About:
Exploring new approaches to machine hosted
neural-network simulation, and the science
behind them.
Your moderator:
John Repici
A programmer who is obsessed with giving experimenters
a better environment for developing biologically-guided
neural network designs. Author of
an introductory book on the subject titled:
"Netlab Loligo: New Approaches to Neural Network
Simulation". BOOK REVIEWERS ARE NEEDED!
Can you help?
A recent University of Minnesota study helps to clarify the role of the hippocampus in the formation and ongoing operations of long term memory. Specifically, with regard to the replay role that it has been know to participate in.
The hippocampus has long been known to aid in the playback of recent memories and has been thought to be a mechanism whereby recent, short-term memories could be repeated to aid in their transfer into long-term memory mechanisms within the brain.
The study demonstrated that, when faced with a novel challenge, the animals don't merely play back their most recent memories in their hippocampus activity patterns. Instead, it was found that they are most likely to play back experiences they had encountered least. Dr. Redish and his team also discovered that the animals often played back sequences that were never before experienced.
You wouldn't expect a good story on neural networks to come out of the nanotechnology crowd. Well, maybe you would. These two fields are fast converging. It wasn't that long ago that Carver Mead began constructing silicone based circuits that were designed to mimic exactly, what we knew about neurons in the retina. Now, one of his students, Kwabena Boahen, is working to use nanotechnology to more deeply investigate individual biological neurons. Is it just me, or does this look like somebody on the beach dropped their blue snow-cone.
Other Developments include
IMEC's micronail chips, upon which experimenters can grow biological cells, and test them.
I personally think there is a high probability that bees possess "facial recognition" facilities. This is just a hunch, but if bees have "facial recognition" facilities, wouldn't the "facial features" recognized look like bee faces, and not human faces? I'm just sayin'.
In any event, it is a good study because it does show rather convincingly that bees are able to recognize patterns composed of combinations of line-based features (the "faces" were stick-figure faces, with two dots for eyes, a slanted line for a nose, etc.).
IBM has found that picking up a single carbon-oxide (CO) molecule onto the tip of their AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) allows them to get a much sharper "point" with which to obtain much sharper images of atomic scale entities. This image is simply amazing...
Just like in the textbooks. This certainly clarifies the level of abstraction used within those molecular diagrams (not much abstraction at all).
This article will explore similes, analogies, and metaphors, and attempt to clarify exactly what they are and how they differ from one another. I've searched for these answers on the web and found many differing explanations. Some are very good and self-evident, while others tend to be inconsistent or ambiguous. This article is my attempt to reconcile them, and come up with an understanding that is both non-ambiguous, and at least self-consistent.
The brain mechanisms underlying metaphor and analogy are fast becoming an important part of our neurological understanding of the connections between the brain and the mind. For this reason alone, it seems fairly important to have firm definitions for these terms that are precise, unambiguous, and self-consistent.
Please Note: I am NOT a writer by any stretch of the word, and do NOT claim any expertise in, or special passion for, the art of writing. This blog-entry is partially part of my attempts to sort through all the advice that's out there, and become a better writer. With that in mind, if you are an actual writer, and you see bad mistakes here, know that I would be grateful for any and all good-willed advice you may wish to share.
Now that that's out of the way, lets get on with the discussion.
Developed by Dr. Kary Mullis, PCR is one of those seemingly little discoveries that changed the world. It is only fitting that somebody would write and perform an inspiring song about it
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