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Neuron Digest Friday, 22 Jan 1993 Volume 11 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Symposium on Aliens, Apes, and AI WCNN extension of submission deadline Update - SCHEMAS AND NEURAL NETWORKS ICNN'93 and FUZZ-IEEE'93 CFP - Grammatical Inference Conference Send submissions, questions, address maintenance, and requests for old issues to "neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu". The ftp archives are available from cattell.psych.upenn.edu (130.91.68.31). Back issues requested by mail will eventually be sent, but may take a while. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Symposium on Aliens, Apes, and AI From: "Dr. S. Kak" <kak@max.ee.LSU.EDU> Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 11:12:37 -0600 [[ Editor's Note: The title of this symposium is extremely intriguing. I hope that some DIgest reader will attend and give a report back to the general readership (or at *least* me!). -PM ]] A symposium on Aliens, Apes, and AI: Who is a person in the postmodern world? will be held in Huntsville, AL on Feb 13, 1993. The symposium is being organized by profs Lyn Miles and Stephen Harper of U. of Tennessee, Chattanooga. For further information contact FAX 615-755-4279; BITNET:SHARPER@UTCVM ; LMILES@UTCVM - ------------------------------------------------------------------- My paper at the symposium is described below: - ---------------------------------------------------------------- Symposium on Aliens, Apes, and Artificial Intelligence , The University of Alabama in Huntsville, February 13, 1993. - --------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Report 92-12 ECE-LSU December 1, 1992 Reflections In Clouded Mirrors: Selfhood In Animals And Machines by Subhash Kak Copyright Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5901 Abstract This essay is a tapestry woven out of three threads: Vedic theory of consciousness, quantum mechanics, and neural networks. The ancient Vedic tradition of philosophy of consciousness that goes back to at least 2000 BCE posits that analytical approaches to defining awareness or personhood end up in paradox. In this tradition one views awareness in terms of the reflection that the hardware of the brain provides to an underlying illuminating or awareness principle called the self . This tradition allows one to separate questions of the tools of awareness, such as eyes and ears and the mind, from the person who obtains this awareness. This tradition will be reviewed and issues related to its application to an understanding of personhood in animals and machines will be taken up. Parallels between the insights of the Vedic tradition and quantum mechanics will be sketched. The observer plays a fundamental role in the measurement problem of quantum mechanics and several scientists have claimed that physics will remain incomplete unless consciousness is incorporated into it. We will also consider the perspective of AI that intelligence emanates from the complexity of the neural hardware of the brain. This will take us to the question that what is it that separates humans from apes and other animals and from machines. We will address the question if machines will ever be endowed with self-awareness. ------------------------------ Subject: WCNN extension of submission deadline From: btelfe%ulysses@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Brian Telfer) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 14:57:00 -0500 (posted for Harold Szu) EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION - 2/2/93 -------- -------- --- ----- ---------- ------ W O R L D C O N F E R E N C E O N N E U R A L N E T W O R K S 1993 International Neural Network Society Annual Meeting Oregon Convention Center Portland OR July 11-15, 1993 COOPERATING SOCIETIES European Neural Networks Society Japanese Neural Network Society IEEE Neural Networks Council Society of Manufacturing Engineers IEEE Computer Society Int'l Fuzzy Systems Association MEETING ORGANIZERS General Chairman: George Lendaris Main Program Chairs: Stephen Grossberg and Bart Kosko SME/INNS Track Program Chairs: Kenneth Marko and Bernard Widrow IFSA/INNS Track Program Charis: Ronald Yager and Paul Werbos Conference Coordinator: Melissa Bishop, Talley Management Group Cooperating Societies Chairman: Mark Kon Industrial Liason Chairman: Benjamin Peek Student Volunteer Chairman: Roger Barga CALL