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Sesquipedalian #20
the SESQUIPEDALIAN Volume VII, No. 20
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Valentina Tereshkova born (1937) March 6, 1997
THATS A' MORAY
BY JOHN VARLEY AND OTHERS
Mercifully abbreviated by the Sesquipedalian
TUNE IS "That's a Moire"
When you swim inna da sea
And an eel bites your knee
Dat's a Moray.
A New Zealander man
With a permanent tan
Thats a Maori.
When Two Patterns Combine
In a way Serpentine
thats a Moire'
If yer vitamins be
Mostly C,D, and E
Take some more A.
Oh you Play "What I say" Very gay
Won't you play that some more
Ray.
When a Canadian Shows you his mother
He goes, "Dats my mawr"
Eh.
My new raygun here tries
To put out both your eyes
It's a Moe-Ray.
If the bikes not a Schwinn
And its Sears that you're in
then thats a Murray.
When Society Says You'll
Have to live by this Rule
That's a More
When the Grids dont quite fit
And they Shimmer a bit
thats a moire
Then the patterns you see
are produced Op-ti-cal-ly
So that's a moire.
When you say "Not Today"
In an Ottawan way
Thats t'mmoray
Stick your head to a shark
with some friends on a lark
That's Remorae.
When the music of sound
stopped on Do last time round
Singing some more "Re"
When you're in Ireland
On cold water, by sand
thats a muir eh
Take a sip a Chandon
Drink it up, down, and gone
Dat's a Moe:t
What's the name of the dip
You eat with corn Chips
Guacamole!
-/-\-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-\-/-
-- FELLOWSHIPS: Our undergraduate students and recent graduates who
have been offered graduate study fellowships include: Ryan Ginstrom
(OSU and UCLA), and Elaine Chun (University of Michigan and UT
Austin). Congratulations to them.
-/-\-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-\-/-
No colloquium this week. For directions and a complete list of
colloquia, see
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/colloq/colloq.html
-/-\-/ SALT-7 CONFERENCE /-\-/-
SEMANTICS and LINGUISTIC THEORY
Seventh Annual Meeting
Gates Hall, Room B01 (HP auditorium)
Stanford University
*March 21-23, 1997*
Invited speakers: Gennaro Chierchia
Charles J. Fillmore
Irene Heim
Craige Roberts
For a complete schedule and registration information, consult
http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/Linguistics/salt7/
-/-\-/ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM /-\-/-
Lokendra Shastri
"From simple associations to structured knowledge
and systematic reasoning"
Thursday, March 6, 4:15 pm
Room 146 Margaret Jacks Hall
********************************************************************
With over 10^11 computing elements and 10^15 interconnections, the
brain's capacity for encoding, communicating, and processing
information seems awesome. But if the brain is extremely powerful it
is also extremely limited: Neurons are slow devices, their computation
appears relatively undifferentiated with respect to the needs of
symbolic computation, and they communicate via messages that encode
only a few bits of information. In spite of these limitations our
brain is adept at performing certain types of symbol processing tasks
with remarkable ease. To wit, our ability to understand language at
the rate of several hundred words per minute. One of the principal
challenges of cognitive neuroscience and computer science is to
understand how a system made up of slow neuron-like elements can
perform such an impressive computational feat. In this talk we will
describe work that takes a step toward addressing this challenge. The
work draws upon -- and has implications for -- AI, neuroscience,
psychology, and linguistics.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Biography:
Lokendra Shastri is a member of the AI Group at the International
Computer Science Institute (ICSI) Berkeley, CA. His research interests
lie at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science
and Cognitive Neuroscience and include neurally motivated
computational models of learning, knowledge representation, and
inference; spatio-temporal connectionist networks; the role of
temporal synchrony in neural information processing; rapid memory
formation in the hippocampal system; and the learning of
context-sensitive rules.
shastri@icsi.berkeley.edu
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~shastri
-/-\-/ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-\-/-
-- Nominations are invited for the following undergraduate teaching
awards: THE WALTER J. GORES AWARDS recognize undergraduate and
graduate teaching excellence. As the University's highest award for
teaching, the Gores Award celebrates achievement in educational
activities that include lecturing, tutoring, advising, and discussion
leading. Ordinarily, awards are made each year to: A senior faculty
member (associate or full professor) or a senior lecturer; A junior
faculty member or member of the teaching staff; A teaching assistant
(undergraduate or graduate student).
THE LLOYD W. DINKELSPIEL AWARDS recognize distinctive and
exceptional contributions to Undergraduate Education at Stanford. The
contribution may be made for such activities as curriculum design,
program development, advising excellence, residential education,
committee leadership, or extracurricular education. Ordinarily, awards
are made each year to: A graduating senior woman; A graduating senior
man; A faculty or staff member with ten or more years of service to
Stanford; A faculty or staff member with less than ten years of
service to Stanford.
