CNE WORKSHOP - PROGRAM

Jean-Marc Fellous fellous at rana.usc.edu
Wed Oct 13 20:36:19 EDT 1993


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		The  Center  for  Neural  Engineering  
		University   of   Southern California 
		       Los Angeles CA 90089-2520

		Announces a Workshop - Oct 19-20, 1993

Neural Architectures and Distributed AI:  From Schema Assemblages
to Neural Networks October 19-20, 1993 

Program Committee: Michael Arbib (Organizer), George Bekey, 
Damian Lyons, and Ron Sun

This message contains the PROGRAM for the meeting and comes  with
a  warm  invitation to participate in the Workshop.  Registration
materials are provided at the end.  Please plan to join us in Los
Angeles  in  October  for the workshop - and do consider coming a
day early to take part in the CNE Review.

Scope of the Workshop: To design complex  technological  systems,
we  need  a  multilevel methodology which combines a coarse-grain
analysis of cooperative  or  distributed  computation  (we  shall
refer  to the computing agents at this level as "schemas") with a
fine-grain model of flexible,  adaptive  computation  (for  which
neural  networks  provide  a powerful general paradigm).  Schemas
provide a language for distributed  artificial  intelligence  and
perceptual  robotics which is "in the style of the brain", but at
a  relatively  high  level  of  abstraction  relative  to  neural
networks.   We  seek (both at the level of schema asemblages, and
in terms of "modular" neural networks)  a  distributed  model  of
computation,    supporting   many   concurrent   activities   for
recognition of objects, and the planning and control of different
activities.   The use, representation, and recall of knowledge is
mediated  through  the  activity  of  a  network  of  interacting
computing  agents  which between them provide processes for going
from a particular situation and a particular structure  of  goals
and  tasks  to  a  suitable  course  of  action.  This action may
involve passing of messages, changes of state,  instantiation  to
add  new  schema  instances  to  the  network, deinstantiation to
remove instances, and may  involve  self-modification  and  self-
organization.  Schemas provide a form of knowledge representation
which differs from  frames  and  scripts  by  being  of  a  finer
granularity.   Schema  theory  is generative: schemas may well be
linked to others  to  provide  yet  more  comprehensive  schemas,
whereas  frames  tend  to  "build in" from the overall framework.
The  analysis  of  interacting  computing  agents   (the   schema
instances)  is  intermediate between the overall specification of
some behavior and the neural networks  that  subserve  it.    The
Workshop  will  focus  on  different  facets  of this multi-level
methodology.

Abstracts will be collected in a CNE Technical Report which  will
be made available to registrants at the start of the meeting.

Monday:  The meeting will start at 6:30pm on Monday evening  (for
those who have formally registered):    Evening at the University
Hilton         No-Host Bar followed by Dinner

Note: Members of the USC community  are  welcome  to  attend  the
presentations (but not the dinner) free of charge - please obtain
your free registration between 8:30 and 9:00am on  Tuesday.   
USC registrants may purchase the Workshop Proceedings for $10.


---------------------------- TUESDAY

All talks except for the last session will be given in the  Hedco
Neurosciences  Building  Auditorium  8:30am   Registration. Hedco
Neurosciences Building  Lobby

- Introductory Overview  

> 9:00am  Schemas  and  Neural  Networks:  A Multi-Level  Approach  
to  Natural  and  Artificial  Intelligence
Michael A. Arbib - University of Southern California

- Schemas  for  Robotics 
 
> 10:00am   Reactive  Schema-based  Robotic Systems:   Principles   
and  Practice.  
Ronald  C.  Arkin - Georgia Institute of Technology 
> 10:30  Coffee  
> 11:00am   A  Schema-Theory Approach  to Building and Analysing 
the Behavior of Robot Systems
D. M. Lyons - North American Philips Corporation 
> 11:30am   Visually Guided  Multi-Fingered  Robot Hand Grasping 
as Defined by Schemas and a Reactive System. 
T. G. Murphy - University  of  Massachusetts, Lowell  D. M. Lyons  
&  A.J. Hendricks - North American Philips Corporation 
> 12 Noon  Reinforcement Learning for Robotic  Reaching and Grasping  
Andrew  H.  Fagg - University of Southern California
> 12:30pm  Lunch 
> 1:30pm   A  Knowledge  Base  for  Neural  Guidance System  
Ramon Krosley & Manavendra Misra - Colorado School of Mines
> 2:00pm  Multiresolutional Schemata for Motion Control 
A.  Meystel - Drexel University 
> 2:30pm  Baby Sub: Using Schemata for Conceptual Learning 
Alberto  Lacaze  &  Michael  Meystel - Drexel  University
> 3:00pm  Refreshments 
> 3:30pm  A Real-Time Neural Implementation of a Schema Driven Toy-Car.
Jan N. H. Heenskerk & Fred Keijzer - Leiden University, The Netherlands

- Schemas,  NNs,   Vision,  and  Visuomotor   Coordination   

> 4:00pm Representing  and  Learning Visual Schemas in Neural Networks for
Scene Analysis 
Wee Kheng Leow & Risto Miikkulainen - University  of Texas at Austin 
> 4:30pm  Integration of Connectionist and Symbolic Modules in a Vision Task 
Masumi Ishikawa, Kengo Matsuo &  Kenichi Yoshino Kyushu 
Institute of Technology, Japan


