Newsletter 20

[kickniko]

Hi everybody!

At last I managed to have some more clear descriptions, as the
critiques demanded, and still not boost the document that much over
the limit of six pages. (It is about 6.5 pages for now.) It has been
quite a struggle between detail and compressed expression, and several
preliminary versions went right to my dustbin, but I think that it
finally approaches a usable form. Basically I kept part one almost
unchanged, since I find it very well done, then I made most changes on
part two, and added some things on part three. (Mainly the explicitly
described danger of a "mismatch" between "human and machine
representation", as they called it). So, Mark, you were absolutely
right. Though it is not a "risk" it is likely to be seen as such, and
so there has to be some words that explain why it is not.

You can find the document uploaded here in the group.
(Short_proposal_SEMACOMP_2.doc)

So the remaining questionsabout it are are:

1) What do you think could be written in a more compact form, or
perhaps be eliminated? We still have about half a page too much, but I
really can't imagine it any shorter anymore. Milan was as kind as to
get an additional opinion (which I absolutely share, by the way). I
can only imagine that we have to somehow explain a bit better what we
want to do. But in order to do that we must use a more detailed
expression, which makes the document longer. BTW, Milan, thanks a
bunch for your help!

2) On the other hand, is the new content better understandable than
the old one? As Mark has already said, it could be disadvantageous to
add more info in additional files, which also means that there must be
some way to keep the amount of information the same but to diminish
the length of the document. But this is the well known problem of "a
few words in general terms" which can lead to misunderstandings if the
amount of details gets too low, and perhaps to a second denial if it
is not as clear as it should be.

And so we have to get the optimum between detail and length..... Alas,
one of the most hard things I ever had to do. How to compress all that
down to six pages???

Now, the other news are: I am still almost everyday in Neuchatel, and
from there we do not have the possibility of any Skype conference.
(Actually we don't have the possibility for almost anything at all
there, but that's another story.) But next Thursday I will be working
from home - at least until midday, and so we could arrange a network
conference - for anybody available of course.

Having said that, I realize also that my current work on the project
in Neuchatel makes everything very difficult for carrying on with our
project. (Alone my travelling time is over 4 hours everyday.) As I
told you I had to negotiate with the company about different working
conditions that would allow me to spend more time for our project
here, and this could start by the beginning of February. (On Wednesday
I will have another talk with one of our CEOs about that) But still
the beginning of February is too far away, and time roles by. So, I
will simply take the freedom to have at least one if not two days
working home from next week on, even if some guys in Neuchatel or in
Bern would not really welcome this. I consider our project much too
important in order to be delayed just because of this or that, and in
some cases one has to simply chose.

Anyway, I will be very glad to have any input from you since I am
almost at the end of my ideas considering the length of the document -
and that only half a page away from the target.

In the meanwhile I go for our new place in EPSS.

Oh, and not to forget! Thanks a lot Rajendra for your message about
submitting for WIMS'11 Conference. Unfortunately too busy for that
now. :-(

Sleepy cheers!

Nick

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi Nick,

Is that the right version you've uploaded? Your email talks about 6.5 pages but 'short proposal semacomp 2' is exactly 6 pages of A4 not the 6.5 you mention below.

Mark

[kickniko]

Hi everybody!

Trying to reply in a single email and keep the email length well below
6.5 pages. :-D

@Mark: Good heavens, it was OK and I didn´t even notice. The
difference in the number of pages comes from the fact that I used
Apple Pages to write/edit the document, and then I saved it as an MS
Word document from Pages. When I open it now with MS Word it has the
right length. I think that it has to do with different margins on the
same page format, but I am nit sure. Anyway, saving it as PDF from
Word schould be OK. Thanks a lot for telling me, Mark!

@Alejandro: Twice good heavens, and thanks a lot for the
clarification, Alejandro! I really was thinking until now that Ideon
is a development tool for colaboration services/software. (Developers
think that all software has to be a development tool.) But now I see
that it is actually itself colaboration software, isn´t it? So,
nothing has to be tailored and developed for getting such a service
likw our group up and running, except perhaps some special webpages?
Thank you very much for the URL too - I will surely try it out.

@everybody and about the conference on Dec, the 2nd. As we have
several people wanting to join, I would say, I take the whole day at
home or at our offices in Bern, and we can arrange two times of the
day for those who can join in the first or in the second half of the
day. Let´s say:

10:00 CET

and

14:00 CET ?

Of course any change proposals for the times of the day are welcome
too, in case they serve better more of us.


