From - Wed Aug 29 09:48:49 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: WELCOME TO THE CSE 676 NEWSGROUP
Date: 28 Aug 2001 18:22:31 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 32
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9mgnh7$427$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:18

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: WELCOME TO THE CSE 676 NEWSGROUP
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the CSE 676 Newsgroup.

Please feel free to post questions, comments, announcements of relevance
to the course here.

I will do the same.

I may also, as appropriate, repost private emails that you might send me
if I deem them to be of general relevance to the rest of the class, but
I will always hide the identity of the individual who sent me the
email.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
William J. Rapaport
Associate Professor of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Member, Center for Cognitive Science
Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG)

226 Bell Hall (office: 214 Bell)        | work: 716-645-3180 x 112
Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax:  716-645-3464  
SUNY Buffalo                            | home: 716-636-8625
Buffalo, NY 14260-2000                  | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CSE: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/
homepage:                      /~rapaport/
SNeRG:                         /sneps/
Center for Cognitive Science:  /pub/WWW/cogsci/
Buffalo Restaurant Guide:      /pub/WWw/restaurant.guide/

From - Wed Aug 29 09:49:14 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE
Date: 28 Aug 2001 18:27:33 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:19

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have slightly updated the syllabus to include a reference to relevant
sections of Russell & Norvig's AI text:


http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/syl.html#russell
From - Wed Aug 29 09:49:34 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TEXTS
Date: 29 Aug 2001 13:23:41 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 36
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:20

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TEXTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Milewski writes:

> In reference to the CSE676 Syllabus - "On Reserve at SEL"
> 
> This book can be ordered through amazon.com via zshops
> Readings in Nonmonotonic Reasoning
> by Matthew Ginsberg
> http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y01Y0306049Y6957097/qid=9990
> 39864/sr=1-1/102-7106253-7326557
> 
> This book can be ordered through amazon.com:
> Knowledge Representation (Special Issues of Artificial Intelligence, an
> International Journal)
> by Ronald J. Brachman, Hector J. Levesque, Raymond Reiter (Editor)
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262521687/qid=999041457/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/102-7106253-7326557
> 
> Robert Milewski 510-6091
> Research Scientist
> Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition
> State University of New York at Buffalo
=========================================================================

Thanks Rob!

A couple of comments:

1.  Besides zshops, you might try alibris.com

2.  The 2nd book you mention is NOT one of our texts.  It was a special
    issue of the journal _Artificial Intelligence_ devoted to KR, but
    only 1 article in it is of direct relevance to us:  the one by
    Hirst, which I've put on reserve.  (This volume is NOT the
    out-of-print B&L anthology.)
From - Tue Sep  4 09:38:08 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: CVA & MedNLP Projects
Date: 31 Aug 2001 19:04:15 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 20
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:21

I have reorganized the CSE 676 website to make it easier to find
information relevant to the CVA and MedNLP projects.

In addition, I have added some new info on CVA that Karen Wieland, from
the Grad School of Ed, just sent me.  This includes some websites that
you can search for texts that will have passages in them containing
"target" words, and -- of great importance -- lists of target words that
students of certain reading levels probably wouldn't know.  

So:  in addition to the passages I discussed in lecture today, an
alternative is to choose one of the words on these lists, then find
passages, either on your own or via the other websites mentioned above,
that contain that word.

Take a look at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/cva.html
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/mednlp.html


From - Tue Sep  4 09:38:27 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECT QUESTION
Date: 4 Sep 2001 12:55:10 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 16
Distribution: sunyab
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:22

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECT QUESTION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:
> In order to complete the project for the course 676,
> is it necessary to write a computer program to model it?
> If not, what should we have to do?

It is not necessary, but if you choose to represent your text
in SNePS, it would be preferable to program it in SNePS.  Later,
I will assign the SNePS tutorial, so that you will all be able to do
this.  If you choose not to write a program, then you should show your
representation in some other way.


From - Wed Sep  5 09:48:15 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: NEW STUDENTS
Date: 4 Sep 2001 17:09:48 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 27
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9n31ss$pub$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:24

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: NEW STUDENTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are new to CSE 676, please do the following:

1.  Fill out the "name sheet" at

        http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/nameSheet.txt

    and turn it in at the next lecture


2.  Be sure to read the syllabus, which will be constantly updated, at

        http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/syl.html


3.  Be sure to monitor the newsgroup at

        news:sunyab.cse.676
   
    or at least to monitor the newsgroup archive at:

        http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/news.txt


From - Fri Sep  7 09:13:11 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: QUERY ABOUT C.V.A. WORDS
Date: 7 Sep 2001 12:55:12 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 14
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9nag3g$6va$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:25

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: QUERY ABOUT C.V.A. WORDS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A student writes:
> Upon looking at the two websites that you posted for 676, I
> noticed some words that are way above the age group we are trying to
> target.  Some words are for 16th grade. :) 

My understanding is that anyone younger than 16th grade (i.e., senior
year in college) would be unlikely to know those words.  But note that
we are interested in all age groups, not just middle schoolers.  In
fact, the original grant proposal called for studying 2 groups:  middle
school and college.

From - Fri Sep  7 09:13:17 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS
Date: 7 Sep 2001 13:12:22 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 8
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9nah3m$7c4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:26

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A typo in the Tentative Schedule on the syllabus has been corrected;
see:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/syl.html#dates
From - Tue Sep 11 09:47:22 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: USING PROLOG (OR JAVA, OR ...) AS A KR LANGUAGE
Date: 10 Sep 2001 14:05:06 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 32
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9nihai$964$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:27

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: USING PROLOG (OR JAVA, OR ...) AS A KR LANGUAGE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A student writes:

| Is Prolog a viable choice for a representation
| language?  I know that for the most part it follows the rules of
| first-order logic, but with some extra constraints.

Many of you have asked similar questions about your favorite programming
language.  The question is a bit like "Is Prolog (or whatever) a good
way to represent lists?"  There's a category mistake here:  Lists are a
data structure that can be represented in any *programming* language you want.
To do that, you need to use the basic (or primitive) data types of the
language to implement lists.  That's easy in Lisp or Prolog; harder in,
say, Pascal.

SNePS is not a programming language; it is a KR language.  It happens to
be implemented in Lisp, but that's more or less a historical accident.
We are studying KR languages.  So, you need to choose a KR language; you
can then implement that (if you wish) in your favorite programming
language, perhaps in order to make use of built-in reasoning abilities
of the programming language.  Prolog has such built-in reasoning
abilities; Lisp, Java, etc., do not.  SNePS is a KR*&R& language, so it
has its own built-in reasoning abilities.

If you choose to represent your passage "in Prolog", what you would
really be doing is representing it in a Horn-clause restriction of
first-order logic (that's right:  you would *not* have the full power
of FOL), and then using Prolog as an inference engine.


From - Tue Sep 11 12:35:54 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: FURTHER COMMENTS ON CHOICE OF A KR LANG
Date: 10 Sep 2001 14:32:32 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 16
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9niiu0$a3f$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:28

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: FURTHER COMMENTS ON CHOICE OF A KR LANG
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rather than deciding *now* that you'd like to program in Prolog, or
Java, or ..., you should concentrate on analyzing your passage in the
way we did in class on Friday.

Later, you can decide what KR language to use.  Your choice should
depend on, among other things, which KR language has the appropriate
representation facilities for your analysis of your passage.  For
instance, if you decide you really must represent things in a modal,
second-order language with defaults, Prolog (or Java or ...) almost
certainly won't allow you to do this (at least, not without a *lot* of
tweaking).  (SNePS, however, will ;-)

From - Thu Sep 13 12:37:30 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676,sunyab.cse.575
Subject: OFFICE HOURS
Date: 12 Sep 2001 15:05:02 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 28
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9nntiu$1s7$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:29 sunyab.cse.575:39

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: OFFICE HOURS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

My office hours for Fall 2001 will be:

Mondays		10 am - noon
Tuesdays	2 - 3:30 pm

or by appointment.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
William J. Rapaport
Associate Professor of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Member, Center for Cognitive Science
Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG)

201 Bell Hall (office: 214 Bell)        | work: 716-645-3180 x 112
Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax:  716-645-3464  
University at Buffalo (SUNY)            | home: 716-636-8625
Buffalo, NY 14260-2000                  | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CSE: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/
homepage:                      /~rapaport/
SNeRG:                         /sneps/
Buffalo Restaurant Guide:      /restaurant.guide/
Center for Cognitive Science:  http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/

From - Thu Sep 13 12:49:47 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: NEW C.V.A. PASSAGES
Date: 12 Sep 2001 20:40:27 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9noh7r$cve$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:30

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: NEW C.V.A. PASSAGES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've added some new passages for the CVA project; these are passages
that have an indication of the kind of strategy that might be useful for
computing the target word's meaning, and have, I believe, been tested
with real people (by the author of the article from which I got them).

See:	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/cva.passages.txt

From - Thu Sep 13 12:49:58 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu!fdl1
From: Frank D Lehouillier <fdl1@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: definition of quantifiers
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:04:17 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 56
Distribution: sunyab
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:31

There appears to be a serious mistake in both the syntax and semantics of
first order predicate calculus as Martins presents it to us regarding the 
definition of quantifiers. I am going to use _E for the existential
quantifier and _A as the universal quantifier in my examples below.  