THE KENNETH M. CUTHBERTSON AWARD recognizes exceptional
contributions of all types to Stanford University, including
administrative, professional, or educational. These might include
unusually distinguished and continuous service to the University,
uncommon inventiveness in meeting broad institutional objectives, or
exceptional creativity in discharging a particular
responsibility. Ordinarily, one award is made each year.
WHO MAY NOMINATE? Any member of the Stanford community may
nominate for one or more of these awards. Students are especially
encouraged to nominate anyone who has made a special contribution to
their education.
WHY NOMINATE? Stanford's quality as an educational institution
depends upon the dedication of its faculty, students, and
staff. Recognizing those whose extraordinary efforts have made
Stanford a better place thanks the award winners and reminds the
community of the importance of individual contributions to the
institution. Each award carries a cash stipend, a formal citation, and
extensive public recognition.
WHEN TO NOMINATE. Nominations received by April 11, 1997, will
be considered for this spring's awards.
HOW TO NOMINATE. Write a letter to the Subcommittee on
University and Departmental Honors, c/o Office of the Registrar, Old
Union Room 142, Stanford, CA 94305-3005. The letter may be brief, but
to be effective must clearly explain why the candidate is deserving of
the award. In general, nomination packages consisting of multiple
letters (perhaps three to ten) and supporting documentation are most
successful, but individual nominations are also most welcome. Because
of the care that normally goes into producing a nomination, they will
be active for two years.
SELECTION PROCESS. Nominations are reviewed by a committee of
faculty, staff, and students who may also gather additional
information from the nominees' colleagues. All Awards are presented at
the University Commencement Ceremony.
-- ALAN COX MEDAL: Members of the Stanford community are invited to
nominate faculty for the Allan Cox Medal for Faculty Excellence
Fostering Undergraduate Research. The Cox Medal is awarded annually to
a faculty person who has established a record of excellence directing
undergraduate research over a number of years. It may also go to a
faculty member who has done an especially outstanding job with just
one or two undergraduates whose work is unusually superior. Faculty
nominees may be from any school in the University. In addition to the
bronze medal traditionally presented to the faculty recipient, this
year's winner will receive a $1,500 cash prize.
Letters of nomination should be sent to Laura Selznick,
Director of Undergraduate Research Opportunities, 122 Sweet Hall (or
send e-mail to Laura.Selznick@Forsythe) by Friday, May 2, 1997. The
Medal will be presented at the Firestone/Golden Medal Award Ceremony
on Saturday, June 14, 1997.
-\-/-\ TRUE PHYSICS \-/-\-
An allegedly true story: A thermodynamics professor had written a take
home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: "Is hell
exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using
Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however wrote the
following: 'First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must
have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a
mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate
are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul
gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As
for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that
exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you
are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there
are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more
than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to
hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the
number of souls in hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at
the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order
for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio
of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. So, if hell
is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell,
then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell
breaks loose. Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than
the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will
drop until hell freezes over.'
It was not revealed what grade the student got.
-\-/-\ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS \-/-\-
(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-- Siemens Corporate Research, Inc. (SCR), a subsidiary of Siemens AG
with over $60 billion world-wide in sales, conducts applied and
exploratory research in selected areas to offer innovations that
strengthen and maintain the competitive advantage of Siemens
companies. Its scientific efforts contribute to the rapid advancement
of technology both in the United States and worldwide. The company has
global responsibility for research in the key areas of software
engineering, adaptive information and signal processing, imaging and
visualization, and multimedia/video technology. There is one
immediate opening in the department of multimedia/video technology.
Candidate should have a Ph.D. degree in computer science, information
systems, or computational linguistics with dissertation topic or
current work experience in information extraction, natural language
interface, story/sentence analysis, or question answering. Must have
excellent communication skills, related publications, strong
programming experiences in UNIX and/or PCs. Other pluses: strong
background in information retrieval, data base management systems,
multimedia systems, and proficiency in C/C++/X-windows/Motif. Please
submit your resume to
Dr. Shih-Ping Liou
Multimedia and Video technology Department
Siemens Corporate Research
755 College Road East
Princeton, NJ 08540
E-Mail: liou@scr.siemens.com (ASCII or Postscript)
FAX: (609) 734-6565
We are an equal opportunity employer.