@everybody again, and this one is somewhat strange to me. Mr Pascal
Drabik frrom the EC, who I contacted via phone, told me that we should
re-submit our proposal to FET-Open 2009 C, as the deadline date of
2009.12.31 is actually only an "organizational necessity" and the FET-
Open "goes forever" (or at least until the end of time of all european
projects.) The deadline agrees with the deadline reported on the
evaluation email of our proposal, that I already uploaded, and thus...
so far so good.

But when I go to http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP7DetailsCallPage&call_id=189
(for FET-Open-2009-C), I see (red letters in the middle of the page):
*********************************************************
For information:

* the end of Batch_10 has been extended up to August 3rd, 2010 and
* the beginning of Batch_11 has been set accordingly to August
4th, 2010.

Starting from August 4th, 2010, short project proposals have to be
submitted according to the new work programme for 2011-2012, in the
corresponding call FP7-ICT-2011-C.
*********************************************************
And when I click on "Electronic Proposal Submission Service (EPSS)
Instructions on the submission of your proposal through the EPSS",
right under the above information, I see: "The Electronic Proposal
Submission Service (EPSS) is not available for this call."

Quite the contrary, when I go to
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP7DetailsCallPage&call_id=319
, (for the new FP7-ICT-2011-C) I can click on ""Electronic Proposal
Submission Service (EPSS) Instructions on the submission of your
proposal through the EPSS", and I am presented the normal options
including the STREP research project proposals.

So I guess something must have changed, and we so go for FP7-ICT-2011-
C??

@everybody once more, thanks a lot for your patience, and hope to talk
with as many as possible of you on Dec., the 2nd - be it in the first
or the second half of the day.

Nick

P.S.: Mark, this one was two pages in MS Word, so considering the max.
length... I could still write some four pages more. :-D

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi Nick,

Re the confusion over the call submission programme, my advice would be to email the FP7 help desk for clarity. I'll try to look through the new proposal in light of the reviewers' comments over the next day or two.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com on behalf of kickniko
Sent: Tue 23/11/2010 20:41
To: FP7 semantics consortium

[milan]

Dear Nick and all,

@Nick - it's nice to have you again :) hope you'll have more time for us now
:)

I was telling that those MACs are problematic :) So, we are on 6 (six) pages
which fits in propositions. In my opinion proposal looks more understandable
and easier to read. However I'll study it 'till skype meeting and have some
concrete suggestion apart from this "general terms".

I am free on December 2nd at 10, and maybe at 14. So I'll be available in
the morning for sure.

One more suggestion: except discussing proposal, can we all agree on
checking Alejandro's solution for our communication? So, after conference we
can switch...
hear you soon!
cheers,
Milan

[kickniko]

Hi all!

Mark, I think that contacting the FP7 help desk is the best way to go.
So I sent an email asking about the subject, and I will be telling
you more about it soon. But anyway, as far as I can see there will be
no other difference considering our proposal, except whether we submit
it to 2009-C or 2011-C.

Milan, I am also glad for being again here, and even more glad for
deciding to not allow "usual daily business" evolve to my own personal
one way ticket. ;-) As about the problems of the Macs... well, at
least I have a unix terminal on it, so I think I will (re)start using
good old emacs. ;-) (Nostalgia!) Or wait a minute... from now on we
all use only Latex and that´s it! :-)

Seriously now, thanks a lot for your input, and of course any
additional idea would be only welcome. This funny thing with the "few
words in general terms" is that it makes things hard on the one hand,
but on the other hand one has to think about how to find the
"irreducible" representation of a given content. And then it turns out
that "irreducible" might not necessarily stand also for most
comprehensible. So, in some way it has to do with our proposal, doesn
´t it?

I will be very glad to talk with you too next Thursday! And I also
think that using Ideon is one very good option. I played a bit around
with it - seems to work very well. Anybody else tried it?

Cheers!

Nick

[milan]

Hello all!