In the definition of _A, number 6 on p. 56 he says that a wff
_Ax[alpha] is satisfied by an interpretation iff for every individual
constant [or individual ground term?] when you substitute it in for x you
get a sentence that is satisfied by the interpretation.  The problem is
that individual constant is not defined.  It probably means one of two
things either it means the zero place function letters or it means the
individuals in the universe of discourse.   Both of these are problematic
for the definition as it stands.  

The zero-place function letters position is untenable because there is not
a finite set of zero-place functions. Any number of names for individuals
might exist.  Second it doesn't take into account individuals who aren't
picked out by the interpretation of a zero place function letter.  This
would lead to the syntax itself being incomplete in the sense that it
couldn't refer to states of affairs that actually hold in a model.  The
sentence _Ax[P(x)] would simply mean that the predicate P applies to
everything that has a name.  There would be no way to consider things that
don't have a name in an interpretation.  

The other position that the term individual constant refers to the
universe of discourse suffers from the fact that it would require
substituting in elements of the semantics of the language in for part of
the syntactic expression.  So in interpreting _Ax[_Ey[P(x,y)] as occurs in
Problem 10 of the homework, in order to follow definition 6 on p 56 we
would have to check whether both _Ey[P(1,y)] and _Ey[P(2,y)] but these
sentences are not interpretable because they are not either FoL or the
metalanguage.

Martins does acknowledge that there is a problem in how he has things
written down by the question mark with the alternate terminology in
brackets that is in definition 6.  My impression about the way this is
usually handled is that there is an interpretation of the variables
themselves in any given model so that an expression like P(x,y) has an
interpretation in the metalanguage something like (following definition 1
on p 53): P(x,y) is true iff (3,4) is in the relation {(1,2), (1,1)}.
Definitions 6 would then be revised to something like the following:
_Ax[alpha] is true iff you change the interpretation of x to being equal
to another member of the universe of discourse then alpha is still true
for every member of the universe of discourse that you might change it to.
Definition 7 would likewise be changed so that if there were any
interpretation you could change the interpretation of x to in order to
make alpha true then _Ex[alpha] would be true.  This seems to get around
the problem although admittedly it feels like cheating because there is
something like syntactic manipulation of the interpreting function which
is supposed to be in the metalanguage.

Please tell me if I've made a mistake somewhere.

Frank LeHouillier


From - Thu Sep 13 12:50:06 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575,sunyab.cse.676
Subject: DIGITAL SUMMIT
Date: 13 Sep 2001 16:38:43 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 40
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9nqnej$nt8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:43 sunyab.cse.676:32

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: DIGITAL SUMMIT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:49:51 -0400
From: Kristin Herman <kherman@buffalo.edu>
Subject:      Digital Summit Nov 2 and 3 - further information
To: PROVOST-FACULTY-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

*******************HOLD THE DATE NOV 2 AND 3********************
Please disseminate to relevant lists outside of UB.  A registration flyer is
being printed and will be mailed shortly.

The University at Buffalo will host Digital Frontier: The Buffalo Summit
2001, from November 2-3, 2001.  This summit will examine the far-reaching
impacts of digital technology as manifested in the arts and sciences,
medicine, education, and various aspects of everyday life.

Plenary speakers include Michael Paige, Director of Xerox PARC, Brenda
Laurel, pioneer developer of interactive fiction, Jaron Lanier, who coined
the term "virtual reality", Steve Mann, inventor of the wearable computer,
and Clifford Stoll, author of Silicon Snake Oil.  Symposia will explore
privacy, virtual reality, telemedicine and distance learning, information
overload and retrieval, the gender divide in tech careers, and
person:machine interfaces.  These sessions will also include demonstrations
of new media, digital arts, and applications of advanced computing, as well
as extrapolations about likely technological developments of the future.
Sponsors include CISCO Systems, Verizon, Niagara Mohawk, Silicon Graphics,
Inc., American Psychological Association and others.

The website at http://digitalsummit.buffalo.edu provides further information
about the plenary speakers, and also online registration.   The summit will
take place at the Center for the Arts on the north campus of UB.   Questions
can be directed to Dr. Cusker in the Office of the Vice President for
Research at 645-3321 or  cusker@research.buffalo.edu.


Jaylan S. Turkkan, Ph.D.
Vice President for Research

From - Fri Sep 14 12:28:47 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: definition of quantifiers
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 09:26:20 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
Lines: 76
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Message-ID: <3BA2057C.7B176BAE@cse.buffalo.edu>
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:33

Here are my initial replies to Frank's comments:

Frank D Lehouillier wrote:

> In the definition of _A, number 6 on p. 56 he says that a wff

Actually, it's not the *def* of _A, but the *semantics* for _A.

>
> _Ax[alpha] is satisfied by an interpretation iff for every individual
> constant [or individual ground term?] when you substitute it in for x you
> get a sentence that is satisfied by the interpretation.  The problem is
> that individual constant is not defined.

But it is; it's defined on p. 37, as functions with 0 arguments.

> It probably means one of two
> things either it means the zero place function letters

Right.

> or it means the
> individuals in the universe of discourse.

No; that would be a confusion of syntax with semantics (as you observe
below).

>
> The zero-place function letters position is untenable because there is not
> a finite set of zero-place functions.

It doesn't have to be finite.  It is, however, countable.

> Any number of names for individuals
> might exist.

Why is that a problem?

> Second it doesn't take into account individuals who aren't
> picked out by the interpretation of a zero place function letter.  This
> would lead to the syntax itself being incomplete in the sense that it
> couldn't refer to states of affairs that actually hold in a model.

This is, in fact, the case for real numbers (i.e., there are reals with no
names).  So, given a semantic domain containing reals, the language
for representing it would, indeed, be incomplete.

>  The
> sentence _Ax[P(x)] would simply mean that the predicate P applies to
> everything that has a name.  There would be no way to consider things that
> don't have a name in an interpretation.

That is correct; it is not an error!

>
> The other position that the term individual constant refers to the
> universe of discourse suffers from the fact that it would require
> substituting in elements of the semantics of the language in for part of
> the syntactic expression.

Right; that's the confusion I mentioned above.

> Martins does acknowledge that there is a problem in how he has things
> written down by the question mark with the alternate terminology in
> brackets that is in definition 6.

There, the question is whether the semantics should be concerned with
complex terms.  I don't think that it has to be, since the semantics is
recursive.

When I get some free time later, I'll post the semantics from a standard
text on logic, so that you can compare them.

-Bill Rapaport


From - Wed Sep 19 15:57:04 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: QUANTIFIER SEMANTICS
Date: 19 Sep 2001 15:38:23 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 43
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9oae5f$r3h$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:34

In reply to Frank's queries about the semantics of FOL, here is a
slightly different presentation, excerpted from: 

Mendelson, Elliott (1979), Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Second
Edition (New York:  D. Van Nostrand), pp. 50ff.
=========================================================================

An *interpretation* M consists of a non-empty set D, called the
*domain*..., and an assignment to each predicate letter A^n_J
[i.e., A, superscript "n", subscript "j"]  of an n-place relation ...
in D, to each function letter f^n_j  of an n-place operation ... in D
(i.e., a function from D^n into D), and to each individual constant a_i
of some fixed element ... of D.  ... [V]ariables are thought of as
ranging over the set D. ...

Let there be given an interpretation M with domain D.  Let S be the set
of denumerable sequences of elements of D.  We shall define what it
means for a sequence s = (b1, b2, ...) in S to satisfy a wff A in M.
[First] define a function s* of one argument, with terms as arguments
and values in D:

1.  If t is x_i, let s*(t) be b_i

2.  If t is an indiv. const., then s*(t) is the interpretation of D of
    this const.

3.  If f^n_i  is a function letter and f^M  is the corresponding
    operation in D, and t1..tn are terms, then s*(f^n_i (t1..tn)) =
    f^M (s*(t1)..s*(tn)).

... Now we proceed to the definition of satisfaction:

1.  If A is an atomic wff A^n_m (t1..tn) and A^M is the corresponding
    relation of the interpretation, then the sequence s satisfies A
    iff A^M (s*(t1)..s*(tn)), i.e., if the n-tuple (s*(t1)..s*(tn)) is
    in the relation A^M.

2.  s satisfies ~A iff s does not satisfy A

3.  s satisfies (A -> B) iff either s does not satisfy A or s satisfies B.