--------------------   WEDNESDAY

> 9:00am  A Schema-Theoretic Approach to Study  the  "Chantlitaxia"
Behavior  in the Praying Mantis 
Francisco Cervantes Perez, Arturo Franco, Susana Velazquez and 
Nydia Lara - ITAM and  UNAM,  Mexico
> 9:30am  Schema Based Learning and Anuran Detour Behavior 
Fernando J. Corbacho and Hyun Bong Lee 
University of  Southern  California
> 10:00am  "What", "Where", and the Architecture of Action-Oriented
Perception 
Michael A. Arbib - University  of  Southern  California
> 10:30am  Coffee

- Programming  Environments  for  Schemas  and  NNs  

> 11:00am   ASL:Hierarchy,  Composition,  Heterogeneity, and Multi-
Granularity in Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming 
A. Weitzenfeld - University of  Southern California 
> 11:30am  A Message Passing Based Approach to the Design of Modular 
Neural  Network  Systems  
Lawrence  Gunn - MacDonald  Dettwiler  Associates,  Canada 
> 12 Noon  A Paradigm for Handling Neural Networks in Databases 
Erich  Schikuta - University of Vienna 
> 12:30pm  Lunch

- Schemas and Connectionism 

> 1:30pm Feeling-Based Schemas  
Peter  H.Greene  &   Greg  T.H. Chien - Illinois Institute of 
Technology
> 2:00pm  Neural Schemas and Connectionist Logics: A  Synthesis  of
the  Symbolic  and  the  Subsymbolic  
Ron  Sun - The University of Alabama 
> 2:30pm  Distributed Knowledge Representation in  Adaptive Self-
Organizing Concurrent Systems 
Andrew Bartczak - The University of Rhode  Island  
> 3:00pm   Refreshments  
**Refreshments  and  the concluding  session  will  take  place  
at  the Auditorium of the Andrus Gerontology Center.**  
> 3:30pm  A  Connectionist  Model  of Semantic  Memory  for  Metaphor  
Interpretation 
Tony Veale & Mark Keane - Trinity College, Ireland 
> 4:00pm  Schema-based  Modeling  of Commonsense Understanding of 
Causal Narratives 
Srinivas Narayanan - University  of  California,  Berkeley  
> 4:30pm    Dynamic   Schema Instances  in  the  Conposit Framework 
John A. Barnden - New Mexico State University


************** BONUS EVENT:  CNE RESEARCH REVIEW ****************

Registrants for the Workshop are invited to attend, at  no  extra
charge, the CNE Research Review to be held on Monday, October 18,
1993.  The  Review  will  present  a  day-long  sampling  of  CNE
research.   In particular, the meeting will celebrate the opening
of two new CNE Laboratories:  The Autonomous Robotics  Laboratory
and  the  The  Neuro-Optical  Computing Laboratory which join the
Brain Simulation Laboratory  in the Hedco Neurosciences Building.
During  the  day,  George  Bekey  will present an overview of our
research on autonomous robots, while  Keith  Jenkins  and  Armand
Tanguay  will  review  the  state  of  the art in our research on
optical implementation of neural networks.   Related  talks  will
include  those  by  Bing  Sheu on VLSI for Neural Networks and by
Alfredo Weitzenfeld on neural simulation  tools.   Another  major
development   we   will   celebrate   is  the  ever-strengthening
cooperation  between   CNE   and   USC's   Program   in   Neural,
Informational,   and   Behavioral  Sciences  (NIBS)  in  bringing
information technology to bear in catalyzing  new  insights  into
the  complexity  of the brain.  Scott Grafton will review our use
of PET scans to gain new insight into human brain  mechanisms  of
vision,  action  and  memory; while Denis McLeod will present our
approach  to  the  construction  of   federated   databases   for
neuroscience and other scientific applications.  The Program will
be rounded out by talks by other faculty  and  students,  student
posters, and demonstrations of hardware and software.

Accommodation Attendees  may  register  at  the  hotel  of  their
choice,  but  the  closest hotel to USC is the University Hilton,
3540 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007, Phone:   (213)
748-4141,  Reservation:  (800)  872-1104,  Fax: (213) 7480043.  A
single room costs $70/night while a double room costs  $75/night.
Workshop  participants  must specify that they are "CNE Workshop"
attendees to avail themselves of the above  rates.    Information
on  student accommodation may be obtained from the Student Chair,
Jean-Marc Fellous, jfellous at pollux.usc.edu.

REGISTRATION The registration fee  of  $150  ($40  for  qualified
students who include a "certificate of student status" from their
advisor and for CNE Members) includes a copy  of  the  abstracts,
coffee  breaks, and a dinner to be held on the evening of October
18th.  Those wishing to register should send a check  payable  to
"Center  for  Neural Engineering, USC" for $150 ($40 for students
and CNE members) together  with  the  following  information  to:

Marietta  Pobst  
Center  for  Neural  Engineering  
University  of Southern California 
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, 
USA.
mpobst at pollux.usc.edu 
Tel: (213) 740-1176; Fax: (213) 740-5687

SCHEMAS  AND  NEURAL  NETWORKS  Center  for  Neural  Engineering;
University of Southern California October 19-20, 1993

NAME:     ___________________________________________    
ADDRESS: _________________________________________
        _________________________________________
        _________________________________________    
PHONE   NO.:_______________          FAX:___________________
EMAIL:___________________________________________

I intend to attend the CNE Research Review on October  18,  1993:
YES  [   ]      NO   [   ]

Note: Late registrations will be accepted on the Monday  morning,
but  places  at  the  dinner  are  limited,  so  advance email to
mpobst at pollux.usc.edu would be appreciated, even if you choose to
bring your check on Monday morning.

.



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