I have tried Ideon also, and I believe that it should fit perfectly for our
needs.
One more question we can discuss on conference is should the Ideon be
Semacomp web also or will it be just back end for partners and we will
design one more page for public one in "general terms"...think about it and
we'll talk about it :)

cheers from Croatia,
Milan

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kickniko
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:32 PM
To: FP7 semantics consortium
Subject: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

[alx...@gmail.com]

Hello all,

Finally you can access to the English version demo of Ideon:
http://thinking.ideon.citic.es/

There are three types of profiles in which users are classified (user,
advanced user and administrator). If you want to try it, the data
access for basic and advanced user are:

A. Basic user
Username: basic
Password: tistoact
This user has permissions to:
1) Add, edit and share ideas and information sources.
2) Rank the ideas by tags.
3) Rate the ideas and sources (by pressing "Good" or "Poor" below the
score of that idea or source)

B. Advanced User
Username: advanced
Password: demtolfa
This user has permissions to:
1) Add, edit and share ideas and information sources.
2) Rank the ideas by tags.
3) rate the ideas and sources (by pressing "Good" or "Poor" below the
score of that idea or source).
4) Perform assessments of ideas and sources of information based on
defined evaluation criteria.

If you have any question, please feel free to ask. Anyway, I guess we
will talk about using Ideon in the conference next Thursday.

Regards,
Alejandro

[kickniko]

Hi everybody!

Just had the Skype conference about our next steps.

The points discussed were:

1) IdeON seems to fit the needs of our group very well and so we
should move our whole group over there soon. Alejandro will be asking
CITIC if it is possible to host our own domain there. like for example
semacomp.net or semacomp.com or similar. Alejandro, thank you very
much in advance.

2) I asked the help desk of FP7 about the right place for re-
submitting our proposal. (FET Open 2009-C or FET Open 2011-C). Still
waiting for an answer, but I will inform you as soon as I get one.

3) About the new text of the short proposal: First of all we all had
more or less the same positive impression of the critique from the
side of FP7. Actually they seem to say that the idea is very
interesting but some things are not clear to them. (I am especially
glad that we agree on this point, since I do have a tendency to be too
optimistic at times.) So, Mark will give us his input and thoughts on
that, and of course everybody else is also invited to do the same too.
As Mark stated it, we should try to address the points of critique in
the letter of the FP7, but without losing the positively evaluated
aspects of our proposal. Any input on that will be very welcome.

4) I did some limited research in mathematics about our target and it
seems that the proceedings are very promising. Actually the methods of
checking two given "things" for isomorphism are getting more and also
more robust for transforming them into algorithms and programs. This
would be yet another isomorphism, which could play a very significant
role in our project, since it could imply that at least the
mathematically formalizable "meaning" and all other "meaning" that can
be built up upon this concept actually *is* also possible to be
achieved by the machine. Note that this no way implies AI - it is but
*one* of the necessary but not sufficient conditions for AI. Still, at
least this step could prove to be feasible both theoretically and
technologically. (In other words we could make Turing at least
partially happy.)

Now, of course we all wish and assume that our second version of the
proposal will get the necessary rating for continuing to the full
version. And the full version will need more details and descriptions
and references etc. in the many different disciplines in the project.
Since a positive answer from the FP7 about our proposal could bring
the problem of formulating all that in a short time, I consider it a
good idea to "translate" some of the articles I read from
"mathematical hieroglyphs" into "human readable" language and upload
them along with some explanations about the "meaning" and possible
applications of all that. (Yet another isomorphism?) I think that this
way you could get a good impression about how such hieroglyphs could
apply to your specific problems, and so be better able to make some
drafts about your contributions to the project already now. Would that
be reasonable? Should I do that "translation"?


5) We also scheduled another conference at 14:00 CET for the guys that
couldn't be there in the morning. I am very very sorry to let you know
that I won't be able to be there but it would be nice if you could
still make the conference and then communicate the discussed points.
Excuse me please guys, there is a project in which I have to code the
flaws of the logical design according to a minimal documentation and
specification, which of course can never work. So I really have to
participate in a meeting in the afternoon... Could you please start
the afternoon conference without me?


Goodness, it is 12:30 and I must be going. Returning tonight...

The marathon Nick salutes you. (And I hate running!!!)

Nick

[kickniko]

No, it is just 11:30! (An whole hour as a gift! Wow!)

Still I have to run.

Ciao,

Nick

[Alejandro Varas]

Hi!

Some good news! I've already talked to the IT people and there is no problem for CITIC to use the domain www.semacomp.XXX for IdeOn. We we can pay the registration of the domain for the first year and if the proposal is sucessful the consortium can use the domain for the dissemination webpage afterwards.

I will take another look to the last version Nick sent! I am not available for the meeting at 14.00 CET, I have to close some matters before my holiday which start tomorrow, anyway I will be available through email.

Alejandro

2010/12/2 kickniko <karagia...@bluewin.ch>

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Dear all,

As agreed with Nick earlier today, I've attached two files: minor corrections to the sense, grammar etc. of the proposal and an assessment of whether we have met the reviewer's comments or not. I think the whole thing is looking a lot better (thanks Nick) in light of those comments but I also think the success/risk section could be clarified and organized.