4.  s satisfies Ax[A] iff every sequence of S that differs from s in at
    most the ith component satisfies A.	
From - Thu Sep 20 13:49:46 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: McCarthy, Advice Taker -- ONLINE!
Date: 20 Sep 2001 13:19:09 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9ocqcd$rcg$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:35

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: McCarthy, Advice Taker -- ONLINE!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

An early version of McCarthy's Advice Taker paper is online, along with
most of his other writings.  Take a look at:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/mcc59.html
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/
From - Thu Sep 20 13:49:56 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: McCARTHY:  GETTING TO THE AIRPORT
Date: 20 Sep 2001 13:26:07 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 17
Distribution: sunyab
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:36

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: McCARTHY:  GETTING TO THE AIRPORT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

An interesting follow-up article to McCarthy's "Advice Taker" is:

Lifschitz, Vladimir;
McCain, Norman;
Remolina, Emilio;
& Tacchella, Armando
(2000),
"Getting to the Airport: The Oldest Planning Problem in AI",
in
Jack Minker (ed.),
_Logic-Based Artificial Intelligence_
(Boston:  Kluwer Academic Publishers),
Ch. 7 (pp. 148-165).
From - Thu Sep 20 13:50:03 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: CORRECTED ANSWERS TO HW 1
Date: 20 Sep 2001 13:37:21 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 14
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:37

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CORRECTED ANSWERS TO HW 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have corrected the answers to HW 1.  See:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/directory.html

or

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/hw1.answers.html



From - Thu Sep 20 13:50:12 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU!pvg
From: Paul V Gestwicki <pvg@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Equivalency of constants in First Order Logic
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:56:34 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
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Distribution: sunyab
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:38


Greetings to all

  Consider a passage like this:
   "A man jumped, then he sang."

  Our human minds tell us that 'he' is the man from the first part of the
sentence.  However, when doing a mechanical transformation, can we assume
that they're the same person? e.g.:
  Jump(m).  Sing(m).    [I'm using a prologesque approach to FOL syntax.]

  or would we have to initially use separate symbols and then assert later
that they represent the same semantic object?  I don't recall seeing a way
of asserting equivalence in FOL, which could lead to a problem if our
semantic mapping points to the same entity, but the syntactic structure is
stuck with separate symbols.

  The case above is simplified by the existence of a pronoun which
generally must refer to something else.  What about one like this:
  "A handsome man jumped. The dapper gent sang."

  Now can we still assert immediately that they're the same person?  My
instincts say that we can't, because we would first need to process some
background knowledge that a handsome man could also be dapper, and that
"gent" often refers to someone who is a handsome man.  So a first attempt
at translation into FOL could be something like this:
  Jump(m).  Handsome(m).  Sing(g).  Dapper(g).
  or
  Jump(m). Prop(m,handsome). Sing(g). Prop(g,dapper).

  or whatever representation you prefer.  In this interpretation of the
sentence, where we don't assume from the grammar that g amd m are the
same, then how can we assert their equivalence?  This can be solved by
using existentailly quantified variables rather than constants to
represent the characters, but this doesn't seem to capture the essence of
the original sentence (donkeys notwithstanding).

  Does anyone have any other ideas?  My CVA passage has a similar
structure to it, and right now I am simply assuming that the
natural-language parser can determine that the subject of the sentence has
not changed (introducing the word "then" would certainly facilitate this).

  I realize there's a number of issues involved in this posting, but I've
always enjoyed prompting newsgroup discussion. :)

  Cheers,
    Paul

From - Fri Sep 21 09:08:19 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: Equivalency of constants in First Order Logic
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:57:58 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:39

Paul V Gestwicki wrote:

>
>   Consider a passage like this:
>    "A man jumped, then he sang."
>
>   Our human minds tell us that 'he' is the man from the first part of the
> sentence.  However, when doing a mechanical transformation, can we assume
> that they're the same person?...or would we have to initially use separate
> symbols

> and then assert later

> that they represent the same semantic object?  I don't recall seeing a way
> of asserting equivalence in FOL,

Well, as you now know, we can easily add "=" to FOL.  So, you'd have 2
options
for translating the above 2 sentences:

Jm ^ Sm

or:    Jm ^ Sn ^ m=n

Most people, using ordinary language, would do the former.
If there were several intervening sentences between these 2,
so that you weren't entirely sure whether "he" who sang was
"the man" who jumped, you might do the latter.

> The case above is simplified by the existence of a pronoun which
> generally must refer to something else.  What about one like this:
>   "A handsome man jumped. The dapper gent sang."

You could do the same, more or less:

either:    Hm ^ Mm ^ Jm ^ Dm ^ Gm ^ Sm

or:    Hm ^ Mm ^ Jm ^ Dn ^ Gn ^ Sn ^ m=n

You'd need a theory of how to decide when and whether the dapper
gent (n) was the handsome man (m).  This is the subject of discourse
theory withing linguistics (computational or otherwise).

> My CVA passage has a similar
> structure to it, and right now I am simply assuming that the
> natural-language parser can determine that the subject of the sentence has
> not changed (introducing the word "then" would certainly facilitate this).

You should do what seems "reasonable" in giving your translation, leaving
the task of deciding how and when to identify individuals to the parsing
program.

-Bill


From - Fri Sep 21 09:08:28 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: QUERY ON TRANSLATING INTO F.O.L.
Date: 20 Sep 2001 19:00:47 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 64
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Message-ID: <9odecv$9fd$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:40

A student writes:
> I'm working on translating the medical document to first-order logic.  I
> have a question about the translation--it would seem logical that for
> each
> sentence, I could create a new, equivalent first-order logic statement.
> But, to encompass the entire document, wouldn't it have to be contained
> in
> one (rather large) statement?  I ask because otherwise, I would have to
> (for example) represent Fred in each sentence by first saying
> 
> Ex[Fred(x)...]
> 
> Whereas it seems more true to the original English if I only have to
> state
> that once, at the beginning of one long statement.
> 
> Hopefully that made sense--any suggestions?

If you were going to translate into SNePS, it would be easy to resolve
this problem, since the translation of each sentence would be a network
that would automatically be linked to the network for all preceding
(and, eventually, succeeding) sentences, via sharing of common nodes.

Using FOL, it's not quite as obvious how to handle this, since FOL isn't
strictly speaking a KR language.  But the solution, I think, is related
to my comments on Paul's question.

Basically, you're dealing with discourse, not isolated sentences.
Hence, the representation of any given sentence must be considered in
the light of your representations of the previous sentences.

So, if you have a text like this:

	Fred is tall.  He is handsome.

you could either represent it as 2 separate sentences:

	Tf.  Hf.

or as a conjunction:

	Tf ^ Hf.

However, we can assume, for present purposes, that these are equivalent,
i.e., that separate sentences are implicitly conjoined.  

Note, by the way, that you don't have to do the following:

	Ex[Fred(x) ^ Tx ^ Hx]

and then somehow have to conjoin in the rest of the sentences to ensure
that they all talk about Fred.  Of course, you can't do this either:

	ExFred(x).  Tx.  Hx.

since the "x"s in the last 2 sentences are unbound (recall our
discussion of the donkey sentence).  Instead, you can use Skolem
constants (which, by the way, is essentially how it's done in SNePS):

	Fred(f).  Tf.  Hf.

Let me know if you have further questions.

	 
From - Fri Sep 21 09:08:52 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!mes6
From: Michael E Schiller <mes6@cse.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: FOL Numeric Values?
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:47:26 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 22
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0109210039580.1564-100000@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
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Originator: mes6@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:41

Here's a question:
How can one deal with numeric values in first order logic?  I see SNePS
seems to deal with it using "properties," where you could say something
along the lines of

has-property(Bob,height,6)

...where height is being measured in feet.  Can we do something similar in
first order logic?  For example, would something like

Height(b,6)   (where "b" is representing Bob)

be valid?  Or perhaps

Has(b,h,6)    (where "b" is Bob and "h" is height)

?

Thanks!

Mike S

From - Fri Sep 21 12:36:52 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: FOL Numeric Values?
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 09:11:01 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
Lines: 23
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <3BAB3C65.86787BB6@cse.buffalo.edu>
References: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0109210039580.1564-100000@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
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Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:42

Michael E Schiller wrote:

> Here's a question:
> How can one deal with numeric values in first order logic?

The simplest way is probably to treat them as individual constants.

> I see SNePS
> seems to deal with it using "properties,"

Not quite, but we'll discuss how SNePS handles them (poorly!)
when we discuss SNePS in lecture.

> would something like
>
> Height(b,6)   (where "b" is representing Bob)
>
> be valid?  Or perhaps
>
> Has(b,h,6)    (where "b" is Bob and "h" is height)

Or use function symbols:  height(bob) = 6

From - Wed Sep 26 09:19:29 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECT
Date: 25 Sep 2001 13:40:05 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 29
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9oq1fl$fab$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:43

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's an interesting question:  What should you do if you believe that
you will have completed the representation of your passage very early in
the semester?  Does that mean that you are finished with your term
project?

No!

After you have completely represented (to your satisfaction) your passage
*plus* all relevant background knowledge, in your favorite KR language,
you should do one or more of the following:

1.	If your favorite KR language is not SNePS, then try representing
	your passage and background knowledge in SNePS.

2.  	If you have represented your passage plus background knowledge
	in SNePS by hand, then implement it in SNePS.

3.	Independently of 1 and 2 above, if you are representing a CVA
	passage, then represent *more* passages with the same unknown
	word (together with *more* background knowledge), or, if you
	are representing one of the hospital discharge summaries, then
	you could either represent another one (I will post a list of
	who is doing what) or try to represent further background
	knowledge that might be useful for the "translation into
	plain English" task.
From - Wed Sep 26 09:19:51 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECT TOPICS
Date: 25 Sep 2001 13:51:30 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 37
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9oq252$fkl$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:44

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECT TOPICS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a list of current choices for your term projects:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CVA passages:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marc K Broklawski	"proliferate"
Chienchih Chi		"sedative"
Paul V Gestwicki	"oam"
Valerie Yakich		"proximity"

Here's an interesting passage that the 4 of you might collaborate on:

"The oam proliferated in the proximity of the fire, acting as a sedative."

