The next step for intelligent dialog agents is to escape their role as silent bystanders and become proactive. Well-defined proactive behavior may improve human-machine cooperation, as the agent takes a more active role during interaction and takes off responsibility from the user. However, proactivity is a double-edged sword because poorly executed pre-emptive actions may have a devastating effect not only on the task outcome but also on the relationship with the user. For designing adequate proactive dialog strategies, we propose a novel approach including both social as well as task-relevant features in the dialog. Here, the primary goal is to optimize proactive behavior so that it is task-oriented - this implies high task success and efficiency - while also being socially effective by fostering user trust. Including both aspects in the reward function for training a proactive dialog agent using reinforcement learning showed the benefit of our approach for more successful human-machine cooperation.

ACM fellow Jack Minker passed away on April 9, 2021, at the age of 93. Minker was a leader in the development of automating logistic reasoning, including deductive databases, logic programming, and artificial intelligence, but he is perhaps best known for his efforts to promote the social responsibility of scientists and human rights. In 1972, Minker was invited to join the newly constituted Committee of Concerned Scientists. He was asked to help identify Soviet computer scientists whose human rights were under attack by their government, frequently because of their career choices or because they had requested permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union. "It was something I could not refuse to do," said Jack in 2011.

At a workshop held in Toulouse, France, in 1977, Gallaire, Minker, and Nicolas stated that logic and databases was a field in its own right. This was the first time that this designation was made. The impetus for it started approximately 20 years ago in 1976 when I visited Gallaire and Nicolas in Toulouse, France. In this article, I provide an assessment about what has been achieved in the 20 years since the field started as a distinct discipline. Prominent among developments was work by Levien and Maron (1965) and Kuhns (1967), and by Green and Raphael (1968a), who were the first to realize the importance of the Robinson (1965) resolution principle for databases.

Rita G. Minker, an early worker in the field of computer programming, died on October 11, 1988 of cancer at the age of 61 Mrs Minker received a B S degree with High Honors in Mathematics from Douglass College in 1948 and a M A. degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1950 In the summer of 1950 Mrs Minker started to work at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey She programmed network problems for one of the early digital computers, the Bell Relay Machine She was among the first computer programmers in the United States On June 24, 1951 she married Jack Minker, whom she had met at the University of Wisconsin The couple moved to Buffalo, New York where Mrs Minker was employed as a mathematician at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories. She worked on electronic analog computers on which she simulated the performance of missile systems. In 1952 she was hired by RCA in Camden, New Jersey and became the second computer programmer, and the first woman programmer to work at that company She programmed the Bizmac, RCA's first computer. In April 1964, Mrs. Minker returned to work as a mathematician and computer programmer in the newly formed Division of Computer Research and Technology (DCRT) at the National Institutes of Health (NIHj in Bethesda, Maryland She served as Head, Training Unit in DCRT from 1968-1975, and instituted training courses to permit medical researchers to learn how to program and work with computers and become familiar with statistical methods. In 1975, after having built up the Training Division, she joined the Statistical Software Section, Laboratory of Statistical and Mathematical Methodology of the DCRT She was able to participate and assist medical researchers with their programming and statistics problems she was also in charge of consulting on and maintaining SPSS, a major statistical package.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND'S Computer Science Department conducts a broad research program in both theoretical and applied artificial intelligence. Nine faculty and more than fifty research associates and graduate students are involved in AI research. Projects are funded by a large number of government agencies, as well as by several major corporations. The computing environment will improve dramatically over the next several years, due in large part to a Coordinated Experimental Research Equipment Grant awarded to the Computer Science Department by the National Science Foundation in 1982. In addition to the research program in AI, the Department offers a large number of courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels on all facets of AI.

Raymond Reiter, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and winner of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence 1993 Outstanding Research Scientist Award, died September 16, 2002, after a year-long struggle with cancer. Reiter, known throughout the world as "Ray," made foundational contributions to artifi- cial intelligence, knowledge representation and databases, and theorem proving.

At a workshop held in Toulouse, France, in 1977, Gallaire, Minker, and Nicolas stated that logic and databases was a field in its own right. This was the first time that this designation was made. The impetus for it started approximately 20 years ago in 1976 when I visited Gallaire and Nicolas in Toulouse, France. In this article, I provide an assessment about what has been achieved in the 20 years since the field started as a distinct discipline. I review developments in the field, assess contributions, consider the status of implementations of deductive databases, and discuss future work needed in deductive databases.

(No summary)

In 1939, he defended a thesis on a new method of calculating A special session entitled "Future Directions In Artificial He was awarded the title Candidate of Intelligence in Washington, D.C. in August. The session, Technical Sciences by the Moscow Institute of Energetics, chaired by Jack Minker, was held to honor Soviet cyberneticist where he worked as a lecturer until the USSR entered World Alexander Yankelovich Lerner's seventieth birthday. He was then commissioned to work at an iron and Minker described Dr. Lerner's contributions to science. The two years of practical work at the Patrick Winston gave a technical presentation, followed by plant led to his book Construction of Industraal Automatic questions from the audience. Electrzcal Drives, published in 1950, together with E.A. Following the session, 228 attendees signed a letter wishing Rosenman. After the war he was appointed head of the Dr. Lerner a happy birthday, and 233 attendees signed USSR's newly established Central ...

The University of Maryland's Computer Science Department conducts a broad research program in both theoretical and applied artificial intelligence. Nine faculty and more than fifty research associates and graduate students are involved in AI research. Projects are funded by a large number of government agencies, as well as by several major corporations. The computing environment will improve dramatically over the next several years, due in large part to Coordinated Experimental Research Department by the National Science Foundation in 1982. In addition to the research program in AI, the Department offers a large number of courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels on all facets of AI. The principal AI laboratories also sponsor numerous colloquia by visiting scientists and permanent laboratory personnel. The principal research areas are computer vision, search and decision making, parallel problems solving, and database research.