Regards,

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com on behalf of kickniko

Sent: Thu 02/12/2010 10:32
To: FP7 semantics consortium
Subject: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

[Kor, Ah-Lian]

Dear All,
Thanks to Mark for the enhanced doc. As for the methodology, could we
incorporate the typical product/systems lifecycle -
needs/requirements(functional & non-functional)/scenario analyses,
design, implementation and evaluation. If agreeable, then I shall
enhance the methodology section.

Ah Lian

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of

Dear all,

Regards,

Mark

The points discussed were:

Nick

To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go to http://disclaimer.leedsmet.ac.uk/email.htm

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi Ah Lian,

The only problem I see is length -- what I added brings it to over 6 pages. My thinking for cutting down was bullet pointing the success/risk part (and shortening/clarifying) and possibly the methodology....

[kickniko]

Hi everybody,

and many many thanks to Mark for the input and the corrections. Mark,
I really see what you mean with the bullet-list, so I try to make one.
I think that keeping the main aspects of success/failure in a
"telegramm like" style will seve both quality of content and length
limitation.

Ah Lian, I think too that your points have to be included in that
list. This will give a bit more weight to the more practical
consequences of the project, and so it can only be good to have them.
Could you please work on that part of the list? I could make the rest
and then augment the two lists. Would that work for you?

About Marks remarks now:

1) I think this is supposed to be 'gas'.
No, it was a... glass (with a cylinder shape ;-)). But German run
again into English and thus... glas with one "s". Apologies.

2) Compared to what? We talk about mechanical processes above.
Perhaps remove 'rather'.
It should mean "as compared to similar processes based in human
inntervention", but I guess that removing that "rather" still leaves
the meaning of the content intact, and it also saves the text that
should be written otherwise in order to refer to such "human driven"
systems.

The feedback summary is indeed of great help for addressing better the
critique points. With its help it will be much easier to make the
proposal even better in that sense. So the next things I am doing are:

1) Accept Marks corrections,
2) Make my part of the bullet list
3) Refer to the summary and check/augment the proposal.

Oh, and before I forget it: Today I had an answer from the help desk,
and they say that we will have to submit our proposal to 2011-C. So I
open a new place there for us, and I will send you the username and
password, as soon as they are available.

Well, that´s all for now. Thanks a lot once again, and hope to hear
from you soon!

Nick

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi Nick,

I think the bullet list for success/risk will also help clarity in that section which has also been criticised as vague.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com on behalf of kickniko
Sent: Mon 06/12/2010 21:01
To: FP7 semantics consortium
Subject: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

[Guest, Elizabeth (INN)]

My main comment is that the first WP could suggest that we know little
about the maths involved (true in my case - I am familiar with
isomorphisms, but not category theory).

Elizabeth

[Kor, Ah-Lian]

Dear All,
Attached is just a minor rephrasing Mark's original methodology so that
it will be aligned to typical lifecycles.

Thanks.

[Nikolaos Karagiaouroglou]

Hi everybody!

Later than announced but not with such a delay as it was the case in the last months. It was great being able to work on our idea for some days again!

Here is the "newer" new version of our proposal. I kept Mark's corrections (except glas-gas-glass ;-)) and also tried to incorporate the idea about the bullet list of risks / counteracts / measures. This proved to be a bit harder than I initially thought, but it did reduced the length of the document to 6 pages without losing much of its describing power (as far as I am concerned). Could you tell me what you think about it? Anyway, thanks a lot for the continuing effort and thoughts!

Alejandro, thank you very much for the help and also a huge thanks to CITIC for so kindly making it possible for us to have our domain! Thank you so much! I really appreciated this a lot!

So, from the technical part we could move to CITIC soon and have our group there. I think that I should first move all our docs from google to CITIC, then also all our communications up to now, and when ready then we can migrate. It will be a bit cumbersome to move all messages to CITIC but I think that it is reasonable to keep them in order to have a complete archive of our activities so far.

But what should be our domain? semacomp.com, semacomp.org, semacopm.eu or yet something else? We have to decide in order to tell CITIC what the domain name has to be.