FOR PAPERS Papers may be overnight-mailed no later than Tuesday, February 2, 1993. Submit the camera-ready original (do not fold or staple) and 5 copies. Four page limit, in English. $20 per page for additional pages. Checks for overlength charges should be made out to WCNN'93 and must be included with submitted paper. Papers must be printed on 8 1/2 x 11 white paper with 1" margins, single column, single spaced, Times or similar font of 10 points or larger, one side of paper only. FAXs not acceptable. Centered at top of first page should be complete title, author name(s), affiliation(s), mailing addresses. Followed by blank space, abstract up to 15 lines and text. Include in accompanying letter: full paper title, author(s), presenter(s), addresses, telephone and fax numbers, technical session (see below) 1st and 2nd choices, oral or poster presentation preferred, audio-visual requirements. Papers should be sent to address below, Attention: Program Chairs. Address: WCNN'93 Talley Management Group 875 Kings Highway, suite 200 West Deptford NJ 08096 Tel: (609) 845-1720 Fax: (609) 853-0411 registration@wcnn93.ee.pdx.edu tutorials@wcnn93.ee.pdx.edu housing@wcnn93.ee.pdx.edu papers@wcnn93.ee.pdx.edu sessions@wcnn93.ee.pdx.edu Plenary Speakers include: Carver Mead Real-Time On-Chip Learning in Analog VLSI Networks Stephen Grossberg 3-D Vision and Figure-Ground Pop-Out Bart Kosko Neural Fuzzy Systems Wolf Singer Coherence as an Organizing Principle of Cortical Function Kumpati Narendra Intelligent Control Using Neural Networks Session Topics: Session Chairs: 1. Biological Vision C. Malsburg, V.S. Ramachandran 2. Machine Vision R. Chellappa, K. Fukushima 3. Speech and Language M. Cohen, D. Rumelhart 4. Biological Sensory-Motor Control A. Barto, S. Kelso 5. Robotics and Control M. Kuperstein, K. Narendra 6. Supervised Learning L. Cooper, P. Werbos 7. Unsupervised Learning G. Carpenter, E. Oja 8. Pattern Recognition T. Kohonen, D. Specht 9. Local Circuit Neurobiology J. Byrne, J. Houk 10. Cognitive Neuroscience R. Desimone, L. Optician 11. Intelligent Neural Systems S. Grossberg, D. Levine 12. Neural Fuzzy Systems W. Daugherty, B. Kosko 13. Signal Processing S.Y. Kung, B. Widrow 14. Neurodynamics S. Amari, H. White 15. Electro-Optical Neurocomputers L. Giles, H. Szu 16. Associative Memory J. Anderson, J. Taylor 17. Applications J. Dayhoff, R. Hecht-Neilsen In addition, special tracks will be offered in conjunction with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers on Manufacturing and the International Fuzzy Systems Association on Fuzzy Logic. REGISTRATION INFORMATION before 6/15/93 after 6/15/93 INNS or Cooperating Society Member $270 $350 Nonmembers* $370 $450 Full-time student** $75 $95 Spouse/Guest*** $60 $70 *includes 1993 INNS membership and subscription to Neural Networks **must be accompanied by a verification letter from department chairman ***includes 2 receptions only Information on the tutorial program can be obtained from the above address. Information on accomodations, transportation and the Portland area will be sent to you upon receipt of your registration. SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETINGS Wednesday evening after the banquet, all topical SIGINNS chairmen should organize sessions/meetings/panel discussions for their topical special interest groups. Please suggest activities, technical talks or panel discussion or social, that you would like, before February 15. These special interest groups are listed below with points of contact for your input: Automatic Target Recognition Brian Telfer (301) 394-1846, fax:-3923 btelfe@ulysses.nswc.navy.mil Control, Automation and Robotics Kaveh Ashenayi (918) 631-3278, fax:-3220 kash@ohm.ee.utulsa.edu Education John V. Urbas (404) 421-1670, fax:423-6530 jurbas@uscn.cc.uga.edu Electronics/VLSI Ralph H. Castain (505) 667-3283, fax:665-4657 rhc@lanl.gov Financial and Economic Applications Guido DeBoeck (202) 477-0054, fax:-8589 wg08497@ibrdvax1.bitnet Geology/Geophysics Horacio Bouzas (713) 952-2100 x460, fax:-2420 hrb@geoquest.com Higher Level Cognitive Processes John Barnden (505) 646-6235, fax:-6218 jbarnden@nmsu.edu Mathematics and Theory Robert Dawes (214) 422-4570 Mental Function and Disfunction Daniel Levine (817) 273-3598, fax:794-5802 b344dsl@utarlg.uta.edu Neuroscience Daniel J. Alkon, MD (301) 496-3629, fax:402-0117 Optics Mohammed Sayeh (618) 536-2364, fax:453-7455 Pulsed Networks Mark Bagula (408) 991-7456, fax:-7474 or Judith Dayhoff (301) 405-6556, fax:314-9920 dayhoff@rq.src.umd.edu Speech Rich Peterson (404) 874-0168, fax:894-3906 rick@eedsp.gatech.edu Standards Mary Lou Padgett (205) 844-1855, fax:-1809 mpadgett@eng.auburn.edu Vision/Motion Analysis David Fong (408) 433-3922, fax:-3925 ------------------------------ Subject: Update - SCHEMAS AND NEURAL NETWORKS From: arbib@cs.usc.edu (Michael Arbib) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 93 10:37:55 -0800 Please publish the following update. Many thanks!! ##### SCHEMAS AND NEURAL NETWORKS: INTEGRATING SYMBOLIC AND SUBSYMBOLIC APPROACHES TO COOPERATIVE COMPUTATION A Workshop sponsored by the Center for Neural Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520 April 13th and 14th, 1993 Program Committee: Michael Arbib (Organizer), John Barnden, George Bekey, Francisco Cervantes-Perez, Damian Lyons, Paul Rosenbloom, Ron Sun, Akinori Yonezawa A previous announcement (reproduced below) announced a registration fee of $150 and advertised the availability of hotel accommodation at $70/night. To encourage the participation of qualified students we have made 3 changes: 1) We have appointed Jean-Marc Fellous as Student Chair for the meeting to coordinate the active involvement of such students. 2) We offer a Student Registration Fee of only $40 to students whose application is accompanied by a letter from their supervisor attesting to their student status. 3) Mr. Fellous has identified a number of lower-cost housing options, and will respond to queries to fellous@pollux.usc.edu The original announcement - with updated registration form - follows: ******** To design complex technological systems and to analyze complex biological and cognitive systems, we need a multilevel methodology which combines a coarse-grain analysis of cooperative or distributed computation (we shall refer to the computing agents at this level as "schemas") with a fine-grain model of flexible, adaptive computation (for which neural networks provide a powerful general paradigm). Schemas provide a language for distributed artificial intelligence, perceptual robotics, cognitive modeling, and brain theory which is "in the style of the brain", but at a relatively high level of abstraction relative to neural networks. The proposed workshop will provide a 2-hour introductory tutorial and problem statement by Michael Arbib, and sessions in which an invited paper will be followed by several contributed papers, selected from those submitted in response to this call for papers. Preference will be given to papers which present practical examples of, theory of, and/or methodology for the design and analysis of complex systems in which the overall specification or analysis is conducted in terms of schemas, and where some but not necessarily all of the schemas are implemented in neural networks. A list of sample topics for contributions is as follows, where a hybrid approach means one in which the abstract schema level is integrated with neural or other lower level models: Schema Theory as a description language for neural networks Modular neural networks Linking DAI to Neural Networks to Hybrid Architecture Formal Theories of Schemas Hybrid approaches to integrating planning & reaction Hybrid approaches to learning Hybrid approaches to commonsense reasoning by integrating neural networks and rule- based reasoning (using schema for the integration) Programming Languages for Schemas and Neural Networks Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming for Distributed AI and Neural Networks Schema Theory Applied in Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Robotics, AI and Neuroscience Prospective contributors should send a hard copy of a five-page extended abstract, including figures with informative captions and full references (either by regular mail or fax) by February 15, 1993 to Michael Arbib, Center for Neural Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA [Tel: (213) 740-9220, Fax: (213) 746-2863, arbib@pollux.usc.edu]. Please include your full address, including fax and email, on the paper. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent by email no later than March 1, 1993. There are currently no plans to issue a formal proceedings of full papers, but revised versions of accepted abstracts received prior to April 1, 1993 will be collected with the full text of the Tutorial in a CNE Technical Report which will be made available to registrants at the start of the meeting. [A useful way to structure such an abstract is in short numbered sections, where each section presents (in a small type face!) the material corresponding to one transparency/slide in a verbal presentation. This will make it easy for an audience to take notes if they have a copy of the abstract at your presentation.] Hotel Information: Attendees may register at the hotel of their choice, but the closest hotel to USC is the University Hilton, 3540 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007, Phone: (213) 748- 4141, Reservation: (800) 872-1104, Fax: (213) 748- 0043. A single room costs $70/night while a double room costs $75/night. Workshop participants must specify that they are "Schemas and Neural Networks Workshop" attendees to avail of the above rates. Information on student accommodation may be obtained from the Student Chair, Jean-Marc Fellous, fellous@pollux.usc.edu. The registration fee of $150 ($40 for qualified students who include a "certificate of student status" from their advisor) includes a copy of the abstracts, coffee breaks, and a dinner to be held on the evening of April 13th. Those wishing to register should send a check payable to "Center for Neural Engineering, USC" for $150 ($40 for students) together with the following information to Paulina Tagle, Center for Neural Engineering, University of Southern California, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- SCHEMAS AND NEURAL NETWORKS Center for Neural Engineering, USC April 13 - 14, 1992 NAME: ___________________________________________ ADDRESS: _________________________________________ PHONE NO.: _______________ FAX:___________________ EMAIL: ___________________________________________ I intend to submit a paper: YES [ ] NO [ ] ------------------------------ Subject: ICNN'93 and FUZZ-IEEE'93 From: Hideyuki Takagi <takagi@diva.berkeley.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 20:49:54 -0800 ===================================================================== Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 15:52:58 PST From: Hamid Berenji <berenji@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> Subject: IEEE Conferences ** CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ** 1993 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NEURAL NETWORKS SECOND IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUZZY SYSTEMS March 28 - April 1, 1993 San Francisco Hilton San Francisco, California The IEEE Neural Networks Council cordially invites you to attend the Second International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE'93) and the 1993 IEEE International Conference on Neural Networks (ICNN'93), to be held concurrently at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, California from March 28 to April 1, 1993. These IEEE-sponsored events have grown to become the largest conferences in their fields. In 1993, their importance will be enhanced by their combined meeting in an environment that assures that conference participants will have full access to all functions and events of either of these multidisciplinary meetings. In addition to an exciting program of plenary lectures, tutorial presentations, and technical sessions and panels, we anticipate an extraordinary trade show and exhibits program affording a unique opportunity to become acquainted with the latest developments in products based on neural-networks and fuzzy-systems techniques. PLENARY SPEAKERS Lotfi A. Zadeh University of California, Berkeley Didier Dubois Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse Hamid R. Berenji NASA Ames Research Center Michio Sugeno Tokyo Institute of Technology E.H. Mamdani Queens Mary College, London Henri Prade Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse Bernard Widrow Stanford University Kumpati Narendra Yale University Teuvo Kohonen Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Richard Sutton GTE Laboratories Carver Mead California Institute of Technology Piero Bonissone General Electric Corporate R&D TUTORIALS SUNDAY MARCH 28, 1993, 9:00AM - 12:30PM 1. Introduction to Fuzzy Set Theory, Uncertainty and Information Theory George Klir State University of New York 2. Fuzzy Logic in Databases and Information Retrieval Maria Zemankova National Science Foundation 3. Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks Pattern Recognition James Bezdek University of West Florida 4. Evolutionary Programming David Fogel Orincon Corporation 5. Introduction to Biological and Artificial Neural Networks Steven Rogers Air Force Institute of Technology 6. The Biological Brain: Biological Neural Networks Terrence J. Sejnowski The Salk Institute SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 1993, 2:00PM - 5:30PM 7. Hardware Approaches to Fuzzy Logic Applications H. Watanabe University of North Carolina 8. Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks for Control Systems Hamid R. Berenji NASA Ames Research Center 9. Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks for Computer Vision James Keller University of Missouri 10. Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks Darrell Whitley Colorado State University 11. Suggestions from Cognitive Science for Neural Network Applications James A. Anderson Brown University 12. Expert Systems and Neural Networks George Lendaris Portland State University **************************************************************************** 1993 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NEURAL NETWORKS Sponsored by the IEEE Neural Networks Council with the cooperation of the European Neural Networks Society and the Japan Neural Networks Society. IEEE Neural Networks Council Constituent Societies: IEEE Circuits and Systems Society IEEE Communications Society IEEE Computer Society IEEE Control Systems Society IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society IEEE Industrial Electronics Society IEEE Industry Applications Society IEEE Information Theory Society IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society IEEE Power Engineering Society IEEE Robotics and Automation Society IEEE Signal Processing Society IEEE Social Implications of Technology Society IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society IEEE Computer Society IEEE Power Engineering Society ORGANIZATION General Chair: Enrique H. Ruspini Program Cochairs: Hamid R. Berenji Elie Sanchez Shiro Usui ADVISORY BOARD: S.I. Amari L. Cooper F. Fukushima C. Lau L. Stark J. Anderson R.C. Eberhart R. Hecht-Nielsen C.Mead A. Stubberud G. Bekey R. Eckmiller J. Holland N.Packard H. Takagi J.C. Bezdek J. Feldman C. Jorgensen D.Rummelhart P. Treleaven Y. Burnod M. Feldman T. Kohonen B. Skyrms B. Widrow ORGANIZING COMMITTEE PUBLICITY: H.R. Berenji TUTORIALS: J.C. Bezdek PRESS/PUBLIC RELATIONS: C. Welch EXHIBITS: W. Xu FINANCE: R. Tong VIDEO PROCEEDINGS: A. Bergman VOLUNTEERS: A. Worth **************************************************************************** SECOND IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FUZZY SYSTEMS Sponsored by the IEEE Neural Networks Council in Cooperation with IEEE Circuits and Systems Society IEEE Communications Society IEEE Control Systems Society IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA) North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS) Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Systems (SOFT) European Laboratory for Intelligent Techniques Engineering (ELITE) ORGANIZATION General Chairman: Enrique H. Ruspini SRI International Program Chairman: Piero P. Bonissone General Electric Corporate Research and Development ADVISORY BOARD: J. Bezdek H. Prade M. Sugeno T. Yamakawa D. Dubois E. Sanchez T. Terano L.A. Zadeh G. Klir Ph. Smets E. Trillas H.J. Zimmerman ORGANIZING COMMITTEE EXHIBITS: W. Xu, A. Ralescu, M. Togai, L. Valverde, T. Yamakawa FINANCE: R. Tong(Chair), R. Nutter PRESS/PUBLIC RELATIONS: C. Welch PUBLICITY: H. Berenji (Chair),B. D'Ambrosio, R. Lopez de Mantaras, T. Takagi TUTORIALS: J. Bezdek (Chair), H.R. Berenji, H. Watanabe VIDEO PROCEEDINGS: A. Bergman VOLUNTEERS: A. Worth ************************************************************************** CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEES: Full Conference registration permits attendance at all events and functions of both conferences with the exception of optional tour programs. The registration fee also includes one set of Proceedings (to be chosen by the registrant) for either FUZZ-IEEE '93 or ICNN '93. Additional ICNN '93 or FUZZ-IEEE '93 Proceedings or CD-ROM versions of the Proceedings are also available for purchase. Registered Registered before 1/31/93 after 1/31/93 IEEE Members $325 US Dollars $395 US Dollars Non-Members $425 US Dollars $495 US Dollars Students* $80 US Dollars $100 US Dollars TUTORIAL REGISTRATION FEES: Members Non-members