <HALPERN@IBM.COM>
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Message-Id: <063086.144800.halpern@ibm.com>
Subject: PODC registration reminder
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 30 Jun 86 23:50:30 CDT (Mon)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
Although PODC advance registration is open until August 3, you have
to reserve a room at the conference hotel by July 11 in order to
get the conference rate. It is also a good idea to book flights,
as this is a popular summer to visit Canada. I have appended a copy
of the registration form you can use for registering for both the
conference and the hotel.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
5th ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS
Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, August 11-13, 1986
All technical sessions, receptions, the banquet and lodging will be
held at the Skyline Hotel and the adjoining Convention Centre in
Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Calgary International Airport is served
by major airlines. Canada: Air Canada, Canadian Pacific, Pacific
Western, and Wardair. US: American, American Western, Continental,
United, and Western. Europe: KLM, Lufthansa. Calgary also has
extensive facilities for private aircraft. Calgary is on the
Trans-Canada Highway between Vancouver and Toronto. It is also
reachable via the Idaho/Montana highways through Glacier National
Park.
The temperature in Calgary in mid-August averages between 24 and 28
degrees Celsius (75-85 Fahrenheit). Calgary is in the foothills of
the Rocky Mountains, and enjoys dry sunny weather in summers.
Kananaskis Provincial Park and Banff National Park are in the Rocky
Mountains, with an abundance of beautiful scenery, glacial lakes,
and hiking trails. They are within 60 to 90 minutes drive from
Calgary.
The conference program will be published in the June or July, 1986,
issue of the Communications of ACM.
ADVANCE REGISTRATION
Please use this form or a facsimile to pre-register. "Advance
registration closes August 3, 1986." Registration after August 3 or
at the conference site is subject to a late fee. Please mail your
completed form with cheque (drawn on a North American bank) or
international money order (in Canadian or US funds) payable to 5th
SIGACT/SIGOPS PODC to:
5th SIGACT/SIGOPS PODC
c/o Diane Pyke
Alberta Research Council
3rd floor, 6815 8th St. NE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2E 7H7
The rates for registration are listed below. Requests for refunds
will be honoured until August 3, 1986.
For further information, please call Diane Pyke, Alberta Research
Council, (403)-297-2600, or send electronic mail to:
echang%noah.arc.cdn.ubc@csnet-relay.arpa or
echang%noah.arc.cdn@ubc.csnet
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Registration Form
ACM PODC86
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Electronic mail address (if applicable) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Please circle appropriate fees.
CDN U.S.
ACM/SIG Member $175 $130
Membership No. ←←←←←←←←←←
Non-member $225 $170
Student $75 $60
Non-student late fee $50 $40
Student late fee $15 $12
Additional banquet tickets ←←← x $30 $23
Total enclosed:
$ ←←←←←← CDN $ ←←←←←← U.S.
HOTEL RESERVATION
A block of rooms has been reserved (until July 11, 1986) for
conference participants. If you wish to reserve one of these
rooms, please complete the form below and return it to:
Skyline Hotel Reservations,
Skyline Hotel,
110-9 Avenue SE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2G 5A6
If you phone the Skyline Hotel (403)-266-7331, please mention that
you are part of the Association for Computing Machinery Conference.
Reservations must be received by July 11, 1986. Accommodations
will not be confirmed without a cheque for the first night's depo-
sit, or use your American Express, Diners, Mastercard, Carte
Blanche, Enroute, Visa, JCB (Japanese Credit Card). You can also
call toll free across Canada and the US through 1-800-268-1332, as
well as 244-4296 in Toronto, and the Herzog-Hotel Bank GmbH, Utell
International Reservations, and Loews Representation International.
You will be charged for the first night if reservations are not
cancelled seven days prior to arrival. Rate per night is CDN $80
single and CDN $95 for double occupancy. (Current exchange rate is
roughly CDN $1 = US $0.72.) Check-in time is 3:00 pm, and check-out
time is 1:00 pm. If you wish to stay on beyond Wednesday morning,
the conference rate will be honoured for at least one additional
night.
←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Hotel Reservation Form
ACM Symposium, Aug. 11-13, 1986
Name (last name first)←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Affiliation ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Address ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
City←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← State/Province ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Zip/Postal Code ←←←←←←←←←←← Country←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Phone number ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Arrival Date ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← Time ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Departure Date ←←←←←←←←←←←←← Time ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
No. of persons ←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Deposit Enclosed:
$ ←←←←←←← U.S. $ ←←←←←←← CDN
or credit card (specify): ←←←←←←←
Card Number ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Expiry Date ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Signature ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
--------------
TN Message #54
--------------
∂01-Jul-86 1157 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa FUTCS
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jul 86 11:57:20 PDT
Received: from su-aimvax.arpa by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 1 Jul 86 10:29:19-PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Tue, 1 Jul 86 10:29:45 pdt
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 86 10:29:45 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: FUTCS
To: ac@score
We had six people at the meeting last night--not as big agroup
as I would have liked, but it's a start. This is the last message
I'm going to send to ac@score, so please let me know if you
want to be on the futcs@diablo list. By the way, I'll
rebroadcast my initial questions only to that list,
so you can confirm that you are already on it.
I didn't take minutes, and I hope that the participants will broadcast
a summary of the points that they would like to see in the record,
but there seemed to be general agreement on the following points:
1. There is a core of material in CS that is special and important.
This material can be approximately characterized as creative uses
of notation, especially abstractions and layers of abstraction.
The fundamental thing that we do is develop higher levels of abstraction,
especially declarative ones, and invent the means to compile them
into lower levels with minimal loss of efficiency.
2. We probably didn't give the study of algorithms the
proper emphasis, but there was general agreement that the design of
abstractions has to take into account not only the efficiency
of the implementation, but the requirement that the abstraction
express algorithms in some target domain well.
3. We downplayed the importance of parallelism. I forget the
exact reasoning, but I think the idea is that parallelism will
flow naturally as the appropriate machines are available and we
go about the development of higher levels of abstraction.
I'm not sure I believe this. Does anybody?
4. The report needs concrete examples of what might be achieved in
10 years, together with descriptions of the technological problems
that need to be solved to reach these goals.
We descussed:
a) Universal electronic mail.
b) Business offices without people.
c) "Have it your way" at Robo-King.
5. There was general agreement that the development of systems
that behave in cooperative ways was an important and realistic goal,
essential, say for (b) above.
---jeff
∂01-Jul-86 1603 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Summer Math seminars
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jul 86 16:03:15 PDT
Date: Tue 1 Jul 86 15:59:27-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Summer Math seminars
To: aflb.local@su-sushi.arpa
cc: zurdi@su-score.arpa
Message-ID: <12219307249.10.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
There are two seminars in the math department this summer that are of
AFLB interest. One, run by Ilan Vardi, is on mathematical games; it
meets at 3pm on Thursdays in the math building, room 381T. The other,
run by Peter Sarnak, is on primality testing; it meets at 11am on
Tuesdays in the 3rd floor math lounge. For further details contact
Ilan Vardi in the math department (his electronic address is
ZURDI@SU-SCORE).
--Oren
-------
∂01-Jul-86 2332 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA SIGBIG
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 1 Jul 86 23:32:37 PDT
Received: from ames-io.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Tue 1 Jul 86 23:30:27-PDT
Received: from JUP by IO with VMS ;
Tue, 1 Jul 86 23:29:01 PDT
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 86 23:29:01 PDT
From: WELCH%JUP@ames-io.ARPA
Subject: SIGBIG
To: @sig03.dis
ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY
San Francisco Golden Gate Chapter
"SIGBIG" Special Interest Committee
For Large High Speed Computers
JULY MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED!!
JULY MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED!!
** NEXT MEETING **
Wednesday, August 6, 1986, 7:30 PM
Richard House/Pacific Sierra Research
FORGE: Vectorizing Aid for Supercomputers
Location: AXIOM Systems
1589 Centre Pointe Drive
Milpitas, CA (Wheelchair Accessible)
For information contact Mary Fowler, Chairperson (415) 839-6547
or Mike Austin, Publ. Chair (415) 423-8446
∂02-Jul-86 0622 PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa Special AFLB
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jul 86 06:22:07 PDT
Date: Wed 2 Jul 86 06:19:26-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
Subject: Special AFLB
To: aflb.all@su-sushi.arpa
Message-ID: <12219463805.8.PATASHNIK@su-sushi.arpa>
There will be a special AFLB on Friday, July 18th, at the standard
time (12:30pm---actually, this is daylight time) and in the standard
place (MJ352). This is the only AFLB scheduled for the summer (so far).
-----------------------------------
18-July-86 (Friday) : Micha Sharir (Courant Institute & Tel Aviv University)
Planar Realization of Nonlinear Davenport-Schinzel Sequences by Segments
We present an inductive construction of collections of n segments
in the plane whose lower envelope consists of OMEGA (n alpha (n))
subsegments, where alpha (n) is the (extremely slowly growing) inverse
Ackermann's function. A previous result of Hart and Sharir shows
that the size of this envelope is always O(n alpha (n)), so our new
result shows that bound to be tight in the worst case. The sequences
of segments that appear along the lower envelopes of our collections
are precisely the Davenport-Schinzel sequences of nonlinear size
constructed by Hart and Sharir.
This is joint work with Ady Wiernik.
***** Time and place: July 18, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
-------
∂02-Jul-86 0958 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:TIMOTHY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Open House at the Medical School Office Building
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jul 86 09:58:51 PDT
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 2 Jul 86 09:55:34-PDT
Date: Wed 2 Jul 86 09:27:08-PDT
From: Margaret Timothy <TIMOTHY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Open House at the Medical School Office Building
To: AC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: Timothy@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12219497974.44.TIMOTHY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
To celebrate the move of Medical Computer Science and SUMEX into new
office space in the Medical School Office Building, we are having an
Open House starting at 4 p.m. on Friday, July 18. Please come join
us for refreshments and a tour of our new quarters. Our offices
are in the west wing on the second floor of the building. The
Medical School Office Building is located at the intersection of Campus
Drive and Welch Road.
We hope to see you there!
Margaret Timothy and Darlene Vian
-------
∂02-Jul-86 1032 berman@vaxa.isi.edu Support Proposal
Received: from VAXA.ISI.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jul 86 10:32:10 PDT
Received: by vaxa.isi.edu (4.12/4.7)
id AA04138; Wed, 2 Jul 86 10:31:21 pdt
From: berman@vaxa.isi.edu (Richard Berman)
Message-Id: <8607021731.AA04138@vaxa.isi.edu>
Date: 2 Jul 1986 1031-PDT (Wednesday)
To: CL-Steering@su-ai.arpa
Cc:
Subject: Support Proposal
------- Forwarded Message
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
To: berman@λvaxa.isi.eduλ (Richard Berman)
Subject: Validation status
In-Reply-To: Msg of 1 Jul 1986 17:14-EDT from berman at vaxa.isi.edu (Richard Berman)
Richard,
Thanks for the progress report. I don't see Lucid in there anywhere.
have they reneged on their promise?
I'd like to have a look at the support proposl you're sending in. In
fact, all of the technical and steering committee members should
probably see this. They can all be reached by mail to
CL-Steering@su-ai. Ohlander is on the steering committee if there are
questions.
Glad to see you're rolling.
-- Scott
------- End of Forwarded Message
OK -- Here it is...
COMMON LISP SUPPORT
1. Background
The effort by the Common Lisp community to define and propagate a Common Lisp
Standard is well under way. At the just concluded Common Lisp Meeting,
agreement was reached to pursue such standardization under ISO. Bob Mathis,
who helped guide the ADA standardization and validation efforts from his post
as head of AJPO, has been chosen as the convener of an expanded technical
committee to address the remaining technical issues in defining the Common Lisp
Standard and to resolve technical questions relating to adopted portions of the
standard.
However, the benefits arising from such standardization will not be realized
unless DARPA builds the infrastructure needed to nurture and support the
emerging Common Lisp community. The Common Lisp specification must be
correctly maintained and distributed to those who have need of it. A
validation suite is needed to guide developers toward proper implementations
and to ensure that they have correctly done so. A library of public domain
information concerning Common Lisp (validation suites, useful utility and
functional programs, documentation, tests, implementation guides, etc.) must be
maintained and disseminated. Past and future proceedings of the Executive
Committee must be archived and organized for retrieval by date and topic.
Libraries of public domain information concerning Common Lisp (source and
object code, documentation, tests, implementation guides, etc.) must be
maintained and disseminated. Network mailing lists of people and organizations
participating in the electronic forums used to raise issues, submit
suggestions, and arrive at consensus must be maintained. The messages must be
organized and summarized so that new people can join the forum and participate
in the distributed standardization effort. Finally, travel and administrative
support is needed for the convener of the Common Lisp standardization effort.
The Common Lisp community needs a technically competent support organization
to provide these services. Furthermore, this support group must have no stake
in any Common Lisp implementation so that they can perform the necessary work
with complete impartiality. ISI recognizes the need for these services and has
the technical and administrative expertise to support the Common Lisp
community. Moreover, ISI has the trust of that community. ISI is uniquely
qualified to support this effort because of its personnel, long history of
service support of the Lisp community, and demonstrated ability to manage and
operate service efforts. Bob Mathis was chosen as the convener by the Common
Lisp community. Ron Ohlander was chosen to be a member of the Common Lisp
Executive Board. Richard Berman has formed working relationships with the
validation experts in the vendor organizations. All of these people are ISI
employees. ISI has established good relations with many of these vendors
through its negotiation, purchase, and distribution of Lisp machines for
DARPA's Strategic Computing program. Prior to that, ISI produced, at DARPA's
request, a full compatible Interlisp for the Vax to promote its widespread use.
Several hundred copies have been distributed and the system has been
transferred to DEC for further distribution and maintenance. ISI has
successfully operated and managed the MOSIS service, a TOPS-20 resource center,
and remote support for DARPA's computing services. This combination of
required capabilities makes ISI uniquely qualified for this task.
2. Tasks
2.1. Common Lisp Validation
A public domain validation suite is desperately needed. Several purported
implementations of Common Lisp exist or will exist within the next few months.
The community has no way of determining the degree of compliance obtained by
such implementations. A few companies have extensive (though hardly
comprehensive) validation suites, but all these are proprietary. Building a
public domain validation suite would be quite expensive, would require
expertise in many different areas, and would take any one organization quite a
while to produce (because of staffing and phasing issues).
ISI proposes to pursue a very different approach. At the just concluded Common
Lisp Meeting, we chaired a discussion of the problems concerned with creating
such a public domain validation suite and investigated the alternative of
creating a public domain validation suite from vendor contributions. We found
much support for this alternative among the vendors if the resulting validation
suite would be public domain and if it was collected and maintained by a
technically competent, neutral, and non-commercial organization such as ISI.
This support was quite widespread and included both the vendors with existing
extensive proprietary validation suites and those who had not yet created such
proprietary suites. The former agreed to contribute their existing suite, and
the latter agreed to produce and contribute one for some portion of the Common
Lisp Standard. While these "agreements" are merely expressions of intent at
this point, we feel that they are based on a true sense of the needs of the
emerging Common Lisp community and the benefits that can accrue to the members
of that community. We have been working with these vendors to solidify these
"agreements" into hard commitments and have just begun to receive contributions
from these vendors. For information purposes, we have attached the list of
vendors that have informally agreed to contribute to a public domain Common
Lisp Validation Suite (see Attachment A).
ISI's role would differ for the two types of contributions. For the existing
suites, ISI must:
1. Homogenize the tests so that they are included in a common way and
report their results in a common way (currently, each vendor has
their own conventions).
2. Eliminate duplicate tests.
3. Determine the areas of coverage and the degree of coverage within
those areas.
For the newly produced suites, ISI must:
1. Specify the way that tests will be invoked and report their results.
2. Coordinate the focus of the vendors to maximize coverage.
In addition, ISI must:
1. Build a Validation Manager to invoke and collect results of
individual tests.
2. Determine the validity of each contributed test.
a. Correct any incorrect ones,
b. Forward questionable ones to the Common Lisp Technical
Committee for resolution of ambiguity.
3. Catalog each contributed test, identify its contributor(s), and
place it in an appropriate area of the validation suite.
4. Build and maintain a Public Domain Validation Suite library and
provide access to it.
Finally, ISI must conduct the validation of vendor's implementation. This will
be done by ISI personnel visiting the vendor site. The vendor will provide
visiting validation team access to the software to be validated and the
hardware upon which it runs. The ISI validation team will merely run the
validation suite, collect its results, and submit them to the Common Lisp
Steering Committee. The Committee will evaluate the results and determine the
degree to which the vendor's implementation complies with the Common Lisp
Standard.
2.2. Library of Public Domain Common Lisp Information
ISI will collect and organize public domain Common Lisp information
(currently over 20MB), maintain it in a library, update it as new information
is generated or becomes available, and provide a dissemination mechanism for
it.
We will make use of the ISI, DARPA funded, Common Lisp Framework (CLF)
persistent object oriented data base to store, house, locate and retrieve the
information types below, to link it with other information and to provide
release and version management. A network interface to the CLF data base will
be constructed to permit online retrieval of the archived information. In
addition, CLF's active object base mechanisms will be used to construct an
automated dissemination facility (triggered by new versions of the stored
objects), and an automated postmaster which responds to stylized requests for
information that arrive via electronic mail.
The Network Services group in the Intelligent Systems Division of ISI will be
tasked to accomplish much of the library and document maintenance services.
This group currently exists and is chartered to provide expeditious, useful and
reliable administrative computer and computer network support and service to a
number of clients of the Institute as well as to funded ISI researchers and
support staff. This group has historically been able to bring to the community
a core staff of competent maintenance personnel who will be able to coordinate
and provide the expertise required to help act as a clearing house and a
communications link for the various library activities.
The specific information and procedures, which will be dealt with by a
combination of Network Services and research staff overseeing this portion of
the overall effort, will include the following:
1. Lists of Common Lisp users and implementers: It will be necessary to
keep current lists of all Common Lisp user sites and implementers in
order to ensure proper delivery of appropriate documents. ISI will
undertake this task, distributing the lists to parties that require
them.
2. The Common Lisp specification: The specification will constitute the
baseline document which at all times determines the Common Lisp
language. This baseline document will require strict configuration
management to determine that it is kept appropriately up to date,
while at the same time preserving the integrity of the language.
Proposed changes to this document will me developed, evaluated, and
approved by the Common Lisp Technical Committee. All approved
changes will made by ISI staff. To support this change process, ISI
will collect and coordinate all requests for changes. Such requests
will be consolidated and forwarded to the Technical Committee for
their consideration. ISI will collect information concerning the
actions of the Technical Committee and report results back to
interested implementers and users. Successful use of the
specification may require other explanatory documents for successful
implementation. ISI will develop and distribute such documents, as
well as the specification itself. In addition, ISI will answer
calls and queries concerning technical issues regarding
interpretation and implementation of the Common Lisp specification.
3. The validation tests collected under the previous task: When the
validation tests have been completed, they will be collected and
maintained in a coordinated and accessible database for later
perusal, modification, extension, and dissemination. There are a
number of different mechanisms available which will be applicable
for this chore including: shared Electronic Bulletin Boards,
extensive and moderated mailing lists to the community, and
non-electronic newsletters. The validation test suite will be made
available to whoever requests it so that they can evaluate
implementations of Common Lisp. Instructions for use for use of the
validation test suite will be maintained and provided to interested
parties. Liaison hotlines will be manned to answer queries and to
troubleshoot problems in proper application.
4. An on-line version of the Common Lisp Manual: Maintaining an updated
and current version of the Common Lisp Manual will best be
accomplished by the Documentation Specialist in the Network Services
group under the guidance of a language expert and the Technical
Committee. This document will be periodically changed to correct
errors, extend or refine explanation, and to reflect changes to the
Common Lisp specification. In addition, ISI will maintain a service
to answer phone calls and written queries requesting interpretation
of the manual and to document requests for needed changes. Change
requests will be consolidated and prospective changes that respond
to legitimate requests will be drafted for consideration by the
Technical Committee. Approved changes will be implemented and
revised manuals will be sent to the Common Lisp community.
5. Public domain implementations of Common Lisp or "Yellow Pages"
additions to it: ISI will collect all implementations of Common Lisp
compilers, interpreters, environments, and auxiliary programs
offered by the community for use by other interested sites.
Furthermore, ISI will publish a catalogue of these programs on a
shared Electronic Bulletin Board. Programs will be available
through electronic file transfer from ISI or will be shipped to
interested parties. ISI will put parties who have implementation or
utilization questions into contact with developers of the original
software.
6. Contributed implementation guidelines and hints: Implementation
guidelines and helpful hints contributed by the user community will
be maintained at ISI through a database and historical record of
previous Common Lisp implementations. These archives will help
vendors/contributors to easily access the information they need to
get themselves on the right track for producing their own properly
validated version of Common Lisp. An automated dissemination
facility and automated postmaster will take care of the bulk of the
queries and problems. Liaison hotline services and inhouse research
staff available will resolve the exceptions.
7. Electronic forums on Common Lisp issues: One of ISI's strong suits
is the maintenance and moderating of electronic forums on a variety
of issues. A Common Lisp bulletin board and/or a master mailing
list of principals and players will be effectively managed from ISI.
8. Proceedings of the Common Lisp Executive Committee: Minutes of
Common Lisp Executive Committee meetings will be collected,
archived, transcribed, and selectively published by ISI. This will
be accomplished through the established databases and tools of CLF
as outlined above.
Since there will be a variety of requirements for distribution of requests for
information, for test validation suites, and for other information, ISI is an
ideal site to center this general distribution activity. Hopefully, most of
the distributions will occur electronically via the Internet, DDN and various
other Networks. When this is not possible due to the electronic isolation of
some vendor or site, ISI will be able to transmit information in nearly any
format required including: Magnetic Tape (nearly any format or density), floppy
disk and paper/hardcopy. ISI has a large mix of computers and peripherals as
well as a qualified and experienced Operations and Systems staff which will
allow for this variety of media production (as required). Additionally, with
an Operations staff available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a- week, researchers can
be assured maximum availability to the machine resources they might require or
expect to find.
2.3. Travel and Administrative Support for Convener
Bob Mathis, an ISI employee, was chosen as the convener of the Common Lisp
Standardization effort by the community. In this role, he will need substantial
administrative support and will be required to travel extensively, both
domestically and internationally, to attend the various standardization
meetings being held and to coordinate this standardization effort with
appropriate technical organizations. We estimate that 50 to 80 days of his
time and extensive travel, especially internationally, will be required each
year.
3. Current Activity and Plans
3.1. Validation Suites
ISI has established communication with the various Common Lisp vendors
regarding their previously "agreed upon" contributions to the public domain
validation suite and set in motion the process of collecting the existing
validation suites. Most of the vendors are now in the process of sanitizing
some or all of their existing validation suites to remove proprietary and/or
non-portable material prior to delivering the source code to ISI. Only a small
fraction of the expected contributions have actually been received.
As the source code trickles (and then, hopefully, pours) in, it will be
necessary to "re-sanitize" them into some common form. Nearly all of the
vendors are using some form of test management software developed along with
their tests. As one could expect, the nature of this test management is quite
different from vendor to vendor. Many are using some form of proprietary error
control mechanism, an area as yet not standardized in Common Lisp.
From the technical (rather than administrative) point of view, a number of
tasks must occur in order to successfully achieve the desired result of a truly
portable "universal" test suite for Common Lisp. The primary task is one of
understanding. Anyone who has ever had to maintain or extend source code
created by another knows the inherent communication problem in reaching a full
understanding of the source code. In this particular case, we have added the
complexity of trying to understand source code which has not only been written
by a number of others, but is written in and with the purpose of testing an
evolving language. As anyone in the Common Lisp development community could
attest, there are questions as to the exact meaning of a number of areas in the
current language specification (such as it is).
Thus the task becomes one of heavy liaison between not only the ISI technical
personnel responsible for the creation and maintenance of the validation suite
and the vendors, but also between the validation personnel and the technical
steering committee and the general implementors and development community. It
would not be at all surprising if, due to questions raised during the building
of the validation suite, there arose (and subsequently were resolved) a number
of language design and implementation issues.
Once each individual test (of which there may be hundreds or thousands per
vendor contribution) has been understood and validated as to being a test of
actual language features, and also of being a valid test of those features, it
must be incorporated into some kind of framework under which all of the
validation testing occurs. A few vendors have offered to contribute their own
validation managers, but as of this time these have not been received for
evaluation.
The most probable form of organization for the test suite is by sections
numbered as in Steele's book, Common Lisp, the Language. Thus, an individual
test must be exactly "locatable" as to the section in the book which discusses
and explains the feature being tested. Because this book has been much
clarified and revised by discussion over the network, and, in fact, because
this process is ongoing, there is required the development of some "meshing"
between the validation effort and the continuing specification effort.
Naturally, for any such validation suite to be effective it must be both
broad in terms of language issues covered, and deep in the extent of exercising
the full range of functionality of each language feature. The ideal validation
would exhaustively attempt every type of operation with every type of operand,
both legal and intentionally illegal. It is just as important to test that
error conditions are detected and reported correctly as it is to test for
simply correct functionality of legal expressions.
One of the initial hurdles that must be overcome in the creation of a
validation test management program is the nature of the detection and reporting
of exception or error conditions. The common consensus is to use "the error
handling mechanism" of the language. Indeed, all of the vendors who have
offered to contribute test management software, use the language error handling
features. Unfortunately at present there is no standard for the exact
definition and handling of exception conditions, and so each vendor has
implemented their own form of error handling. Either a portable
non-exception-based test control mechanism must be devised, or the error
handling features must be put in place in the language specification so that it
can be relied upon during validation.
During this initial phase of soliciting code contributions from vendors'
existing validation suites, ISI will also be evaluating those contributions
against the idealized validation suite described above. As more vendors
specify the exact nature of their test contributions, ISI can use this survey
to identify the holes in the composite suite formed from the contributions.
Several vendors have indicated that they would be willing to create wholly new
validation tests for specific areas of the Common Lisp Manual. We will
coordinate these vendor activities to maximize coverage and eliminate
duplication. Once a validation framework is decided upon for the individual
tests, we can then specify the format for all these new tests so that the
effort of integrating them into the full validation suite is minimal.