:-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
HDS passages:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frank LeHouillier	Shamel
Robert J Milewski	Teron
Michael Schiller	Pablo
Rajeev M Sood		Nicholas


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Passage not yet chosen (please do so NOW!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kazuhiro Kawachi
From - Wed Sep 26 09:19:56 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: UPDATED PROJECT LIST
Date: 26 Sep 2001 13:16:20 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 23
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9oskf4$ss1$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:45

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: UPDATED PROJECT LIST
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

CVA passages:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marc K Broklawski	"proliferate"
Chienchih Chi		"sedative"
Paul V Gestwicki	"oam"
Kazuhiro Kawachi	"taciturn"
Valerie Yakich		"proximity"

=========================================================================

HDS passages:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frank LeHouillier	Shamel
Robert J Milewski	Teron
Michael Schiller	Pablo
Rajeev M Sood		Nicholas

From - Tue Oct  2 08:46:32 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SCHEDULE OF FRIDAY "MASTER CLASSES"
Date: 1 Oct 2001 14:37:31 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 24
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9p9v3b$ije$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:46

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: SCHEDULE OF FRIDAY "MASTER CLASSES"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a schedule of our Friday "master classes", so that you will have
a chance to prepare your presentation.

Date	Person		Topic			Status
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 21	Gestwicki	CVA: "oam"		done
Sep 28	LeHouillier	HDS: Shamel		done
Oct  5	Broklawski	CVA: "proliferate"	
Oct 12	Sood		HDS: Nicholas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** NOTE:  TERM PROJECT PROGRESS REPORTS DUE OCT 12 ***	
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 19	Yakich		CVA: "proximity"
Oct 26	Milewski	HDS: Teron
Nov  2	Chi		CVA: "sedative"
Nov  9	Schiller	HDS: Pablo
Nov 16	Kawachi		CVA: "taciturn"
Nov 30	open


From - Tue Oct  2 08:46:49 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HOSPITAL DISCHARGE SUMMARIES
Date: 1 Oct 2001 15:09:21 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 13
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pa0v1$jf9$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:47

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HOSPITAL DISCHARGE SUMMARIES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have reorganized the PDF files in Kevin Stevens's project report and list of
slides, in PDF format at:

	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/MEDNLP

to make them easier to use.

Those of you working on this project should try to use/adapt/modify
Kevin's case frames wherever possible.
From - Tue Oct  2 08:47:11 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND SCIENCE FICTION
Date: 1 Oct 2001 15:12:39 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pa157$jic$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:48

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND SCIENCE FICTION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You might be interested in the following science-fiction story by none
other than John McCarthy.  Full appreciation of it depends heavily on
some knowledge of knowledge representation techniques.

McCarthy, John (2001), "The Robot and the Baby"
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby.html

From - Tue Oct  2 08:47:25 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: CSE Colloquium: Alberto Mendelzon, Data (and Links) on the Web
Date: 1 Oct 2001 16:37:22 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 26
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pa642$lo8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:49

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A colloquium of possible relevance to knowledge representation:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Data (and Links) on the Web
SPEAKER: Alberto Mendelzon, University of Toronto
TIME: Friday, October 5, 3:00pm
LOCATION: Bell 224

ABSTRACT:
In the excitement of extending database
technology such as semistructured models and languages to the Web,
the importance of links between documents has somehow been left behind.
We will present two projects that keep links front and center:
the WebSQL/WebOQL query languages and the TOPIC system for computing
page reputations. WebSQL and WebOQL are query languages intended to
serve as high-level tools for building Web-based information systems
in the same way that SQL is used for building traditional information
systems. TOPIC is a method for analyzing incoming links to a page
in order to determine what are the topics that this page is best known
for on the Web.

CSE colloquium schedule:
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/colloq/Fall2001-Colloquium.html


From - Tue Oct  2 08:47:33 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HOW TO LOG INTO CSE MACHINES TO RUN SNePS
Date: 1 Oct 2001 20:10:47 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 19
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9paik7$qv4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:50

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HOW TO LOG INTO CSE MACHINES FROM UBUnix TO RUN SNePS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.  Log onto UBUnix (either on campus or from home)

2.  At the UBUnix prompt, type:

	rlogin pollux.cse.buffalo.edu

3.  Log onto pollux

	Your user name and password should be the same as for UBUnix

4.  Run SNePS [as described in the tutorial]

5.  Log off pollux

6.  Log off UBUnix
From - Wed Oct  3 09:34:09 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: AI Meets Natural Stupidity
Date: 2 Oct 2001 19:47:40 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 7
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pd5ks$3ps$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:51

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: AI Meets Natural Stupidity
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This paper is now on reserve; go to Bison -> Course Reserve, enter
"CSE676" (no spaces) for Course No., and start the search.  It's the
first (and/or maybe second) item on the list.
From - Tue Oct  9 09:23:40 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: AI Meets Natural Stupidity
Date: 8 Oct 2001 13:53:22 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9psb4i$g16$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:54

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: AI Meets Natural Stupidity
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This paper is now on reserve; go to Bison -> Course Reserve, enter
"CSE676" (no spaces) for Course No., and start the search.  It's the
first (and/or maybe second) item on the list.


From - Tue Oct  9 09:23:51 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: 3 PAPERS ON INTENSIONALITY IN SNePS
Date: 8 Oct 2001 14:17:56 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 8
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pscik$gk8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:55

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 3 PAPERS ON INTENSIONALITY IN SNePS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've posted the references to the 3 papers on intensionality in SNePS
that I mentioned in lecture to the directory of documents.


From - Wed Oct 10 09:04:56 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: BARCAN FORMULA
Date: 9 Oct 2001 13:29:37 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9puu41$pch$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:56

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: BARCAN FORMULA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have put a link to a webpage on modal logic generally and the Barcan
formula in particular on the Directory of Documents.

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/directory.html

From - Wed Oct 10 09:05:09 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: CORRESPONDENCE CONTINUUM
Date: 9 Oct 2001 14:14:35 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 14
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9pv0ob$qc7$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:57

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CORRESPONDENCE CONTINUUM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following paper:

Smith, Brian Cantwell (1987), "The Correspondence Continuum",
Report CSLI-87-71 (Stanford, CA:  Center for the Study of Language
and Information).

is now online.  Go to Bison -> Course Reserve -> CSE676
or our Directory of Documents.


From - Wed Oct 10 09:05:21 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT
Date: 10 Oct 2001 12:54:28 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 37
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9q1ge4$5lg$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:58

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you know, the term-project progress report is due on Friday.

A student writes:
> Do you want the progress report as a formal report?  I remember
> you saying that writing syntax and semantics were sufficient.  Is there
> anything else you would like included?

You should provide at least the following:

1.  A copy of your passage.
2.  The name of the knowledge representation language you are using.
3.  The syntax and semantics of the representations you have developed
    so far
4.  The representations of the passage (and any background knowledge,
    if you've gotten that far; see below) that you have so far.

I strongly suggest, so that you avoid a depth-first traversal (see below),
that you completely represent the passage first, and *then* turn your
attention to representing background knowledge.

You probably should, however, make some notes about what background
knowledge you will eventually need.

(For those of you not familiar with depth-first traversal, the point I was
trying to make above is that if you have a sequence of tasks to perform,
each of which has a sequence of subtasks (and so on, recursively), you
are usually better off performing the tasks in sequence (i.e.,
breadth-first), then performing the subtasks in sequence, etc.
Otherwise, if you first perform task 1, then perform the first of its
subtasks, *then* perform the first of that subtask's subtasks, etc.
(i.e., depth-first), you run the rist of never getting back to doing
task 2.)	 

From - Thu Oct 11 08:55:16 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATED, 10-10-01
Date: 10 Oct 2001 13:19:30 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9q1ht2$6bp$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:59

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATED, 10-10-01
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have updated the syllabus to:

1.  fine-tune the "tentative" schedule
2.  fine-tune the readings for the unit on non-monotonic logics

See:	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/syl.html#dates

From - Thu Oct 11 08:55:22 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: EPISTEMIC LOGIC
Date: 10 Oct 2001 13:59:50 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 6
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9q1k8m$79s$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:60

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: EPISTEMIC LOGIC
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've updated the directory of documents to conveniently list in one
place various references on epistemic logic.
From - Mon Oct 15 12:22:23 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: WRITING GUIDELINES
Date: 12 Oct 2001 18:06:42 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 12
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9q7bfi$fsl$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:61

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: WRITING GUIDELINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A reminder for those of you writing term projects:

All programming and research reports must follow my on-line writing
guidelines, at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/typing.info.pdf


From - Mon Oct 15 12:22:33 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU!pvg
From: Paul V Gestwicki <pvg@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Mars Mission: We Don't Trust AI
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 16:18:36 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 27
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0110121611160.17525-100000@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
NNTP-Posting-User: pvg
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:62


  Here's an amusing story that I was reminded of when we discussed expert
systems in today's class.

