Bi-monthly Reminder

Fri May 1 00:05:12 EDT 1992

		*** DO NOT FORWARD TO ANY OTHER LISTS ***

This is an automatically posted bi-monthly reminder about how the
CONNECTIONISTS list works and how to access various online resources.

CONNECTIONISTS is not an edited forum like the Neuron Digest, or a
free-for-all newsgroup like comp.ai.neural-nets.  It's somewhere in
between, relying on the self-restraint of its subscribers.  Membership in
CONNECTIONISTS is restricted to persons actively involved in neural net
research.  The following posting guidelines are designed to reduce the
amount of irrelevant messages sent to the list.  Before you post, please
remember that this list is distributed to over a thousand busy people who
don't want their time wasted on trivia.  Also, many subscribers pay cash
for each kbyte; they shouldn't be forced to pay for junk mail.

Happy hacking.

-- Dave Touretzky & Hank Wan

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                       What to post to CONNECTIONISTS
		       ------------------------------

- The list is primarily intended to support the discussion of technical
issues relating to neural computation.

- We encourage people to post the abstracts of their latest papers and
tech reports.

- Conferences and workshops may be announced on this list AT MOST twice:
once to send out a call for papers, and once to remind non-authors about
the registration deadline.  A flood of repetitive announcements about
the same conference is not welcome here.

- Requests for ADDITIONAL references.  This has been a particularly
sensitive subject lately.  Please try to (a) demonstrate that you have
already pursued the quick, obvious routes to finding the information you
desire, and (b) give people something back in return for bothering them.
The easiest way to do both these things is to FIRST do the library work
to find the basic references, then POST these as part of your query.
Here's an example:

     WRONG WAY: "Can someone please mail me all references to cascade
     correlation?"

     RIGHT WAY: "I'm looking for references to work on cascade
     correlation.  I've already read Fahlman's paper in NIPS 2, his
     NIPS 3 abstract, and found the code in the nn-bench archive.
     Is anyone aware of additional work with this algorithm?  I'll
     summarize and post results to the list."

-  Announcements of job openings related to neural computation.

-  Short reviews of new text books related to neural computation.

To send mail to everyone on the list, address it to

	Connectionists at CS.CMU.EDU

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			What NOT to post to CONNECTIONISTS:
			-----------------------------------

-  Requests for addition to the list, change of address and other
administrative matters should be sent to:

		   "Connectionists-Request at cs.cmu.edu" 

(note the exact spelling:  many "connectionists", one "request").
If you mention our mailing list to someone who may apply to be added
to it, please make sure they use the above and NOT "Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu".

- Requests for e-mail addresses of people who are believed to subscribe
to CONNECTIONISTS should be sent to postmaster at appropriate-site.  If the
site address is unknown, send your request to
Connectionists-Request at cs.cmu.edu and we'll do our best to help.  A
phone call to the appropriate institution may sometimes be simpler and
faster.

- Note that in many mail programs a reply to a message is automatically
"CC"-ed to all the addresses on the "To" and "CC" lines of the original
message.  If the mailer you use has this property, please make sure your
personal response (request for a Tech Report etc.) is NOT broadcast over
the net.

- Do NOT tell a friend about Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu.  Tell him or
her only about Connectionists-Request at cs.cmu.edu.  This will save your
friend from public embarrassment if she/he tries to subscribe.
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			The CONNECTIONISTS Archive:
			---------------------------

All e-mail messages sent to "Connectionists at cs.cmu.edu" starting 27-Feb-88 are
now available for public perusal.  

A separate file exists for each month.  The files' names are:

			 arch.yymm

where yymm stand for the obvious thing.  Thus the earliest available data are
in the file:
			 arch.8802

Files ending with .Z are compressed using the standard unix compress program.
To browse through these files (as well as through other files, see below) you
must FTP them to your local machine.

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		How to FTP Files from the CONNECTIONISTS Archive
		------------------------------------------------

1.  Open an FTP connection to host B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Internet address
    128.2.242.8).

2.  Login as user anonymous with password your username.

3.  'cd' directly to one of the following directories:
	/usr/connect/connectionists/archives
	/usr/connect/connectionists/bibliographies

4.  The archives and bibliographies directories are the ONLY ones you can 
    access. You can't even find out whether any other directories exist. 
    If you are using the 'cd' command you must cd DIRECTLY into one of these
    two directories. Access will be denied to any others, including their 
    parent directory.