Besides these mostly technical tasks, there is a large administrative
responsibility in the ongoing communication with validation contributors, the
technical committees, the language developers and the Common Lisp user
communities. Not all developers have network access in a form that makes
distribution over the network possible. In the interest of full support for
all vendors and developers, the public domain validation suite should be made
available on tape and in other ways that would facilitate its distribution.
When revisions and/or additions are made to the validation suite, the
interested parties must be notified. Undoubtably, when a validation suite is
made public domain, there will not be complete agreement as to the validity of
the test itself. This could be despite approval by the various committees
involved. Especially in its initial incarnations there will certainly be a
succession of incremental revisions designed to correct flaws in the individual
tests of the validation suite.
To maintain complete impartiality, and to provide for a uniform standard of
reporting, when a vendor desires an official validation rating ISI will conduct
the test of the implementation. By going to the vendor's site we avoid the
need to send hardware to ISI, and all the subsequent problems that revolve
around that. A validation team would actually use the validation suite to
verify the implementation's correctness. The results of this official
validation run would be collected by the validation team, put into a formal
report in a standard format, and forwarded to the Technical Committee for
evaluation. By using this more formal approach, it will be possible for the
Technical Committee to objectively compare different implementations for
determining the level of compliance with the full Common Lisp standard.
3.2. Keeping Track of Decision Making and the "Why's"
Another area of ISI's participation as an administrative body for the Common
Lisp community is technical record keeping. Currently, a great deal of
discussion occurs on the network regarding specific details of the language,
its specification and implementation. Often an apparent consensus is reached
to alter or drop "old" language features, or to add entirely new ones. Yet
there does not appear to be any official statement from a technical steering
committee regarding any decisions to accept proposals. And too, often there is
no formal proposal, but simply a semblance of agreement amongst those arguing a
point.
It is not unusual to see something like:
- As I recall, we discussed point "x" several months ago, but I can't
seem to recall what we decided...
Clearly, this causes repetition of whole discussions, and in general throws
rocks in what is already an unpaved road. Ideally there should be some method
of classifying both the content and nature of each message, as well as some
form of discussion tracing, all built into a kind of archiving methodology
which provides querying and possibly browsing facilities. Once such a
record-keeping system is in place, further discussion participants can be
advised as to the classification system so that they can indicate the
classification for their messages. In the meantime, and especially while
developing the classification method, each message will have to be classified
at ISI.
During these discussions, many valid points are raised and, often, resolved.
A great deal of the philosophy of the language design is contained in these
messages. There are a number of ways in which these messages can be classified
and organized. There are two main areas of classification:
1. The "type" of message.
2. The topic(s) of the message.
While it would be better if a message contained exactly one topic, in
practice even one "topic" easily branches off into several related subjects
which wouldn't be appropriate to separate messages. Thus each message would be
classified by a list of topics discussed. Often this would be a specific
Common Lisp function or feature. At other times it might discuss a more
general area, such as error handling, or string representation. It may be
feasible to assume that there is a finite set of topics into which the more
specific topics can fit. For example, "string representation" might fit under
"strings", as would discussions about specific string functions.
When classifying by topic (and especially when considering a finite set of
topics) there is a useful guide -- Steele's book, Common Lisp, the Language.
The list of finite topics could well be the section numbers in that book, so
that when discussing a particular topic or topics, the message sender must know
what sections of the book contains the material which he has some discussion
concerning. This has the added advantage of making the message sender more
aware of the published information regarding his interest. Thus, if this were
the decided-upon classification method, each message on the network concerning
Common Lisp would have a list of section numbers, put into the message by the
sender.
The querying or browsing facility mentioned above would then allow the user
to view (and summarize, count, etc.) the messages regarding a certain topic.
Naturally these messages would appear in temporal sequence. A typical request
might be to summarize (i.e. print the sender, date and discussion topic) of
each message on a given set of topics within a certain time period. This would
help to locate a specific message by jogging the searchers memory.
The other main form of classification is by "type" of messages. A key type
might be "Ratified Decision", or some similar type. This would be a message
(from the steering committee) officially announcing some change to the language
specification. Like any other message, it would be classified by topic(s). By
using a type-classification as well, a user could now search for "decisions
made about strings between February and June of 1986". If one only cared for
specification changes, this would be an efficient means of getting the concise
information needed.
Other types can be suggested, such as "Start of new discussion", which would
indicate the first message in a new chain of discussion. Or "Clarification
request", "Proposal", etc. Undoubtably the process of building this
record-keeping mechanism will bring to light the required set of message types.
Another valuable means of organizing these messages is by discussion tracing.
By this is meant the linking, in temporal sequence, of each message in a given
discussion, from the inception of the discussion through to its resolution. In
a browsing mode, the user might be able to start from any message and trace the
discussion chain forward and backward to get the full set of things considered
when resolving the discussion. This is especially useful because a great deal
of traffic is currently generated in repeating discussions resolved earlier.
Probably other ways of organizing the Common Lisp discussions will present
themselves as the task progresses. By using the Common Lisp Framework
developed at ISI, each message can be treated as a unique object, and given
properties (such as type and topics) which relate the messages one to another.
The facilities provided under CLF allow for complex searching to be done
amongst these objects. A stylized querying language and a reporting method can
be created so that network users can access the CLF Common Lisp data base to do
the research they need to more optimally interact with the development
community.
4. Milestones
- 3 Months
* Build a Validation Manager to invoke and collect results of
individual tests.
* Coordinate the focus of vendors contributing to Validation Suite
to maximize coverage.
- 6 Months
* Integrate initial contributed Validation Suites into Library
1. Homogenize the tests so that they are included in a common
way and report their results in a common way (currently,
each vendor has their own conventions).
2. Eliminate duplicate tests.
3. Determine the areas of coverage and the degree of coverage
within those areas.
- 9 Months
* For each test in the initial contributed Validation Suites:
1. Determine validity of test
- Revise or remove incorrect tests
- Forward questionable ones to Technical Committee
2. Place test in appropriate portion of Validation Suite
3. Catalog it by its contributor, the test it performs, and
its time of contribution
- 12 Months
* Make information in the Common Lisp Library accessible. This
information includes:
1. The Common Lisp specification.
2. The Public Domain Validation Suite.
3. An on-line version of the Common Lisp Manual.
4. Public Domain Implementations of Common Lisp or "Yellow
Pages" additions to it.
5. Contributed implementation guidelines and hints.
6. Electronic forums on Common Lisp issues.
7. The Proceedings of the Common Lisp Executive Committee.
- 15 Months
* Design procedures by which on-site validation of vendor
implementation of Common Lisp will be carried out. Coordinate
with vendors and Common Lisp community.
- 18 Months
* Automated Postmaster and Dissemination mechanism for Common Lisp
information
* Begin conducting on-site validation of vendor implementations
5. Computing Resources
ISI does not require any additional (DARPA purchased) Common Lisp
Workstations for this project. The necessary workstations will be supplied
from a pool of grant Common Lisp Workstations given to ISI by Hewlett Packard
and Texas Instruments in recognition of DARPA sponsored work in the Software
Sciences Division on FSD.
Operations and maintenance costs of these workstations, however, must be
included in the budget for this effort.
-------
∂02-Jul-86 1251 @su-sushi.arpa,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM Primality testing seminar
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Jul 86 12:51:02 PDT
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Date: 2 July 1986, 11:07:19 PDT
From: "Maria M. Klawe" <KLAWE@IBM.COM>
To: aflb.all@su-score
Message-Id: <070286.110721.klawe@ibm.com>
Subject: Primality testing seminar
The second meeting of Sarnak's primality testing seminar will
be at 11 a.m. on Tuesday July 15th in the math dept. faculty lounge (third
floor) at Stanford. Probably the seminar will present the Cohen-Lenstra
improvement of the Adelman-Pomerance-Rumely algorithm. Since all the talks
are being given by number theorists, this seminar is a great opportunity
for computer scientists to see this work presented from mathematicians'
perspective.
∂03-Jul-86 0306 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa meeting cancelled
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jul 86 03:05:56 PDT
Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Tue, 27 May 86 14:07:23 pdt
Date: Tue, 27 May 86 14:07:23 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: meeting cancelled
To: nail@diablo
Due to STOC, there will be no meeting this Thursday.
If there had been a meeting, it would have been in MJH 301, at 11AM.
---jeff
∂03-Jul-86 0320 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Tue, 13 May 86 10:36:53 pdt
Date: Tue, 13 May 86 10:36:53 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Semantic DB Modeling: Survey, Applications and Research Issues,
by R. Hull and R. King, USC
This talks about "object oriented" data models.
∂03-Jul-86 0334 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa papers received
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Date: Wed, 7 May 86 14:47:13 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Implementation of Recursive Queries for a Data Language Based
on Pure Horn Logic"
and
"Implementing Recursive Logic Queries with Function Symbols"
both by D. Sacca and C. Zaniolo, MCC.
∂03-Jul-86 0348 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Special Talk
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Received: by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Thu, 29 May 86 10:16:08 pdt
Date: Thu, 29 May 86 10:16:08 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Special Talk
To: milton@sri-ai, nail@diablo
Joachim Biskup will give a talk on "Design of Relational
DB Schemes by Stepwise Removal of Forbidden Substructures"
on Monday, June 2, at 11AM, in ERL320.
---jeff ullman
∂03-Jul-86 1316 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA Philosophy Department Colloquium
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jul 86 13:16:16 PDT
Date: Thu 3 Jul 86 13:03:41-PDT
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Philosophy Department Colloquium
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Ian Hinckfuss from the University of Queensland will give a talk on
Friday, July 11, at 1:15 (note the different time) in 90-92Q. Title:
"Dialectical Commitment" (Reflections on Pragmatics).
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∂03-Jul-86 1527 DELAGI@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA 9 July from 9:30 to 11:30
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 3 Jul 86 15:24:15 PDT
Date: Thu 3 Jul 86 15:17:35-PDT
From: Bruce Delagi <DELAGI@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: 9 July from 9:30 to 11:30
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12219823917.56.DELAGI@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
In lieu of the regularly scheduled applications group meeting I'll
present the considerations and prior ideas in concurrent computing
that led to LAMINA, the conceptual programming model it represents,
and an example of applying it to the ELINT problem....../bruce
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∂05-Jul-86 0823 griss%hplmlg@hplabs.HP.COM Manuals and standards hassles
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From: Martin Griss <griss%hplmlg@hplabs.HP.COM>
Message-Id: <8607051521.AA11732@hplmlg>
Date: Saturday, July 5, 1986 08:21:27
Subject: Manuals and standards hassles
To: cl-steering@su-ai.ARPA
Cc: GRISS%hplmlg@hplabs.HP.COM
X-Sent-By-Nmail-Version: 04-Nov-84 17:14:46
Looks like we are heading for yet another manual copyright
hassle. I agree with Scott that waiting for legal hassles around the
Lucid manual and/or the DEC rights to Steele book are probably not
worth the time.
Maybe there is way for Dick Gabriel, and Guy Steele likewise, to
"donate" a significant portion (but not all) of the sources to perhaps
an older version of the manual and book to either CMU or DOD allowing
free adaptation. It may be possible to then freely adapt and combine
these pieces more quickly than starting totally from scratch, yet not
infringe on any copyright (or am I too naive...). This appears to have
some similarity to the mechanism whereby the various validation suites
(or portions thereof) are being combined into a greater "standard"
work at ISI.
Maybe Mathis and Ohlander can help devise a scheme whereby
copyright to the new work does not have to reside with Scott alone,
ultimately to perhap cause him problems similar to those faced by
Steele with DEC. Surely there is a DARPA mechanism to manage
copyright, yet still assure Scott of the him of the recognition (say
as editor of "Final Report of a deliberation of Common LISP standards
subcommitee") that he deserves and CMU will respect.
I also agree with Mathis that Scott should ignore the
ANSI/ISO/Eulisp political problem, and focus his energies and talents
on the technical material. I have talked to Padget, an old friend from
REDUCE and PSL days, and will send a more detailed report on our
meeting later. I have encouraged him to focus on the technical issues,
and experiment with the layered/subset definition approach to more
rigorously defining CL-86, or perhaps have contribution to a later CL,
since we know how long it will take them, and us too...
-------
∂06-Jul-86 1512 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Manuals and standards hassles
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jul 86 15:12:24 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sun 6 Jul 86 18:12:22-EDT
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1986 18:12 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12220609384.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Martin Griss <griss%hplmlg@HPLABS.HP.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Manuals and standards hassles
In-reply-to: Msg of 5 Jul 1986 08:21-EDT from Martin Griss <griss%hplmlg at hplabs.HP.COM>
Martin,
Your suggestion that Gabriel and Steele release specific portions of
their manuals is an interesting one, but we won't know what we want to
get rights to until we get down to writing. I don't think they can
release "almost all" without getting into lawyer hassles again.
I've come to the conclusion that doing a new manual from scratch is the
only way to make progress without wasting any further time on legal
hassles, and I've decided that I will find the time to do this. If I
can't just start from one of the existing manuals, it's easier to start
from scratch than to cobble together a lot of little pieces with various
strings attached to each. Then we'll all know exactly what the legal
status of the new work is, and we'll be free to dispose of the rights
however we like.
(Well, that's almost true. It is inevitable that there will some
passages of the new work that sound like the corresponding passages from
Steele or Lucid. That won't be intentional, but sometimes there's an
obvious best way of saying something precisely, and I don't want to go
through too many gyrations to avoid saying things the way the earlier
works did. I'm hoping that Steele and Gabriel can use their influence
to persuade Digital Press's lawyers and Lucid's lawyers, respectively,
that not in anyone's interest to search for little coincidences to
hassle people over. Big coincidences (whole paragraphs, etc.) would be
a different matter, but there won't be any of those.)
As soon as anyone comes up with a way we can all hold the copyright
jointly, or some other plan that makes everyone more comfortable, I will
take whatever steps are necessary to implement that. In the meantime,
I'll continue to hold the copyright, but will not entangle it in any way
without explicit instructions from the combined steering and technical
committees. I don't think that having DOD or CMU or ANSI hold the
copyright would be any better -- I'm less likely to go insane and do
things that would harm Common Lisp than any of those organziations (I
hope!) -- but if the rest of you prefer something like that, I'll
comply.
-- Scott
∂07-Jul-86 1120 JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA Results of SDF site visit
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Jul 86 11:20:20 PDT
Date: Mon 7 Jul 86 11:11:04-PDT
From: John Perry <JOHN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Results of SDF site visit
To: researchers@SU-CSLI.ARPA
The best conceivable outcome of the SDF site visit would have been a decision
by the Board to make a large gift to CSLI before SDF goes out of business.
The worst outcome would have been a decision not to do so. We ended up
somewhere in between, more on the optomistic than the pessimistic side.
They want to have another site visit in April, more directed at their
consultants and more comprehensive as to SL research than we were able
to do in one day.
At the April site visit, the focus will be on the coherence and accomplishments
of the program of research that the SL grant has supported. So that will also
be the focus of our activities for the months preceding the site visit.
I will be gone for the next week. Shortly after I get back, we will begin
meeting with project leaders and project groups to discuss ways of focussing
on coherence and accomplishments.
-------
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-------
∂08-Jul-86 1233 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper recieved
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Date: Tue, 8 Jul 86 12:05:47 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper recieved
To: nail@diablo
"Unification of Quantified Terms"
John Staples and Peter Robinson, U. of Queensland.
∂08-Jul-86 1938 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Release.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Jul 86 19:38:28 PDT
Date: Tue 8 Jul 86 19:37:49-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Poligon Release.
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221182011.63.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've just released the new all singing, all dancing version of Poligon.
There are a number of changes which are of significance. A new manual
will follow shortly but the following is a list of the significant
changes.
i) The system New-Poligon-Language is now the compiler for the
new system. This is incompatible with the old system. To
continue to use the old release of Oligon you should load the
following systems :- New-Oligon and Poligon-Language.
ii) The new Cage compiler reflects the changes in the new Poligon
compiler. The old Cage compiler is now called Cage-Language.
The new one is likely to be a little flakey for a while.
iii) The new Poligon run-time system is in the system called
New-Poligon. This contains both the serial and parallel versions.
To run ONLY in the serial mode the user should load the system
on its own. To run with CARE the user should load XCARE and a
suitable circuit before loading Poligon. This can be done as
follows :- (Make-System 'XCare :NoConfirm :Silent :Nowarn)
(b:load-circuit "2:>Care>Circuits>New-Queue-Nine")
iv) The Poligon Run-time system has changed as follows :-
a) To start up Poligon run the function (Run-Poligon) for
the serial mode and (Run-Poligon t) for the parallel
mode. Suitable calls to this function will cause the
system to toggle between the two modes.
b) There are a number of new panes in the display. These
do fairly obvious things. Some panels are only active
in the parallel mode.
c) The commands in the command menu have changed quite a bit.
It would be worth your while to look at the who-line doc
strings for these and maybe click on them to see what's
changed/new.
d) The Poligon control pane is no longer selected by the
System ":" command. Instead you should use System <esc>.
v) The Poligon language has changed in the following ways (N.B. all
of these changes are upwards compatible except for the colons
which have been added to Initialisation and Subsystem Of in d) :-
a) Associate now takes two new optional keyword arguments.
These are :Key and :Return. These both take functions
and allow the selection of the right element to key on
and what to return when you find a match. For instance;
Associate('d , [ [a b] [c d] [e f] ],
:Key , #'Second , :Return , #'First)
would deliver the value 'c.
b) Multiple values are first class citizens in Poligon.
These are supported in a number of ways.
i) To return multiple value the function
Multiple-Values(&Rest Values) should be used.
ii) To unpack multiple values use the MultipleLet
construct or multiple definitions (see c).
c) Definitions can now unpack multiple values. An example
of this is as follows :-
Definitions : a, b == Multiple-Values(42, 100)
d) New Instance Of now allows quite sophisticated control
over node creation. An example of a full use of the
new construct is as follows:-
New Instance Of Emitter
Unless : Associate(The-Observation@Id,
Emitter@Id-to-Emitter-Map,
:Return , #'Second)
Updated Class Fields :
Id-to-emitter-map <-+-
List(The-Observation@Id, The-Created-Node)
Subsystem Of : Emitter
Initialisation : (Id : The-Observation@Id)
This will deliver the values (a new node instance and t)
(the second value denotes that a node was created, suitably
initialised only if the Unless: condition is Nil. Otherwise
the values of the expression are the value of the Unless:
expression and Nil. The updates to the class fields are
made if a node is created. This allows information about
the created node to be cached on the class node, the
example above shows an alist of Ids and nodes being made.
The node that has just been created can be refered to by
The special name The-Created-Node.
e) A number of fields of a particular node can be read
all in one go. This generates multiple values for the
values read from the fields. For instance :-
Definitions : Type, Mode == The-Observation & @Type & @Mode
reads the latest values of the Type and Mode fields of
the-observation and unpacks the result into Type and Mode.
f) Update operators can now take multiple arguments. For instance
a-slot <-- a, b, c
will put a, b and c as the latest three elements in the
history of a-slot. The other operatiors do analogous things.
g) The output routines have been cleaned up. The values of
calls to these routines are now defined. Any routine with
Terpri in its name returns nil. The other existing routines
are identity functions.
h) New output procedure have been defined. For all routines
called *-print there is now a *-format
(control-string &Rest args). This delivers multiple values
of its arguments.
All of these changes will be documented in full in the new manual.
Rice.
-------
∂09-Jul-86 0916 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA salaries
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Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 09:14:27-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: salaries
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221330674.42.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The faculty salaries for '86-'87 have been approved by the Provost's
office, and Betty Scott will be sending each of you individually
your salary notice. The note will include a statement by Dean Gibbons
about how salaries were set this year.
I can add the following to Jim's comments. CSD was given a special
increment to bring junior faculty in line with Engineering standards.
Even so, I thought that the amount available for junior faculty (and
some "mid" faculty) raises was insufficient. Some extra amounts were
negotiated with Gibbons but I also had to "moderate" senior faculty
raises a bit to make sure that we weren't dangerously underpaying
our junior faculty. Therefore, some senior faculty who see that their
raise amount is inconsistent with the "average" announced by Jim
Gibbons should understand the reason. (And, of course, even though
I would like EVERYONE to be above the average, I can't make the
mathematics work that way!)
Also, this would be a good time for you to come in and talk with
me privately about how you see the Department progressing and your
role in it. I'll usually be around in late afternoons through July.
-Nils
-------
∂09-Jul-86 1057 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA inventions
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Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 10:52:18-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: inventions
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221348485.42.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I am giving a short talk on July 22 at the "sunrise club" meeting about
the CS department. For that audience (small companies and venture
capitalists), I thought I would mention a few "inventions" that occurred
around the CSD over the past few years and then became products
and/or helped launch companies. I know about some of the well known
ones (those connected with SUN, MIPS, Imagen, TeX, ...), but might
not know sufficient details about those or others. I'm compiling a list
and would appreciate your ideas about candidates for it (plus a sentence
or two description). -Nils
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∂09-Jul-86 1123 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Executive Council Meeting -- Sunday, Aug 10
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jul 86 11:22:56 PDT
Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 11:08:05-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Executive Council Meeting -- Sunday, Aug 10
To: officers: ;
cc: aaai-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Message-ID: <12221351361.26.AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Several weeks ago I sent out a message about a more, informal
Executive Council Meeting on Sunday, August 10 scheduled for
10:30 aSalon 10 at the Wyndam Franklin Plaza Hotel. At
that time, the AAAI would pay for your extra day in a hotel and
the extra air fare associated with an earlier arrival.
At this time, I have received a handful of RSVPs. Could you
pls inform me if you do plan to attend. It would be greatly
appreciated.
Cheers,
Claudia
_
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∂09-Jul-86 1315 OLENDER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA PLANLUNCH
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jul 86 13:15:22 PDT
Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 13:08:44-PDT
From: Margaret Olender <OLENDER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: PLANLUNCH
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 9-Jul-86 13:08:44.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON THE RELATION BETWEEN DEFAULT THEORIES AND AUTOEPISTEMIC LOGIC
Kurt Konolige (KONOLIGE@SRI-AI)
Artificial Intelligence Center
SRI International
and
CSLI, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, July 14
SRI International, Building E, Room EK228
Default theories are a formal means of reasoning about defaults: what
normally is the case, in the absence of contradicting information.
Autoepistemic theories, on the other hand, are meant to describe the
consequences of reasoning about ignorance: what must be true if a
certain fact is not known. Although the motivation and formal
character of these systems are different, a closer analysis shows that
they bear a common trait, which is the indexical nature of certain
elements in the theory. In this paper we treat both autoepistemic and
default theories as special cases of a more general indexical theory.
The benefits of this analysis are that it gives a clear (and clearly
intuitive) semantics to default theories, and combines the expressive
power of default and autoepistemic logics in a single framework.
-------
∂09-Jul-86 1412 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA AAAI '86
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Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 14:10:34-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: AAAI '86
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, phd@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221384580.23.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I have extra copies of the AAAI-86 Conference Brochure for anyone who is
interested. First come - first serve!
-Anne
-------
∂09-Jul-86 1510 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA Stanley Peter's mail address
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Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 15:05:17-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Stanley Peter's mail address
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Stanley Peters e-mail address in Stuttgart is Stanley@csli (mail is
automatically forwarded when sent to this address). Mail sent to
Peters@csli is not forwarded.
Send queries to lb@csli.
-------
∂09-Jul-86 1536 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Meeting
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Date: Wed 9 Jul 86 14:14:30-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, futcs@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221385297.11.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
As you know, a group of us has met to talk about "the future
of computer science" (in response to a request by Gordon Bell
of NSF to provide a thorough prospectus on where we think cs
is going and what are going to be the major research problems
in the next few years). There is a mailing list (futcs@diablo)
for online discussion of this topic, and Jeff Ullman hosted an
informal discussion at his home some days ago. We agreed then
that we would meet again at my house this coming Friday at 7:30
pm (July 11). All interested people are invited. We'll provide
some wine and cheese to stimulate discussion.
Since Friday evening is not a great time to meet for some of us,
we'll try to have a subsequent meeting during the lunch hour
on some weekday.
People who want to review the online correspondence so far can
see it on a file (I think; maybe Jeff has an accessible file
where all of this is; Jeff can you send a note around if so?)
Nilssons: 150 Coquito Way (Ladera) Portola Valley 854-5265
-------
∂09-Jul-86 1602 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Jul 86 16:01:32 PDT
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Date: Wed, 9 Jul 86 15:45:39 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Re: Meeting
To: NILSSON@SU-Score, faculty@SU-Score, futcs@diablo
In response to Nils' query: I'm keeping all correspondence
in the directory /vlsi/ullman/fut@diablo.
The files are publicly readable from diablo, or I can send
them to you electronically.
---jeff
∂09-Jul-86 1608 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa paper received
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Date: Wed, 9 Jul 86 15:43:17 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"A differential approach to query optimization in recursive
deductive databases," by I Balbin and K. Ramamohanarao,
U. of Melbourne.
Not another discovery of formal differentiation of expressions!
This one is fairly readable, though.
∂09-Jul-86 1627 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Recursive negation
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Date: 08 Jul 86 1116 PDT
From: Vladimir Lifschitz <VAL@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Recursive negation
To: nail@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Jeff Ullman suggested that the following discussion be broadcasted to the nail
mailing list.
∂19-Jun-86 1422 VAL Recursive negation
To: ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA, avg@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
CC: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA, "@UTEP.[NET,VAL]"@SU-AI.ARPA
I'd like to convince you that NAIL!'s restriction on the use of negation is too
strong and eliminates some reasonable programs that are handled correctly by
Prolog. Until yesterday, my only example was this rather artificial definition
of even numbers:
even(0).
even(s(N)) :- \+ even(N).
But now John McCarthy came up with this program describing the effect of
moving blocks, in the spirit of his work on applications of circumscription:
on(X,Y,r(m(X,Y),S)) :- \+ ab(X,Y,S).
ab(X,Y,S) :- on(Z,X,S).
Intuitively,
on(X,Y,S) means that block X is on block Y in situation S;
r(E,S) is the result of event E happening in situation S;
m(X,Y) is the action of moving X onto Y;
ab(X,Y,S) means that action m(X,Y) in situation S is abnormal
(i.e., doesn't lead to the normally expected result).
The first rule describes the effect of m(X,Y), the second rule says that
moving X is abnormal if X isn't clear.
