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Biologically-Based Multisensor Fusion for Brain-Computer Interfaces

Biologically-Based Multisensor Fusion for Brain-Computer Interfaces

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Multisensor Fusion for Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) More than 25 years ago, sensor fusion was identified as a militarily critical technology. (See blog post describing role of sensor fusion for Navy air traffic control.) Since that time, both our knowledge of – and the importance of – sensor fusion has grown substantially. Groundbreaking work by Barry Stein and M. Alex Meredith, at the Bowman Grey School of Medicine at Wake Forrest University, elucidated the specific mechanisms of biological sensor fusion in…

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Statistical Mechanics – Neural Ensembles

Statistical Mechanics – Neural Ensembles

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Statistical Mechanics and Equilibrium Properties – Small Neural Ensembles Statistical Mechanics of Small Neural Ensembles – Commentary on Tkačik et al. In a series of related articles, Gašper Tkačik et al. (see references below) investigated small (10-120) groups of neurons in the salamander retina, with the purpose of estimating entropy and other statistical mechanics properties. They provide the following interesting results: Simple scheme for entropy estimation in undersampled region (1), given that only a small fraction of possible states can…

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Statistical Mechanics, Neural Domains, and Big Data

Statistical Mechanics, Neural Domains, and Big Data

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How Neural Domain Activation and Statistical Mechanics Model Interactions in Large Data Corpora (Big Data) I was enthralled. I could read for only a few pages at a time, I was so overwhelmed with the insights that this book provided. And I was about twenty-five years old at the time. I had just discovered this book while browsing the stacks as a graduate student at Arizona State (ASU). The book was The Mindful Brain: Cortical Organization and the Group-Selective Theory…

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Why Nonadditive Entropy Is Important for Big Data Corpora Combinations

Why Nonadditive Entropy Is Important for Big Data Corpora Combinations

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Non-Additive Entropy – A Crucial Predictive Analysis Measure for Data Mining in Multiple Large Data Corpora Statistical mechanics has an important role to play in big data analytics. Up until now, there has been almost no understanding of how statistical mechanics provides both practical value and a theoretic framework for data analysis and even predictive intelligence (sometimes called predictive analysis). This blogpost focuses on a related – and crucially important – issue: How can we determine the value of combining…

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Big Data, Big Graphs, and Graph Theory: Tools and Methods

Big Data, Big Graphs, and Graph Theory: Tools and Methods

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Big Graphs Need Specialized Data Storage and Computational Methods {A Working Blogpost – Notes for research & study} Processing large-scale graph data: A guide to current technology, by Sherif Sakr (ssakr@cse.unsw.edu.au), IBM Developer Works (10 June 2013). Note: Dr. Sherif Sakr is a senior research scientist in the Software Systems Group at National ICT Australia (NICTA), Sydney, Australia. He is also a conjoint senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at University of New South Wales. He…

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GPUs, CPUs, MIPS, and Brain-Based Computation

GPUs, CPUs, MIPS, and Brain-Based Computation

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GPUs, CPUs, MIPS, and Brain-Based Computation Quick links to useful diagrams: Michael Galloy has produced a good chart showing increase in GPU vs CPU processing over this past decade; nicely continues the line of thought about nonlinear increases in processing power. Look at: http://michaelgalloy.com/2013/06/11/cpu-vs-gpu-performance.html See also post by Karl Rupp: http://www.karlrupp.net/2013/06/cpu-gpu-and-mic-hardware-characteristics-over-time/ Also, this post by NVIDIA: http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter29.html For detailed discussion (including appropriate algorithms/methods), but NOT figures, see: http://pcl.intel-research.net/publications/isca319-lee.pdf Debunking the 100X GPU vs. CPU Myth: An Evaluation of Throughput Computing…

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Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics – Good Read on Advanced Entropy Formulation

Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics – Good Read on Advanced Entropy Formulation

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Advances in Thinking about Entropy Starting through Tsallis’s book on entropy; Introduction to Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics. This is a fascinating discussion – really, it’s the roots of philosophy; the real “what-is-so” about the world. Which minimally requires a good solid year or two of graduate-level statistical thermodynamics to even start the read. But worth it. There’s some potential applications of this approach to areas in which I’ve worked before; need to mull this over and jig some ideas about to…

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Good Read on Modeling Social Emergent Phenomena – But Still Not There Yet!

Good Read on Modeling Social Emergent Phenomena – But Still Not There Yet!

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Philip Ball – Critical Mass The most important thing we can do right now – given the huge changes ahead of us – both in society, the world, and technology – is to get some sort of “handle” on what’s coming up. By that, I mean a good set of models. And as a result, I’m on a search for good models. Those that I know, those that are new. Those that make sense, and those that don’t. (We need…

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"Nonadditive Entropy" – An Excellent Review Article

"Nonadditive Entropy" – An Excellent Review Article

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New Advances in Entropy Formulation – “Nonadditive Entropy” Well, chalk it up to being newly returned to the fold – after years of work in knowledge discovery, predictive analysis, neural networks, and sensor fusion, I’m finally returning to my roots and re-invigorating some previous work that involves the Cluster Variation Method. In the course of this, I’ve just learned (as a Janie-come-lately) about the major evolution in thinking about entropy, largely led by Constantino Tsallis. He has an excellent review…

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Modeling Trends in Long-Term IT as a Phase Transition

Modeling Trends in Long-Term IT as a Phase Transition

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The most reasonable model for our faster-than-exponential growth in long-term IT trends is that of a phase transition. At a second-order phase transition, the heat capacity becomes discontinuous. The heat capacity image is provided courtesy of a wikipedia site on heat capacity transition(s). L. Witthauer and M. Diertele present a number of excellent computations in graphical form in their paper The Phase Transition of the 2D-Ising Model. There is another interesting article by B. Derrida & D. Stauffer in Europhysics…

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