Now, about Elizabeth's comment on the first WP (actually WP3?) suggesting that we know little about the maths involved, I did make some small additions elsewhere in the document, but I can't see how to add some more things in the WP's description without going over 6 pages again. This limit seems really much too... limiting to me. It is impossible to be very detailed without exceeding the max length of six pages, unfortunately. As about isomorphisms, as defined in mathematics/category theory, this definition is not the same like in some other science. The word used maybe identical but the content is different. A mathematical isomorphism is something different than, say, a linguistics isomorphism. Yet there is some relationship, and we will be working on that too. This is (to me at least) also one of the best things in this project, namely its extremely interdisciplinary nature.

Ah-Lian, thank you very much for your work on the document too. Still I can't see the four phases of which you speak in your rephrasing of Mark's text. I can only see the same three. So I kept Mark's text and form in this passage, inserted your additional input (hopefully in reasonable places), and added another point specifically about the life cycles. (BTW, with "life cycles" I explicitly mean life cycles of the redesigns of the software that will be developed.)

Another thing that I think is important is talking about "user-friendliness" of the API. My understanding is that it is rather the benefits of using an API that can enhance user-friendliness of an application, but the API itself is not really "user-friendly". The user doesn't see the API directly - the developer does. For example, an application (like Photoshop) can use the API of QuickTime and take advantage of nice services that QuickTime offers, but the user friendliness of Photoshop is subject to the way it is implemented itself as an application. The API is only an interface - actually quite weird in its inner world for a user who, say, wants to import a TIFF. It is Photoshop that packs it all together in a user friendly form, isn't it? Or am I mistaken here? :-/

OK, now for the next steps:

1) Check the new version of the short proposal and input your thoughts

2) Decide about our domain name.

3) Move the whole content of our group to CITIC for our migration.

Do I forget anything?

Ciao and see you very soon again.

Nick

[kickniko]

Oops, forgot that there can be no file uploads anymore. So I send you
the new version via Email.

Cheers!

Nick

[Alejandro Varas Gálvez]

Good morning everybody!

 

We started the process to register the domain www.semacomp.eu, it was the only one mentioned previously. I asked for the registration to our IT department some days ago, I don’t know if they have finished the process. But I guess that it won’t take much more to finish our space to share information and docs, maybe this week, I will tell you ASAP!

 

I hope everyone agree with the domain J

 

Regards,

 

	Alejandro Varas Gálvez Proyectos Europeos. Consultor European Projects Consultant ava...@citic.es skype: avaras.citic	Tfno.: +34 952 028 610 Fax: +34 951 231 029 Web: www.citic.es	Edificio CITIC C/ Marie Curie, 6 Parque Tecnológico de Andalucía 29590 - Campanillas (MÁLAGA)
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[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi Nick,

 

Thanks for this.  I’ve attached some minor typos corrections.  I’ve also added in a suggestion for the final section on success/risk.  The accusation is that ‘success criteria are vague’ – I think that by bullet pointing like this and explicitly tying criteria to the three objectives listed at the top we can avoid this charge.  After all, the project fails or succeeds on the basis of these objectives (even if we claim success despite various objectives failing).

 

I haven’t filled in the bullet points for each objective because I think that’s best left to you Nick.  I do, however, think the last paragraph should be kept if modified following the new bullet points.

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

--

Dr. Mark Grimshaw

Reader in Creative Technologies

School of Business & Creative Technologies

University of Bolton

Work:  http://www.bolton.ac.uk/gcct/

Personal:  http://www.wikindx.com

[Nikolaos Karagiaouroglou]

Hi everybody!

Well, your input gave me much to think about and I thank you very very much for that.

First of all, many many thanks to Alejandro for all the efforts about establishing our soon-to-be new group. Alejandro, keep us informed, tell us when the green light is on, and please please direct my deepest thanks to CITIC! I think that semacomp.eu is the best combination of all aspects. it is an EU project (proposal), it is mainly research, but it is research for very practical aims too. Perhaps I am too enthusiastic a unionist, but that "eu" at the end.... I like it! After all we all converged into the idea form almost anywhere on this continent. ;-)

Anyway, now that we will soon get an official european domain, let's go further.

Mark, thanks once more for your effort. You did exactly the right thing, since in my bullet list risks, countermeasures and benefits were quite mixed up. I transformed my previous list form into yours but I don't know if my "fill-ins" could tale more improvement. The classification works clearer now, but some things are hard to decide. For example: for me, as a theoretician, the number of "matches" between human and machine made meaning is primarily an experimental hint toward "truth" of theory. But I have to see too, that it is also a measure of for the practical quality of the whole system in terms of real world software. Considering this, and considering also the fact that we don't have so much space to formulate our proposal with all details, I simply put this under "Achievement of objective 1 – construction of the theoretical framework", though I am still ambivalent.