Ray Reiter has observed that programs of this kind are handled by Prolog
correctly. This fact may become crucial for future work on implementing
circumscription. But this program isn't free from recursive negation.
Teodor Przymusinski generalizes the class of programs free from recursive
negation and defines the class of "locally stratified" programs, which
covers these two examples. I wonder whether the ideas of NAIL! can be
possibly applied to his generalization.
Vladimir
∂20-Jun-86 0137 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
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Date: Thu, 19 Jun 86 15:20:54 pdt
From: Allen VanGelder <avg@diablo>
Subject: Re: Recursive negation
To: VAL@Sail, jmc@sail, ullman@diablo
I don't know what your standards for correct execution are, but I'm
sure the following test would not meet them:
Script started on Thu Jun 19 15:11:53 1986
cpl
% C Prolog version 1.4e.edai
yes
| ?- +block.
block.pl consulted 360 bytes 0.066667 sec.
yes
| ?- listing([ab,on]).
ab(A, B, C) :-
on(D, A, C).
on(A, B, r(m(A, B), C)) :-
\+ ab(A, B, C).
on(1, 2, s0).
on(2, 3, s0).
yes
| ?- trace.
yes
| ?- on(1,2,S).
( 1) 1 call: on(1,2,←0) ?
( 2) 2 call: \+ab(1,2,←18) ?
( 3) 3 call: ab(1,2,←18) ?
( 4) 4 call: on(L128,1,←18) ?
( 5) 5 call: \+ab(←23,1,←25) ?
( 6) 6 call: ab(←23,1,←25) ?
( 7) 7 call: on(L164,←23,←25) ?
( 8) 8 call: \+ab(←30,←23,←32) ?
( 9) 9 call: ab(←30,←23,←32) ? l
! Out of local stack during execution.
% execution aborted
| ?- halt.
% Prolog execution halted
%
script done on Thu Jun 19 15:13:20 1986
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sure, Prolog will work on a few cases of lots of toy examples, but
you should really try to break them before jumping to conclusions.
-- Allen
∂29-Jun-86 2202 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
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Date: Sun, 29 Jun 86 22:01:38 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Re: Recursive negation
To: VAL@Sail, avg@diablo
Cc: "@UTEP.[NET, JMC@Sail, VAL]"@Sail, ullman@diablo
1. Interesting. Why don't we broadcast the discussion to the nail@diablo
list?
2. I'm not happy with the example, because it assumes that "situtations"
are expressible only by terms that tell how you got to the "situation,"
and situations with identical "states" are not necessarily recognized
as the same. The consequence is that the recursion terminates because
there is a structural induction going on, just as in the "even" example.
I would prefer to express things as if "situations' were states,
and have a DB relation:
result(X,Y,S,S') = the result of moving X on top of Y in
state S is state S'
Then, your rule becomes (with ab eliminated):
on(X,Y,S') :- result(X,Y,S,S') & \+ on(Z,X,S)
Now, it is not so clear that this recursion terminates.
i think this recusion (and yours) requires a basis case, but
assuming that taken care of, there still could be cycles
in the state transition graph. You, effectively, eliminate such
cycles by not allowing something to BE a state unless you can
explain how to construct it (via a term with your r and m functions).
Fine, but that is messy computationally, since in order to
pose your program a question, I have to figure out how the state
was obtained by a sequence of moves from some [unspecified] initial
conditions.
---jeff
∂10-Jul-86 0156 vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA Negation
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Received: from (VARDI)WISDOM.BITNET by WISCVM.ARPA on 07/10/86 at
02:10:26 CDT
From: Moshe Vardi <vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 10:04:12 -0200
To: nail@diablo.ARPA
Subject: Negation
If you guys are really interested in negation, then you should read Fitting's
paper on the subject (one of his papers in JLP). The basic idea is to use
3-valued logic. One starts with all predicates undefined, and as the recursion
proceeds predicates get truth values either positive or negative. This way
you can have arbitrary negations and the recursion still terminates. For
example if the only rule is p(X):- not p(X), then the recursion terminates
with p(X) undefined for all value of X.
Moshe
∂10-Jul-86 1015 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:ISRAEL@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA W.V.O. Quine
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Date: Thu 10 Jul 86 10:02:46-PDT
From: Israel <ISRAEL@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: W.V.O. Quine
To: researchers@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 10-Jul-86 10:02:46.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Phone: (415) 859-4254
At the invitation of CSLI
Professor W.V. Quine, Harvard University
will be answering questions concerning his philosophy
Friday, July 18, 1:30 - 3:30
Philosophy Building, Room 92Q
Questions should be put in Dagfinn Follesdal's mailbox in the
Philosophy Department or in David Israel's mailbox at Ventura or be
sent to israel@sri-warbucks no later than Wednesday, July 16 at 5:00.
-------
∂10-Jul-86 1017 PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA
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Date: Thu 10 Jul 86 09:57:59-PDT
From: Marti Lacey <PHILOSOPHY@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
W.V. QUINE
At the invitation of CSLI Professor W.V. Quine, Harvard University,
will be answering questions concerning his philosophy.
Friday, July 18, 1:30-3:30
Philosophy Building, Room 92Q
Questions should be put in Dagfinn Follesdal's mailbox in the
Philosophy Department or in David Israel's mailbox at CSLI or be
sent to David Israel on the computer no later than Wednesday, July 16
at 5:00 p.m.
-------
∂10-Jul-86 1059 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:ullman@su-aimvax.arpa future of CS
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Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 08:48:59 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: future of CS
To: faculty@score
It seems that I failed to invite to the discussions on "future of CS"
many of the friends of the department who are on the faculty list
but not the ac list. I didn't realize the lists were different,
and I want to invite anyone on this list to join the discussions.
Send me mail if you want to be on the futcs@diablo list,
which should be used to flame on the subject.
Also, remember the informal meeting at Nils' tomorrow (Friday)
at 7:30PM.
---jeff
∂10-Jul-86 1108 COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA modems
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jul 86 11:08:50 PDT
Date: Thu 10 Jul 86 10:57:53-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: modems
To: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cc: cower@SU-CSLI.ARPA
when dialing into turing, russell or one of our tips do you see
}i (brace followed by lower case i)
thanks....rich
-------
∂10-Jul-86 1127 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Manual and Release.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jul 86 11:24:13 PDT
Date: Thu 10 Jul 86 11:22:41-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Poligon Manual and Release.
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221616162.36.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
The new Poligon manual (v 5.0) is now available (modulo the functioning
of the Xerox) for those who want it.
My apologies to those who tried to load up the new Poligon release
yesterday without loading Care. This should work correctly now.
In my last release message I quite forgot to mention the new shape of
rule which is supported in the new release. This is an upwards
compatible extension.
Rules can now have "Case-like" behaviour. This means that when you
have a collection of rules whose If parts used to be mutually
exclusive you can combine them into one case-like rule. This has
the benefits that a) it is more efficient than having a lot of rules
b) the guarantee of mutual exclusion can be used to help consistency
and to allow operations such as Recycle, which is potentially prone to
timing problems, to happen safely. An example of this form of rule
is in the new manual and I have some working examples in one of my
models.
Thankyou all for your patience over the delays in this release.
I would be glad of any feedback that will help me to make Poligon
a better system.
Rice.
-------
∂10-Jul-86 1141 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #25
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Jul 86 11:41:40 PDT
Date: Wednesday, July 9, 1986 12:59PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #25
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 10 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 25
Today's Topics:
Puzzles - WFC's Challenge & CP NQueens,
Query - Alternative Notation,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Vijay.Saraswat@k.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Clocksin's challenge.
Bill,
Here is a 5 nanosec solution.
/* copy(OldT, NewT, M) holds if Newt is a copy
of OldT with M labelling every node. M is the
largest label in OldT. */
copy(OldT, NewT, M):-
copy(OldT, NewT, M, M).
copy([], [], In, -infinity).
copy(n(W, L, R), n(In, L1, R1), In, Max):-
copy(L, L1, In, Max1),
copy(R, R1, In, Max2),
max(W, Max1, Max2, Max).
/* max treats infinity as the smallest integer in
the world (known to it) */
-- Vijay.
------------------------------
Date: 25 Jun 86 19:19 PDT
From: Miller.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Variables
How about:
internalCopyTree(n(W,N1,N2),n(MaxW,NewN1,NewN2),MaxW,MaxSoFar) :-
internalCopyTree(N1,NewN1,MaxW,MaxSoFar1),
internalCopyTree(N1,NewN2,MaxW,MaxSoFar2),
max(MaxSoFar1,MaxSoFar2,MaxSoFar).
internalCopyTree([],[],MaxW,0).
copyTree(Tree,NewTree) :-
internalCopyTree(Tree,NewTree,MaxW,MaxW).
------------------------------
Date: Mon 30 Jun 86 17:36:18-MDT
From: Uday Reddy <U-REDDY@UTAH-20.ARPA>
Subject: Clocksin's problem
Here is a solution to the problem posed by Clocksin.
Trees are represented as Prolog trees: atom or [Tree|Tree].
maxcopy(InTree, OutTree) :-
copy←and←max(InTree, OutTree, Max, 0, Max).
copy←and←max(L, Val, Val, CurrentMax, NewMax) :-
integer(L), !,
(L >= CurrentMax -> NewMax = L; NewMax = CurrentMax).
copy←and←max([A|B], [NewA|NewB], Val, CurrentMax, NewMax) :-
copy←and←max(A, NewA, Val, CurrentMax, IntermMax),
copy←and←max(B, NewB, Val, IntermMax, NewMax).
-- Uday Reddy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 86 14:03:41 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%com-lab.cam.ac.uk@UCL-CS>
Subject: Variables
/* mt(InTree,OutTree) solves the weighted tree problem */
mt(A,B) :- mt(A,B,M,0,M).
/* mt(InTree,OutTree,Hole,AccumHigh,Highest) */
mt(n(W,A,B),n(H,A1,B1),H,AC,N) :- W < AC, mt(A,A1,H,AC,ACA),mt(B,B1,H,ACA,N).
mt(n(W,A,B),n(H,A1,B1),H,AC,N) :- W >= AC, mt(A,A1,H,W,ACA),mt(B,B1,H,ACA,N).
mt([],[],←,A,A).
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 86 13:23:02 BST
From: mcvax!doc.ic.ac.uk!cdsm@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Alternative notation for lists
Recently the French standards committee made a proposal for
improving the syntax of lists in Prolog programs. I'd like to
conduct a poll of reactions to this, without expressing
personally or for the British standards committee any commitment
to or rejection of the proposal.
Context:
The earliest Prolog implementations used the notation
A.B to signify a cons pair, and a.b.c.nil for a proper
list. DEC-10 Prolog introduced the notation [a,b,c] for a
proper list which everyone agrees is more readable, and
they also introduced [a,b|C] for a compound list after the
fashion of LISP S-expressions - (a b . C). This gives rise
to confusion: is the functor of a list . or | ? (in most
Edinburgh implementations it is still .), and what becomes
of degenerate expressions such as [a,b|c,d]? (implementations
vary wildly). Can one declare . as an operator and still
write A.B and a.b.c.[]? (In many but not
all implementations one can, with varying restrictions.)
What is the meaning of 1.2 (or, even worse, 1.2.3)?
The new proposal is [A].B for a cons pair, [a,b,c] for a
proper list and [a,b].C for a compound list. Note that
this is a DENOTATION which involves the THREE characters
[ ] and ., and . is NOT a standard operator, but is still
the functor of a list.
To give a feeling for this, here are a couple of familiar
routines:
nrev([A].B, C) :- nrev(B,D), append(D, [A], C).
nrev([], []).
append([], A, A).
append([A].B, C, [A].D) :- append(B,C,D).
?- nrev([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10],X).
Note that one can use this notation recursively, e.g.
[a,b,c].[c,d].E or even [].[a], which means the same
as [a]; but multiple denotations for the same object
are not a new thing (e.g. numbers). One can also easily
extend it to string denotations as in "abc".D (whatever
meaning is attached to strings). It is still necessary
to provide a distinction between . for lists and the end
of statement terminator, but this is little different than
at present.
Questions:
1] Have you found the current syntax for lists hard or
confusing to learn or teach?
2] Were you aware that '.' is normally the list functor?
3] Do you think the present notation needs to be rationalised
in some way (not necessarily by this method)?
4] Do you have any objections to this new notation? - either
rational or intuitive?
5] Do you like the new notation, or could you at least live
with it?
Please mail responses to cdsm@doc.ic.ac.uk or cdsm@icdoc.uucp.
I will summarise and pass on any interesting comments.
-- Chris Moss
Imperial College, London.
------------------------------
Date: 21 Jun 86 01:16:20 GMT
From: Rich Kulawiec <pur-ee!pucc-j!rsk@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: CP NQueens
Here is another solution to the Eight Queens problem; I found
this easier to understand, though others may differ on that
point. It was written by Malcolm Slaney while he was at Purdue
University; he is reachable at pur-ee!malcolm.
% All of the work is done by not←threaten, queens and valid list.
% Find all possible solutions
findqueens :- repeat,
queens([[0,Y0],[1,Y1],[2,Y2],[3,Y3],[4,Y4],[5,Y5],
[6,Y6],[7,Y7]|[]]),
write([0,Y0]), write(' '),
write([1,Y1]), write(' '),
write([2,Y2]), write(' '),
write([3,Y3]), write(' '),
write([4,Y4]), write(' '),
write([5,Y5]), write(' '),
write([6,Y6]), write(' '),
write([7,Y7]), write(' '),
nl,
fail.
% Check to see if two queens are ok
not←threaten([X1,Y1],[X2,Y2]) :-
not(X1 = X2),
not(Y1 = Y2),
D1 is X1-X2,
D2 is Y1-Y2,
D3 is -D2,
not(D1 = D2),
not(D1 = D3).
% Generate Valid list of Queens
queens([]).
queens([[X,Y]|List]) :- queens(List),
isvalid(Y),
validlist(X,Y,List).
% Check to see if List is OK.
validlist(X,Y,[]).
validlist(X1,Y1,[[X2,Y2]|List]) :- not←threaten([X1,Y1],[X2,Y2]),
validlist(X1,Y1,List).
% (There must to be a better way!!!) %
isvalid(0).
isvalid(1).
isvalid(2).
isvalid(3).
isvalid(4).
isvalid(5).
isvalid(6).
isvalid(7).
-- Rich Kulawiec
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂10-Jul-86 1845 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Negation
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Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 18:29:50 pdt
From: Allen VanGelder <avg@diablo>
Subject: Re: Negation
To: nail@diablo.ARPA, vardi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA
I already read that paper, I think. I don't recall that it had any
algorithm. More importantly, what does it conclude about the example
I gave in my paper -- the one illustrating "failure to fail"?
Getting the "right" answer is just as important as terminating.
Having the right definition of "right" is even more important, but
is in the realm of philosophy.
∂11-Jul-86 1004 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA Recursive negation
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Date: 11 Jul 86 0951 PDT
From: Vladimir Lifschitz <VAL@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Recursive negation
To: nail@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
1. Allen has demonstrated that our "situation calculus" program is not handled
correctly by Prolog if the query contains situation variables. But the purpose
of my message was not to praise Prolog; I simply wanted to suggest a possible
improvement in NAIL!.
2. Jeff's message criticizes the program on the grounds that it only allows us
to refer to a situation by specifying how it is obtained from a certain
initial situation. As a defense, I can say that, historically, this form of
situation calculus was aimed at formalizing planning problems, where we are given
some information about an initial configuration of objects and some conditions
on a final situation, and we want to find a sequence of actions leading to that
goal. (For instance, the Towers of Hanoi puzzle is such a problem). Then
describing a situation by how we got to it is not at all unnatural: these
descriptions exactly correspond to the possible "plans".
3. Jeff's other point is that, in this formalism, situations with identical
"states" (configurations of blocks) are not necessarily recognized as the same.
There seems to be nothing wrong with it. A situation is more than merely a
configuration of blocks; it's a snapshot of the universe, and the universe
may very well contain a lab journal describing all the events happening
in the blocks world. Then two different plans leading to the same configuration
of blocks should be viewed as leading to different situations.
4. I haven't read Fitting's paper. Can anybody comment on the relation between
Fitting's semantics and Allen's "tight tree derivation" semantics? Are they
equivalent at least for stratified programs?
Vladimir
∂11-Jul-86 1006 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Committees
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Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 10:03:23-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Committees
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221863870.32.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
It's time to organize the CSD committees for next year. This time, I'd
like to see how successful we can be in volunteering for the various
tasks that need to be done. If faculty members are informed about the
total amount of work required and about what their fair share would be,
I would like to think that only minor adjustments will be needed to what
people volunteer to do.
The committees that take the most work are the PhD Admissions, the
Comprehensive, the MS Program, and the Facilities. I think we, as a
department, agree that some but not all of this work can be done by
staff and students. We also have some new committees next year dealing
with the new undergraduate majors. Earlier, I asked last year's
committee chairs to estimate the number of hours per academic year that
they and their fellow members spent on committee work and (taking into
account any changes anticipated) what the work load would be for next
year. Adjusting some of these numbers that I thought might be a little
high (but maybe I'm wrong) and subtracting the amount of work we can
expect from staff and students, I estimate that the fair share of work
per CSD full-time faculty member is about 100 hours per year on these
committees. (2 1/2 weeks out of 52 is about a 5% "tax" to help the
department function.) People who are only part time in the department
need only volunteer for a pro rata amount.
So, I am going to list our committee needs and estimated work loads
below and request that everyone look them over and then volunteer (as
they say in "United Way") to contribute his fair share. I'll then
suggest adjustments as needed, presuming that those who do not
explicitly volunteer are really implicitly volunteering for anything.
With each committee below I have either "suggested" some chairs and
members or listed some based on what you have already told me. In
thinking about what committees to work on, keep in mind that it is
useful to have some people on each committee who were on that committee
last year.
PhD Admissions: Decides which students admitted to CSD PhD program.
Last year's members: Yao, Grosz, McCluskey, Papadimitriou, Roberts,
Cheriton, Tenenbaum, Broder
Number of Fac/staff members: 10
Workload/member: 40
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Genesereth (chair), Pratt,
Comprehensive Exam: Conceives, administers and grades the Comp Exam.
Last year's members: Pratt, Lantz, Bosack, Rosenschein, Floyd, Genesereth,
Golub
Number of Fac/staff members: 7
Workload/member: 40
Workload/chair: 60
Suggestions: Knuth (chair),
Colloquium: Organizes and introduces speakers for CS500.
Last year's members: Nilsson (Aut), Mayr (Win.), Binford (Spr.)
Number of Fac/staff members: 3 (one each quarter)
Workload/member: 20
Suggestions:
Curriculum: Decides about CSD courses.
Last year's members: Ullman, Genesereth, Lantz, Mayr, Reges, Reid
Number of Fac/staff members: 5
Workload/member: 8
Workload/chair: 20
Suggestions: Mayr (chair), Lantz, Reges,
Facilities: Recommends plans and policies for CSD computer facilities.
Last year's members: Earnest, Binford, Bosack, Cheriton, Genesereth, McCarthy,
Rindfleisch, Ungar, Dienstbier
Number of Fac/staff members: 6
Workload/member: 30
Workload/chair: 60
Suggestions: Earnest (chair), Dienstbier, Rindfleisch,
PhD Program: Recommends plans and policies for the PhD program. Supervises
Grey Tuesday/Black Friday proceedings. Advises first-year PhD students.
Last year's members: Winograd, Guibas, McCarthy, Pratt, Reid, Rosenbloom
Number of Fac/staff members: 4
Workload/member: 20
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Winograd (chair),
MS Program: Decides which students admitted to MS program. Recommends plans
and policies for MS program. Advises MS students.
Last year's members: Oliger, Binford, Floyd, Hennessy, Wiederhold
Number of Fac/staff members: 6
Workload/member: 75
Workload/chair: 120
Suggestions: Oliger (chair),
MSAI Program: Decides which students admitted to MSAI program. Recommends
plans and policies for MSAI program. Advises MSAI students.
Last year's members: Buchanan, Binford, Clancey, Feigenbaum, Genesereth,
Rosenbloom
Number of Fac/staff members: 5
Workload/member: 40
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Buchanan (chair), Clancey,
CSD Undergraduate Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Arranges for advising students.
Number of Fac/staff members: 4
Workload/member: 20
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Ullman (chair), Linton, Marrison, Reges,
Math/Comp. Sci. Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Last year's members: Mayr, Clancey, Golub, Herriot, Wiederhold
Number of Fac/staff members: 4
Workload/member: 20
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Wiederhold (chair), Reges,
Computer Systems Engrg. Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Number of Fac/staff members: 4
Workload/member: 20
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Hennessy (chair), Reges,
Symbolic Systems Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Number of Fac/staff members: 4
Workload/member: 20
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Rosenbloom (chair), Winograd, Reges,
Visiting Professors: Recommends Visiting Industrial Lectureships and
Departmental Visiting Professors.
Last year's member: McCarthy
Number of Fac/staff members: 1
Workload/member: 8
Suggestions: McCarthy
Library and Publications: Recommends plans and policies for CSD library
and publication matters.
Last year's member: Buchanan
Number of Fac/staff members: 1
Workload/member: 24
Suggestions: Buchanan
Fellowships: Recommends student fellowship disposition
Last year's members: Tajnai, Nilsson
Number of Fac/staff members: 2
Workload/member: 4
Workload/chair: 40
Suggestions: Tajnai (chair), Nilsson
Computer Forum: Recommends plans and policies for the CSD/CSL industrial
affiliates program
Last year's members: Miller, Tajnai, Winograd, Hennessy, Ungar
Number of Fac/staff members: 5
Workload/member: 8
Workload/chair: 16
Suggestions: Miller (chair), Tajnai, Winograd, Hennessy, Ungar
-------
∂11-Jul-86 1149 ullman@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
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Date: Fri, 11 Jul 86 11:42:58 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Re: Recursive negation
To: VAL@Sail, nail@diablo
NAIL! is not above improvement, either in its capabilities or
its performance. My comments on Vladimir's blocks model were
intended only to see better justification for looking particularly
hard at the recursive negation question.
Frankly, I am not at all persuaded by VAL's argument about the
notebook for the moves forming part of the state in the blocks
world. That is the sort of thing that one would like to
avoid in representing data, because it presents all sorts of
unnecessary computational difficulties, and as far as I can see,
has no compensating advantages.
---jeff
∂11-Jul-86 1151 Mailer%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
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Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 18:42:57 CDT
From: EPSYNET@UHUPVM1
Reply-to: EPSYNET@UHUPVM1
To: PHIL-SCI@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
please add me to your mailing list
bob morecock
∂11-Jul-86 1407 VAL@SU-AI.ARPA re: Recursive negation
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Date: 11 Jul 86 1252 PDT
From: Vladimir Lifschitz <VAL@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: re: Recursive negation
To: ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA, nail@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message from ullman@diablo sent Fri, 11 Jul 86 11:42:58 pdt.]
Let me make another attempt to convince you, by reinterpreting the same example,
that good cases of recursive negation are worth studying. Let's look at our
program as encoding properties of *plans* rather that situations. A plan is a
list of actions. By on(X,Y,S) we express that X is on Y after executing S
(in some fixed initial state). The result function r becomes simply cons, and
initial conditions will be expressed using on(X,Y,nil). Does this look more
natural now, or is there anything about the syntactic form of this program that
bothers you, so that reinterpretations won't help?
Vladimir
∂11-Jul-86 1422 avg@su-aimvax.arpa Re: Recursive negation
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Date: Fri, 11 Jul 86 14:15:51 pdt
From: Allen VanGelder <avg@diablo>
Subject: Re: Recursive negation
To: VAL@Sail, nail@diablo, ullman@diablo
It seems pointless to quibble about an example. VAL's point is
that there are cases where we apparently have recursive negation,
but in fact do not because the terms in the arguments are from
a well-founded set, and we are always going down in that ordering.
The same ideas as proving convergence in some earlier NAIL papers
could be used to prove that the negation could not lead to cycles.
This is fine in principle, but hard to implement with any degree
of generality by known methods. So as a practical design decision,
we skip it in NAIL for the present. I think the theorems in my
paper can be generalized to allow some form of "safe recursive negation"
and still classify all atoms as true or false, and I assume that
is the direction VAL is thinking along also.
∂11-Jul-86 1507 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA CSD-CF Change
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Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 15:00:21-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CSD-CF Change
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA, staff@SU-SCORE.ARPA, csd@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12221917930.50.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Len Bosack has informed me that he would like to leave Stanford (at
least temporarily) to spend more time with a company he helped
start--cisco systems. He will be leaving officially at the close of
work on Wednesday, July 15, 1986. I have asked Les Earnest to take on
the additional responsibility of Acting Director, CSD-CF effective
immediately and he has agreed. I want Les to start functioning in this
position even before Len leaves in order to effect a smooth transition.
Len has graciously agreed to be available for consultation, etc. during
the transition and beyond.
I want to thank Len especially for his hard work in making CSD-CF
an effective and efficient organization. We will miss him, and I'm
sure we all want to wish him success in his new venture.
We will soon post a job announcement in order to find a permanent
director for CSD-CF. Suggestions about whom we might contact about
this position are welcome. Please direct these suggestions to
Les Earnest.
-Nils
-------
∂11-Jul-86 1717 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA talk: program transformation, tuesday
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11 Jul 86 17:09:53-PDT
Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 17:10:47-PDT
From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: talk: program transformation, tuesday
To: aic.associates@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, planlunch@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA,
csl.distribution@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Title: Efficient Compilation of Linear Recursive Functions
into Object-Level Loops
Speaker: Hessam Khoshnevisan,
Imperial College, London
Time: Tuesday, 15 July, 4:15pm
Place: New AIC Conference Room, EJ228
Building E, SRI (Visitors from outside SRI please
come to the reception 5 minutes early)
Coffee: 3:45pm in Waldinger office
Abstract: In the following message:
11-Jul-86 10:36:11-PDT,2105;000000000001
Return-Path: <@SRI-IU.ARPA,@sri-freebie.ARPA:ichiki@sri-freebie>
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11 Jul 86 10:33:39 PDT
Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 10:33:28-PDT
From: Joani Ichiki <ICHIKI@SRI-FREEBIE.ARPA>
Subject: Khoshnevisan abstract
To: Waldinger@SRI-AI.ARPA
Message-Id: <SUN-MM(193)+TOPSLIB(120) 11-Jul-86 10:33:28.SRI-FREEBIE.ARPA>
Reply-To: Ichiki@sri-iu
Richard--Here it is:
EFFICIENT COMPILATION OF LINEAR RECURSIVE
FUNCTIONS INTO OBJECT LEVEL LOOPS
Hessam Khoshnevisan
Department of Computing, Imperial College, London
ABSTRACT
While widely recognized as an excellent means for solving
problems and for designing software, functional programming languages
have suffered from their inefficient implementations on conventional
computers. A route to improved run-time performance is to transform
recursively defined functions into programs which execute more quickly
and/or consume less space. We derive equivalent imperative
programming language loops for a large class of LINEAR recursive
functions of which the tail-recursive functions form a very small
subset. We first identify a small set of primitive function defining
expressions for which we determine the corresponding loop-expressions.
