DAI-List Digest Sunday, 10 November 1991 Issue Number 60 Topics: CFP: Blackboard Paradigm and Its Applications Post-doctoral Position at NTT Seminar (late, but relevant): Implementing MASE Using PCLIPS Seminar (late, but relevant): Knowledge-Based Software Integration Techniques Please send submissions to DAI-List@mcc.com. Send other requests, such as changes in your e-mail address, to DAI-List-Request@mcc.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Nov 91 13:39:42 CDT From: Ajay Vinze Subject: CFP: Blackboard Paradigm and Its Applications Call for Papers BLACKBOARD PARADIGM AND ITS APPLICATIONS A Special Issue of EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS Editor-In-Chief: Jay Liebowitz George Washington University DESCRIPTION The blackboard model is widely recognized as a powerful framework for building knowledge-based systems. The model has been recognized as being particulary useful in situations involving the need for opportunistic and incremental problem solving strategies. The blackboard paradigm can be viewed as a natural evolution of expert system technology. The blackboard model is an important approach in artificial intelligence, and has been generating interest among a varied set of researchers. The power and utility of the blackboard model is just being realized. Therefore, EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS plans to publish a special issue on the blackboard model and its applications in 1993. TOPICS OF INTEREST Papers dealing with issues related to the blackboard paradigm and/or the development of blackboard systems are appropriate. The topics include, but are not limited to the following: - Organization and Control - Advanced Architectures - Real-time Systems - Development Environments - Novel Applications - Validation and Verification Paper describing actual implementations (prototypes or actual systems) are particularly welcome. IMPORTANT DATES MAY 1, 1992: Full paper due (5 Copies) JULY 1,1992: Notice of review results AUGUST 15,1992: Final paper due SUBMISSION One page abstracts may be sent (are not required) prior to May 1 if authors are concerned about the relevancy of the paper to the special issue. These abstracts will be reviewed by only the guest editors. Full paper submissions will follow the standard refereeing process. Interested contributors should submit five (5) copies of their manuscripts to one of the guest editors. GUEST EDITORS: Professor Ajay Vinze or Professor Arun Sen Department of Business Analysis and Research College of Business Administration Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4217 Telephone: (409) 845-1616; FAX: (409) 845-5653 Email: VINZE@TAMCBA.bitnet and SEN@TAMCBA.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 17:07:46 JST From: ishida@cslab.kecl.ntt.jp (Toru ISHIDA) Subject: post-doctoral position ************** Postdoctoral Position Available **************** ******** in NTT's Cooperative Problem Solving Project ********* NTT Communication Science Laboratories were established as the 12th laboratories of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation on July 4, 1991. These laboratories are currently in the ATR building, which has a very international atmosphere and is located approximately 30 minutes by train from Japan's old capitals, Kyoto and Nara. The main goal of NTT Communication Science Laboratories is to contribute to the advances in computer and communication science through basic research undertaken with a long range view. In particular, many distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) topics are being investigated. We invite applications for a postdoctoral position on the cooperative problem solving project. The ideal candidate will have rich experience in DAI, planning, or in mobile robots. Researchers with a robotics background are highly welcome. The position is available from April 1992, or later, and is guaranteed for a one-year period, but this can be extended by mutual agreement. Candidates must have a Ph.D. prior to accepting this position. The postdoctoral position is crucial for the cooperative problem solving project, which will consist of four researchers. The postdoctoral fellow will participate in major research decisions and share duties including the design and development of a prototype system, and the publications resulting from the project. Our research activities and the detailed conditions of the postdoctoral position are available upon request. Interested persons should please contact: Toru Ishida Senior Research Scientist Distributed Artificial Intelligence Group NTT Communication Science Laboratories Sanpeidani, Inuidani, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-02, JAPAN Telephone: +81 7749 5 1821 Facsimile: +81 7749 5 1839 E-mail: ishida@cslab.kecl.ntt.jp ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: john@cs.ulowell.edu (John C. Sieg) Subject: UMass/Lowell Colloquium, Oct. 16 Date: 11 Oct 91 19:55:06 GMT COLLOQUIUM ANNOUNCEMENT Computer Science Department College of Arts and Sciences, University of Massachusetts at Lowell DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1991 PLACE: University of Massachusetts at Lowell (previously the University of Lowell) Wannalancit 116, 175 Cabot St., Lowell, MA SPEAKER: Mark Miller Center for Productivity Enhancement University of Massachusetts at Lowell Lowell, MA 01854 TITLE: Implementing MASE (Management and Security Experts) Using PCLIPS (A Parallel C Language Inference Production System) ABSTRACT: PCLIPS is a set of extensions to the CLIPS expert- system language developed at JSC NASA. Written in C and using native TCP/IP, PCLIPS is portable to most platforms and has been tested on Unix (System V and BSD), VAX VMS, and Apollo Domain OS. The PCLIPS extensions include: an object-oriented communication package, a mechanism for automated expert system configuration, a truth-maintenance system, an alarm-timing mechanism, an environment-preservation system, and a set of command-line arguments for behavior control. We are developing the MASE (Management and Security Experts) system on top of PCLIPS. MASE is a set of distributed expert systems that monitor operating system and network resources on a heterogeneous network. The expert systems can act in either an advisory or supervisory mode. In an advisory mode, the expert systems will notify the system manager of problems, and make suggestions as to how to correct them. In a supervisory mode, the expert systems can take corrective actions to fix problems long before a human expert (the system manager) would be able to. MASE can also monitor known security holes for indications of an intruder or a virus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: campbell@aero.org (Andrew Campbell) Subject: This Wednesday 10/16/91, TACART: Landauer on Wrappings Date: 14 Oct 91 06:31:45 GMT Los Angeles (LA) Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Technical Activity Committee on Artificial Intelligence (TACART) TOPIC: Knowledge-Based Software Integration Techniques SPEAKER: Dr. Christopher A. Landauer, The Aerospace Corp. DATE: Wednesday, 16 October, 1991. ABSTRACT: The flexible use of software to achieve widely differing user goals requires the intelligent application and combination of resources. This talk will focus on "wrappings" - "expert" interfaces to programs, algorithms, tools, and other resources in the environment. It will describe the structure of a program, vsim, that supports the wrapping paradigm. BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Christopher Landauer is a Research Scientist in the Computer Systems Research Department of The Aerospace Corporation. His publications include papers on validation of expert systems, the use of mathematical tools in expert systems, high-level simulation modeling, statistical information retrieval, and combinatorial mathematics.