About your remark now, Mark, considering "isomorphism and clustering methods" on the one side, and "isomorphism and category theory" on the other. Here we have two different definitions of the word "isomorphism". In the first text passage it is isomorphism in general, as it appears in many different disciplines in order to denote "equal essence" or if you like "the same in other words". In the second text passage we have the mathematical meaning of "isomorphism" which at first doesn't say much about "meaning" at all - it only puts a a label on a "abstract mapping" between two "sets" - a mapping that preserves all intrinsic properties. It is the isomorphism of category theory as it is defined there, and as it can "map something onto something else". This mathematic definition is something.. pretty primitive. You just map something onto something else, keeping some things intact both on the source as also on the target. The meaning is the interpretation of this "something pretty primitive" by additional means that are input from the other disciplines. But the thing is that these "additional means" can be themselves such "pretty primitive isomorphisms", if well defined.

So.... we would need more space to describe that too. :-( I attach the new version (2.2) to this email. You will notice again that we got over 7 pages. :-( I tried to cut out anything that is not absolutely necessary, but I can't come up with anything shorter without losing to much of the important content. Any ideas for further shortening by keeping the substance intact? (In other words.... all the above is isomorphic to: Help!)

Rajendra, thank you also very very much for your thoughts and for making me aware of the fact that the template changed. I considered the changes in the attached version. You are absolutely right about the long term vision. But isn't that explicitly enough described in 1.1 and 1.2 - especially the last paragraph of 1.2? Please don't get me wrong here, I only speak of my personal understanding about that. For me the long term vision is something very "visible" there, but I would of course text in the sense of your example in the document you sent - provided we have the space of course. (:-()

Another thing to say here, I am not really sure if attaching documents to emails for our group is enough. I don't see my own attachments in the group while I see them in my email client. (To be sure I will send the attachment to all email addresses of our group separately too.) Anyway, I had also a warning that my last email (with the attachment) didn't reach Milan due to "Temporary local problems". Milan, are you still there?

And something additional too, that I think I must share with you, though perhaps many of you already know. Recent works by Simone Duss and Katharina Henke in the institute for Psychology and Neuropsychology in the University of Bern, seem to show that no "conscious intelligence", no "knowledge of the "I" about the "I"" is needed for learning. So, if no such thing like this is needed, then we have a great hint that our approach will be fruitful. If no "spiritual thing" is needed for learning (and thus also for meanings), then a formalization of this concept of "gaining meaning" must be quite viable without caring that much about wanting to solve the problem of "intelligence" first.

I will go get their articles and send them to you, and I think we should use them as a source in the detailed proposal, but the announcement of their last results turned me even more optimistic in terms of contents of our aim.

In practical terms however.. Still we have to squeeze so much in so little space for the time being. And ROM is full and life is short....

Have a good evening, thanks a lot again, and tell me what you think about version 2.2.

Cheers,

Nick

[Stefan Berner]

Hi Nick,
das Problem mit den Attachments könnte man lösen über ein Plattform wie Dropbox.com.
Dort kannst du einen Speicherplatz einrichten, allen Mitgliedern Zugriff geben und alle haben Zugriff auf die gemeinsamen Dokumente. Die Sicherheit ist sicher nicht schlechter als über mail.

Gruss
Stefan

Stefan Berner
Dipl. Ing. ETH
Stv. Geschäftsführer, CHRO


DiSo Solution AG
Dienstleistungen und Software

Morgenstrasse 1
3073 Gümligen
Switzerland

Phone: +41 31 958 90 93
Fax: +41 31 958 90 99

----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
Von: "Nikolaos Karagiaouroglou" <nkaragia...@diso.ch>
An: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
Gesendet: Montag, 17. Januar 2011 22:49:38
Betreff: Re: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

[milan]

Dear Nick & all,

I am here and everything is ok. I got all the emails and attachments (at
least I hope so). It's been more than 10 days since I wrote last email and I
can't believe that (who said that time isn't flying when you are busy?).

Anyway, here are couple of my reactions on last group emails...
@Alejandro - I am also convinced that .eu domain is the best solution.
Thanks to CITIC and let us know when we can start using our new virtual
place.