We then determine the loop-expressions for linear functions defined by
any expressions which are formed from those primitives. In this way,
a very general class of linear functions can be transformed
automatically into loops in the parsing phase of a compiler, since the
parser has in any case to determine the hierarchitecal structure of
function definitions. Further transformation may involve specific
properties of particular defining expressions, and adopt previous
schemes. In addition, equivalent linear functions can be found for
many non-linear ones which can therefore also be transformed into
loops.
-------
-------
∂11-Jul-86 1844 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #26
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Jul 86 18:44:08 PDT
Date: Friday, July 11, 1986 12:48PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #26
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 11 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 26
Today's Topics:
Implementation - Behavior & Stardom & DFID & Vars
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 Jun 86 02:30:57 GMT
From: Allen VanGelder <AVG@DIABLO.ARPA>
Subject: Standard behavior?
A simple way to convince yourself that these are non
logical is to remember that AND and OR are commutative
and associative. Thus a clause has the same logical
meaning under all permutations of its literals. But
clearly, clauses with cut, var, and nonvar do not have
this property, in general -- the order of subgoals DOES
matter. QED
------------------------------
Date: 25 Jun 86 01:45:12 GMT
From: Uday Reddy <Reddy@Utah-CS.ARPA>
Subject: Cut, var, nonvar, and Goebel's stardom
Sorry Jamie, I fail to understand this completely. We had
lengthy discussions, in Prolog Digest last year, on what is
logical and what isn't.
But, to cut (!) the long story short, something is logical
if it has a logical value, like "true", or "false", or even
nonstandard logical values like "neither true nor false" or
"both true and false" or whatever. Further, the logical
value of any logical thing should be preserved under
instantiation.
Now, I am not sure if what you are saying has anything to
do with the logical-ness of these constructs.
-- Uday Reddy
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 86 16:23:25 EDT
From: Simon Kasif <simon@mimsy.umd.edu>
Subject: DFID
DFID has not been invented in the AI journal. In a
different but related context similar ideas have been
used in the theory community extensively. Several
classical examples are : Savitch Theorem (1970) that
shows that any nondeterministic Turing machine operating
in space S can be simulated by a deterministic machine
in space O(S↑2).
W. Ruzzo has generalized the theorem to alternating turing
machines which have strong similarities to logic programs
(see Shapiro's article in Logic programming J.). He also has
a parallel variant of the scheme desribed. The parallel
version of his procedure achieves dramatic speed-up with
many processors. For a relation of his scheme with logic
programs (function free) see J. Ullman and Allen Van Gelder's
Stanford TR. Their version is bottom up search and therefore
not immediately related to DFID.
A parallel scheme related to DFID has been used to implement
the Intelligent Channel Algorithm. A short description of the
idea can be found in IJCAI- 85 in an article by Kasif & Minker.
A more extended version is given in "The Intelligent Channel:
A Scheme for AND/OR Parallelism in Logic Programs", University
of Maryland TR-1414, June 1984.
The basic idea is simple : as long as you are doing a parallel
breadth first search to the k-th level:
1] do it synchronously
2] combine it with AND -paralllelism
3] and use the info obtained in one branch to cut search in
others.
E.g., in the goal :-p(X),Q(X) the binding a/X may fail after
1000 steps in p and 2 steps in q.
To prevent the usual memory management problem in an AND/OR
search all the parallel AND-computations must agree on the
bindings: so only one environment must be maintained. If
one of the AND-branches fails the entire computation is
failed and a new set of bindings is selected (backtracking
on bindings not on nodes).
So basically the scheme works as follows : find a solution
that everybody agrees on level i and try to extend it to
level i+2. If it does not work backtrack and try another
solution. Depending on the resources there may be more then
one binding per variable (solution) executed by the parallel
system.
Advantages:
1] Combinatorial explosion is limited.
2] Execution of paths based on a failure binding (fails
elsewhere in the tree).
3] In the simple scheme only one active environment exists
for a given variable.
4] No copying is needed.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 86 15:08:21 CDT
From: Uday S. Reddy <reddy@a.CS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Logical and non-logical variables
In response to the host of examples mentioned by Vijay,
it appears to me that most of them are nonlogical uses
of variables. They are nonlogical because the programs
need to test if a variable is bound. For instance, in
depth first traversal of a graph, the action to be taken
at a node depends on whether the node has been previously
visited or not (i.e., whether its "visited" flag is bound
or not). So, these variables are not "logical" variables,
but single-assignment "state" variables of the kind that
appear in imperative programming.
This brings us to an important question: What status should
be given to these nonlogical variables? In spite of the
purist position, they are certainly useful. We cannot do
graph traversal without the "var" test. Even the logical
uses of variables degenerate to nonlogical uses if we want
to do some kinds of tests. For example, a nonlogical "var"
test is needed to test if a difference list is empty (assuming
the availability of circular terms), or to test if a name is
undefined in a symbol table.
What is more, the nonlogical variables seem to have advantages
compared to multiple-assignment "state" variables used in
imperative programming. Firstly, they are simpler. A nonlogical
variable has only a binary state - unbound or bound to a particular
value. Secondly, we can do unification on them: the goal X = 1
can both test if X is 1 and bind it to 1 if it is unbound. This
cannot be done with multiple-assignment variables.
Can the nonlogical variables be given a (perhaps nonstandard)
logical status?
-- Uday Reddy
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂12-Jul-86 0727 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU phone lines and the }i
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 12 Jul 86 07:27:49 PDT
Date: Sat 12 Jul 86 07:26:07-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: phone lines and the }i
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
cc: cower@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Next time you are logged in and see this - could you please do the
following and send me the info? type
f your-login-name <cr>
I'm interested in the phone number it reports you are on. We're trying
to track this problem down.
thanks for your help...Rich
-------
∂13-Jul-86 1423 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA lunch mtg Thurs
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Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 14:20:33-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: lunch mtg Thurs
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222434972.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Those interested in continuing discussions of "the future of computer
science" are invited to a "no-host" lunch discussion this Thursday, July
17. Anne Richardson will be arranging a room for us. ("no-host" means
bring your own lunch!) -Nils
-------
∂13-Jul-86 1427 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA faculty meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jul 86 14:26:59 PDT
Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 14:25:26-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: faculty meeting
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222435862.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The search committee looking for a faculty member to fill a position
in "applied math and scientific computing" has a recommendation that
they would like to present to the computer science department faculty
in time for the candidate to be considered at a July meeting of the
School of Engineering XCom. Thus (realizing it is an imposition--but
an important one), I am asking for us to have a short faculty meeting
on Thursday, July 17 at 2:15 pm. (Anne Richardson will arrange a room
and announce it.) Gene Golub will be circulating the candidate's cv
before the meeting so all will have a chance to see it. Evaluation
letters on the candidate are available in Gene Golub's office. -Nils
-------
∂13-Jul-86 1429 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA ps
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jul 86 14:29:27 PDT
Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 14:27:51-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: ps
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222436302.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The name of the AM/SC candidate being proposed is Tony Chan, a
former PhD student of the department. -Nils
-------
∂13-Jul-86 2343 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA reminder -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Kurt Konolige
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 13 Jul 86 23:42:52 PDT
Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 23:38:01-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: reminder -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Kurt Konolige
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 13-Jul-86 23:38:01.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON THE RELATION BETWEEN DEFAULT THEORIES AND AUTOEPISTEMIC LOGIC
Kurt Konolige (KONOLIGE@SRI-AI)
Artificial Intelligence Center
SRI International
and
CSLI, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, July 14
SRI International, Building E, Room EK228
Default theories are a formal means of reasoning about defaults: what
normally is the case, in the absence of contradicting information.
Autoepistemic theories, on the other hand, are meant to describe the
consequences of reasoning about ignorance: what must be true if a
certain fact is not known. Although the motivation and formal
character of these systems are different, a closer analysis shows that
they bear a common trait, which is the indexical nature of certain
elements in the theory. In this paper we treat both autoepistemic and
default theories as special cases of a more general indexical theory.
The benefits of this analysis are that it gives a clear (and clearly
intuitive) semantics to default theories, and combines the expressive
power of default and autoepistemic logics in a single framework.
-------
∂14-Jul-86 0048 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #27
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 00:48:36 PDT
Date: Sunday, July 13, 1986 5:20AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #27
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Monday, 14 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 27
Today's Topics:
Announcement - Logix,
LP Library - Updates
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 86 16:38:55 -0200
From: Ehud Shapiro <udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: The Logix system
We are please to announce the availability of the
Logix system, an experimental Flat Concurrent Prolog
program development environment. Logix can be used
to study and experiment with concurrent logic
programming, and to develop applications that can
benefit from combining the expressive power of
concurrency with that of the logical variable.
Logix is not a conventional programming environment;
although presently a single user single processor system,
its basic design scales to a multiprocessor, multiuser
system. With its novel approach to parallel computation
control, its concept of active modules and its object
oriented design of system hierarchies, it is an
interesting system to study in its own right. For the
same reason it may be overdeveloped for the casual user
in certain respects (e.g. its multitasking capabilities),
and underdeveloped in others (e.g. interactive help,
"friendliness").
Logix includes an FCP compiler to an abstract machine
instruction set and a C emulator of the abstract machine.
With the exception of the emulator and a few kernels, it
is written entirely in Flat Concurrent Prolog. The system
was bootstrapped in Summer 1985, and has seen extensive use
and development since. It was used to develop applications
(including Logix itself) whose total size is over 20,000
lines of FCP source code.
Logix is available on Vax and Sun computers, under the
Berkeley Unix and Ultrix operating systems. It is expected
that applications developed under Logix would run almost
directly on a multiprocessor implementation of Flat Concurrnt
Prolog; the availability of such a prototype system for the
Intel iPSC hypercube is announced separately.
The handling fee for a non-commercial license to the Logix
system is $250 U.S. To obtain a license form and/or a copy
of the Logix user manual write to:
Mr Yossef Dabby
Department of Computer Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot 76100, Israel
To obtain an electronic copy of the license write to:
CSnet, Bitnet: logix@wisdom
ARPAnet: logix%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm.arpa
Uucp: ??????
References
[1] A. Houri and E. Shapiro, "A sequential abstract
machine for Flat Concurrent Prolog", Weizmann
Institute Technical Report CS86-20, 1986.
[2] W. Silverman, M. Hirsch, A. Houri, and E. Shapiro,
"The Logix system user manual, Version 1.21",
Weizmann Institute Technical Report CS86-21.
[3] M. Hirsch, W. Silverman, E. Shapiro, "Layers of
protection and control in the Logix system",
Weizmann Institute Technical Report CS86-19, 1986.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 86 16:53:43 -0200
From: Ehud Shapiro <udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: License
Software Release Agreement
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The undersigned, representing the institution identified
below and hereafter referred to as the Licensee, accepts
the software and associated documentation known under the
name
The Logix System and FCP Compiler
hereinafter called the work, and agrees to the following
conditions set out below and in Schedule A regarding its
use and/or distribution. The Weizmann Institute of Science
in the Department of Applied Mathematics, hereinafter
referenced as the Licensor, grants to the Licensee a non
exclusive and non-transferable licence to use the work only
for internal educational and research activities.
The Licensee shall not distribute the work or any part
thereof to others or sell products or services based on the
work, including educational and research services, without
the express permission of the Licensor.
Licensee: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Title: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Institution: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
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Authorised Signature: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Date: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Signature: ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
Schedule A: Conditions of The Software Release Agreement
1. Prerequisites
The Licensee is responsible for obtaining any further licence
that may be necessary to provide the computing environment
required by the said work, such as a Unix* licence. Rights
implied by this Software Release Agreement shall never exceed
the rights implied by such further licence(s).
2. Limitation on use
This Software Release Agreement does not permit the Licensee
to use the work or any part thereof for any commercial purpose.
A commercial Licensee is permited to use the work for
exploratory purposes in order to assess its commercial potential.
Any subsequent commercial exploitation will be subject to a new
and separate Agreement that will recognise the rights of
institutions, authors and funding agencies that were instrumental
in developing the work. The work will be used on the following
computers only, which reside in the address of the licensee:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Makes & Type* Operating system Network id
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
2) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
3) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
4) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
5) ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←← ←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←
-------------------------------------------------------------------
* Computers currently supported are DEC VAX and Sun Workstation.
Operating system supported is Berkeley Unix BSD 4.2.
3. Non-disclosure
The Licensee shall take all precautions to maintain the
confidentiality of the work; these precautions shall be at least
equivalent to those employed by the receiving organisation to
protect its own confidential information.
4. Non-exclusivity
The Licensee recognises that the work is released on a non-exclusive
basis and the Licensor shall have the exclusive right to grant
licences to others or to make such other use of the work as it shall
desire.
5. Credits
All credits in the work, both in listings and/or documentation,
whether names of individuals or organisations, will be retained
in place by the Licensee. The Licensee will acknowledge in any
published copy or in any other use of the work the authorship
of the work and the fact that the work was developed at the
Licensor.
6. Product warranty
The work is released on an "as is" basis, and there is no
warranty expressed or implied as to the functioning, performance
or effect on hardware or other software. The Licensee recognizes
that the Licensor is not obliged to provide maintenance,
consultation or revision of the work.
7. Liability
Neither The Weizmann Institute of Science, nor Licensor, nor the
individuals responsible for the development and/or maintenance
of the work, accept any liability of any kind in releasing the
work.
8. Future releases
This licence does not entitle the Licensee to further releases
of the work.
9. Fees
The handling fee for this licence, covering administration and
duplication of the work released, is two hundred and fifty U.S.
dollars ($ 250); this fee, payable to The Weizmann Institute
of Science, is to be made in advance. The signed agreement and
the payment should be mailed to:
Yossef Dabby
Department of Applied Mathematics
The Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot 76100, Israel.
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 86 13:58:00 EDT
From: "CUGINI, JOHN" <cugini@nbs-vms.ARPA>
Subject: Improved utility library, as of 27.6.86
I just finished a moderate overhaul of the library, and thought it was
worth sending out the new version. There are two main differences:
1. There is a short description of the overall
organization at the beginning. Routines have been
shuffled around and grouped roughly according to the
type of entity they manipulate.
2. There is a major new predicate, called "rationalize"
which does rational arithmetic, roughly a la Common
Lisp, and improves the handling of exponentiation,
for which C-Prolog, er, makes some mistakes. (Try X
is 0↑(-2) or X is (-2)↑2.)
I'd be interested in knowing about other Prolog libraries you have
there - if there's an index of libraries, please let us know...
-- John Cugini
[ This file is available from SCORE: as
<Prolog>Cugini←Utilities.PL ]
------------------------------
Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 14:54:11-PDT
From: Chuck Restivo <Restivo@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: List
[cwr]
Bruce Smith updated his list of available Prolog
implementations. It's available from the library
as: SCORE:<Prolog>Prolog.NImplementations
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂14-Jul-86 0538 KIPARSKY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU phone lines and the }i
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 05:38:15 PDT
Date: 14 Jul 1986 05:35 PDT (Mon)
Message-ID: <KIPARSKY.12222601568.BABYL@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
From: KIPARSKY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
To: Rich Cower <COWER@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Cc: folks@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Subject: phone lines and the }i
In-reply-to: Msg of 12 Jul 1986 07:26-PDT from Rich Cower <COWER at SU-CSLI.ARPA>
In EMACS, the }i problem can be neutralized by putting the following
into your EMACS.INIT:
Q.↑R| U..↑RI
Paul
∂14-Jul-86 0947 EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU [Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: talk: program transformation, tuesday]
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 09:47:26 PDT
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 09:09:53-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: [Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>: talk: program transformation, tuesday]
To: friends@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Return-Path: <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Fri 11 Jul 86 17:11:02-PDT
Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 17:10:47-PDT
From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: talk: program transformation, tuesday
To: aic.associates@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, planlunch@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA,
csl.distribution@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Title: Efficient Compilation of Linear Recursive Functions
into Object-Level Loops
Speaker: Hessam Khoshnevisan,
Imperial College, London
Time: Tuesday, 15 July, 4:15pm
Place: New AIC Conference Room, EJ228
Building E, SRI (Visitors from outside SRI please
come to the reception 5 minutes early)
Coffee: 3:45pm in Waldinger office
Abstract: In the following message:
11-Jul-86 10:36:11-PDT,2105;000000000001
Return-Path: <@SRI-IU.ARPA,@sri-freebie.ARPA:ichiki@sri-freebie>
Received: from SRI-IU.ARPA by SRI-AI.ARPA with TCP; Fri 11 Jul 86 10:36:02-PDT
Received: from sri-freebie.ARPA by SRI-IU via SMTP with TCP; Fri,
11 Jul 86 10:35:54-PDT
Received: by sri-freebie.ARPA (1.1/SMI-2.0) id AA08713; Fri,
11 Jul 86 10:33:39 PDT
Date: Fri 11 Jul 86 10:33:28-PDT
From: Joani Ichiki <ICHIKI@SRI-FREEBIE.ARPA>
Subject: Khoshnevisan abstract
To: Waldinger@SRI-AI.ARPA
Message-Id: <SUN-MM(193)+TOPSLIB(120) 11-Jul-86 10:33:28.SRI-FREEBIE.ARPA>
Reply-To: Ichiki@sri-iu
Richard--Here it is:
EFFICIENT COMPILATION OF LINEAR RECURSIVE
FUNCTIONS INTO OBJECT LEVEL LOOPS
Hessam Khoshnevisan
Department of Computing, Imperial College, London
ABSTRACT
While widely recognized as an excellent means for solving
problems and for designing software, functional programming languages
have suffered from their inefficient implementations on conventional
computers. A route to improved run-time performance is to transform
recursively defined functions into programs which execute more quickly
and/or consume less space. We derive equivalent imperative
programming language loops for a large class of LINEAR recursive
functions of which the tail-recursive functions form a very small
subset. We first identify a small set of primitive function defining
expressions for which we determine the corresponding loop-expressions.
We then determine the loop-expressions for linear functions defined by
any expressions which are formed from those primitives. In this way,
a very general class of linear functions can be transformed
automatically into loops in the parsing phase of a compiler, since the
parser has in any case to determine the hierarchitecal structure of
function definitions. Further transformation may involve specific
properties of particular defining expressions, and adopt previous
schemes. In addition, equivalent linear functions can be found for
many non-linear ones which can therefore also be transformed into
loops.
-------
-------
-------
∂14-Jul-86 1008 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 10:05:02 PDT
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 09:58:48-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: fac mtg
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222649466.30.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The faculty mtg for this coming Thursday (which I announced yesterday)
will be a meeting of the senior faculty--since Chan is being considered
for a tenured position. -Nils
-------
∂14-Jul-86 1438 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA talk, theorem proving, weds, 4:15, ej228
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 14:38:43 PDT
Received: from SRI-STRIPE.ARPA by SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA via SMTP with TCP;
Mon, 14 Jul 86 14:29:31-PDT
Return-Path: <WALDINGER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SRI-STRIPE.ARPA with TCP; Mon 14
Jul 86 11:56:46-PDT
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 11:54:31-PDT
From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: talk, theorem proving, weds, 4:15, ej228
To: AIC-Associates
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 14-Jul-86 11:54:31.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
ReSent-date: Mon 14 Jul 86 14:30:21-PDT
ReSent-From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA>
ReSent-To: planlunch@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA
Title: Implementing Automata Theory within the Nuprl Proof Development
System
Speaker: Christoph Kreitz, Dept. of Computer Science, Cornell University
Time: Wednesday, 16 July, 4:15pm (Visitors from
outside please come to reception desk a little
early. Coffee at 3:45 in Waldinger office)
Place: EJ228 (New AI Center Conference Room) SRI
International, Building E
Abstract:
ABSTRACT
IMPLEMENTING AUTOMATA THEORY
with the
Nuprl Proof Development System
by
Christoph Kreitz
Department of Computer Science
Cornell University
Problem solving is a significant part of science and mathematics and
is the most intellectually significant part of programming. Nuprl is
a computer system which provides assistance with solving a problem.
It supports the creation of formulas, proofs and terms in a formal
theory of mathematics; with it one can express concepts associated
with definitions, theorems, theories, books and libraries. Moreover
the formal theory behind it is sensitive to the computational meaning
of terms, assertions and proofs, and the computer system is able to
carry out the corresponding actions. Thus Nuprl includes
computer-aided program development, but in a broader sense it is a
system for proving theorems and implementing mathematics.
The actual implementation of a mathematical theory, such as the theory
of finite automata, with the Nuprl proof development system gives lots
of insights into its strengths and weaknesses and shows that it is
powerful enough to obtain nontrivial results within reasonable amounts
of time.
The talk will give a brief overview of Nuprl, its object language and
inference rules (Type Theory), and of features of the computer system
itself. These features support partial automatization of the problem
solving process and extensions of the object language by a Nuprl user.
Details of the implementation of automata theory will be shown
afterwards. I will describe some of the techniques and extensions to
Nuprl which were necessary to formulate and prove theorems from
automata theory. In particular, these techniques keep Nuprl proofs
small and understandable. I will present a complete Nuprl proof of
the pumping lemma and an evaluation of its computational content as
performed on a computer. Finally an outline for possible future
developments is given.
-------
∂14-Jul-86 1453 BYRD@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Butterfly documentation
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 14:53:17 PDT
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 14:48:13-PDT
From: Greg Byrd <BYRD@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Butterfly documentation
To: aap@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222702153.19.BYRD@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I have received a bunch of documentation on the Butterfly from BBN,
including:
(1) Two quarterly reports on hardware, primarily the switching network;
(2) Butterfly Lisp Reference Manual;
(3) Chrysalis Programmer's Manual.
I haven't looked at any of it in detail yet (since I just got it), but I'm
willing to lend it out to anyone who's interested.
...Greg
-------
∂14-Jul-86 1533 CLT mini seminar series
We have three visitors from Japan during July and August
as part of a research collaboration. One of the activities
will be a mini seminar series with the general theme of
formal reasoning and mathematical theory of computation.
The seminars are intended to be informal presentations of
current research. The first seminar will be this Friday.
Speaker: Masami Hagiya
Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
Kyoto University
Time: Friday, July 18, noon (bring your lunch if you like).
Place: 252 Margaret Jacks (Stanford Computer Science Dept)
Topic: Generalization (parametrization) in higher order type theory
The problem of getting an abstract program by generalizing
(parametrizing) a concrete one is considered in the framework
of higher order type theory.
∂14-Jul-86 1734 NUNBERG@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU new address
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 17:34:17 PDT
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 17:24:01-PDT
From: Geoffrey Nunberg <Nunberg@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: new address
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Anne and I have moved. Our new address is 3537 21 Street, S.F. 94114.
Our phone is 282-1554.
-------
∂14-Jul-86 1853 @sushi.STANFORD.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Seeking roommate for PODC
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Jul 86 18:51:30 PDT
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Message-Id: <12222728287.16.SOMA@WASHINGTON.ARPA>
Date: Mon 14 Jul 86 17:11:46-PDT
From: Soma Chaudhuri <SOMA@WASHINGTON.ARPA>
Subject: Seeking roommate for PODC
To: theory@RSCH.WISC.EDU
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 14 Jul 86 20:03:52 CDT (Mon)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
I'm a student at the University of Washington, planning to attend PODC
in Calgary this August. I'm looking for a female roommate to share a room
with. Please let me know if you are interested.
My address is:
soma@washington.arpa
--------------
TN Message #56
--------------
∂15-Jul-86 0059 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #28
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Jul 86 00:58:36 PDT
Date: Monday, July 14, 1986 4:43AM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #28
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Tuesday, 15 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 28
Today's Topics:
Implementation - Assert & Vars
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 20 Jun 86 22:09:16 GMT
From: Bob Dalgleish <bobd@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Subject: "assert" considered harmful?
In the suggested application, this is the way that I would
use assert:
controls(T1, T2) :- known←controls(T1, T2).
controls(T1, T2) :- figure←out←controlling←interests(T1,T2),
assert(known←controls(T1,T2)).
You now have a "program" portion (controls), and a data caching
portion (known←controls) which are separated. Certainly, we
need to separate the two issues of program purity (required to
support compilation), and academic purity (required to support
ivory towers).
Tax-planning is a very good application for an expert system,
and using standard computational science methods to make the
implementation viable is in all of our best interests.
Adding time into the database should not be that difficult,
since it is expressed as:
known←controls(Time,Taxpayer1,Taxpayer2) ...
When the time is unknown or irrelevant for the period of
interest, express it as a construct that matches all time
(i.e., a variable).
-- Bob Dalgleish
------------------------------
Date: 20 Jun 86 17:13:16 GMT
From: Rex Ballard
Subject: Degrees of provability - "assert" considered harmful?
I've been following your progress with this package, and you
should be commended for what your doing. I am working on a
"software analysis" package which is similarly complex.
There are different degrees of "provably correctness" of any
program in any language. Fortunately, prolog makes it very
easy to verify the correctness.
In effect, the issue here is when to "bind" a fact that depends
on other facts. If one declares that "child(a,b). child(b,c).
child(b,d)" then for some reason new facts implicitly or
explicitly change those facts so that additional cases are true,
the bindings of "related(a,X)" (related meaning all the children,
grandchildren...) would be changed as well.
The issue of dynamic binding is not new. Theoretically, to be
"provably correct" only the absolute facts should ever be bound,
but for practical reasons, this is rarely the case. The process
of reproving a theorem in which the axioms are rarely changed can
be quite costly.