Students* One Tutorial $295 $345 $150 Two Tutorials $395 $450 $200 * A letter from the Department Head to verify full-time student status at the time of registration is required. At the conference, all students must present a current student ID with picture. FOREIGN PAYMENTS MUST BE MADE BY DRAFT ON A U.S. BANK IN U.S. DOLLARS REFUND POLICY: If your registration must be canceled, your fee will be refunded less $50 U.S. dollars administrative costs. You must notify us in writing by March 1, 1993. No refunds can be given after this date. LOCATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS The Conferences will be held at the San Francisco Hilton located downtown just one block from famous Union Square in the heart of San Francisco; and just twenty minutes from San Francisco International Airport. The Hilton offers participants of the Conferences a very special room rate of $117 (Single) and $127 (Double). San Francisco Hilton One Hilton Square 333 O'Farrell Street San Francisco, CA 94102-2189 Reservations (415) 771-1400 To guarantee your reservation, you must make your reservation with payment directly to the hotel to cover the first night's stay by check or credit card. DEADLINE FOR HOTEL RESERVATIONS: March 1, 1993 SIGHTSEEING TOURS Various sightseeing tours in and around San Francisco and a Dinner Cruise will be offered. Details regarding tours as well as reservation forms will be sent upon registration for the Symposium. AIRLINE INFORMATION American Airlines has waived many of the restrictions to allow the FUZZ-IEEE '93/ICNN '93 attendees to obtain SuperSaver fares for which they would normally not qualify. Bristol Travel has been named the official travel agency for the FUZZ-IEEE '93/ICNN '93 Conferences and can assist you with all your travel needs. To make your reservations call Bristol Travel at (800) 762- 2746. Bristol Travel also provides 24-hour around the-clock service. During off hours you can call (800) 237-7980 and refer to VIT (Very Important Traveler) Number SY2CO. ************************************************************************ CONFERENCE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION: PLEASE CONTACT: FUZZ-IEEE '93/ICNN '93 Conference Office: P.O. Box 16502 Irvine, CA 92713-6502 USA For Express Mail only: Conference Office 2603 Main Street, Suite 690 Irvine, CA 92714 USA Tel (619) 453-6222 or (800) 321-6338 FAX (714) 752-7444 E-Mail: 70750.345@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Subject: CFP - Grammatical Inference Conference From: Lucas S M <sml@essex.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 17:12:25 +0000 1st ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS -------------------------------------- GRAMMATICAL INFERENCE: THEORY, APPLICATIONS AND ALTERNATIVES 22-23 April, 1993 At the UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX, WIVENHOE PARK, COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ, UK Sponsored by the Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Institute of Mathematics. Relevant Research Areas: * Computational Linguistics * Machine Learning * Pattern Recognition * Neural Networks * Artificial Intelligence MOTIVATION - ------------ Grammatical Inference is an immensely important research area that has suffered from the lack of a focussed research community. A two-day colloquium will be held at the University of Essex on the 22-23rd April 1993. The purpose of this colloquium is to bring together researchers who are working on grammatical inference and closely related problems such as sequence learning and prediction. Papers are sought for the technical sessions listed below. BACKGROUND - ------------ A grammar is a finite declarative description of a possible infinite set of data (known as the language) that is reversible in the sense that it may be used to detect language membership (or degree of membership) of a pattern, or it may be used generatively to produce samples of the language. The language may be formal and simple such as the set of all symmetric strings over a given alphabet, formal and more complex such as the set of legal PASCAL programs, less formal such as sentences or phrases in natural language, or noisy such as vector-quantised speech or handwriting, or even spatial rather than temporal, such as 2-d images. For the noisy cases stochastic grammars are often used that define the probability that the data was generated by the given grammar. So, given