  About two years ago, some Comp Sci friends and I went to the Buffalo
Science Center to attend a presentation given by one of the engineers of
the Mars Pathfinder mission.  I'm afraid I don't remember his name or
capacity offhand, but he was associated with some university in New York.
He spoke a bit about the problems of remote controlling a rover,
especially the problem of there being only a limited number of hours each
day in which communication can take place.

  At the reception afterwards, my friends and I approached him and asked
whether AI was to be used to make the rover(s) autonomous.  (The friends I
was with are programmers by trade and robotics hobbyists.)  His response
was that the engineers and scientists who created the rover and the
mission would never trust their project to the mysterious ways of computer
scientists.  Now here is a socialogical hurdle we must cross as well as
the scientific ones!

  For those of you who were involved in mine and Rob's conversation
earlier this semester, I use this example as proof that we are higher up
in the Hierarchy of Geekdom than they are. :)

  Enjoy the weekend,
   Paul

From - Mon Oct 15 16:25:59 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: MCDERMOTT'S FALLACY
Date: 15 Oct 2001 19:55:14 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 18
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9qfev2$baj$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:63

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: MCDERMOTT'S FALLACY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:

> I need a little bit of clarification as to what exactly it means to be
> falling victim to McDermott's Fallacy.  As an example, I called one node
> in my SNePS representation "thisvisit".  As is, with no explanation to
> explain what "thisvisit" is, I can see it as an example of the Fallacy.
> My question is, to fix this, would it suffice to just have an explanation
> of what "thisvisit" represents?

It would suffice if the explanation was expressed in SNePS.  So, you'll
need rules that explain that "thisvisit" is a visit, that it is the
current visit, maybe also rules that explain what a visit is, etc.
Whatever you would provide in English, you should represent in SNePS as
part of the background knowledge.
From - Wed Oct 24 12:42:16 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: BIRDS GOTTA FLY
Date: 24 Oct 2001 16:00:19 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9r6oij$cba$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:64

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: BIRDS GOTTA FLY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out the default-reasoning cartoon on the updated Directory of
Documents.

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/directory.html

From - Thu Oct 25 09:04:58 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SNeBR DEMO
Date: 24 Oct 2001 20:20:44 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 57
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9r77qs$jm4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:65

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: SNeBR DEMO
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to do the SNeBR demo on your own, you might find the
following instructions from Fran Johnson of use:

Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 14:51:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Frances L Johnson <flj@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
cc: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
Subject: Pegasus demo

You have 2 choices regarding the snepslog pegasus demo... 3, actually, if
you include NOT doing it :-)

1) You can run the demo interactively:

	a) run the demo
	b) at end, *YOU* cut & paste the last query & hit return
	c) *YOU* interact with the manual SNeBR interface to remove the
	   inconsistency

OR...

2) you run the preset demo that I made to get you through the interface, then
scroll back up to show what it did.

Instructions for both options (1 and 2) are given below.

Fran

----------------------------
INSTRUCTIONS FOR 1)

load sneps
at lisp prompt: 	(snepslog)
at snepslog prompt:	demo
choose demo #4:		4
...
when demo fully ends:	flies(pegasus)?
snebr activated!
	best answers are:  r  2  d  q  n  n
should result in "FLIES(PEGASUS)"
lastly...
at snepslog prompt: 	list-asserted-wffs

to return to lisp...
at snepslog prompt:	lisp

------------------------------
INSTRUCTIONS FOR 2)

load sneps
at lisp prompt:         (snepslog)
at snepslog prompt:     demo "/projects/flj/pegasus-full.snlog" av

when done, scroll up to see the SNeBR interaction
From - Thu Oct 25 09:10:25 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 09:09:21 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
Lines: 12
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <3BD80F01.2F9E471@cse.buffalo.edu>
References: <9r792b$k6v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u)
X-Accept-Language: en
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:67

"William J. Rapaport" wrote:

> ... read some
> other SNePS papers from the SNeRG bibliography at
> http://www.cse.buffalo.edu//sneps/Bibliography/

Although that URL *will* work, there's an extra "/" in it;
it really should have been:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/sneps/Bibliography/


From - Thu Oct 25 12:40:40 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM-PROJECT GRADING CRITERIA
Date: 25 Oct 2001 13:27:20 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9r93vo$l0l$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:68

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM-PROJECT GRADING CRITERIA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A webpage on the criteria I'll be using for grading your term projects
is at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/termprojectgrading.html

(and has been listed on the Directory of Documents).

From - Thu Oct 25 12:40:57 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: DIRECTORY OF DOCUMENTS RE-ORGANIZED
Date: 25 Oct 2001 14:43:14 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9r98e2$mvh$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:69

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: DIRECTORY OF DOCUMENTS RE-ORGANIZED
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In response to popular demand (including my own), I have completely
re-organized the Directory of Documents.  (Hopefully, all the material
that used to be on it is still retrievable from it.)

Check it out at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/directory.html
From - Thu Oct 25 14:39:16 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION
Date: 24 Oct 2001 20:41:47 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 90
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9r792b$k6v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:66

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for your comments.  For the most part, you seem happy with the
course (:-) but have a few suggestions for improvement, which I'll
comment on below.  (Some of your suggestions, as you note, are out of my
control, such as the length of the class, the location, etc., so I won't
comment on those.)  

If, at any time, you have other suggestions for improvement, please let
me know.

=========================================================================

1.  Some of you wanted clarification on how your grade will be
    determined.

According to the syllabus, "Your final course grade will be a weighted
average (probably 50-50) of (1) your class attendance, class
participation, and homeworks, and (2) your grade on the project."  Now,
I did think that there might be more homeworks than there have in fact
been.  (I've been somewhat disappointed in the choice of exercises at
the end of the Martins chapters.)  In any case, homeworks aren't graded.
What this means, essentially, is that if you attend virtually all
classes and actively participate (which, so far, is true of all of you),
then your "class" grade will be A.  So your final grade will be the
average of your project grade and A.  I will post the criteria I will
use to grade your project.

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

2.  Some of you would like *more* work:  quizzes or written summaries of
    the readings, for example.

I could do that, but quizzes will just limit the amount of time we have
to cover material, and my experience with written summaries is that they
are either poorly done or perfunctory.  I'm not sure anyone gets
anything out of them.  You are grad students, and this is an advanced
grad course.  Many of these papers are "classics" and well worth reading.
You should feel guilty if you don't read them :-)

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

3.  Some of you are unhappy with having to go to the library to access
    Brachman & Levesque and Ginsberg.

Me, too.  But I can't put those papers on line; the library will know
that they all come from the same book, and they just won't do it.

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

4.  Some of you think that the Directory of Documents is cluttered.

Yeah; bummer!  I find that I can't find things easily on it, either!
When I get a chance, I'll try to clean it up a bit.

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

5.  Some of you wanted more example implementations of the concepts, or
    more applications of the different KR languages to problems relevant
    to the projects.

I'll certainly keep this in mind as I present material, but perhaps the
best way to do this is on Friday master classes when we are looking at
actual representational issues.

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

6.  Some of you suggested that I give you more time to get up the nerve
    to ask questions when I say "any questions?".  

Funny thing about that:  As chair of the CSE Teaching Quality Committee,
I often tell my colleagues to do just that (in particular, to count to
10).  Maybe I need to count to 15 :-)  More seriously, if you do have
questions but don't get a chance to ask them in class, post them to the
newsgroup or mail them to me.  If I feel that they are of general
interest, I'll post them anonymously to the newsgroup and reply there.
If you prefer that I *not* do that with your question, just let me know.	 	
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.  Some of you want to know more about SNePS.  

I'll try, but there's only so much time in the semester.  Join our SNePS
Research Group (SNeRG) on Fridays, 9:30-noon, Bell 224, or read some
other SNePS papers from the SNeRG bibliography at 
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu//sneps/Bibliography/

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

From - Thu Oct 25 14:39:22 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 09:09:21 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
Lines: 12
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <3BD80F01.2F9E471@cse.buffalo.edu>
References: <9r792b$k6v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u)
X-Accept-Language: en
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:67

"William J. Rapaport" wrote:

> ... read some
> other SNePS papers from the SNeRG bibliography at
> http://www.cse.buffalo.edu//sneps/Bibliography/

Although that URL *will* work, there's an extra "/" in it;
it really should have been:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/sneps/Bibliography/


From - Fri Oct 26 09:13:39 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: Robert Milewski <milewski@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: charting
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 23:18:47 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 6
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9rak7n$eke$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: resnet70-154.resnet.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010726 Netscape6/6.1
X-Accept-Language: en-us
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:70

If you are having issues with efficient diagraming...
I strongly recommend the program "Dia" - it is included
with Gnome (e.g. using Red Hat Linux) - amazing !
Save in a png or ps when done and use gimp to convert
it to a jpg.