The point here is that it is necessary to know when the axioms
have been changed, a mechanism that Prolog seems to lack. When
using assert, you are effectively saying that these rules are
valid for "the current set of facts".
Using your "controls" example, if someone makes the transition
from "not controls" to "controls" after you have made your
assertions, and inductions have been made before the reassertions
have been made, then the solution is provably wrong. Suppose
your algorithm for "controls" depends on purchases of stock,
suppose also that there are certain tax benifits or penalties
that go into effect at the time the person takes control. You
might retract/assert at the end of each day, but between the
time someone took control, and the time you re-asserted, the man
made 2 million in capital gains profits. Or conversely he make
the money at 10:00 AM, and takes control at 1:00 PM. Again
you've missed the benefits/penalties.
If the rules are set to the hour, retract/asserts could be done
hourly, if they are by the day, they could be done by the day.
In fact, although the law might not be "provably correct", if
the law specified that benifits go into effect the day that
a person takes control, then you MUST retract/assert before
you do any benefit calculations. A good example of this would
be the guy who got married on December 31. In this case,
the filing status, benefits, and penalties would be the same
as if he had been married on January 1, however the witholding
status would not have changed until the following year.
To flatly say that assert/retract is a no-no, or is incorrect
is incorrect. Uses of assert/retract should reflect the rules
or laws being represented.
To answer your question, yes it should be "legally correct"
rather than "mathematically correct" before lawyers use it.
This may mean that you MUST use retract/assert. The law is not
always logical.
This may also mean that rules must be put into separate files,
based on their granularity, so that audits can be performed.
This brings up the need for a new feature of Prolog. Namely,
the ability to "save" only a particular set of rules to a
specific, named file.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 86 14:32:58 CDT
From: Uday S. Redy <reddy@a.CS.UIUC.EDU Uday S. Reddy>
Subject: Logical variables and Hilbert's epsilon-operator
John Brahser of University of Utah mentioned that Hilbert
used logical variables in what he called the "epsilon"
operator. References:
[] Robinson, J.A. * BC
'Logic: Form and Function', 1979 199
Edinburgh University Press R62
[] Leisenring, A.C. * QA 9 L377
'Mathematical Logic and Hilbert's e-Symbol', 1969
Gordon and Breach Science Publishers
[] Scott, D.
in 'Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century', ?
?
( paper on "definite descriptions (iota-terms) )
[] Kneebone, G.T. QA
'Mathematical Logic 9
and the Foundations of Mathematics', 1963 K673
D. Van Nostrand Company, Ltd. (math)
[] Kleene, S.C.
'Introduction to Metamathematics', 1950
D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 86 14:30:16 CDT
From: reddy@a.CS.UIUC.EDU (Uday S. Reddy)
Subject: Logical variables, again
A number of people have asked me for the complete
references for examples of logical variables I
mentioned in an earlier message. Here they go:
(i) difference lists, for appending, double ended lists,
queues etc
Clark & Gregory: A first order theory of data and programs,
Information Processing, IFIP, 1977, pp 939-944.
Clocksin: Real-time functional queue operations using the logical
varibale, Inf. Processing Letters, Nov 83.
Shapiro: Concurrent Prolog report, ICOT TR-003, Jan 83.
(ii) symbol tables for name translation [Warren, Reddy]
Warren: Prolog for Compiler Writing (?), somewhere in
Software Practice and Experience
Reddy: On the relationship between logic and functional
languages, in DeGroot and Lindstrom (eds) Logic
Programming, Functions, Relations and Equations,
Prentice-Hall, 86.
Peter Ludeman, private communication, mentioned a variant
of this example for common subexpression elimination.
(iii) serialized coding [Warren]
Warren: Prolog - The language and its implementation compared
with LISP, SIGPLAN Notices, Aug 77.
(iv) partially determined messages [Shapiro]
Shapiro op cit.
(v) type inference and other inference rule based programs
Despeyroux, Executable specification of static semantics, Semantics
of Data types, Springer LNCS 173, 1984.
Smolka, FRESH: A higher order language based on unification, in
DeGroot-Lindstrom, op cit.
Reddy, op. cit.
(vi) owner-coupled sets (orthogonal lists?) [Lindstrom]
Lindstrom, Functional programming and the logical variable, ACM
POPL, 1985.
(v) Graph traversal (not strictly a "logical" use of variables)
Saraswat, earlier message in Prolog Digest.
Narain, A technique for doing lazy evaluation in logic, 1985
Symp on Logic Prog, Boston. (Graph reduction used for
lazy evaluation essentially involves graph traversal).
Uday Reddy
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 86 19:02:44 EST
From: seismo!munnari!mulga.oz!lee (Lee Naish)
Subject: Examples of logical variables
Lots of examples of coroutines have logic variables scattered
all over the place. Running perm/2 backwards is a reasonable
example, though its very difficult to understand what is going
on. Also, the most efficient coroutining version of slowsort
is do all calls to perm (constructing a list of variables),
then the calls to ordered and =< (which delay), then the calls
to delete (which fill in the slots and wake up the calls to =<).
Similar control is also nice for the eight queens problem.
I'm sure there are other examples around also....
-- Lee Naish
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂15-Jul-86 1108 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA Possible Appointment
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Jul 86 11:08:04 PDT
Date: Tue 15 Jul 86 11:06:24-PDT
From: Gene H. Golub <GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Possible Appointment
To: senior-faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Phone: 415/723-3124
Message-ID: <12222923916.25.GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
To: Computer Science Senior Faculty
From: Gene Golub and Joe Oliger
Subject: Consideration of Tony Chan for an Appointment in CS
Date: 14 July 1986
Our search committee for a faculty member in the combined Applied
Mathematics/Scientific Computing area suitable for a junior level
joint appointment in CS and Math. has not been successful in
identifying a sufficiently strong suitable candidate. However, two
outstanding candidates did emerge for senior level appointments: one
in the Scientific Computing/Engineering area and another in the
Applied Mathematics/Engineering area. We are prepared to bring the
first of these cases to our faculty this Thursday. The second is
still in a preliminary stage and will not be possible until next
year--we are continuing to put that case together. We can make both
of these appointments with one and one half slots, have one and are
seeking the last half from either CS or a suitable engineering
department.
The appointment for Chan which we are proposing is a one-half time
tenured associate professorship in Computer Science. He would then
also have a one-half time appointment at RIACS, a computer science
research institute associated with NASA-Ames and focusing on computer
science issues related to scientific computing. Chan is a former
student of our department who has since been a post doc at Cal Tech, a
faculty member at Yale and a visiting scientist at RIACS. He
currently has an offer from the mathematics department of UCLA for a
full professorship.
Chan is a very energetic and enthusiastic person who works well with
graduate students and is a good teacher. His main research strength
is in algorithm development for scientific computing and its
interaction with machine design. He is strong in the engineering
applications areas of computational fluid dynamics and semiconductor
device simulation. His BA and MA were from Cal Tech in Aero and
Astro. It is anticipated that he would work in the interface of NA,
engineering applications and machine design. This is his strength and
desire, and is exactly the same focus as his proposed work at RIACS.
We feel that he and his interests fit our needs in the department and
our Stanford interactions very well.
-------
∂15-Jul-86 1531 GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA French au pair
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Jul 86 15:15:37 PDT
Date: Tue 15 Jul 86 15:05:14-PDT
From: Gene H. Golub <GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: French au pair
To: Su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Phone: 415/723-3124
Message-ID: <12222967395.11.GOLUB@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The daughter of a French friend is looking for a month's work in this area.
She is about to be a medical student in Paris; her English is fair.
She would like to be here at the end of August. Let me know if you are
interested in her. No transportation costs are involved.
Gene
-------
∂15-Jul-86 1557 @SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA talk moved!
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Tue, 15 Jul 86 15:42:21-PDT
Mail-From: WALDINGER created at 15-Jul-86 15:34:53
Date: Tue 15 Jul 86 15:34:53-PDT
From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA>
Subject: talk moved!
To: aic-associates@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, csl-associates@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA,
csl-distribution@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA,
planlunch-dis@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA, waldinger@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA
ReSent-date: Tue 15 Jul 86 15:39:53-PDT
ReSent-From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA>
ReSent-To: planlunch.dis@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA
the talk on program transformation originaly
scheduled for 4:15 in EJ228 has been moved to
The Chan Room
Menlo Park Public Library
Ravenswood Avenue and Alma Street (burgess park)
at 4:30 PM today (tuesday)
Richard
-------
∂16-Jul-86 0614 PATASHNIK@sushi.STANFORD.EDU Special AFLB reminder
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 06:14:24 PDT
Date: Wed 16 Jul 86 06:11:09-PDT
From: Oren Patashnik <PATASHNIK@sushi.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Special AFLB reminder
To: aflb.all@sushi.STANFORD.EDU
Message-ID: <12223132312.7.PATASHNIK@sushi.STANFORD.EDU>
The special AFLB is this week, on Friday, July 18th, at 12:30pm in MJ352.
-----------------------------------
18-July-86 (Friday) : Micha Sharir (Courant Institute & Tel Aviv University)
Planar Realization of Nonlinear Davenport-Schinzel Sequences by Segments
We present an inductive construction of collections of n segments
in the plane whose lower envelope consists of OMEGA (n alpha (n))
subsegments, where alpha (n) is the (extremely slowly growing) inverse
Ackermann's function. A previous result of Hart and Sharir shows
that the size of this envelope is always O(n alpha (n)), so our new
result shows that bound to be tight in the worst case. The sequences
of segments that appear along the lower envelopes of our collections
are precisely the Davenport-Schinzel sequences of nonlinear size
constructed by Hart and Sharir.
This is joint work with Ady Wiernik.
***** Time and place: July 18, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) ******
-------
∂16-Jul-86 0851 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: faculty meeting]
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 08:51:36 PDT
Date: Wed 16 Jul 86 08:37:30-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: faculty meeting]
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223158954.9.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The sr. faculty meeting on Thursday, July 17 at 2:15 p.m. will be in
MJH 252.
-Anne
---------------
Mail-From: NILSSON created at 13-Jul-86 14:25:26
Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 14:25:26-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: faculty meeting
To: ac@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222435862.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The search committee looking for a faculty member to fill a position
in "applied math and scientific computing" has a recommendation that
they would like to present to the computer science department faculty
in time for the candidate to be considered at a July meeting of the
School of Engineering XCom. Thus (realizing it is an imposition--but
an important one), I am asking for us to have a short faculty meeting
on Thursday, July 17 at 2:15 pm. (Anne Richardson will arrange a room
and announce it.) Gene Golub will be circulating the candidate's cv
before the meeting so all will have a chance to see it. Evaluation
letters on the candidate are available in Gene Golub's office. -Nils
-------
-------
∂16-Jul-86 0934 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Bill Croft talk
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 09:34:33 PDT
Date: Wed 16 Jul 86 09:29:03-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Bill Croft talk
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
cc: cower@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Bill Croft will give a short presentation in the Ventura seminar
room on Thursday, July 17th at 3pm. He will discuss the work he is
doing with the Kinetics Applebus/Ethernet interface. This is the
same presentation he gave at Northwestern University about 2 weeks
ago.
..Rich
-------
∂16-Jul-86 0944 WALDINGER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA reminder: theorem proving talk today at 4:15 in ej228
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 09:43:58 PDT
Date: Wed 16 Jul 86 09:33:36-PDT
From: Richard Waldinger <WALDINGER@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: reminder: theorem proving talk today at 4:15 in ej228
To: AIC-Associates: ; , CSL: ; , planlunch.dis: ; ,
bboard@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA
Cc: waldinger@SRI-AI.ARPA
Reply-To: waldinger@sri-ai
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 16-Jul-86 09:33:36.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
talk by kreitz on the use of constable's Nuprl system
to prove hard theorems from automata theory.
coffee at 3:45 in waldinger office
-------
∂16-Jul-86 1126 @sushi.STANFORD.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:KLAWE@IBM.COM Sarnak's primality testing seminar
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 11:25:48 PDT
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Received: from IBM.COM by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Wed 16 Jul 86 10:52:02-PDT
Date: 16 July 1986, 10:03:54 PDT
From: "Maria M. Klawe" <KLAWE@ibm.com>
To: aflb.all@su-score
Message-Id: <071686.100356.klawe@ibm.com>
Subject: Sarnak's primality testing seminar
The next meetings of this seminar will be on MONDAY (not Tuesday!),
July 21, and Tuesday (Not Monday!) July 29. As before they will be held in
the faculty lounge on the third floor of the Stanford Math Dept. building
at 11 a.m. At the next meeting (Monday July 21), Peter Sarnak will
complete his presentation of the Cohen-Lenstra version of the
Adleman-Pomerance-Rumely algorithm. The following seminar (Tuesday
July 29) will be an introduction to elliptic curves.
∂16-Jul-86 1324 CLT mini seminar series - revision
To: logmtc@SU-AI.ARPA
The day of the seminar series has been changed to Tuesdays.
The first seminar will be Tuesday July 22 not Friday July 18.
Speaker: Masami Hagiya
Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
Kyoto University
Time: Tuesdaa, July 22, noon (bring your lunch if you like).
Place: 252 Margaret Jacks (Stanford Computer Science Dept)
Topic: Generalization (parametrization) in higher order type theory
The problem of getting an abstract program by generalizing
(parametrizing) a concrete one is considered in the framework
of higher order type theory.
∂16-Jul-86 1645 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:levenson.pa@Xerox.COM RFH -- "Request For Host" now available for new student lunch
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 16 Jul 86 16:43:23 PDT
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Received: from Semillon.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 16 JUL 86 09:10:43 PDT
Date: 16 Jul 86 09:10:31 PDT
From: levenson.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: RFH -- "Request For Host" now available for new student lunch
To: faculty@su-score.arpa
cc: jgray@sushi.STANFORD.EDU, kosoresow@sushi.STANFORD.EDU,
levenson@sushi.STANFORD.EDU, pieper@sushi.STANFORD.EDU,
selig@sushi.STANFORD.EDU, cwilliamson@sushi.STANFORD.EDU,
roberts@sushi.STANFORD.EDU
Reply-To: levenson.pa@Xerox.COM
Message-ID: <860716-091043-4342@Xerox>
The orientation committee is now in the process of looking for a
faculty host for the lunch for the incoming students. Hosting the lunch
consists primarily of arranging for the catering and the use of your
home. The orientation committee will take care of setting up, cleaning
up, organizing carpools, and eating any extra food. Don Knuth and
Vaughan Pratt have hosted the lunch in past years and probably have more
details of what's involved. As a rough estimate, I think there will be
about 130 people including new students, spouses, and faculty. The date
is negotiable but preferably will be sometime during the week before
classses start. Ideally, a place near (or on) campus and with a big
yard would simplify the process. We need to have at least the date
arranged by the beginning of August when the final mailing goes out thus
prompt replies will be greatly appreciated.
Rick (levenson@sushi, levenson@xerox.com)
∂17-Jul-86 0900 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: lunch mtg Thurs]
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 08:59:57 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 08:57:16-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: lunch mtg Thurs]
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223424698.14.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Lunch today in MJH 252!
-Anne
---------------
Mail-From: NILSSON created at 13-Jul-86 14:20:33
Date: Sun 13 Jul 86 14:20:33-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: lunch mtg Thurs
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: richardson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12222434972.9.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Those interested in continuing discussions of "the future of computer
science" are invited to a "no-host" lunch discussion this Thursday, July
17. Anne Richardson will be arranging a room for us. ("no-host" means
bring your own lunch!) -Nils
-------
-------
∂17-Jul-86 1451 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU softball
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 14:51:04 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 14:41:41-PDT
From: Gary Holden <HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: softball
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Some of us are trying to get a softball game together this coming Friday.
Would all those who are interested let me know?
Gary.
-------
∂17-Jul-86 1501 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU softball
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 15:01:27 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 14:51:39-PDT
From: Gary Holden <HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: softball
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
I've just realised today's Thursday, so I guess I meant next Friday!
Sorry.
Gary.
-------
∂17-Jul-86 1512 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA The Future of Computer Science
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 15:12:49 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 15:09:45-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: The Future of Computer Science
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223492506.18.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
The next "no-host" lunch to discuss "the future of computer science" will
be Friday, July 25 at 12:15 in MJH 252.
-------
∂17-Jul-86 2343 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Power failures at Welch Rd.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 23:43:29 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 22:13:57-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Power failures at Welch Rd.
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223569729.10.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
There were a few power failures at Welch Rd. last night, so all of
the Lisp machines have been rebooted. If you're trying to use an
Explorer that has the message "[Process NuBus Receiver #xF0 got an
error]", or something like that, on the console, you should reboot
before trying to use the machine. It looks like there are no hardware
failures precipitated by the power bouncing, but, as always, let me
know if something shows up.
-- Rich
-------
∂17-Jul-86 2343 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Power failures at Welch Rd.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 17 Jul 86 23:43:29 PDT
Date: Thu 17 Jul 86 22:13:57-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Power failures at Welch Rd.
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223569729.10.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
There were a few power failures at Welch Rd. last night, so all of
the Lisp machines have been rebooted. If you're trying to use an
Explorer that has the message "[Process NuBus Receiver #xF0 got an
error]", or something like that, on the console, you should reboot
before trying to use the machine. It looks like there are no hardware
failures precipitated by the power bouncing, but, as always, let me
know if something shows up.
-- Rich
-------
∂18-Jul-86 0114 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #29
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 01:14:51 PDT
Date: Thursday, July 17, 1986 5:38PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #29
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 18 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 29
Today's Topics:
Announcemnt - Job Opportunity,
Implementation - Vars & Hilbert's epsilon operator
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 86 16:38:23 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%cam.cl@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Job
The Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, is
looking for a faculty member to strengthen A.I. in the
Laboratory. No very detailed specification is put upon
candidates. We are looking for someone with a fairly
down-to-earth approach who nevertheless has a proper
grasp of theory, who will extend or complement the present
range of interests. People in the Lab active in the area
include Boguraev, Clocksin, Gordon, Sparck-Jones, and
Pulman. The Lab is also active in functional programming,
logic, and verification.
Send a c.v., list of publications, and the names of not
more than three referees to: Secretary of the Appointments
Committee, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge,
Corn Exchange Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, U.K. as soon as
possible.
For more information, contact William Clocksin
(wfc@uk.ac.cam.cl or wfc%cam.cl@cs.ucl.arpa)
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jul 1986 21:32-EDT
From: Vijay.Saraswat@k.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: 'Nonlogical' variables
No Uday, I have found that testing for eq (X == Y) is the
primitive I use most often (besides my favourite--nonvar).
There is an easy way around var that works quite often.
For instance, in the depth first traversal problem the flag
local to the node is actually instantiated to the current
count (which is incremented each time a new node is visited).
Now if you ever visit the node a second time, your count is
guaranteed to be different from what it was earlier:
the attempt to unify fails. Var is never used.
The same trick is used in the NQueens problem: each process
instantiates a shared variable with its own unique Id. That
guarantees that a process succeeds only when the shared
variable is uninstantiated originally.
Much more work is in the pipeline. Hang on to your hat,
Vijay.
P.S: On another note. Tut, tut Bill! Whatever happened to
modularity and separation of concerns! Both you and Uday
clutter up your solutions to the challenge problem by
unfolding the definition of max/3 into the copy routine.
Leave that to your compiler/automated program transformation
system to do. Write clear code for us mere humans! :-)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 86 17:50:54 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%cam.lab@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Vars
About Hilbert's epsilon operator, some clarification
might be in order. This is simply a device to write
a formula as a term. For example, Ex. x < 7 is a
formula, which has a truth value. However (using 'e'
for epsilon), ex. x < 7 is a term. It names some
constant which is less than 7.
A few years ago I thought of using epsilon as a constraint
generator, so that I could say things like 12 + (ex.x<7)
= (ex.x<19), and I made an expression evaluator for
Presburger arithmetic with epsilon. However, I got the
semantics wrong. The epsilon exercises a single "choice":
the variable maps onto someting in the domain. What I
wanted was something that does not "choose", so that
nondeterminism can be represented (like the example in the
first sentence of this paragraph). Maybe there is already
an operator for this? Does anyone know? If not, is this
then "Clocksin's epsilon operator"?
Al Leisenring's book describes Hilbert's epsilon, and
introduces some interesting paradoxes.
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂18-Jul-86 1148 TREITEL@Sushi.Stanford.EDU trouble
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 11:45:16 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 11:43:52-PDT
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@Sushi.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: trouble
To: mjh-lispm@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
cc: treitel@Sushi.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12223717169.13.TREITEL@Sushi.Stanford.EDU>
Garish is having disk errors and Iguana seems to have fallen off the net.
Symbolics is being called about Iguana's problem.
- Richard
-------
∂18-Jul-86 1320 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA No PLANLUNCH this Monday
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 13:19:51 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 13:00:43-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: No PLANLUNCH this Monday
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 18-Jul-86 13:00:43.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Due to a last minute cancellation, there will be no PLANLUNCH this
coming Monday. We will resume, however, on July 28.
-Amy Lansky
-------
∂18-Jul-86 1331 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA fac mtg
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 13:31:03 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 13:29:29-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: fac mtg
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223736398.11.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Yesterday's senior faculty meeting to discuss a possible tenured
appointment (half time) for Tony Chan had disappointing attendance.
I realize that these sorts of things ought not to occur in the summer.
Those attending the meeting, though, thought that the Chan appointment
might be an opportunity that we ought not to pass up. Most also thought
that further discussion about the possibility would be important in order
to ensure that votes are informed votes. Therefore I am scheduling another
senior faculty meeting in MJH 252 for Monday, July 28 at 2:15 pm. Chan's
cv has been circulated and letters about him are available through Betty
Scott. It would be most helpful if people who did not attend yesterday's
meeting could attend the next one. Thanks, -Nils
-------
∂18-Jul-86 1448 HANSON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU mysterious keys
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 14:47:57 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 14:33:55-PDT
From: Kirstin Hanson <HANSON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: mysterious keys
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
If anyone found some unidentified keys, either lying about or for no
apparent reason appearing in their mail, please let me know. I lost
some. Thanks.
-- Kristin Hanson
-------
∂18-Jul-86 1512 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: trouble
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 15:12:18 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 15:02:45-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: trouble
To: TREITEL@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, mjh-lispm@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <12223717169.13.TREITEL@Sushi.Stanford.EDU>
Message-ID: <12223753376.83.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I'm working to get Garish fixed. Symbolics has broken two appointments
with me. *sigh*
-- Rich
-------
∂18-Jul-86 1638 glacier!hplabs!seismo!mcvax!crai!sacca@diablo.stanford.edu add me to nail
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Date: Thu, 17 Jul 86 10:54:35 -0100
From: glacier!hplabs!seismo!mcvax!crai!sacca@diablo.stanford.edu (Mimmo Sacca)
Message-Id: <8607170954.AA02058@vulcano.crai.uucp>
To: diablo!nail@diablo.stanford.edu
Subject: add me to nail
Cc: vulcano!sacca@diablo.stanford.edu
∂18-Jul-86 1824 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Poligon Release.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 18 Jul 86 18:24:14 PDT
Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 18:18:24-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Poligon Release.
To: AAP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223788991.56.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I have just released a new version of Poligon with a few changes. One
of these changes is not upwards compatible so you will have to change
your models when you load this version. The changes will be
documented in the new manual.
The changes are :-
i) Initialisation sections of new instance of constructs can refer to
The-Created-Node in the same way that the Unless part can.
ii) Arbitrary update operators can be used in the initialisation section
of the New Instance of Construct. This change is meant to being
node initialisation into line, syntactically speaking, with the rest
of the system. The new syntax is :-
Initialisation :
Slot1 <- value, value2, value3
Slot2 <-- value4, .....
....
....
This change is incompatible. As a guide to the conversion from
the previous syntax; remove the paramtheses on the ends of the
init list, remove any commas and replace all colons with <- operators.
iii) A few new functions have been defined. These are :-
a) Is-an-ordered-collection(x) -> t if x is an ordered collection.
b) Is-an-unordered-collection(x) -> t if x is an unordered collection.
c) Fold(function, collection, initial-value, &Rest other-args)
folds function over collection left associatively.
d) Fold-Right -> like Fold only right associative.
iv) Map-Over-a-collection has been changed so that the function is evaluated
remotely for nodes in the collection.
Rice.
-------
∂19-Jul-86 1108 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Snowbird Meeting
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Jul 86 11:08:39 PDT
Date: Sat 19 Jul 86 11:02:43-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Snowbird Meeting
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223971822.14.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
I recently attended the "Snowbird Computer Science Department
Chairs Meeting." I brought back copies of various items that
might be of interest to people. Anne Richardson will have these
and will make copies for anyone who wants them. Most are
self-explanatory, but there are also copies of viewgraphs of presentations
that I could provide (if I remember) extra enlightenment about if
anyone is interested. Here are the items Anne has:
1) A memo from the Directorate of Computer and Information Sciences
and Engineering (CISE; Gordon Bell's operation) concerning new
and proposed NSF initiatives in CS undergraduate education.
2) The 1984-85 Taulbee Survey on the Production and Employment
of PhDs and Faculty in Computer Science and Engineering (lots of
interesting statistics about salaries and such)
3) Copies of Saul Amarel's viewgraphs concerning ISTO (the new
name for IPTO + ) budgets and activities.
4) Summary of Taulbee statistics on PhD production for years 1970-1985.
5) Copies of Gordon Bell's viewgraphs about the activities of his
NSF Directorate (CISE) that he used in his after dinner speech about
CISE.
Although it was interesting to meet my "fellow chairs," much of the
Snowbird workshop was tedious---a long discussion about computer
charging algorithms, for example. There was some interesting discussion
about what can be done to give computer research "more clout" in
policy making circles. It was noted that Joe Traub's National
Research Council "Computer Science and Technology Board" study, now
in process (Ed Feigenbaum is a member of the study team), is expected
to be helpful in this regard. (As is John Hopcroft's NSF study.)
An informal survey at the workshop revealed that the average "age" of
chairs at the workshop was 1 1/2 years (in the job). I'm just past
1 1/2 years now, so Stanford is in danger of having a
more-experienced-than-average chairman!