-- The Departments of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of
Massachusetts/Amherst anticipate the possibility of one or more
postdoctoral traineeships, contingent upon funding. Some anticipated
traineeships emphasize linguistic and psychological perspective on
psycholinguistics, while others emphasize developmental, educational,
or basic aspects of cognitive psychology. Holders of the Ph.D. or
equivalent in psychology or allied disciplines (especially
linguistics, for the psycholinguistic traineeships) may apply. The
current stipend for individuals with no post-doctoral experience is
$19,608. Initial appointment will be for one year, with the
possibility of a one-year renewal. Interview not required. Send
vita, statement of interests, reprints, and three letters of
recommendation to Dr. Charles Clifton, Dept. of Psychology, University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003. The traineeships will become
available between July and September 1997 and applications will be
reviewed beginning March 1. The University of Massachusetts is an
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
Chuck Clifton
Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
(413) 545 2653
FAX (413) 545 0996
mailto:cec@psych.umass.edu
-- LINGUISTIC PRODUCTS PROGRAM MANAGER: InXight Software, Inc.,
Grenoble, France.
InXight, a recently formed Xerox New Enterprise Company located in Palo
Alto, California, develops leading-edge technology that supports
intelligent information access and markets this technology to software
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for use within their
applications. Much of our technology originates in the Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center and the Rank Xerox Research Centre in Grenoble, France,
and we work closely with top research teams in both centers in the areas
of computational linguistics, information retrieval, information
visualization and user interface design. Our announced OEM partners
include Oracle, Infoseek, TextWise, Citadel Computer, Verity and
Microsoft, as well as several Xerox business divisions.
We are looking for a Linguistic Products Program Manager to work at the
Grenoble research facility on behalf of InXight. This person will be
part of InXight's development organization and will function as
InXight's on-site liaison with RXRC research teams. The position
reports to the InXight Director of Development in Palo Alto, with a
dotted line report to the Director of the RXRC Grenoble lab. He/she
will have the following responsibilities:
1. management and maintenance of linguistic source materials, including
stemmers, analyzers, taggers, noun phrase extractors, and lightweight
parsing modules for European languages
2. identification of and technical liaison with lexical technology and
content suppliers in Europe
3. management of contractors hired to extend and/or maintain source
materials and products
4. in conjunction with InXight advanced product planning, evaluation of
new technologies developed at RXRC and elsewhere for possible inclusion
in InXight's product lines
5. direct contact with InXight product planning regarding existing and
upcoming competitors in InXight's areas of business
6. support for InXight customer engagements and sales efforts in Europe
The role described above requires a person with good computational
linguistic skills, especially at the lexicographic level, in addition to
good program management skills, including organization, communication
with different audiences, and the ability to grasp complex issues
quickly. While all of these skills are important, the technical
activities are the primary focus of this role.
The successful candidate will possess all of the above skills, plus a
desire to immerse him/herself in an exciting, fast-paced environment
where the contributions of every individual in the company determine our
success or failure. He/she will have at least four years of development
experience in commercial natural language processing and/or
lexicography, and will have a university degree in computational
linguistics or a related field along with some postgraduate study.
Other relevant experience, such as program/product management or OEM
sales is a definite plus.
Native/near-native fluency in English is required; proficiency in French
and/or other European languages is desirable. The ability to work in a
European Union country is also desirable; however, given the right
candidate, InXight will help to arrange the necessary permits. The
position will require travel to Palo Alto several times per year.
Interested parties should send resume and cover letter (if via e-mail,
they should be in the body of the message, not as an attachment) to
either of the following:
InXight Human Resources Human Resources
PAHV-109 Rank Xerox Research Centre
3400 Hillview Ave. 6, chemin de Maupertuis
Palo Alto, CA 94304 38240 Meylan (Grenoble)
USA France
fax: +1-415-813-7217 fax: +33 4 76 61 50 99
mailto:staffing@inxight.com
(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)
-\-/-\ INSTA-PRIZE \-/-\-
-- Fred, a math major, visited the campus post office to pick up his
key for the new year. When he found his new mailbox, he noticed it
was in the same row as the mailboxes he had his first two years.
Hours later, the only thing he remembered about hgis new mailbox was
that it was somewhere in the 920s. He recalled that his previous
mailboxes were #837 and #897, and that his roommate's mailbox, #65,
was seven boxes above the bottom row. The mailboxes form a large
rectangle with boxes numbered consecutively down each column starting
with #1 in the upper left corner. What is the number of Fred's
mailbox?
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-\-/-\ CONSERVE DISK SPACE \-/-\-
So you may delete your copy after you've read it (or better yet,
before you've read it), the Sesquipedalian Weekly Herald is stored
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current issue of the Herald can be found by typing 'help quip'.
Neither Stanford University nor the Linguistics Department, nor any of
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All rights revoked
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