As for the proposal; I have read it couple of times this morning and I must
say that with every version it gets more and more easier to read and
understand. Even though I am not sure is it because I have learned something
so now I can understand Nick's formulation better or is it because it's
written in easier way (understandable to "ordinary people" :) I believe it's
second choice...
I can't discus on theoretical part of proposal, but I would say that it has
"head and tail" for sure. Maybe details can be corrected but I believe that
we need some more of experienced opinion - Elena, Ah Lian (who else said
that he/she has EU project experience?). In this way Nick's, Mark's and
Rajendra's great work will be extra polished.

Couple of questions / suggestions:
- can we update www size as it's on May's data?
- putting all bulleted fields in one row on WP4 Computing Semantics Design
Phase maybe will give us more room on page 6?

One general thinking and correct me if you think different...I have a
feeling that only couple of consortium members are actually actively
responding to emails or proposals. I remember that there were times when
more than 20 email arrived in one day. Maybe I am bit impatient but it seems
that we aren't moving as fast as we could. Active participation will give us
"new wings" to finish this short proposal and submit it again (with more
success this time!).

Cheers,
Milan

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Nikolaos
Karagiaouroglou
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 10:50 PM
To: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

Hi everybody!

with all details, I simply put this under "Achievement of objective 1 -

[kickniko]

Hi Milan, nice to hear from you!

> I am here and everything is ok. I got all the emails and attachments (at
> least I hope so). It's been more than 10 days since I wrote last email and I
> can't believe that (who said that time isn't flying when you are busy?).

;-) Well, let's hope that soon the time will be flying the same way
for us while working on the project.

> As for the proposal; I have read it couple of times this morning and I must
> say that with every version it gets more and more easier to read and
> understand. Even though I am not sure is it because I have learned something
> so now I can understand Nick's formulation better or is it because it's
> written in easier way (understandable to "ordinary people" :) I believe it's
> second choice...

I am glad to hear that, Milan!

>@Alejandro - I am also convinced that .eu domain is the best solution.

So then we are two. Great!

Well, mathematics is not at all hard to understand - it only has a
somehow "strange" language, but once you feel comfortable with it, it
gets very clear. So, if the listener doesn't understand then it is
rather the problem of the teacher. ;-)

> I can't discus on theoretical part of proposal, but I would say that it has
> "head and tail" for sure. Maybe details can be corrected but I believe that
> we need some more of experienced opinion - Elena, Ah Lian (who else said
> that he/she has EU project experience?). In this way Nick's, Mark's and
> Rajendra's great work will be extra polished.

Indeed, all input is welcome. The only problem is out very constraint
space. All people here did input quite valuable details that would
give our proposal the best possible clarity, but it seems to me
impossible to keep such a high degree of scientific detail (for the
time being).

I still have all document that were sent by the people. They will
surely be used once we get the green light to go on for the full
formulation.

> Couple of questions / suggestions:
> - can we update www size as it's on May's data?

Of course. Can you send a number?

> - putting all bulleted fields in one row on WP4 Computing Semantics Design
> Phase maybe will give us more room on page 6?

A good option for some more savings. Thanks a lot!!

I already did that in my local copy of the document but I will wait a
bit more, in case some more ideas appear.

> One general thinking and correct me if you think different...I have a
> feeling that only couple of consortium members are actually actively
> responding to emails or proposals. I remember that there were times when
> more than 20 email arrived in one day. Maybe I am bit impatient but it seems
> that we aren't moving as fast as we could. Active participation will give us
> "new wings" to finish this short proposal and submit it again (with more
> success this time!).

Well, Milan, this is quite normal. On the one hand there is no more so
much to be done in the current phase, while we all had many things to
think about and to say some months ago, while the final form of the
idea was not as crystalized as it is now. In addition, I think that
this waiting until re-submission and results is a very tiresome
process because it somehow holds the enthusiasm down. It is hard to
be in this situation, where one would like to start right away but we
get to hear that we should hold our horses. This is always the way it
goes in such projects. It can really chew on ones patience. So I think
that this is the critical phase in which nothing else helps than to
insist on making the best formulation possible and submit it. After
that there will be much acceleration and the same "life" in the group.

This phase is much like a filter that separates those who "would like"
to do something from those that _really want_ to do something - I
guess that it is has also this function for the FP7, and so they use
it for eliminating cases of a too quick but also not lasting
enthusiasm.

So let's see how we can get rid of the extra lines on page 7 and then
the rally will start again.

Cheers to all!

NIck

[Guest, Elizabeth (INN)]

Hi all,

I am very much still in the loop and reading emails. LeedsMet has recently engaged a company to aid us in bringing in EU money. If you think it is appropriate, I can give them the document to read for comments.