-Nils
-------
∂20-Jul-86 0017 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Computers & Mathematics Conference - Final Conference Announcement
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Date: 17 July 1986, 02:43:55 EDT
From: "RICHARD D. JENKS" <JENKS@IBM.COM>
To: theory@rsch.wisc.edu
Message-Id: <071786.024355.jenks@ibm.com>
Subject: Computers & Mathematics Conference - Final Conference Announcement
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 19 Jul 86 23:40:14 CDT (Sat)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
*** COMPUTERS & MATHEMATICS ***
Stanford University
Stanford, California
July 29 - August 1, 1986
The conference will consist of 24 invited talks, 10 tutorials and
14 interactive demonstrations of mathematical software systems,
60 contributed papers for poster sessions, and 2 short courses.
An Application Form and Instructions are attached. For a Conference Booklet
or additional information, please contact: Tiyo Asai, Conference Secretary,
at the above address. IBM Research, PO Box 218 Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598,
914/945-3190 (electronic mail: JENKS@IBM.COM; IBM VNET address: JENKS@YKTVMX)
OPENING ADDRESS
E. E. David, Jr., Core Mathematics and Computing: Tight Fisted and Short Handed?
INVITED SESSIONS
Computers & Mathematical Research (J.L. Lions, Chairman)
B.J. Birch, Arithmetic as an Experimental Science
C. Sims, Computing in Groups
G.E. Andrews, SCRATCHPAD Explorations in Elliptic Functions
R.A. Askey, Computer Algebra and Integration
Computers & Symbolic Mathematics (G. Collins, Chairman)
D.R. Stoutemyer, A Consumers' Guide to Computer Algebra Systems
R. Loos, Tarski's Dream
B.M. Trager, Algorithmic Integration of Algebraic Functions
Computers & Physics (R. Hofstadter, Chairman)
M.J. Feigenbaum, Experimental and Theoretical Mathematics of Chaos
K.G. Wilson, Supercomputers in Mathematics and Physics
T.E. Regge, Computers, Algebra, and Physics
Computers & New Directions in Mathematics (G.. B. Dantzig, Chairman)
W. Haken, The Four Color Problem: The Changing Nature of Mathematical Proof
D.V. and G.V. Chudnovsky, Computer Algebra in the Service of Mathematical
Physics and Number Theory
R.W. Gosper, Computer Graphics as a Mathematical Research Tool
Mathematics & Computer Science (J. McCarthy, Chairman)
R.M. Karp, Interactions Between Complexity Theory and Mathematics
W. Bledsoe, Automated Theorem Proving and Artificial Intelligence
P. Henrici, Seminumerical Methods in Computational Analysis
Computers & Number Theory (J. Brillhart, Chairman)
H.W. Lenstra, Jr., Algorithms of Number Theory
R.L. Graham, Computers and Combinatorics
P. Erdos, Assorted Number Theory
D.H. Lehmer, Factorization Then and Now
INVITED TALKS
J.R. Rice, High-Level Numeric Systems for Applied Mathematics
J. Sammet, Symbolic Computation: The Early Days
H. Wisniewski, The New Mathematics Program at DARPA
CONTRIBUTED PAPERS
P.C. Abbott, An Application of Alg. Comp. to Generalised Hypergeometric Series
D. Asimov, A. Buja, The Grand Tour
C. Bajaj, S.S. Abhyankar, Automatic Parameterization of Rational Curves
and Surfaces
L.J. Beresina, M.T. Berezina, Affine and Projective
Transformations of Finite Planes
R. Bisseling, R. Kosloff, D. Kosloff, Fast Sinc Interpolation and
Diff. by Preproc. Sampled Data
A. Boulanger, New Developments in Mathematics, Computing, The Sciences
J. Buchmann, On Testing Whether Two Algebraic Numbers Generate the Same Field
C.S. Burrus, Applications to Digital Signal Processing
H. Caprasse, M. Hans, REDUCE 3.2: Applications in QFT and Improvements
B.F. Caviness, R. Shtokhamer, N. Glinos, Computing Elementary First
Integrals of Differential Equations
G. Dasgupta, X. Lee, Finite Element Formulation with Computer Algebra
J. Davenport, D. Lazard, M. Mignotte, Complexity of Quantifier Elimination
C. Dicrescenzo, D. Duval, Some Applications of Algebraic
Computations on Algebraic Numbers
J. Della Dora et al, Formal Solns. of Linear Differential Eqns. in the
Neighbourhood of Singular Pts.
J. Della Dora, S.M. Watt, Algorithms for Linear Ordinary Differential Operators
M.D. Duston, D.Y. Savio, D.H. Wood, Comp. Alg. Demos.
Consistency of 2 Approaches to Eigenproblem
L. Ericson, An ICON package for Experimenting with Euclidean Domains
R. Gebauer, H.M. Moeller, On the Computation of Groebner Bases
P.D. Gerber, A-associative Algebras in .R2, .R3, and .R4
P. Gianni, On Primary Decomposition of Ideals in Scratchpad II
C.R. Giardina, E. Dougherty, A Structurally Induced Image Algebra
M. Giusti, D. Lazard, Complexity of Standard Basis Comp. &
Related Algebraic Problems
N.T. Gladd, Symbolic Methods for Facilitating Parametric Analyses
G.H. Gonnet, M.B. Monagan, Solving Systems of Alg. Eqns., or the
Interface between Software and Math.
J.P.G. Henry, M.Merle, Puiseux pairs, Resolution of Curves and Lazy Evaluation
A. Idnani, Language Extensions for Mathematical Processing
A. Inselberg, B. Dimsdale, Multi-dimensional Graphics
K.E. Iverson, Executable Analytic Notation in Teaching Advanced
Topics in Mathematics
E.D. Khalimsky, Digital Image Processing and Topology
B. Kutzler, S. Stifler, New Approaches to Computerized Proofs of Geometry Thms.
B. Lacolle, Spinor Analysis, Statistical Physics & Symbolic Computation
E.A. Lamagna, M.B. Hayden, Summation of Binomial Fncts. Using Hypergm. Fncts.
E. Lamangna, R.A. Ravenscroft, Jr, Sum Amusements: A Case Study from the
Analysis of Algorithms
D. Lankford, An Abstract Char. of Gen. Groebner Bases with Applications
T.Y. Li, On The Rates of Convergence of the Newton-Raphson Method
C. Mally, Combinatorial Space and Complexity of Computations
M. Marcus, C. Pesce, Computer Generated Numerical Ranges and Some
Resulting Theorems
B.R. Miller, A. Deprit, Experiments with Lisp Machines in Non-Linear Dynamics
V.S. Miller, Short Programs for Functions on Curves
J. Morgenstern, Algebraic Complexity and Algebraic Structures: The Case of Alg.
Mark P.W. Mutrie, R.H. Bartels, B.W. Char, Floating-Pt.
Error Analysis using Symbolic Alg. Comp.
J. Natvig, Page Fault Penalties in the Solns. of Very Large Sys. of Linear Eqns.
D.C. Plummer, Net-Mandelbrot (or: How to Put 100 Idle Lisp Machines to Good Use)
G. Pong, Polar Coordinates - From Mathematics to Arts
Z. Renbao, X. Ling, R. Zhaoyang, Computer Algebra System CAS1
F. Schwartz, An Algorithm for Computing Involution Systems
E. Siegel, Irr. Nmbr. Effects on Fractals andDiffractals;
Fractal-Diff. Calc. of Static Synergetics
S.A. Siklos, General Digital Invariants
W. Squire, Generalized Taylor Series
E.J. Surowitz, Scratchpad-I and General Relativity
M.C. Tangora, Computing the Homology of the Lambda Algebra
A. Thorup, A. Hefez, Matrices of Type (r,s)
M.J. Tretter, Continued Fractions and Symbolic Manipulation in Statistical
R. VanKooten, M. Jaegermann, Solving Tridiagonal systems on the
Myrias Parallel Computer
R. de Vogelaere, Basic Discoveries in Mathematics Using a Computer
J.J. Wavrik, Comments on Building Your Own User-defined Systems
B. Wells, A Rishi, F-L Wong, Investigating Sequences with a Computer
B. Wells, Mathematics Inspires an Extended Notion of Computation and Computers
SYSTEM TUTORIALS
B.F. Caviness, P.J. Deuflhard, Chairmen
J. Cannon, CAYLEY G. Cherry, VIEWS
K.O. Geddes, B.W. Char, MAPLE J. Greif, SMP
A.C. Hearn, REDUCE C. Moler, MATLAB
R. Pavelle, MACSYMA S. Rump, ACRITH
D.R. Stoutemyer, muMATH R.S. Sutor, SCRATCHPAD II
SHORT COURSE: Computational Algebraic Geometry
D.B. Mumford, Chairman -- July 29, 1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
D. Bayer, Tutorial on Computational Algebraic Geometry
M. Stillman, What Can Be Computed in Algebraic Geometry
SHORT COURSE: Symbolic and Algebraic Computation
D.Y.Y. Yun, Chairman -- August 2, 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM
J.H. Davenport, Algorithms for Indefinite Integration
K.O. Geddes, Introduction to Symbolic and Algebraic Computation
E. Kaltofen, Polynomial Factorization
D.B. Saunders, Matrix Methods in Computer Algebra
M. Singer, Power Series and Differential Equations
F. Winkler, Ideals and Groebner Bases
SPONSOR
AAAI (American Association of Artificial Intelligence)
CONTRIBUTORS
AAAI, NSF, DARPA, System Development Foundation, IBM Research, Symbolics Inc.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
W. Bledsoe, J. Chu, G.V. Chudnovsky, M.E. Fisher, J.L. Lions,
J. McCarthy, D.B. Mumford, D.Y.Y. Yun
CONFERENCE STAFF
Secretary: T. Asai, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, 914/945-3190
Treasurer: Z. Watt, PO Box 218, Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598, 914/945-3190
Local Arr.: W.C. Swope, IBM, 1530 Page Mill Palo Alto CA 94304, 415/855-3130
Program Manager: R. Gebauer, PO Box 218, Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598, 914/945-3882
Equipment Manager: M. Mobarak, PO Box 218, Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598, 914/945-3204
Conference Desk: J. Hunter, PO Box 218, Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598, 914/945-3190
Travel Desk: B. Gatje, Penson Travel, 20 Vesey St, NY NY 10007, 212/943-1100
CONFERENCE CHAIRMEN
D.V. Chudnovsky, Dept of Math, Columbia Univ, NY, NY 10027, (212) 280-3950
R.D. Jenks, IBM Research, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Hgts, NY 10598, (914) 945-1233
--------------
TN Message #57
--------------
∂20-Jul-86 1442 NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA committees
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jul 86 14:42:07 PDT
Date: Sun 20 Jul 86 14:39:19-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: committees
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12224273398.14.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
1986/1987 Computer Science Department Committees
Following the responses to my previous message about committees, I've
tried to spread the workload evenly. Please let me know as soon as
possible if you see reasons why any of the following committee
assignments seem inappropriate.
I have tried to take into account the fact that some people will be
working less than full time in CSD next year. Here is my understanding
of that situation: Feigenbaum (full research leave), Floyd (sabbatical
W,S), Guibas (1/2 leave), Gupta (not here in Fall), Hennessy (1/2 EE),
Lantz (leave W), McCluskey (5/6 in EE), Papadimitriou (1/2 OR),
Rosenbloom (1/2 Psych), Shoham (not here in Fall, Winter), Wiederhold
(2/3 in Med), Winograd (1/2 in Ling)
We especially appreciate the volunteer efforts of our consulting
professors and others from local research labs. We are also fortunate
that so many talented staff members participate in committee work.
Thanks also to the CSL/EE faculty who help.
I realize that there are other special committees (search, promotion,
university, ad hoc) and various other chores that take time away from
our primary roles of teaching and research. If anyone has any
suggestions about what can be done about the fact that we are all
overworked, I'd appreciate hearing them.
By copy of this message, I presume the student representatives will
undertake to populate these committees with the appropriate numbers
of student members.
Here's the list:
PhD Admissions: Decides which students admitted to CSD PhD program.
Genesereth (Chair), Golub, Knuth, Mayr, Pratt, Ullman, Pollack (SRI),
Gabriel (Lucid), Roberts (DEC), Tenenbaum (Schlumberger)
Comprehensive Exam: Conceives, administers and grades the Comp Exams.
Beginning in '85/'86 we had one committee do both exams during the
year. That seemed to work well, and I suggest we do the same this
next year.
Knuth (Chair), Buchanan, Manna, Papadimitriou, Shoham, Baskett (DEC),
Gabriel (Lucid)
Colloquium: Organizes and introduces speakers for CS500.
An easy task since so many potential speakers visit the campus anyway.
Autumn: Floyd
Winter: Cheriton
Spring: Gupta
Curriculum: Decides about CSD courses.
Mayr (Chair), Lantz, Reges, Cheriton, Guibas
Facilities: Recommends plans and policies for CSD computer facilities.
Earnest (Chair), Dienstbier, Rindfleisch, Buchanan, Cheriton,
Guibas, Lantz
PhD Program: Recommends plans and policies for the PhD program.
Supervises Grey Tuesday/Black Friday proceedings. Arranges for advisers
for first-year PhD students.
Winograd (Chair), Cheriton, Lantz, Papadimitriou
MS Program: Decides which students admitted to MS program. Recommends plans
and policies for MS program. Advises MS students.
Oliger (Chair), Gupta, Manna, McCarthy, Pratt, Wiederhold
MSAI Program: Decides which students admitted to MSAI program. Recommends
plans and policies for MSAI program. Advises MSAI students.
Buchanan (Chair), Clancey, Binford, Feigenbaum, Genesereth, Rosenbloom
CSD Undergraduate Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Arranges for advising students.
Ullman (Chair), Linton, Marrison, Reges
Math/Comp. Sci. Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Wiederhold (Chair), Reges, Herriot, Clancey
Computer Systems Engrg. Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Hennessy (Chair), Reges, McCluskey, Ungar
Symbolic Systems Major: Recommends plans and policies for the major.
Advises students.
Rosenbloom (Chair), Winograd, Reges, Nilsson
Visiting Professors: Recommends Visiting Industrial Lectureships and
Departmental Visiting Professors.
McCarthy
Library and Publications: Recommends plans and policies for CSD library
and publication matters.
Buchanan (Chair), Scott
Fellowships: Recommends student fellowship disposition
Tajnai (Chair), Nilsson, Scott
Computer Forum: Recommends plans and policies for the CSD/CSL industrial
affiliates program
Miller (Chair), Tajnai, McCluskey, Ungar, Winograd
-------
∂20-Jul-86 1452 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu change of address
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19 Jul 86 17:56 EDT
Received: from (HAREL)WISDOM.BITNET by WISCVM.ARPA on 07/19/86 at
16:49:52 CDT
From: David Harel <harel%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 86 00:49:17 -0200
To: theory%wisc-rsch@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: change of address
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 20 Jul 86 16:23:26 CDT (Sun)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Starting August 18, 1986, for a period of one year, I shall be at CMU.
New address:
Prof. David Harel
Computer Science Department
5000 Forbes Ave.
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
USA
tel. office: (412) 268-3742
e-mail: harel@c.cs.cmu.edu
- David Harel
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--------------
TN Message #58
--------------
∂20-Jul-86 1753 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New L100 compiler
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 20 Jul 86 17:53:08 PDT
Date: Sun 20 Jul 86 17:47:14-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New L100 compiler
To: AAP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12224307606.12.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
I've just released a new version of the L100 compiler. This should be
just the same as the old one only about 2-3 times faster. This should
make the Poligon and Cage compilers similarly faster.
Rice.
-------
∂21-Jul-86 1044 BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA RAships
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Jul 86 10:44:29 PDT
Date: Mon 21 Jul 86 10:41:06-PDT
From: Sharon Bergman <BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: RAships
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: bergman@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12224492175.49.BERGMAN@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
It's time once again to start appointing students for the new academic
year (Aut/Wtr/Spr 86-87). Please send me a list of students who you plan
to support, along with percentage and account number. I would appreciate
receiving this list by August 1 if at all possible. If you aren't sure
about which account numbers you want to use, this can wait. As long as I have
the names of students and percentage of time, this is all I need for the time
being. The student's bill will be printed sometime at the beginning
of August, and having the RAship information by that time will minimize
the problems that the Graduate Awards office experiences when the aid
(tuition credit) is not reflected on the student's bill.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Sharon Bergman
-------
∂21-Jul-86 1655 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Getting to Russell from the Tips
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Jul 86 16:55:20 PDT
Date: Mon 21 Jul 86 16:42:02-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Getting to Russell from the Tips
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
cc: cower@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
If you've tried this and wondered what was going on...here is a
brief explanation.
The tips (Ventura A and B) were moved to 10 meg nets today in an attempt to
fix the disconnect problem. When we moved them, they lost their names - the
new numbers they have on the 10 meg nets do not relate to a known name in the
host table. Think of this as like when you forget someones name - but try and
imagine what it would be like if the name you forgot were your own. When you
try and connect to Russell it gets this number and tries to assign a name to
it. Russell runs thru the host table it has looking for a name which does not
exist. It comes back with a prompt eventually (usually within a minute).
We hope to have this fixed up in a day or two.
...Rich
-------
∂21-Jul-86 1817 RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA New Poligon Release.
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 21 Jul 86 18:17:06 PDT
Date: Mon 21 Jul 86 18:09:56-PDT
From: James Rice <Rice@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: New Poligon Release.
To: AAP@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12224573884.28.RICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Just a minor one this time. The changes are :-
i) The Print Definitions trace option has been cleaned up.
ii) A new function "Join(&Rest collections)" has been defined.
This is the collection equivalent of Append.
iii) The clock tick rate selection has been moved to the Parameters
menu.
iv) The Parameters menu now allows the selection of the names of
files opened by the system, such as the statistics file.
v) A dribble command has been provided. This will dribble everything
written in the message pane and the trace pane to a file.
There is a known problem with running in the Immediate mode in the
serial version. I am working on this. If you have any problems
changing from the Immediate scheduler would be a good thing to try
until I can get a proper fix in.
Rice
-------
∂22-Jul-86 1243 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Friday softball
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 22 Jul 86 12:43:35 PDT
Date: Tue 22 Jul 86 12:33:00-PDT
From: Gary Holden <HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Friday softball
To: Linguists@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sorry about the duplication but a significant number of people appear not
to be on both lists.
At the moment about 7 people have expressed interest in a Friday afternoon
softball match. I don't think that's enough, is it? If anyone else is
interested please let me know by tomorrow then we can get it organised.
Gary.
-------
∂23-Jul-86 1233 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 23 Jul 86 12:32:40 PDT
Date: Wed 23 Jul 86 12:12:25-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 23-Jul-86 12:12:25.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR COGNITIVE ABILITIES LIMIT THE POWER OF AI
Jack Alpert (ALPERT@SCORE)
Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab
and
School of Education, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, July 28
SRI International, Building E, Room EK228
"Expert Systems: How far can they go?" was a panel topic at AAAI
1985. Brian Smith described the limits of AI in terms of the
programmer's ability to know if his encoded model reflected the world
that his expert system was to manage. "We have no techniques.. to
study the ... relationship between model and world. We are unable...
to assess the appropriateness of models, or to predict when models
fail."
Most of us with icy road experience are convinced we know how to
recover from skids. In the talk I will prove that our skid recovery
algorithms work only on a small set of possible skids. Skids that lie
outside of this small set result in accidents. Our "inappropriate"
skid recovery models cause accidents. 20 years of driving experience
does not revile the skid model's limitations. When we have been
building expert systems for 20 years, why should we be any better
prepared to perceive model inappropriateness?
The limited set of cognitive abilities that most people develop cannot
identify domains where models fail. I describe a temporal cognitive
ability most of us lack. Given the definition of such an ability, I
will briefly describe a line of research that explains why people
never develop the ability. Should this research be successful, we
will create new learning environments that enhance first cognitive
abilities, then modeling, and finally the power of AI systems.
-------
∂23-Jul-86 1339 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 23 Jul 86 13:38:44 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Wed 23 Jul 86 16:39:04-EDT
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1986 16:38 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225048843.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese liaison
Regarding M. Ida's mail that there is now an official JIS working group
on Lisp:
I think we now should invite invite the chairman of this group (who
happens to be Ida) to become a member of our steering committee, and to
appoint a voting member to our technical committee for purposes of
formal liaison. It might be best to do this before they all leave for
the Lisp conference (or we can wait and discuss it with them there, but
in that case we should know exactly what we intend to offer them in the
way of formal representation). I really think it would be good to have
them participating formally before we have done a lot of voting. Then
they'll feel like this is partly their Lisp and not just the U.S.
proposal.
I know that we were close to doing this before, when some red flags went
up. But now that there's a JIS committee, we have a more appropriate group
to deal with than the rather ad hoc JEIDA group.
-- Scott
∂23-Jul-86 1346 CLT mini seminar series
To: logmtc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Speaker: Prof. Masahiko Sato, Tohoku University
Time: Tuesday, July 29, noon (bring your lunch if you like).
Place: 252 Margaret Jacks (Stanford Computer Science Dept)
Topic: Typed Logical Calculus
A constructive logical system QJ is introduced. A term of QJ
may be thought of as a program whose value is a canonical term
which is provably equal to the given term. QJ provides an
environment in which programs can be specified, verified and
executed uniformly.
∂23-Jul-86 1409 SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA TI compact power supply
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 23 Jul 86 14:07:08 PDT
Date: Wed 23 Jul 86 13:58:48-PDT
From: Christopher Schmidt <SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: TI compact power supply
To: SSRG-systems-staff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, KSL-Explorer@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12225052453.37.SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
FYI there's an article on page 100 of the July 21 issue of
Aviation Week that discusses TI's power-supply for Avionics systems;
eg. the Compact Lisp Machine. Nothing exciting in the article except
the achievement of fitting a 5v 50A power supply onto a PCB
6.5" x 5.8" x 0.5" in size.
--Christopher
-------
∂23-Jul-86 2135 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:NICHOLAS@IBM.COM Primality Testing Seminar
Received: from SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 23 Jul 86 21:34:59 PDT
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Date: 22 July 1986, 10:01:17 PDT
From: Nicholas Pippenger <NICHOLAS@ibm.com>
To: aflb.all@su-score
Message-Id: <072286.100120.nicholas@ibm.com>
Subject: Primality Testing Seminar
The fourth session of the seminar, which will be devoted to
underlying material on elliptic curves, will be held at
11:00 AM on Tuesday, 29 July 1986, in the third-floor
faculty lounge of the Mathematics Department at Stanford.
∂23-Jul-86 2148 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu Call for papers - Workshop on Parallel Algorithms
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id AA08874; Wed, 23 Jul 86 15:52:57 cdt
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 86 15:52:57 cdt
From: Clark Thomborson <clark%umn-duluth.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Posted-Date: Wed, 23 Jul 86 15:52:57 cdt
To: udi@COTTAGE.WISC.EDU, udi@RSCH.WISC.EDU
Subject: Call for papers - Workshop on Parallel Algorithms
Status: R
Resent-To: TheoryNet-list@rsch.wisc.edu
Resent-Date: 23 Jul 86 23:20:31 CDT (Wed)
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
First Announcement
and
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Department of Mathematics of the Humboldt University organizes an
International Workshop
on Parallel Algorithms
and Architectures
to be held in Suhl from May 25 till 30, 1987
Chairpersons:
Andreas Albrecht, Humboldt University
Hermann Jung, Humboldt University
The intention of the workshop is to support mathematical research in
the following domains:
Models of parallel computations;
Relations among complexity classes, especially simultaneous
resource bounds;
New algorithms for individual problems, e.g. from graph theory,
logic programming, combinatorics and computational geometry;
Hardware algorithms, parallel architectures.
Invited lectures will be given by
J. Herath, Keio Univ., Yokohama
R. Kannan, Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh
A. Konagaya, NEC, Tokyo
K. Mehlhorn, Univ. Saarbrucken
B. Monien, Univ. Paderborn
W. Paul, Univ. Saarbrucken
F.P. Preparata, Univ. Illinois, Urbana
C.D. Thompson, Univ. Minnesota, Duluth
C.K. Yap, New York Univ.
Authors are invited to submit papers. Please send five (5) copies
to the organizing secretary
Thomas Zeugmann
Dept. of Mathematics
Humboldt University Berlin
P.O. Box 1297
Berlin 1086
German Democratic Republic
DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING PAPERS: November 14, 1986
Submitted papers will be acknowledged promptly and authors will be
notified of acceptance by January 16, 1987. The deadline for the
final text is February 20, 1987.
Program committee
A. Albrecht (Berlin), J. Herath (Yokohama),
H. Jung (Berlin), R. Kannan (Pittsburgh),
A. Konogaya (Tokyo), K. Mehlhorn (Saarbrucken),
B. Monien (Paderborn), W. Paul (Saarbrucken),
H. Thiele (Berlin), C.D. Thompson (Duluth),
G. Wechsung (Jena), C.K. Yap (New York)
Attendance is open to all within the limits of the meeting facilities.
Address for application forms and further information:
Thomas Zeugmann
Dept. of Mathematics
Humboldt University Berlin
P.O. Box 1297
Berlin 1086
German Democratic Republic
--------------
TN Message #59
--------------
∂24-Jul-86 0058 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #30
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 24 Jul 86 00:58:01 PDT
Date: Wednesday, July 23, 1986 7:30PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #30
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Thursday, 24 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 30
Today's Topics:
Puzzles - Roundup,
Implementation - Vars & Hilberts epsilon operator
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 86 11:16:09 BST
From: William Clocksin <wfc%cam.cl@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: PROLOG Digest V4 #29
Thank you, Vijay Saraswat, for the warning about separation
of concerns. I guess that the meaning of the string "max"
is obvious to you. I apologise that it is not obvious to me.
Challenge roundup: I counted 4 solutions submitted. Two of
them used double recursion (recur, recur, calculate), and two
of them used a tail recursion (test, recur, recur) made possible
by using an accumulator variable. These two classes of solutions
can be compared with the two main ways of finding the length of
a list (say). Thanks to all who attempted this. Is there any
interest in more challenges of this type?
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 86 14:25 PDT
From: Miller.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: Vars
"Clocksin's epsilon operator" has already been
invented several times.
Once in the language "Prolog-with-equality", invented
by Bill Kornfeld and presented in paper "Equality for
Prolog" in the book "Logic Programming: Functions,
Relations, and Equations" ed. by Doug DeGroot & Gary
Lindstrom. In this language, one can extend unifications
with equality clauses. Conceptually, if an attempt to unify
two terms, A and B, fails, instead an attempt is made
instead to prove equals(A,B). (The paper contains details
on how this can be done without slowing down typical
unifications) This allows the unification of
rectangularPoint(X,Y) with polarPoint(R,Theta), by invoking
applicable clauses for the equals predicate. We can call
this "semantic unification" in contrast to Prolog's
"syntactic unification".