From - Fri Oct 26 11:17:30 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: William J Rapaport <rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: charting
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:15:28 -0400
Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering
Lines: 19
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <3BD961F0.92BD7E5@cse.buffalo.edu>
References: <9rak7n$eke$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u)
X-Accept-Language: en
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:71

Robert Milewski wrote:

> If you are having issues with efficient diagraming...
> I strongly recommend the program "Dia" - it is included
> with Gnome (e.g. using Red Hat Linux) - amazing !
> Save in a png or ps when done and use gimp to convert
> it to a jpg.

If I understand the essence of your message, this may be
of potential interest to those of us who draw SNePS nets,
but a few items need to be translated for those of us who
are not as computer-savvy as you:

Gnome
png
gimp

Is this available on the CSE Unix machines?

From - Fri Oct 26 14:59:47 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail
From: Robert Milewski <milewski@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: charting
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 12:12:02 -0400
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 142
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <3BD98B52.95D3941F@cse.buffalo.edu>
References: <9rak7n$eke$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BD961F0.92BD7E5@cse.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: trifid.cedar.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
 boundary="------------CBAB5B1D7B4D8FAA39735C56"
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.7 sun4u)
X-Accept-Language: en
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:72


--------------CBAB5B1D7B4D8FAA39735C56
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

www.gnome.org
www.gimp.org

PNG is an image format that most graphical programs support
(e.g. gimp, photoshop, etc...)

type 'gimp' in unix or linux - (gimp == photoshop ^ freehand)
you can use it to draw or to convert image file types.

gnome is the desktop manager provided with the linux operating system
(KDE is its competitor).
the window manager controls all of the windows properties.
the desktop manager controls all of your icons, drag n drop, file
management, menu system,and nowadays, a host of utilities in many
categories.

picture the "start" bar, desktop and windows explorer in windows - well
the equivalent in linux to that concept is gnome. - except, it will be a
picture of a foot instead of the word "start".

is dia provided for unix ?
well typically, the source code for *nix applications can be compiled
for most other
*nix programs. as for binaries - i dunno. but i do know red hat linux,
solaris, mandrake
linux, debian linux - typically are the top binaries to download - and
there are usually
very minor issues with compiling source (e.g. dL a new library or
something)
www.gnome.org might have more information for a solaris version - or a
link to
the dia website (whatever that may be).

to all who don't use linux - i strongly recommend it - it is a very nice
bridge between
windows and unix - without losing the technical superiority of *nix and
maintaining,
to a good degree, the user friendliness.



William J Rapaport wrote:

> Robert Milewski wrote:
>
> > If you are having issues with efficient diagraming...
> > I strongly recommend the program "Dia" - it is included
> > with Gnome (e.g. using Red Hat Linux) - amazing !
> > Save in a png or ps when done and use gimp to convert
> > it to a jpg.
>
> If I understand the essence of your message, this may be
> of potential interest to those of us who draw SNePS nets,
> but a few items need to be translated for those of us who
> are not as computer-savvy as you:
>
> Gnome
> png
> gimp
>
> Is this available on the CSE Unix machines?

--

Robert Milewski  (716) 645-6164 x507
Research Scientist
Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition
State University of New York at Buffalo



--------------CBAB5B1D7B4D8FAA39735C56
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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
www.gnome.org
<br>www.gimp.org
<p>PNG&nbsp;is an image format that most graphical programs support
<br>(e.g. gimp, photoshop, etc...)
<p>type 'gimp' in unix or linux - (gimp == photoshop ^ freehand)
<br>you can use it to draw or to convert image file types.
<p>gnome is the desktop manager provided with the linux operating system
(KDE&nbsp;is its competitor).
<br>the window manager controls all of the windows properties.
<br>the desktop manager controls all of your icons, drag n drop, file management,
menu system,and nowadays, a host of utilities in many categories.
<p>picture the "start" bar, desktop and windows explorer in windows - well
the equivalent in linux to that concept is gnome. - except, it will be
a picture of a foot instead of the word "start".
<p>is dia provided for unix ?
<br>well typically, the source code for *nix applications can be compiled
for most other
<br>*nix programs. as for binaries - i dunno. but i do know red hat linux,
solaris, mandrake
<br>linux, debian linux - typically are the top binaries to download -
and there are usually
<br>very minor issues with compiling source (e.g. dL a new library or something)
<br>www.gnome.org might have more information for a solaris version - or
a link to
<br>the dia website (whatever that may be).
<p>to all who don't use linux - i strongly recommend it - it is a very
nice bridge between
<br>windows and unix - without losing the technical superiority of *nix
and maintaining,
<br>to a good degree, the user friendliness.
<br>&nbsp;
<br>&nbsp;
<p>William J Rapaport wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>Robert Milewski wrote:
<p>> If you are having issues with efficient diagraming...
<br>> I strongly recommend the program "Dia" - it is included
<br>> with Gnome (e.g. using Red Hat Linux) - amazing !
<br>> Save in a png or ps when done and use gimp to convert
<br>> it to a jpg.
<p>If I understand the essence of your message, this may be
<br>of potential interest to those of us who draw SNePS nets,
<br>but a few items need to be translated for those of us who
<br>are not as computer-savvy as you:
<p>Gnome
<br>png
<br>gimp
<p>Is this available on the CSE Unix machines?</blockquote>

<pre>--&nbsp;



Robert Milewski&nbsp; (716) 645-6164 x507
Research Scientist
Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition
State University of New York at Buffalo</pre>
&nbsp;</html>

--------------CBAB5B1D7B4D8FAA39735C56--

From - Tue Oct 30 09:58:20 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HW #3
Date: 30 Oct 2001 14:42:08 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 40
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9rme80$51e$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:73

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HW #3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A student writes:

>   I just wanted to be sure that I am correct in understanding homework #3.
> The problem as stated is to "represent the statements."  A simple
> representation of statements is straightforward, but some of the
> statements are loaded with extra meaning.
> 
>   Here's the passage, for reference:
> 
> Anna knows that John bought a dog.  The dog is a German Shepherd.
> John paid 300 dollars for the dog.  Anna also knows that Stu sold his
> dog.  Anna believes that John bought Stu's dog.
> 
>   The last statement, for example, has some hidden meanings.  We can say
> that "John bought Stu's dog", but in this context what is conveyed (in my
> reading of the passage) is actually the proposition "the dog that John
> bought is Stu's dog";  there is a connection between this proposition and
> the earlier one.  This would introduce some EQUIV propositiongs which are
> not explicitly in the passage.  I don't know if that's going beyond the
> scope of the problem, trying to patch together the loose or implicit
> references.

I think the simplest solution is to use "equiv" arcs, but there are many
other ways it could be done.  It's your choice, since what you're
actually representing is your understanding of the passage.


>   Unless I hear otherwise, I will proceed with a "simple" translation of
> the statements and include in my paper a discussion of the deeper issues.

That's always the best thing to do!


>   Also, the reorganized directory o' documents is much easier to navigate
> -- thanks!

You're welcome!
From - Thu Nov  1 12:51:57 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: FRAME PROBLEM
Date: 1 Nov 2001 14:28:51 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 40
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9rrm73$ac3$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:74

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: FRAME PROBLEM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

First, I've fixed the "bug" we noticed in my frame-problem handout;
there was, indeed, a redundant "result".  The corrected version is
at:
	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/frameprob.html

Second, a student writes:

> This might seem like a basic question, but I was a little bit confused in
> class today.  In our discussions of the Frame Problem, we went through
> some examples of it.  What I think I may have missed is exactly what the
> "Problem" is--perhaps more to the point, what would one have to figure out
> to "solve" the Frame Problem?

"The" frame problem (I put "the" in quotes, since some researchers argue
that there are several different problems) is, as I see it, basically a
question about what kinds of information must be included in "background
knowledge".  The "problem" is that, when an action is performed that
changes the situation it was performed in, some things change and others
don't.  In some cases, it's obvious (to us humans) what changes and what
doesn't.  E.g., if I move a brown desk with a book on it from one side
of the room to the other, "obviously" the book has also moved (relative
to the room, though not (necessarily) relative to the desk) but the desk
is still brown.  However, how would a program know that, unless we told
it?  One possible answer is to only tell it what does change, not what
doesn't change (i.e., tell it what's *not* "attached to the frame").
But how about a piece of paper on top of the book?  And how about the
window that was open?  And what about the position of the hands on the
clock on the wall?  "The frame problem" is sometimes to considered to be
a problem because it's not clear how much background information of this
kind we need to supply.  Some people think we need so much info that the
problem in insoluble.  Others point out that *we* are not bothered about
it, so why should a robot?