Meanwhile I am spending some time thinking about arguments and predicates, and the boundaries in the usage of words and grammatical features. This is partly for a couple of other projects, but I think it is highly relevant for Semacomp too and will help in the writing of a full bid (assuming we get that far). I have not got my thinking as far as isomorphisms yet though.

Elizabeth
________________________________________
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com [fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kickniko [karagia...@bluewin.ch]
Sent: 18 January 2011 12:32

To: FP7 semantics consortium
Subject: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

Hi Milan, nice to hear from you!

Cheers to all!

NIck

[milan]

Yes Nick, I agree that this period of time is a kind of filter...However I
believe we are stronger than it!

I checked web size. We can say that in December 2010. it's estimated on 22
billion web pages. It's not "too much" difference in numbers but at least
it's a updated info. Please put it in final proposal version.

Looking forward to hear news from our "shorten that proposal" adventure! :)
Cheers,
Milan

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kickniko
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:32 PM
To: FP7 semantics consortium
Subject: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20

[kickniko]

Hi Elizabeth!

> I am very much still in the loop and reading emails. LeedsMet has recently engaged a company
> to aid us in bringing in EU money. If you think it is appropriate, I can give them the document
> to read for comments.

That would be very kind of you and also very useful, I think
Elizabeth! Thanks a lot for this!

> Meanwhile I am spending some time thinking about arguments and predicates, and the boundaries
> in the usage of words and grammatical features. This is partly for a couple of other projects, but
> I think it is highly relevant for Semacomp too and will help in the writing of a full bid (assuming we
> get that far). I have not got my thinking as far as isomorphisms yet though.

We all cross our finger. When we get a green light all of our
knowledge will be put into the full proposal. I will be very glad then
to see it really detailed and nice!

Nick

[kickniko]

Hi Milan!

> Yes Nick, I agree that this period of time is a kind of filter...However I
> believe we are stronger than it!

Yep, I also think we all will accelerate a lot once the short proposal
is ready.

> I checked web size. We can say that in December 2010. it's estimated on 22
> billion web pages. It's not "too much" difference in numbers but at least
> it's a updated info.

Oh no - I realize now again, that we have the link (http://
www.worldwidewebsize.com) in the document and so I could check that
myself too. Sorry Milan, and thank you very much!

>Please put it in final proposal version.

Did that already!

Cheers!

Nick

[Grimshaw, Mark]

Hi all,

Proposal looks good Nick -- and Elizabeth's suggestion is a great idea
-- we just need to cut down to length!

Re isomorphism categories/clustering etc. I just wanted to be sure that
we were not starting by talking about one methodology (isomorphic
clustering) then suddenly, mid-stream shifting to another methodology
(isomorphic categories) with no explanation.

Success/risk bullet points are much better and deal (greatly) with
accusations of lack of clarity. If anywhere can be shortened, I think
we should look here. Of course, the final points on graduated risks
doesn't really pertain to the whole lot and perhaps is better shortened
and embedded into risk mitigation 1. ('even 'bad' results are useful'
relates to the idea of graduated risk).

I think shorten it, update web figures as Milo suggests, then send it
onto Elizabeth's contact.

Regards,

Mark

--
Dr. Mark Grimshaw
Reader in Creative Technologies
School of Business & Creative Technologies
University of Bolton
Work: http://www.bolton.ac.uk/gcct/
Personal: http://www.wikindx.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com [mailto:fp7-semantics-
> conso...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Guest, Elizabeth (INN)
> Sent: 18 January 2011 12:38
> To: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [fp7-semantics-consortium] Re: Newsletter 20
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am very much still in the loop and reading emails. LeedsMet has
> recently engaged a company to aid us in bringing in EU money. If you
> think it is appropriate, I can give them the document to read for
> comments.
>
> Meanwhile I am spending some time thinking about arguments and
> predicates, and the boundaries in the usage of words and grammatical
> features. This is partly for a couple of other projects, but I think
it
> is highly relevant for Semacomp too and will help in the writing of a
> full bid (assuming we get that far). I have not got my thinking as far
> as isomorphisms yet though.
>
> Elizabeth
> ________________________________________

> From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com [fp7-semantics-
> conso...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kickniko

[milan]

Milo is agreeing with Mark's idea :)
Cheers!

-----Original Message-----
From: fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:fp7-semantic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Grimshaw,
Mark

[Rajendra Akerkar]

Hi Nick,
Thanks for the email. The current version of the proposal looks very good. Wish all of us good luck!

Regards,
Rajendra