In regular Prolog, if X is bound to [Y | Z] (where both Y
and Z are unbound logical variables), this represents the
constraint that X be a non-empty list. This ability to
have values that contain non-ground terms allows Prolog to
represent certain constraints directly as opposed
to by iteration. In regular Prolog this only applies to
constraints that can be checked by "syntactic unification".
In Prolog-with-equality, equals clauses implement an "omega"
term which is essentially "Clocksin's epsilon operator".
Specifically, if X is bound to the term omega(X,X < 7),
this represents the constraint that X be a value such that
X < 7 is true. A slightly simplified version:
equals(omega(X,Relation),Value) :-
instantiate(Value),
X = Value,
Relation.
where instantiate succeeds if Value is instantiated to a
value other than an unistantiated omega term. The default
clause for combining two omega terms installs a new omega
term which represents a simple conjunction of the original
constraints. By stating more clauses for checking whether
two constraints (omega terms) are equal, one has the ability
to use knowledge of the particular type of constraint to
combine them. For example:
X = omega(X, X > 3), X = omega(X, X > 5)
might simply leave X bound to omega(X, X > 5). The various
primitive arithmetic relations in Prolog-with-equality all
work in such a way that if they can't determine the actual
values of their arguments, they leave them bound to the
constraint that the arithmetic relation is true. In
particular,
plus(X,2,Z)
leaves both X and Z bound to the constraints omega(X,plus
(X,2,Z)) and omega(Z,plus(X,2,Z)) respectively. If at a
later point either X or Z should become determined, the
constraint will be triggered and the other will be determined
as well. Clocksin's example could be expressed as
follows:
X < 7, /* the < predicate will leave X bound to the
appropriate constraint */
plus(12,X,Z),
X will now be bound to the result of unifying the constraints
that X < 7 and plus(12,X,Z). With the appropriate equals
clauses, this can bind Z to the constraint that Z < 19.
Prolog 2 (by Alan Colmeraur(sp)) introduces a similar freeze
operator. LM-Prolog (a logic programming extension of Zetalisp
by Ken Kahn & Mott Carlson(sp)) and CommonLog (a logic
programming extension of CommonLoops by Ken Kahn, myself, Danny
Bobrow, and Cara Holman) have both borrowed the freeze operator.
The idea is that:
freeze(X,append(X,Y,[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]))
is declaritively identical to append(X,Y,[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]), but
procedurally delays the goal until X is known. This way any
goal -- including a generator -- can instead be used as a
constraint. The variable becomes bound to a constraint object
that contains the original goal. In LM-Prolog and CommonLog,
unification among syntactic terms, symbols, and logic variables
proceedes syntactically, as in Prolog.
Should unification encounter a user-defined object, unification
proceeds by sending messages asking the objects to unify with
each other. Constraint objects are simply a kind of object that
responds to these messages.
The protocol in CommonLog for constraint combination has been
worked out such that it can incrementally invoke separate
solution procedures -- such as symbolic equation solvers --
in order to accomplish constraint resolution which cannot be
achived through purely local propagation. More on this in a
forthcoming paper.
-- MarkM
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂24-Jul-86 0745 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA Lunch
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 24 Jul 86 07:44:55 PDT
Date: Thu 24 Jul 86 07:42:37-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Lunch
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12225246116.15.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Tomorrow there will be a "no host" faculty lunch to discuss 'the future of
computer science' at 12:15 in MJH 352. (Please note room change.)
-------
∂24-Jul-86 0907 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA SOCRATES UPDATE: Technical Reports File--Numerical Analysis, Math, Stat Reports Added
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Jul 86 09:07:33 PDT
Date: Thu 24 Jul 86 09:04:38-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: SOCRATES UPDATE: Technical Reports File--Numerical Analysis, Math, Stat Reports Added
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
: ;
Message-ID: <12225261045.16.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There is a Technical Reports file on Socrates. This file must be requested
ie Select Technical Reports. The entries for technical reports are not
included in headings. The Technical Reports file is primarily reports in
the science libraries and includes all the reports located in the Math/CS
Library. Are reports are indexed by author, organization, titles, and some
added keywords. Our reports include over 1,500 dissertations from places
such as MIT, CMU etc.
Since spring quarter, we have been adding a number of backlogged mathematical
sciences reports to the file. These reports have included a gift of numerical
analysis reports from Gene Golub, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Berkeley reports, University of Minnesota Institute for Mathematics and its
Applications reports, and archival reports from the Stanford University
Applied Math and Stat Lab (1950-1963), Math Dept (1949-), Stat Dept (1963-79),
Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences including
econometrics, Suppes' Psychology and Education etc. We still have a few
reports to input into the Technical Reports but enough is in there now
and ready for searching and use.
I hope you will find this addition to our technical reports file helpful.
I would like to thank the Computer Science Department for providing some
of the funding that allowed us to hire student assistants to do this work.
Harry LLull
Math/CS Library
-------
∂24-Jul-86 1454 HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Softball
Received: from CSLI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 24 Jul 86 14:10:21 PDT
Date: Thu 24 Jul 86 13:54:37-PDT
From: Gary Holden <HOLDEN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Softball
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, linguists@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
cc: Brotsky.pa@XEROX.COM, Denning@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, Churma@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU,
Hanson@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, Hong@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sorry about the duplications etc.
Here's the plan. We're meeting at the Linguistics Dept between 4.00 and
4.30 tomorrow (Friday) afternoon. Then we're going to wander off and find
a field to play on. All are welcome. If you have softball gloves (or
whatever you call them) bring them.
Gary.
-------
∂25-Jul-86 0056 RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA PROLOG Digest V4 #31
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 25 Jul 86 00:56:27 PDT
Date: Thursday, July 24, 1986 5:31PM
From: Chuck Restivo (The Moderator) <PROLOG-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Reply-to: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
US-Mail: P.O. Box 4584, Stanford CA 94305
Phone: (415) 858-0300
Subject: PROLOG Digest V4 #31
To: PROLOG@SU-SCORE.ARPA
PROLOG Digest Friday, 25 Jul 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 31
Today's Topics:
Announcement - CProlog 1.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 86 18:28:45 PDT
From: Mike Newton <newton@vlsi.caltech.edu>
Subject: C-Prolog 1.5 '''release'''
Hi,
At Caltech we have been constructing a
high-speed Prolog compiler for the IBM 370/43xx
/308x/3090-xxx series computers. In the process
of constructing this compiler we have been using
C-Prolog and DEC-20 Prolog to boot our compiler
(Our compiler will eventually be self-contained).
Partly for compatibility, partly for speed and
partly for porting, I have made many changes to
CProlog 1.5 as distributed (We have an educational
license from Edinburgh).
These changes include:
[1] Changed sysbits.c to use sbrk on unix systems. Can save
up to HALF of the memory.
[2] Portability problems: It now runs under AMDAHLS' UTS,
both versions 2.0 (system 7 like) and 5.0 (system 5).
In addition it still runs on BSD 4.1 and 4.2 and has
been improved (see below) for Sun 1.0, 1.4 and 2.0.
I have not touched the pyramid code, so it should also
still work. We have also tried a slightly older version
under VMS with no problems.
On a recent visit to Argonne National Laboratory, it came
up on a Sequent and an Encore by simply using the
right makefile. This was in addition to their Vax
and Suns.
[3] 20-like changes. We use both a Vax and a 20. Thus I've
added predicates like ttyflush, flush, mode (a noop),
and public (a noop).
[4] Speed considerations: Some small parts of the code have
been changed to make them run faster.
[5] Fixed some IO bugs (end←of←file on the same line as a
clause,...)
[6] Added a sed script for the C compiler for Amdahl's UTS.
This will decrease running time (~6%) due to base/index
register inefficencies on many IBM machines (4341/4381).
Very useful (not only for Prolog, but all C programs)!
(Not needed in the 1.1 release).
[7] Fixed a small bug (shows up usually in the grammar rules).
f(A) :- (true, ! ; A=0), A =< 7. call: f(3).
[8] Fixed 'writeq' so that it would always write out terms
that could later be read back in.
[9] Reducing the number of error messages in compilation.
[10] Removed unused variables/changed a few names for VMS
compatibility.
[11] Improved the 'out of space' messages.
[12] New atom←length and atom←append routines. These
elminated ~ 70% of the time we spent code generating!
[13] Updated documentation. Besides adding descriptions
for the predicates that we added, we also documented
predicates that were already there. In addition
the package comes with the documentation kindly
given to the Prolog Digest by Joh Cugini at NBS-VMS.
[14] Burkhard Neideckers bug fix for Toshiya Toba's bug
regarding the erasing of clauses with the same
functor as system predicates.
[15] Change the code for floating to integer compare (using
code suggested by Burkhard Neidecker in the Prolog
Digest).
[16] Thanks to Sundar Iyengar for changes to rewrite.c for
arbitrary long strings (optional #ifdef).
I have sent a message to both Edinburgh and to F.
Perierra asking if I could release the sources. They have
allowed me to do this to all people who have 1.5 or EARLIER
licenses.
If you are interested, send $25 (check only, payable
to me) and a copy of your CProlog 1.5 (or EARLIER license) &
I will mail you a 1600 BPI tar tape (800 or 6250 may be possible,
but not easy). The usual warnings about no guarantees about
bugs/suitability (lawyer repellent).
Several people here having been using this version of 3
months and on aproximately 10000 lines of Prolog code without
any errors. I don't have the time to answer lots of questions,
(though I would appreciate mail on any bugs people find) so the
status is 'unsupported'. Eventually I hope to add a few more
improvements, but I have received several requests for this
through the mail, and it is currently in a relatively stable
point.
-- Mike Newton
Caltech 256-80
Pasadena CA 91125
818-356-6771 (noon-midnight)
------------------------------
End of PROLOG Digest
********************
∂25-Jul-86 0158 teodor%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
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-------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBJECT: reccursive negation
FROM: Teodor C. Przymusinski
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Texas, El Paso, TX 79968
(915)-747-5761
RETURN PATH: <ft00@utep.bitnet>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Please, allow me to jump rather late into your discussion on recursive
negation. Only now I had a chance to read all the broadcasts and since they
involved generalizations of stratified logic programs and, in particular, the
notion of `locally stratified' programs, as introduced in my paper `On the
semantics of stratified deductive databases', I felt tempted to add my voice.
In his initial memo, Volodia presented two examples, one involving the
definition of even numbers and the other involving block-moving, and pointed
out that both of them are locally stratified but not stratified and suggested
that `... NAIL!'s restriction on the use of negation is too strong and
eliminates some reasonable programs ...'. He wondered whether the ideas of
NAIL! can be applied to locally stratified programs. This started the
exchange of arguments pro and contra...
I do not pretend to know the answer to Volodia's question, but
I believe that this issue involves answering three basic questions
listed below and I am not sure that all of them were sufficiently clarified
in the discussion:
1. Do locally stratified programs have a clearly defined semantics or -
in other words - do we really know what we are trying to say by writing
such programs? I believe that the answer is an unequivocal YES; precise
arguments can be found in my paper, but I enclose a brief discussion
below.
2. Do we know sufficiently many interesting and useful locally stratified
(but non-stratified) programs to justify such an extension? Below
I am giving some arguments, in addition to those presented by Volodia,
to justify what I believe is again an affirmative answer.
3. Do we know how to efficiently implement such an extension or do we
expect to encounter some strong precedural barriers? I do not know the
answer to this question. Some statements were made suggesting that
such an implementation is difficult. I am not quite convinced by them
and would like to hear some specific arguments. I expand on
this point below.
(By the way, I prefer to separate semantical and procedural aspects of the
problem as much as possible. Allen seems to prefer to freely intermix them,
which is a bit confusing. For example, the semantics of locally stratified
or stratified programs is well-defined regardless of such procedural
issues as the bounded term property etc.)
Ad 1. Semantics of locally stratified programs.
To convince you that locally stratified programs have a nice and clear
semantics I am enclosing some excerpts from my paper. First definition:
DEFINITION. Suppose that P is a logic program and that < is a dependency
relation defined analogously as in Apt et. al., but on the set of GROUND ATOMS
of P insead of the set of PREDICATES of P. We say that P is LOCALLY STRATIFIED
if < is well-founded. This obviously generalizes the notion of stratified
programs. In fact, we have:
Th.1. A logic program P is locally stratified iff it is
possible to decompose the Herbrand universe H of P into infinitely many
disjoint sets H1, H2 , ... , Hr, ... so that for every ground instance
A1 /\... /\ Am /\ ~B1 /\ ... /\ ~Bn => C,
of a clause from P we have
(i) for every i<=m, Level(Ai) <= Level(C);
(ii) for every j<=n, Level(Bj) < Level(C),
where Level(A)=i, if A is in Hi.
Now we define the notion of a PERFECT MODEL of a program P.
We say that a model N of P, obtained from a model M by adding or
removing some ground atoms, is PREFERABLE to a model M
if addition of a lower priority atom A to N is always COMPENSATED by the
simultaneous removal from M of a higher priority atom B (i.e. such that B > A).
This reflects the general principle, that we are willing to minimize higher
priority atoms even at the cost of enlarging atoms of lower priority,
in an attempt to minimize high priority atoms as much as possible. A
model M is PERFECT, if there are no models preferable to it. More formally:
Definition. Suppose that M and N are two different models of P. We say that
N is preferable to M if for every ground atom A in N - M there exists an atom
B in M-N such that B > A. We say that a model M of P is perfect if there are
no models preferable to M.
The following results hold:
Th. 2. Every perfect model is minimal.
Th. 3. If P is positive, then a model M of P is perfect iff it is minimal.
Th. 4. Every locally stratified logic program has exactly one perfect model
and - in case of stratified programs -it coincides with the models
constructed by Apt et. al. and by Allen.
CONCLUSION: The unique perfect model of a locally stratified logic program
defines a correct semantics of P, incorporating a natural form
of the Closed-World Assumption.
This approach can be extended onto databases containing disjunctive information.
Ad 2. Applicability of locally stratified programs.
Volodia gave two interesting examples of locally stratified programs. Let me
add one more to it, which I believe is fairly typical of examples in the
domain of mathematics. One can easily find more complex and more
interesting examples, but for illustration purposes this one will do.
Suppose that we are interested in those numbers Z which are pure squares
i.e. such that Z=X*X, with X not being a full square. Then we would write:
p(Z) <- Z=X*X, ~p(X) % X,Z integers > 1
This clearly represents a locally stratified non-stratified program and one
can easily write a Prolog program to answer ground queries about p. Perhaps,
NAIL! should also be able to handle similar programs. It seems
to me that definitions of this type are quite common in mathematics and,
I suspect, also in other areas.
Ad 3. Procedural aspects.
Allen mentioned in his message that locally stratified programs are
`...hard to implement with any degree of generality by known methods.'
It is quite possible that he is right, but I would like to know some
specific reasons. Certainly, running out of stack by the Prolog program
evaluating the block-moving example had nothing to do with negation.
It happened only because the variable S was not instantiated. The same
thing would have happened in the program p(s(X)):-p(X) if we tried
to answer the query <- p(T) or with the `workhorse' predicate `member'.
I can see one clear difficulty with such implementation, namely how to
recognize that a program is locally stratified. One way out it,
could perhaps be to require that the length of terms
in recursive negation is supposed to decrease. This would in essence
specify a subclass of the class of locally stratified programs.
Teodor.
∂25-Jul-86 0730 MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU Re: Japanese liaison
Received: from ADA20.ISI.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 25 Jul 86 07:30:10 PDT
Date: 25 Jul 1986 07:29-PDT
Sender: MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU
Subject: Re: Japanese liaison
From: MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[ADA20.ISI.EDU]25-Jul-86 07:29:27.MATHIS>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225048843.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
I agree completely with Scott on this point. I seem to recall
from some previous discussion on this point that the rest of you
wanted Scott and I to go ahead when the time was right. Unless
there is some serious objection, I would like Scott to send a
message (speaking for all of us) inviting them along the lines he
suggested and do it this weekend. -- Bob
∂25-Jul-86 0911 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
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Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 11:54 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225521288.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese liaison
In-reply-to: Msg of 25 Jul 1986 10:29-EDT from MATHIS at ADA20.ISI.EDU
Well, as much as I would like to move quickly on this, it has been made
clear to me that at least some of the technical committee people are not
keeping up with their mail reading, so I can't send a message speaking
for the whole group after giving them only a day or two to object.
Looking at the calendar, I think our best hope is to give people a week
to agree to this, and if they do agree we can raise this issue with Ida
when we meet with him in person in Boston. We must understand what we
want to do by then.
-- Scott
∂25-Jul-86 1026 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Math/CS Library: SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM AND SURVEY
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Date: Fri 25 Jul 86 10:21:10-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Math/CS Library: SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM AND SURVEY
To: su-bboard@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
: ;
Message-ID: <12225537122.41.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We would like to gather some information from as many visiting scholars
as possible who use the library and services of the Math/CS Library. We
have sent some forms out to the departments of mathematics, statistics,
computer science, and operations research. We also have forms available
in the Math/CS Library. The information we are gathering include:
Name and University or other institutional affiliation, Which Stanford
professor and/or department you are working with, length of visit, research
interests, and finally what aspect of Stanford's collections and/or
services you expect to find or do find especially useful. I am also
looking for any comments on services you would like to see added or
improved.
In conjunction with gathering this information, we will give an individualized
orientation for you to the Math/CS Libraries its collections and services.
You can come by anytime to fill out the form and receive the individualized
instruction however it would be best to come by during the afternoon when
we generally have more staff available.
If you are a long term visiting scholar and not just summer, you may also
fill out a form indicating that and take advantage of the orientation if
you have not had one.
Harry LLull
Math/CS Library
4th floor
Bldg. 380
Math Dept.
-------
∂25-Jul-86 1500 JJW New world load for MJH Lisp machines
To: MJH-LispM@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Because of recently-discovered bugs in the handling of IP broadcast
packets by our Symbolics machines, it is necessary to update the TCP
patches in the standard world load.
Rich Acuff has fixed the TCP code, and I've created a new world load
with this change and a few others that have accumulated over the past
few months. It is currently on the file FEP0:>mjh-6-0.load on
Mt-St-Coax. This should be moved to the other machines in the building
as soon as possible. If anyone would like to do so right away, feel
free. Otherwise I'll probably take care of it this weekend.
∂25-Jul-86 1518 gls@Think.COM Japanese liaison
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Date: Fri, 25 Jul 86 17:52 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Japanese liaison
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225521288.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-Id: <860725175221.6.GLS@IGNATIUS.THINK.COM>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 11:54 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Well, as much as I would like to move quickly on this, it has been made
clear to me that at least some of the technical committee people are not
keeping up with their mail reading, so I can't send a message speaking
for the whole group after giving them only a day or two to object.
Looking at the calendar, I think our best hope is to give people a week
to agree to this, and if they do agree we can raise this issue with Ida
when we meet with him in person in Boston. We must understand what we
want to do by then.
-- Scott
I say go for it. By the way, RPG is out of town right now (or perhaps I
should say "in town", since he's in Boston).
--Guy
∂25-Jul-86 1716 LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM & SURVEY
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 25 Jul 86 17:16:04 PDT
Date: Fri 25 Jul 86 17:13:36-PDT
From: C.S./Math Library <LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: SUMMER VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM & SURVEY
To: su-bboards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12225612204.18.LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
We would like to gather some information from as many visiting scholars
as possible who use the library and services of the Math/CS Library. We
have sent some forms out to the departments of mathematics, statistics,
computer science, and operations research. We also have forms available
in the Math/CS Library. The information we are gathering include:
Name and University or other institutional affiliation, Which Stanford
professor and/or department you are working with, length of visit, research
interests, and finally what aspect of Stanford's collections and/or
services you expect to find or do find especially useful. I am also
looking for any comments on services you would like to see added or
improved.
In conjunction with gathering this information, we will give an individualized
orientation for you to the Math/CS Libraries its collections and services.
You can come by anytime to fill out the form and receive the individualized
instruction however it would be best to come by during the afternoon when
we generally have more staff available.
If you are a long term visiting scholar and not just summer, you may also
fill out a form indicating that and take advantage of the orientation if
you have not had one.
Harry LLull
Math/CS Library
4th floor
Bldg. 380
Math Dept.
-------
-------
∂25-Jul-86 1746 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Japanese liaison
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Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 20:46 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225618171.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Guy Steele <gls@ZARATHUSTRA.THINK.COM>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Japanese liaison
In-reply-to: Msg of 25 Jul 1986 17:52-EDT from Guy Steele <gls at Think.COM>
Well, Gabriel is the one I especially wanted to hear from on this issue,
since he raised the red flag last time. Once we've invited Ida, it's
irrevocable -- not like mere technical committee decisions -- so I want
to be sure there is no dissent on this. (Of course, we could invite
additional Japanese if there are other important factions.) If you
happen to see RPG, maybe you could sound him out on this and let me know
what he thinks.
-- Scott
∂25-Jul-86 2219 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@rsch.wisc.edu short courses at UCSC
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neil%beowulf@SDCSVAX.ARPA, csuh!nico@lll-crg.ARPA,
vazirani@gvax.cs.cornell.edu, jcm@ORNL-MSR.ARPA,
FTD%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, garry%geology@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu,
UNI155%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA,
theory%pbinfo.UUCP%germany.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
mcvax!inria!crin!lescanne@seismo.CSS.GOV,
faron!watro@mitre-bedford.ARPA,
THEORYUEA%prime.serc.east-anglia.ac.uk@ucl-cs.ARPA,
seismo!mcvax!ruuinfvax!jan, august@JPL-VLSI.ARPA,
fraenkel%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm, Saaltink@DOCKMASTER.ARPA,
skiena@b.cs.uiuc.edu, miller%buffalo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa,
mount@tove.umd.edu, ALTENBERG@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA,
deforest%asu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA, lsh@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA,
Bboard.Theory@R20.utexas.edu,
JDPARKER%umass-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
santoro%systems.carleton.cdn%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
theory@a.CS.UIUC.EDU, paz%TECHSEL.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu,
unido!gmdzi!eike@seismo.CSS.GOV, chou@locus.ucla.edu,
widmayer%germany.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
ottmann%germany.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
case%buffalo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA, Theory@kestrel.ARPA,
john%gatech.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
mcvax!lri!filotti@seismo.CSS.GOV,
MIYATA%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU,
RIPBC%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
zucker%buffalo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
sack%systems.carleton.cdn%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
cs←bruce%williams.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
cs←levine%williams.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA, CEL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU,
TORKEL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU, jcm%mrkos.btl.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
BBD-THEORY@NRL-AIC.ARPA, cscott@BBN-VAX.ARPA,
enea!liuida!akt@seismo.CSS.GOV, SLOAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU,
FCTY7042%RYERSON.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU, CLT@SU-AI.ARPA,
THEORY%HUJICS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU, sundt@mitre.ARPA,
COMPSCI%WSUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU, Barnett.WBST@Xerox.COM,
VICTOR%SER.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
wachsmuth%gvaic2.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM,
uni231%dbnrhrz1.bitnet@wiscvm.arpa,
uni232%dbnrhrz1.bitnet@wiscvm.arpa,
uni018%dbnrhrz1.bitnet@wiscvm.arpa,
ras%tennessee.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa,
ihnp4!utcsri!deepthot!helmut@seismo.arpa,
murgolo%ucrmath.uucp@ICS.UCI.EDU, caip!hplabs!hpda!badve,
schmidtj@nyu-csd1.arpa, amir@mimsy.umd.edu,
C0144%CSUOHIO.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
tompa.yktvmv%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay,
bellcore!21214@seismo.arpa, vlr@a.CS.UIUC.EDU,
fortnow@ernie.berkeley.edu, colin@ernie.berkeley.edu,
UZR112%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
UZR500%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
theory-net%kaist.csnet@csnet-relay,
dwood%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
fekete%h-ma1@harvard.HARVARD.EDU, sharat@cvl.umd.edu,
SHANGHAI%VTVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
REISCHUK%DDADVS1.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu,
JOSLIN%VTCS1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
UNP03D%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
cvw.snb%btl.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
gibbons@ernie.berkeley.edu, NETNEWS%ULKYVX@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
LLi.ES@Xerox.COM, XSAK%IECMICC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
UNI101%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
theory%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
BSIU%sc.intel.com@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA, altman@rochester.arpa,
FQOJ%CORNELLA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU,
yasuda%UPenn-GradEd%upenn.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
SCHOW%FSU.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA,
seismo!mcvax!eutrc3!wsinrobg@rsch.wisc.edu,
YAIR%BENGUS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU, yap@NYU-ACF4.ARPA,
naor@ernie.Berkeley.EDU, A4422DAB%AWIUNI11.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA,
cenkl%faron@mitre-bedford.ARPA,
theorynet%sperry-csd.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
theory@Purdue.EDU, arvind%csri.toronto.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
BENTZSS@G.BBN.COM, 26631853%WSUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA,
K538911%CZHRZU1A.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA,
LARMSTRONG%rca.com@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA,
BELTRAME%ICNUCEVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA,
XWDH%IECMICC.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Resent-Date: Fri, 25 Jul 86 23:51:15 -0500
Resent-From: Udi Manber <udi@rsch.wisc.edu>
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE in COMPUTER SCIENCES
in cooperation with IEEE will be sponsoring a series of
intensive short courses for the computer scientist.
July 30 - August 1 : Parallel Computing: Achieving High
Speed Performance at Reasonable Cost
August 4 - 6
August 7 - 8 : Images: Technologies, Applications, Processing,
and Systems
August 7 - 8 : Expert System Programming with Doug Lenat
August 11 - 15 : Software Engineering with Ada
August 25 - 29 : Fault Tolerant Computing
These courses are being taught by some of the world's leading scholars
in their respective fields.
University of California at Santa Cruz is hosting the seminars and can be
contacted for further information and enrollment.