For more info, see the references and links at:

	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/sitcalc.html
From - Fri Nov  2 08:49:12 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU!pvg
From: Paul V Gestwicki <pvg@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: Re: charting
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:22:45 -0500
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 30
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0111011449030.12447-100000@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
References: <9rak7n$eke$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BD961F0.92BD7E5@cse.buffalo.edu> <3BD98B52.95D3941F@cse.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
In-Reply-To: <3BD98B52.95D3941F@cse.buffalo.edu>
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:75



> type 'gimp' in unix or linux - (gimp == photoshop ^ freehand)
> you can use it to draw or to convert image file types.
>

  Gimp is a wonderful graphics tool, but a much easier way to convert
images between many formats is to use the *nix command 'convert'.  It will
deduce the transformation required automatically as long as you use
standard file extensions (or maybe it uses 'file'... i'm not sure).

  Example (where % is a *nix prompt)

% convert graph1.png graph1.jpg

  Yes friends, it's that easy! :)

   -pvg


PS - to add to rob's commentary, I suggest Mandrake Linux if you are
interested in trying out linux on your home PC.  (www.linux-mandrake.com)

PPS - And watch out for passport and windows XP.  It's all marketing hype
and uses unsafe technology.  I know /I/ wouldn't want all of my credit card
information available to the first guy who cracks the system.
http://avirubin.com/passport.html

  tell your friends

From - Mon Nov  5 09:48:42 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HW #3 QUERY
Date: 5 Nov 2001 14:28:12 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 33
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9s67ls$gcj$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:76

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HW #3 QUERY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:

> I was thinking about the homework again, and am not sure how to
> represent the belief report of Anna believes that John bought Stu's dog?
> I remember you mentioning several times the difference of de re versus
> de dicto.  I also noticed a paper you had written in 1987, which I guess
> would help me out in figuring out when to use which interpretation.  I
> also assume from the abstract that in more complicated belief reports
> you may want to use both.  So I'm not sure how to go about correctly
> representing Anna believes that John bought Stu's dog?

On the difference between de re and de dicto, see:

Rapaport, William J.; Shapiro, Stuart C.; & Wiebe, Janyce M. (1997),
"Quasi-Indexicals and Knowledge Reports",
Cognitive Science 21: 63-107. 
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/qikrcogsci.pdf

(By the way, Jan Wiebe will be the CSE colloquium speaker this Friday!)

I would represent the last sentence as de re, which, in this case, means
that not both Cassie & Anna believe that the buyer's name is "John",
that the seller's name is "Stu", and that the item sold is correctly
described as "Stu's dog".

I'll discuss this when we go over the homework.  In this case, as in
most others, there is no "right" answer.


From - Mon Nov 12 11:07:11 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: OBJECT/POSSESSOR CASE FRAME
Date: 9 Nov 2001 14:22:43 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 47
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9sgorj$qah$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:78

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: OBJECT/POSSESSOR CASE FRAME
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:
> I used an object/possessor case frame in my solution to homework #3, and
> on my paper, you wrote a comment about my not having a "rel" arec as
> part of the case frame.  Specifically, I am representing the idea
> "Stu's dog" using this case frame.
> 
> In SNePS, would you include a "rel" arc in this case, and if so, what
> would you call the relation?  It seemed to me that the object/possessor
> already encapsulates the idea of ownership.

Many of you have asked me a version of this question.  Some years ago,
Soon Ae Chun, a grad student in both CS and LIN, investigated how to
represent general English possessive ("X's Y", or "a Y of X") in SNePS.
She decided that there were 3 things that had to be represented:
* the possessor
* the thing possessed
* the kind of thing that was possessed by the possessor
and she proposed the "object-possessor-rel" case frame, with the
following syntax and semantics:

			M
                       /|\
                      / | \
                     /  |  \
                    /   |   \
          possesser/ rel|    \object
                  /     |     \
                 /      |      \
                v       v       v
                p       r       o

[[M]] is the proposition that [[o]] is [[p]]'s [[r]]
(OR:  ... that [[o]] is an [[r]] of [[p]])


Reference:
1987-5
S. A. Chun. SNePS implementation of possessive phrases. SNeRG
Technical Note 19, Department of Computer Science, University at Buffalo, 1987. 

I will try to put a copy of this on the Web.


From - Wed Nov 14 09:15:33 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: CONCEPTUAL DEPENDENCY
Date: 13 Nov 2001 19:50:05 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 8
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9srthd$deh$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:79

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CONCEPTUAL DEPENDENCY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The CD webpage has been updated; it is at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/cd.html

From - Fri Nov 16 09:14:52 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: WOODS ON QUANTIFIERS IN SEMANTIC NETWORKS
Date: 16 Nov 2001 14:14:09 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 52
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9t36vh$mim$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:80

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: WOODS ON QUANTIFIERS IN SEMANTIC NETWORKS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference:
----------
Woods, William A.  (1975),
"What's in a Link:  Foundations for Semantic Networks",
in Brachman, Ronald J. & Levesque, Hector J. (eds.) (1985),
Readings in Knowledge Representation
(Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann): 237-238.

Woods's representation of:

  (forall x : Integer(x) ^ T(x))(exists y : T(y))[x is greater than y]

in SNePSUL notation:

(assert type 		quant
	quant-type 	every
	variable	x
	class		integer
	restriction	T
	prop		(build	type		quant
				quant-type	some
				variable	y
				restriction	T
				prop		(build	type	proposition
							verb	greater
							arg1	x
							arg2	y)))

SNePSUL representation of a modern SNePS representation:

(assert	forall	$x
	&ant	(build member *x class    integer)
	&ant	(build object *x property T)
	cq	(build exists $y
		       cq     (build object *y property T)
		       cq     (build rel    greater
				     arg1   *x
				     arg2   *y)))

Note that the main difference is that, where Woods represents both the
fact that there is a quantifier and the type of quantifier (universal or
existential) by nodes, SNePS uses an arc label for the type and doesn't
otherwise explicitly show that it is a quantifier.  It is SNIP, the
SNePS Inference Package, that embodies the "knowledge" that this is a
quantified proposition.

(Actually, since the current version of SNePS does not implement the
existential quantifier, we would need to use Skolem functions.)
From - Mon Nov 26 09:37:00 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: NEED COPIES OF C.V.A. PASSAGES
Date: 20 Nov 2001 14:17:02 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 24
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9tdoku$pck$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:81

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: NEED COPIES OF C.V.A. PASSAGES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This message only concerns those students doing CVA passages, viz., 

Marc K Broklawski       "proliferate"
Chienchih Chi           "sedative"
Paul V Gestwicki        "oam"
Kazuhiro Kawachi        "taciturn"
Valerie Yakich          "proximity"

Please send me a plain-text file containing the complete passage
that you are representing.

(You may have sent me this before, but I need to send it to one of the
other research-group members, and I want to make sure I have exactly
what you've been working on.)

I would like this ASAP, please; thanks!

-Bill


From - Mon Nov 26 09:37:09 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: REVISED SYLLABUS
Date: 22 Nov 2001 14:52:47 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9tj3fv$83m$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: castor.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:82

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: REVISED SYLLABUS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have made what I expect will be the final revisions to the syllabus,
updating the final topics and readings.  See:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/syl.html

From - Wed Nov 28 09:04:53 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: POSSESSIVE CASE FRAME
Date: 27 Nov 2001 14:27:50 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 11
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9u07t6$81u$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:83

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: POSSESSIVE CASE FRAME
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon Ae Chun's tech report on the object-possessor-rel case frame
is now online in the Bison reserve section for our course.

It is listed in the index as:

SNEPS IMPLEMENTATION OF P(CHUN)

From - Wed Nov 28 09:05:02 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: FRAMES
Date: 27 Nov 2001 20:13:14 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 9
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9u0s4q$hfr$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:84


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: FRAMES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've update the webpage on Frames, to include a reference to the paper
by Ben Kuipers that I mentioned in lecture.

Go to:	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/frames.html
From - Wed Nov 28 09:05:12 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SNePS DESIGN QUESTION
Date: 27 Nov 2001 20:24:18 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 17
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9u0spi$hp2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:85

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: SNePS DESIGN QUESTION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A student writes:
> When using a shortened form of a case frame, such as agent/act/object
> where the object is unknown, is it preferable in SNePS to include the
> unused arc and have it point to a base node, or to omit the arc
> altogether?  For my report, I am currently eliding the unused arc to
> make the diagrams more legible, but since arcs can not be added later,
> I wasn't sure if it might be considered better SNePS style to include
> all arcs of a case frame.

Good question.  My inclination would be to include the unused arc and
have it point to a base node, for 2 reasons:  First, there's the reason
you give, that that missing info cannot be added later.  Second,
including it is more in the style of CD and Frames, where you give all
"slot" info, but use "default" values when the "fillers" are unknown.
From - Wed Nov 28 16:44:00 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HOW TO FIND THE CHUN ARTICLE ON BISON
Date: 28 Nov 2001 16:44:10 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 25
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9u348q$q8f$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:86

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HOW TO FIND THE CHUN ARTICLE ON BISON
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:
|   I logged in to ublibraries and did a search for "sneps", but this
| article is not listed.  Is it not listed yet or did I go about it
| incorrectly somehow?