5.  The archives subdirectory contains back issues of the mailing list.
    Some bibliographies are in the bibliographies subdirectory.

Problems? - contact us at "Connectionists-Request at cs.cmu.edu".

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		How to FTP Files from the Neuroprose Archive
		--------------------------------------------
Anonymous FTP on archive.cis.ohio-state.edu (128.146.8.52)
                 pub/neuroprose directory

This directory contains technical reports as a public service to the
connectionist and neural network scientific community which has an
organized mailing list (for info: connectionists-request at cs.cmu.edu)

Researchers may place electronic versions of their preprints or
articles in this directory, announce availability, and other
interested researchers can rapidly retrieve and print the postscripts.
This saves copying, postage and handling, by having the interested
reader supply the paper. (Along this line, single spaced
versions, if possible, will help!)

To place a file, put it in the Inbox subdirectory, and send mail to
pollack at cis.ohio-state.edu. Within a couple of days, I will move and
protect it, and suggest a different name if necessary. 

When you announce a paper, you should consider whether (A) you want it
automatically forwarded to other groups, like NEURON-DIGEST, (which
gets posted to comp.ai.neural-networks) and if you want to provide
(B) free or (C) prepaid hard copies for those unable to use FTP.

If you do offer hard copies, be prepared for an onslaught.  One author
reported that when they allowed combination AB, the rattling around of
their "free paper offer" on the worldwide data net generated over 2000
hardcopy requests!

Experience dictates the preferred paradigm is to announce an FTP only
version with a prominent "**DO NOT FORWARD TO OTHER GROUPS**" at the
top of your announcement to the connectionist mailing list. 

Current naming convention is 

             author.title.filetype[.Z]

where title is enough to discriminate among the files of the same
author. The filetype is usually "ps" for postscript, our desired
universal printing format, but may be tex, which requires more local
software than a spooler.  Very large files (e.g. over 200k) must be
squashed (with either a sigmoid function :) or the standard unix
"compress" utility, which results in the .Z affix.

To place or retrieve .Z files, make sure to issue the FTP command
"BINARY" before transfering files. After retrieval, call the
standard unix "uncompress" utility, which removes the .Z affix.

An example of placing a file is attached as an appendix, and a shell
script called Getps in the directory can perform the necessary
retrival operations.

For further questions contact:

Jordan Pollack				Assistant Professor
CIS Dept/OSU				Laboratory for AI Research
2036 Neil Ave				Email: pollack at cis.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210			Phone: (614) 292-4890

Here is an example of naming and placing a file:

gvax> cp i-was-right.txt.ps rosenblatt.reborn.ps
gvax> compress rosenblatt.reborn.ps
gvax> ftp archive.cis.ohio-state.edu
Connected to archive.cis.ohio-state.edu.
220 archive.cis.ohio-state.edu FTP server ready.
Name: anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:neuron
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> cd pub/neuroprose/Inbox
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> put rosenblatt.reborn.ps.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for rosenblatt.reborn.ps.Z
226 Transfer complete.
100000 bytes sent in 3.14159 seconds
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.

gvax> mail pollack at cis.ohio-state.edu
Subject: file in Inbox.
Jordan,

I just placed the file rosenblatt.reborn.ps.Z in the Inbox.
The INDEX sentence is "Boastful statements by the deceased
leader of the neurocomputing field." Please let me know when
it is ready to announce to Connectionists at cmu.

BTW, I enjoyed reading your review of the new edition of Perceptrons!

Frank

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		How to FTP Files from the NN-Bench Collection
		---------------------------------------------

1. Create an FTP connection from wherever you are to machine "pt.cs.cmu.edu"
(128.2.254.155). 

2. Log in as user "anonymous" with password your username.

3. Change remote directory to "/afs/cs/project/connect/bench".  Any
subdirectories of this one should also be accessible.  Parent directories
should not be.

4. At this point FTP should be able to get a listing of files in this
directory and fetch the ones you want.

Problems? - contact us at "nn-bench-request at cs.cmu.edu".