Contact Ron Smith (408) 429-2836
--------------
TN Message #60
--------------
∂26-Jul-86 1417 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU Back in the Saddle
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Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 26 Jul 86 17:17:01-EDT
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1986 17:16 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225842192.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Back in the Saddle
In-reply-to: Msg of 26 Jul 1986 16:18-EDT from Dick Gabriel <RPG at SU-AI.ARPA>
RPG sent this to CL-TECHNICAL, when it is really a steering matter, I
think.
I'm back from my trip and saw the notes regarding JIS. If
JIS is the proper Japanese standards organization and if
this working group is properly qualified by JIS, then I
believe we should go ahead and invite Ida (finally). Perhaps
Bob Mathis knows the exact nature of JIS and can quickly
bring us up to date.
I will dig up the note from IDA describing the role of JIS and forward
the relvant portions. I believe that this is sort of a combination of
X3 and ACM in Japan.
Ida will be at the Lisp conference, and we can chat with him
then, assuming his english permits.
I believe that the note inviting Ida should neither precede nor
be preceded by a note to a European representative.
It is important that everyone on our committee subscribes in general to
its goals: to fix up the existing Common Lisp spec and to propose the
result as a international standard for Common Lisp. We don't need a
loyalty oath, but that should be the understanding. The Japanese will
have no problem with this. I'd be happy to offer committee membership
to Chailloux and/or one of Padgett and Fitch, but only if they share our
goals in this area. I don't think they do. We should sound them out on
this in Boston, which will make the offer more or less concurrent with
the offer to Ida.
-- Scott
∂26-Jul-86 1452 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 26 Jul 86 14:52:42 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 26 Jul 86 17:53:03-EDT
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1986 17:53 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225848755.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: [a37078%ccut.u-tokyo.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet: Lisp standardization]
I forwarded this message from Ida to all of you some time ago, but here
are the excerpts that relate to JIS, just to save you all from having to
look this up again. From what he says, it seems clear that JIS is in
fact the legitimate counterpart to ANSI, and the Japanese organization
that interfaces to ISO. Also that the appropriate heavies, Nakata and
Yoneda, have selected Ida as their designated Lisp guy.
-- Scott
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
2)General steps toward the standardization of computer languages in japan.
There is only one committee for MITI whose name is JIS programming language
standardization or so. All the computer languages are defined by this
committee. But the actual working is not carried by the committee, like
SC22 forms WG for each language. The membership of this top committee
are not opened and I am not the member of this top committee.
I think almost all the members are very senior persons.
From my experinece and my knowledge, the standardization is initially
directed by MITI. This task force is undertaken by Jeida or IPSJ.
After the actual works by Jeida or IPSJ finish, MITI calls the members for
the top JIS committee and ask them to guarantee it. The draft which appear to
the top committee is not actually discused, when the language spec is parallely
defined to ANSI.
Jeida standardization team is carried by Prof. Yoneda (u-tokyo).
IPSJ standardization team is carried by prof. Nakata (u-Tsukuba).
Prof. Nakata is an official member of ISO TC22 as a representative of Japan.
(he gave me a copy of Bob Mathis's proposal of Ad Hoc Group on the preparation
of NWI on Prolog and LISP to ISO/TC97/SC22)
The documents appeared at ISO are send to MITI, then forwarded to several
persons, including Prof. Nakata at least.
He has, currently, a role to catch up the standardization of Fortran, Cobol,...
On the other hand, Prof. Yoneda has a role to establish a standard
for more "fresh" languages, like C, Ada, Lisp,...
MITI select and decide which team is more suitable for any computer languages.
Last tuesday, June 10, I was called by the staff of Prof. Yoneda's committee
at Jeida.
He told me that MITI suggest to start the working committee for Lisp
standardization, and that the committee is under Prof. Yoneda's committee
and I should be the chair of the JIS committee also.
Then I will start the working committee to make a JIS draft with 13 members.
the number of members is prior assigned and given to me.
The scheduled dates of this year is one-a-two-month.
The first meeting will be in July.
Prof.Yoneda (and Prof. Nakata) is very senior person.
I think the formal process in Japan is going just like you mentioned.
I mean I agree your suggestion of your mail. i.e. ANY offical activities for
standardization in Japan need senior persons who have responsibilities to
totally control the whole process, even though he has only a basic knowledge
about the language, and he can not understand the details
or he have no time to spare to learn the language details.
...
I think it is very usual to form a JIS working committee which is parallel to
ANSI/ISO committee and the JIS committee will communicate with ANSI committee.
∂26-Jul-86 1935 FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU The Lisp Conference handout
Received: from C.CS.CMU.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 26 Jul 86 19:35:19 PDT
Received: ID <FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Sat 26 Jul 86 22:35:37-EDT
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1986 22:35 EDT
Message-ID: <FAHLMAN.12225900192.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
To: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: The Lisp Conference handout
The following is the proposed text for the Lisp conference handout --
one of the ways in which we will officially notify the community about
X3J13 and related matters. The plan is to send this to the Common-Lisp
mailing list before people leave for the conference, and to ask these
people not to bother picking up a hardcopy. Then we'll deliver a couple
of hundred as fliers to sit on the registration table or somewhere. Any
problems with the following message? (I'm still trying to squeeze it
down to one side of one page.)
-- Scott
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status of Common Lisp Standardization Efforts
Common Lisp is fast becoming a de facto standard for Lisp, especially in
the commercial world where the need for a standard, widely accepted Lisp
dialect has long been felt. Almost all Lisp suppliers in the U.S. now
offer, or intend to offer, implementations of Common Lisp. The language
is now available on most of the workstations and mainframes that are
used by the AI research community. Several Japanese companies have also
been active in Common Lisp development, and a Japanese standardization
committee has been established. Common Lisp is being used in Europe,
and the European efforts at Lisp standardization are taking Common Lisp
as one important input.
At a meeting in Boston in December, 1985, representatives from the
Common Lisp community agreed to form technical and steering committees
to work on Common Lisp standardization. The technical committee is to
develop a detailed language specification for Common Lisp; the steering
committee is to work on the non-technical aspects of the standardization
process. A group of people, including five key contributors to the
original Common Lisp design, was chosen to select the members for these
new committees; that task was completed in March of 1986.
The technical committee members are Alan Bawden, Daniel Boborow, Richard
Gabriel, Martin Griss, David Moon, Jonathan Rees, Guy L. Steele Jr., and
Scott Fahlman (chairman). The steering committee members are Richard
Gabriel, John McCarthy, Ronald Ohlander, Stephen Squires, Guy L. Steele
Jr., and Robert Mathis (chairman). It is expected that some non-U.S.
members will be added to both committees in the near future. Both of
these committees are interim bodies that will be integrated into the
normal standards process, once that process is operating fully.
A formal proposal was made to X3, the accredited U.S. standards
committee for information processing systems, to establish a technical
committee for Common Lisp standardization. This proposal was accepted;
the Common Lisp committee is called X3J13. Plans are also being made
for the establishment of an international committee for Lisp
standardization under ISO. The formation of an X3 technical committee
is the normal way for the U.S. to participate in ISO activities.
Most of the technical discussion on Common Lisp occurs on the ARPAnet
via the mailing list "common-lisp@@sail.stanford.edu", administered by
Richard P. Gabriel (rpg@@sail.stanford.edu). A number of other networks
have mail gateways to the ARPAnet, making it possible for almost all
interested parties to participate in the technical discussions.
Electronic mail communication has been established with particpants in
Japan and Europe.
The first meeting of X3J13, the U.S. Technical Committee for the
standardization of Lisp, will be Tuesday and Wednesday, September 23 and
24, 1986, in Washington, DC, at the headquarters of CBEMA, Suite 500,
311 First St, NW. On Tuesday (23) the meeting will be from 10am to 5pm;
on Wednesday (24) the meeting will be from 9am to 3pm. No special hotel
arrangements are being made.
Membership in X3 technical committees is open to all who actively
participate (attend meetings or correspond) and pay an annual service
fee (about $175). US citizenship or residency is not required. The
first meeting is important since policies and procedures for X3
technical committees will be discussed and specific plans for the Lisp
activity will be made.
Anyone interested in joining X3J13, and particularly anyone planning to
attend the first meeting, should contact the convenor for X3J13: Dr.
Robert Mathis, 9712 Ceralene Dr., Fairfax, VA 22032. Phone: (703)
425-5923. Arpanet: mathis@@b.isi.edu.
∂27-Jul-86 2257 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@cottage.wisc.edu TheoryNet strange message - explanation
Received: from SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 27 Jul 86 22:57:05 PDT
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Received: from cottage.wisc.edu by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Sun 27 Jul 86 22:53:35-PDT
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 00:55:20 CDT
From: udi@cottage.wisc.edu (Udi Manber)
Message-Id: <8607280555.AA02216@cottage.wisc.edu>
Received: by cottage.wisc.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 86 00:55:20 CDT
To: aflb.all@score
Subject: TheoryNet strange message - explanation
I apologize to all of you for the strange message you received from
TheoryNet last Friday. The mail program had been changed here a day before
this message got out and the new mail program expanded the whole address list.
I am working to fix the problem. So much for compatible software.
I am Sorry, and, hopefully, it won't happen again.
-- Udi Manber
∂27-Jul-86 2350 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 27 Jul 86 23:50:03 PDT
Date: Sun 27 Jul 86 23:45:04-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: REMINDER -- tomorrow's PLANLUNCH -- Jack Alpert
To: planlunch-reminder.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 27-Jul-86 23:45:04.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR COGNITIVE ABILITIES LIMIT THE POWER OF AI
Jack Alpert (ALPERT@SCORE)
Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab
and
School of Education, Stanford University
11:00 AM, MONDAY, July 28
SRI International, Building E, Room EK228
"Expert Systems: How far can they go?" was a panel topic at AAAI
1985. Brian Smith described the limits of AI in terms of the
programmer's ability to know if his encoded model reflected the world
that his expert system was to manage. "We have no techniques.. to
study the ... relationship between model and world. We are unable...
to assess the appropriateness of models, or to predict when models
fail."
Most of us with icy road experience are convinced we know how to
recover from skids. In the talk I will prove that our skid recovery
algorithms work only on a small set of possible skids. Skids that lie
outside of this small set result in accidents. Our "inappropriate"
skid recovery models cause accidents. 20 years of driving experience
does not revile the skid model's limitations. When we have been
building expert systems for 20 years, why should we be any better
prepared to perceive model inappropriateness?
The limited set of cognitive abilities that most people develop cannot
identify domains where models fail. I describe a temporal cognitive
ability most of us lack. Given the definition of such an ability, I
will briefly describe a line of research that explains why people
never develop the ability. Should this research be successful, we
will create new learning environments that enhance first cognitive
abilities, then modeling, and finally the power of AI systems.
-------
∂27-Jul-86 2353 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:udi@cottage.wisc.edu TheoryNet strange message - explanation
Received: from SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 27 Jul 86 23:53:10 PDT
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Received: from cottage.wisc.edu by SU-SCORE.ARPA with TCP; Sun 27 Jul 86 23:11:30-PDT
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 01:13:16 CDT
From: udi@cottage.wisc.edu (Udi Manber)
Message-Id: <8607280613.AA02389@cottage.wisc.edu>
Received: by cottage.wisc.edu; Mon, 28 Jul 86 01:13:16 CDT
To: aflb.all@score
Subject: TheoryNet strange message - explanation
I apologize to all of you for the strange message you received from
TheoryNet last Friday. The mail program had been changed here a day before
this message got out and the new mail program expanded the whole address list.
I am working to fix the problem. So much for compatible software.
I am Sorry, and, hopefully, it won't happen again.
-- Udi Manber
∂28-Jul-86 0746 gls@Think.COM Japanese liaison
Received: from GODOT.THINK.COM by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 28 Jul 86 07:46:18 PDT
Received: from kant by Godot.Think.COM via CHAOS; Mon, 28 Jul 86 10:46:27 edt
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 10:47 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: Japanese liaison
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, gls@ZARATHUSTRA
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA, gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225618171.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-Id: <860728104712.1.GLS@KANT.THINK.COM>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 20:46 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Well, Gabriel is the one I especially wanted to hear from on this issue,
since he raised the red flag last time. Once we've invited Ida, it's
irrevocable -- not like mere technical committee decisions -- so I want
to be sure there is no dissent on this. (Of course, we could invite
additional Japanese if there are other important factions.) If you
happen to see RPG, maybe you could sound him out on this and let me know
what he thinks.
-- Scott
Good. I just realized that the juxtaposition of two sentences in my
last note ("go for it" and "RPG is away") might be misconstrued as
urging you to go ahead without waiting for RPG. Fortunately, you took
the advice as intended: I say "go for it", but note that RPG is away
(and therefore you may wish to wait in order to get his input). I'll
try to be more careful from now on.
RPG will be back home by today, I think.
--Guy
∂28-Jul-86 0806 RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: fac mtg]
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 28 Jul 86 08:06:01 PDT
Date: Mon 28 Jul 86 07:54:41-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: fac mtg]
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12226296889.13.RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There will be a sr. faculty meeting today (July 28) at 2:15 p.m. in MJH 252.
<Details below.>
-Anne
---------------
Return-Path: <@SRI-STRIPE.ARPA:NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
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Date: Fri 18 Jul 86 13:29:29-PDT
From: Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: fac mtg
To: tenured@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12223736398.11.NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Yesterday's senior faculty meeting to discuss a possible tenured
appointment (half time) for Tony Chan had disappointing attendance.
I realize that these sorts of things ought not to occur in the summer.
Those attending the meeting, though, thought that the Chan appointment
might be an opportunity that we ought not to pass up. Most also thought
that further discussion about the possibility would be important in order
to ensure that votes are informed votes. Therefore I am scheduling another
senior faculty meeting in MJH 252 for Monday, July 28 at 2:15 pm. Chan's
cv has been circulated and letters about him are available through Betty
Scott. It would be most helpful if people who did not attend yesterday's
meeting could attend the next one. Thanks, -Nils
-------
-------
∂28-Jul-86 0851 gls@Think.COM The Lisp Conference handout
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Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 11:52 EDT
From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>
Subject: The Lisp Conference handout
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: gls@AQUINAS
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225900192.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-Id: <860728115224.6.GLS@KANT.THINK.COM>
Looks pretty good. I like it. Minor bugs: Bobrow's name is misspelled,
as is the word "participant". The names are not consistent: "Richard
Gabriel" in one place and "Richard P. Gabriel" in another. Unless you
choose to introduce initials into other names, such as "David A. Moon"
or "Scott E. Fahlman", you may as well shorten my name to just "Guy
Steele" in the two places it appears.
This document seems to address primarily those interested in being
involved in the U.S. effort. It might be appropriate to contact Ida and
the Eulisp folks so that they can either supply a paragraph apiece for
this handout or provide handouts of their own specifying how to get
involved with those efforts.
--Guy
∂28-Jul-86 0912 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu paper received
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Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 09:00:45 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Extension Tables: Memo relations in logic programming"
S. W. Dietrich and D. S. Warren, SUNY-SB.
The general idea is that one can save tuples that have been
proved during the course of execution of a (side-effect-free)
Prolog program.
---jeff
∂28-Jul-86 0926 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu Getting copies of papers
Received: from DIABLO.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 28 Jul 86 09:26:20 PDT
Received: by diablo.stanford.edu with Sendmail; Mon, 28 Jul 86 09:14:32 pdt
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 09:14:32 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: Getting copies of papers
To: nail@diablo
When I announce the existence of a paper, it doesn't mean that
I'm willing to supply copies to all and sundry, and indeed
it would be improper for me to do so without the author's
permission. You have to write the authors directly or,
if you are at Stanford, come and borrow my copy.
---jeff
∂28-Jul-86 1034 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu publications
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Received: by diablo.stanford.edu with Sendmail; Mon, 28 Jul 86 10:25:44 pdt
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 10:25:44 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: publications
To: nail@diablo
Chuck Restivo suggests that I post the email address of the author
with "paper received" messages. I'll do that if I know it,
but generally I try to identify the author by institution so
people can at least write real letters to them.
However, it occurred to me that authors who are themselves on the
nail list can announce their own paper and even give its abstract
by mailing a message to nail@diablo.
---jeff
∂28-Jul-86 1149 OHLANDER@B.ISI.EDU Re: Japanese liaison
Received: from B.ISI.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 28 Jul 86 11:48:02 PDT
Date: 28 Jul 1986 11:45-PDT
Sender: OHLANDER@B.ISI.EDU
Subject: Re: Japanese liaison
From: OHLANDER@B.ISI.EDU
To: Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Cc: cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <[B.ISI.EDU]28-Jul-86 11:45:57.OHLANDER>
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225048843.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Scott,
I agree with Bob Mathis on getting closure on this thing.
I assume that Ida has the proper stature with his Japanese colleagues
to successfully represent other interests in Japan.
Ron
∂28-Jul-86 1616 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:TAJNAI@Sierra.Stanford.EDU CSD Reunion
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Date: Mon 28 Jul 86 16:04:26-PDT
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: CSD Reunion
To: faculty@Score.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12226386044.24.TAJNAI@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
You should have received a copy of Nils' letter of 6/6/86 to CSD
Alumni -- if you did not, please let me know.
Attached to the letter is an announcement of "The First Ten Years of
Computer Science at Stanford." All former and current faculty are
invited to participate. Mark your calendars now for Thursday evening,
March 26 through Saturday, March 28 (it is during quarter break).
We are also attempting to locate all former students and faculty.
If you run into a former CSD/CSL person, please tell them about the
reunion. If they haven't heard about it, ask them to contact me.
The Reunion Committee:
John Levy
Linda Lorenzetti
John Shoch
Skip Stritter
Carolyn Tajnai
-------
∂29-Jul-86 0642 Moon@ELEPHANT-BUTTE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM Japanese liaison
Received: from [192.10.41.41] by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 29 Jul 86 06:41:47 PDT
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Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 16:37 EDT
From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Japanese liaison
To: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
cc: MATHIS@ADA20.ISI.EDU, cl-steering@SU-AI.ARPA
In-Reply-To: <FAHLMAN.12225521288.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Message-ID: <860728163725.0.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1986 11:54 EDT
From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Well, as much as I would like to move quickly on this, it has been made
clear to me that at least some of the technical committee people are not
keeping up with their mail reading, so I can't send a message speaking
for the whole group after giving them only a day or two to object.
Note that this is a steering committee matter, not a technical committee matter.
But perhaps your use of the word technical was just a typo, since you did
send the message to the correct mailing list.
If I wanted to have an opinion on this subject, I would be on the steering
committee.
∂29-Jul-86 1520 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu papers received
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Date: Tue, 29 Jul 86 09:26:00 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: papers received
To: nail@diablo
"Domain Independent Formulas and Databases", R. W. Topor
"On Domain Independent Databases" R. W. Topor and E. A. Sonenberg
The authors are in the Dept. of CS, Univ. of Melbourne
"domain independent formula" = "safe formula", by the way.
---jeff
∂29-Jul-86 1737 ullman@diablo.stanford.edu paper received
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Date: Tue, 29 Jul 86 17:03:35 pdt
From: Jeff Ullman <ullman@diablo>
Subject: paper received
To: nail@diablo
"Delta Driven Computer: A parallel machine for symbolic processing"
J. Rohmer, R. Gonzalez-Rubio, A. Bradier,
BULL SA, 68 Route de Vincennes, 78430 Louveciennes, France.
Yes folks, it's another paper about taking derivatives of relational
expressions. However, they also wrestle with a problem that's
been worrying me lately: how do you represent arbitrary terms as
relations and still process them in a relatively efficient manner.
---jeff
∂29-Jul-86 1914 @CSLI.STANFORD.EDU:Zaenen.pa@Xerox.COM sublet available
Received: from CSLI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 29 Jul 86 19:14:49 PDT
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Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 29 JUL 86 19:04:09 PDT
Date: 29 Jul 86 19:03 PDT
From: Zaenen.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: sublet available
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Message-ID: <860729-190409-1228@Xerox>
Available from august 15 to sept 7:
furnished duplex in Menlo Park, very close to SRI;
2 bathrooms, 2 and a half bedrooms, living room, fully equipped kitchen, garage,
small garden with covered porch;
an old but running Renault 5 can be included in the deal;
price negotiable
if interested, send message to zaenen.pa@xerox.com, or lauri@sri-ai
Annie
∂29-Jul-86 2014 COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tips
Received: from CSLI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 29 Jul 86 20:14:35 PDT
Date: Tue 29 Jul 86 20:08:35-PDT
From: Rich Cower <COWER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Tips
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
cc: cower@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
We recently moved the tips from the 3 meg ethernet to the 10 meg ethernet.
This fixed many of the problems we have observed with our tips, but has
produced a new problem. The tips will now run out of memory. We're
trying to get new processor boards to alleviate this situation, but
until we do please bear with us. Something you can do to help the tip
preserve what little memory it has is to try and close connections if
you are not using the terminals.
Questions/comments/etc. to me.
Thanks...Rich
-------
∂30-Jul-86 0957 EMMA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Stanford Parking Stickers
Received: from CSLI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 30 Jul 86 09:57:42 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Jul 86 09:42:33-PDT
From: Emma Pease <Emma@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Stanford Parking Stickers
To: folks@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Tel: (415) 723-3561
Tis the time to renew parking stickers.
As in previous years, you can give the filled-in applications to Susi
or Jamie by next Wednesday (August 6), and Tom will take them down to
the police station for you.
If you did not get a form, you can pick one up at the Stanford Police
Station; unfortunately, CSLI cannot get them for you.
-Emma
ps. Please address all questions to either Susi or Jamie.
%%%%%%
% []|[] \
* * * * * % | ------
* * * * * * * * * &←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←←&
* * * * * \/ \/
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
-------
∂30-Jul-86 1425 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA No LispM failures allowed for the next two weeks
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 30 Jul 86 14:25:25 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Jul 86 12:04:54-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: No LispM failures allowed for the next two weeks
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12226866727.66.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Folks,
I'll be out of town for two weeks starting Friday, and,
unfortunately, so will most everybody else in a position to handle
LispM problems. Thus, no failures are allowed until August 15. If
some rebelious mechanism should choose to ignore this proclamation,
please eject the offending device through the nearest exterior portal.
If you have to much mercy in your heart (or would like to save your
work), please send me mail. I will be attempting to read my mail as
often as I can, and will take appropriate action from afar.
-- Rich
-------
∂30-Jul-86 1425 ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA No LispM failures allowed for the next two weeks
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 30 Jul 86 14:25:25 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Jul 86 12:04:54-PDT
From: Richard Acuff <Acuff@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: No LispM failures allowed for the next two weeks
To: ksl-lispm@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Message-ID: <12226866727.66.ACUFF@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Folks,
I'll be out of town for two weeks starting Friday, and,
unfortunately, so will most everybody else in a position to handle
LispM problems. Thus, no failures are allowed until August 15. If
some rebelious mechanism should choose to ignore this proclamation,
please eject the offending device through the nearest exterior portal.
If you have to much mercy in your heart (or would like to save your
work), please send me mail. I will be attempting to read my mail as
often as I can, and will take appropriate action from afar.
-- Rich
-------
∂30-Jul-86 1431 @Sushi.Stanford.EDU,@SU-SCORE.ARPA:NICHOLAS@IBM.COM Primality Testing
Received: from SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 30 Jul 86 14:30:59 PDT
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Date: 30 July 1986, 13:47:30 PDT
From: Nicholas Pippenger <NICHOLAS@ibm.com>
To: aflb.all@su-score
Message-Id: <073086.134733.nicholas@ibm.com>
Subject: Primality Testing
A talk entitled "Recognizing Primes in Random Polynomial Time"
will be given by L. Adleman or M.-D. Huang on Thursday, 31 July,
at 4:15 P.M.
in the third-floor faculty lounge in the Mathematics Department
at Stanford.
∂30-Jul-86 1750 LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- John Myers
Received: from SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 30 Jul 86 17:49:18 PDT
Date: Wed 30 Jul 86 17:43:10-PDT
From: Amy Lansky <LANSKY@SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
Subject: Next Monday's PLANLUNCH -- John Myers
To: planlunch.dis:
Message-ID: <VAX-MM(194)+TOPSLIB(120)+PONY(0) 30-Jul-86 17:43:10.SRI-WARBUCKS.ARPA>
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DECISION-MAKING AND ACTION IN THE REAL WORLD
John Myers (JMYERS@SRI-AI)
SRI International, Robotics Laboratory
11:00 AM, MONDAY, Aug. 4
SRI International, Building E, Room EK228
In this philosophical talk I will present my opinions as to how to
design an entity capable of operating in the real world, under limited
resources. These include limited time, information, and capabilities.
I will present models that stress heuristic aspects of behavior,
rather than traditional pre-planning techniques. As Terry Winograd has
said, "The main problem is to come up with what you are going to do in
the next five seconds."
After covering the problem and some traditional paradigms, I will
discuss three main concepts, along with a follow-up concept. These
are: the Theory of Stances, the Freudian Motivation Model, and the
Theory of Alternative Choices, along with the Principle of
Responsibility. These are contrasted against traditional approaches
by their emphasis on workability, as opposed to correctness.
A Stance consists of a high-level classification of a situation, along
with a high-level precompiled response script. Often there is
insufficient information in a prima facia situation to correctly
determine what is going on; or, the entity may simply not be able to
afford the overhead required to completely plan its behavior from
first principles. Taking a stance on the situation allows a habitual
response to be made; which at least is some action in the face of the
unknown, and at best, solves the problem with minimal effort.
The Freudian Motivation Model splits behavior generation into three
general processes: generation, policies, and judgment, corresponding
to the id, superego, and ego, respectively. Approved behaviors are
put on an intention queue or a performance queue, among others. The
model can be used to explain nonpurposeful or nonvolitional behaviors
such as posthypnotic acts or compulsions.
The Theory of Alternative Choices says that given a direct choice
between, for example, one of two actions, there are actually a number
of alternative decisions that must be considered. These include: do
nothing, wait, waffle, observe/consult, relegate, delegate, react,
transcend, or respond with a stance. Once of these may be much more
appropriate in a resource-limited situation than directly planning out
a decision between the two original choices.
As a follow-up, the Principle of Responsibility says that the entity
(the computer) must be responsible for its actions and its
recommendations. In a certain sense, it must be willing to be wrong.
Even if it is totally convinced of the correctness of its situational
assessment, it must consider the possibility that things might go
badly, given a certain course of action--and it must use that as
further input to the decision process.
Examples will be interspersed in the talk.
-------