Do the following:

1.  Log on to Bison
2.  Click on Course Reserve (on the bottom, towards the left)
3.  Enter "CSE676" (all caps, no spaces) in "Course No."
4.  Start Search
5.  Click "Next Page"
6.  The Chun article is the last one listed

Helpful Hint:
While you are in the Course Reserve service, do *NOT* use your
Web browser's "back" or "forward" buttons.  ONLY use the buttons
provided by the Course Reserve service to navigate.  If you try
to use your browser's navigation buttons, weird things will happen
to the links (they'll all point to the last item you looked at)!

From - Mon Dec  3 09:19:37 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: ANOTHER SNePS QUESTION:  SEMANTICS
Date: 3 Dec 2001 14:12:19 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 20
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9ug183$c4e$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:87

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ANOTHER SNePS QUESTION:  SEMANTICS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A student writes:

> In Friday's presentation, you proposed using a case frame with two
> 'obj1' arcs.  In a case like this, using an arc label multiple times,
> would the case frame semantics be specified differently?  For example,
> would you describe a "arg1/arg1/rel/arg2" case frame or stick with
> "arg1/rel/arg2" and mention in the semantics that there may be more
> than one 'arg1'?  Or perhaps no change needs to be made?

Probably the best thing to do would be to define a
"rel/arg1/.../arg1/arg2" case frame, indicating that there are >=1 "arg1"
arcs, just as the "official" definition of the "rel/arg1/arg2" case frame
is actually for a "rel/arg1/.../argN" case frame, with N >=2 (I think);
check out the Case Frame Dictionary.

In SNePS 3, this is provided for, since each arc label specifies how many
"copies" of it are legal.
From - Tue Dec  4 09:32:54 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU!pvg
From: Paul V Gestwicki <pvg@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: SNePS Dia sheet
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 11:23:59 -0500
Organization: University at Buffalo
Lines: 36
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0112031117200.26180-100000@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
NNTP-Posting-User: pvg
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:88


Greetings

  In case you're using dia (the tool Rob mentioned earlier in the
semester), I have a SNePS shape & sheet you might like to use.  I got sick
of drawing circles, putting text in them, and then grouping them together,
so I put together a simple node shape that does the busy work and sets
some connection points.  You can get the file at:

~pvg/pub/sneps-dia.tar.gz

  On *nix, copy this file into your .dia directory and extract it.  It
will create a sheets folder and a shapes folder.  Next time you start up
dia, it should have the SNePS sheet ready for you.

  For those of you who haven't checked it out, here's the dia url again:

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/

  I create the diagrams in dia, export them as png images, convert them to
jpg (a la "convert im.png im.jpg") and then import them into StarOffice
6.0 beta for a beauty of a free-software solution :)

  Also, I spent last Wednesday checking out 'dot', a graph drawing system
developed by AT&T research.  Turns out that the algorithm they're using
may be modifiable to be used in my own research, but that's beside the
point.  My conclusion regarding cse676 is that due to dot's leaning
towards strict hierarchical drawings, it can not be used to make very
pretty SNePS diagrams.  The samples I tried all came out with a huge
number of edge crossings due to the layering algorithm.  The reason I
share is so if you say "ooh, maybe I can use 'dot'," perhaps I can save
you a few hours of time :)

  Cheers,
    Paul

From - Wed Dec  5 08:55:01 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: C.V.A. ALGORITHM
Date: 4 Dec 2001 18:25:47 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 16
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9uj4fb$2vo$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:89

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: C.V.A. ALGORITHM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three different versions of Karen Ehrlich's CVA algorithm are now
available on the web at:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/cva.html

(or see the Directory of Documents).

I may have forgotten to tell you that I also posted some good cartoons
on the Directory... :-); see:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/directory.html

From - Wed Dec  5 08:57:14 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECT INFORMATION
Date: 5 Dec 2001 13:54:07 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 27
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9ul8tv$5id$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:90

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECT INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please re-read the

	Knowledge-Representation Guidelines
	Writing Guidelines

at:

	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/krguidelines.html
	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/typing.info.pdf

This is especially important with respect to such items as:

	what needs to be included,
        required abstract,
        no cover page,
        proper formatting, etc.

An index to all relevant documents is on the Term Project page at:

	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/termproj.html



From - Wed Dec  5 09:33:15 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: WHEN IS A NODE "BELIEVED" BY THE SYSTEM?
Date: 5 Dec 2001 14:29:13 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 25
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9ulavp$6fh$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:91

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: WHEN IS A NODE "BELIEVED" BY THE SYSTEM?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student asks:

> The "SNePS Considered as a Fully Intensional Propositional Network"
> article states that structured proposition nodes are
> believed by the system if they have no incoming arcs.  In my first
> sentence of my passage, which has the form "x shows that y has
> property F", I've represented "y has property F" on the highest level
> with asserted proposition node (consisiting of a Object-Property case
> frame).  I point to this later on when constructing part indicating that
> x itself shows this.  Can this really be a belief of the system since I
> have an incoming arc pointing to it?

That paper refers to an older version of SNePS.  In the current
version, any *asserted* node, at any level, with or without 
incoming arcs, is "believed" by the system.  Nodes that are
*not* asserted are either proposition nodes that the system
does not believe (which is not the same as saying that the 
system believes that it is not the case!)--i.e., it is just
"considering" them--or nodes that are not proposition nodes,
e.g., nodes representing concepts or individuals.

From - Fri Dec  7 09:07:07 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: ALMEIDA ON REPRESENTING TIME IN SNePS
Date: 6 Dec 2001 18:33:08 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 22
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9uodl4$14q$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:92

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ALMEIDA ON REPRESENTING TIME IN SNePS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following paper:

Michael J. Almeida.
Time in narratives.
In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, and Lynne E.  Hewitt, editors,
Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective,
pages 159-189.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Hillsdale, NJ, 1995. 

is now online at either:

	http://ublib.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/reserve.cgi?B027575624.PDF

or at:

	http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/676/F01/almeida95.pdf


From - Fri Dec  7 14:02:33 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: TERM PROJECTS
Date: 7 Dec 2001 18:46:29 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 23
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9ur2q5$ene$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: castor.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:93

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TERM PROJECTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your term projects are due Monday, Dec. 10.
If you need extra time, please let me know by email.

Please turn in your paper either by giving it to me
in person in my office, Bell 214

OR

putting it in my mailbox in Bell 211

OR

coming back the next day to do one of the above;
i.e., please do NOT slip them under my door, where
they are sure to get lost :-)

I will post news when they are ready to be picked
up.

From - Mon Dec 10 09:43:43 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: MOLECULAR VS. PATTERN NODES
Date: 10 Dec 2001 14:31:46 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 21
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9v2h0i$bvp$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:94

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: MOLECULAR VS. PATTERN NODES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A student writes:

> In my diagrams, I have my pattern nodes labeled as Mn (where n is some
> integer) where it appears they should be Pn.  Is this purely a matter
> of formality, or is it incorrect to label them Mn?  I am assuming that
> it is a case where, if input to SNePS, it would make up its own nodes
> and call them Pn anyway, so it shouldn't matter which way I go in my
> diagrams.

It is technically incorrect (though in previous versions of SNePS, it
was OK) to label a molecular node that dominates a variable node with
"Mn"; it is, technically, a "pattern" node, to be labeled "Pn".  But you
are correct that when inputting this in SNePSUL, SNePS makes the
decision for you.  I won't mark any of you "wrong" if you make this
error (which is on a par with omitting a semicolon in a program whose
compiler adds missing semicolons for you automatically).

From - Mon Dec 10 09:43:50 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: HOW MUCH BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE REPRESENTED?
Date: 10 Dec 2001 14:40:37 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 12
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9v2hh5$c6u$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:95

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: HOW MUCH BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE REPRESENTED?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of you have asked me how much background knowledge needs to be
represented.  According to the grading criteria that were posted in
October and what I've been saying all along, you need to represent
*some* background knowledge.  

However, it will suffice if at least you specify what background
knowledge is needed, in English even if not coded in your KR language.

From - Tue Dec 18 15:08:53 2001
Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport
From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676
Subject: FINAL GRADES
Date: 14 Dec 2001 18:20:46 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department
Lines: 38
Distribution: sunyab
Message-ID: <9vdftu$so0$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu
NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport
Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:96

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: FINAL GRADES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have finished grading your term projects and computing your course
grades.

If you are in CSE, I will put your term project in your mailbox or mail
folder.  Otherwise, you can stop by any time I'm in my office to pick it
up, either now (at least till next Tuesday) or next semester (contact me
first to make sure I'll be in); or else you can give me a campus or
postal mailing address to send it to.

I was generally pleased with your projects, and I'm sure they will be
useful as we continue work on the CVA and HDS projects.  So, thanks!

And now... (drum roll) ... the grades:
=========================================================================
CSE 676 KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION
Fall 2001
version:	grades.14dc01.3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Person		Term	Course
Number		Paper	Grade [CG := (TP + 2*"A")/3, where "A" = 4.0]

21306247   	B+  	A-
24964928   	B+  	A-                 

26415173   	B+ 	A-                 
26893138   	A   	A                 
26901293   	A   	A                 

27572746   	A   	A                 
27697539   	A-   	A                
27865612   	A-   	A                 

29031204   	A  	A                 