a set of data that the grammar is supposed to generate, and perhaps also a set that it should not generate, the problem is to learn a grammar that not only satisfies these conditions, but more importantly, generalises to unseen data in some desirable way (this may be strictly specified in test-cases where the grammar used to create the training samples is known). To date, the grammatical inference research community has evolved largely divided into the following areas a) Theories about the type of languages that can and cannot be learned. These theories are generally concerned with the types of language that may and may not be learned in polynomial time. Arguably irrelevant in practical terms since in practical applications we are usually happy to settle for a good grammar rather than some `ideal' grammar. b) Explicit Inference; this deals directly with modifiying a set of production rules until a satisfactory grammar is obtained. c) Implicit inference e.g. estimating the parameters of a hidden Markov model -- in this case production rule probabilities in the equivalent stochastic regular grammar are represented by pairs of numbers in the HMM. d) Estimating models where the grammatical equivalence uncertain (e.g. recurrent neural networks), but often aim to solve exactly the same problem. In many cases, researchers in these distinct subfields seem unaware of the other work in the other subfields; this is surely detrimental to the progress of grammatical inference research. TECHNICAL SESSIONS - -------------------- Oral and poster papers are requested in the following areas: Theory: What kinds of language are theoretically learnable; the practical import of such theories. Learning 2-d and higher-dimensional grammars, attribute grammars etc. Algorithms: Any new GI algorithms, or new insights on old ones. Grammatical inference assistants, that aim to aid humans in writing grammars. Performance of Genetic algorithms and simulated annealing for grammatical inference etc. Applications: Any interesting applications in natural language processing, speech recognition Speech and language processing, cursive script recognition, pattern recognition, sequence prediction, financial markets etc. Alternatives: The power of alternative approaches to sequence learning, such as stochastic models and artificial neural networks, where the inferred grammar may have a distributed rather than an explicit represention. Competition: A number of datasets will be made available for authors to report the performance of their algorithms on, in terms of learning speed and generalisation power. There is also the possiblity of a live competition in the demonstration session. Demonstration: There will be a session where authors may demonstrate their algorithms. For this purpose we have a large number of Unix workstations running X-Windows, with compilers for C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, Common Lisp and Prolog. If your algorithms are written in a more exotic language, we may still be able to sort something out. PCs can be made available if necessary. DISCUSSIONS - ------------- There will be open forum discussions of planning the next Grammatical Inference Conference, and the setting up of a Grammatical Inference Journal (possibly an electronic one). PUBLICATIONS - -------------- Loose-bound collections of accepted conference papers will be distributed to delegates upon arrival. It is planned to publish a selection of these papers in a book following the conference. REMOTE PARTICIPATION - ---------------------- Authors from distant lands unwilling to travel to Essex for the conference are encouraged to submit a self-explanatory poster-paper that will be displayed at the conference. SUBMISSION DETAILS - -------------------- Prospective authors should submit a 2-page abstract to Simon Lucas at the address below by the end of February, 1992. Email and Faxed abstracts are acceptable. Notification of the intention to submit an abstract would would also be appreciated. REGISTRATION DETAILS - ---------------------- Prospective delegates are requested to mail/email/fax me at the address below for further details. Dr. Simon Lucas Department of Electronic Systems Engineering University of Essex Colchester CO4 3SQ United Kingdom Tel: 0206 872935 Fax: 0206 872900 Email: sml@uk.ac.essex ------------------------------ End of Neuron Digest [Volume 11 Issue 5] ****************************************