Unsupervised Language Acquisition

This thesis presents a computational theory of unsupervised language acquisition, precisely defining procedures for learning language from ordinary spoken or written utterances, with no explicit help from a teacher. The theory is based heavily on concepts borrowed from machine learning and statistical estimation. In particular, learning takes place by fitting a stochastic, generative model of language to the evidence. Much of the thesis is devoted to explaining conditions that must hold for this general learning strategy to arrive at linguistically desirable grammars. The thesis introduces a variety of technical innovations, among them a common representation for evidence and grammars, and a learning strategy that separates the ``content'' of linguistic parameters from their representation. Algorithms based on it suffer from few of the search problems that have plagued other computational approaches to language acquisition. The theory has been tested on problems of learning vocabularies and grammars from unsegmented text and continuous speech, and mappings between sound and representations of meaning. It performs extremely well on various objective criteria, acquiring knowledge that causes it to assign almost exactly the same structure to utterances as humans do. This work has application to data compression, language modeling, speech recognition, machine translation, information retrieval, and other tasks that rely on either structural or stochastic descriptions of language.Comment: PhD thesis, 133 page

The Unsupervised Acquisition of a Lexicon from Continuous Speech

We present an unsupervised learning algorithm that acquires a natural-language lexicon from raw speech. The algorithm is based on the optimal encoding of symbol sequences in an MDL framework, and uses a hierarchical representation of language that overcomes many of the problems that have stymied previous grammar-induction procedures. The forward mapping from symbol sequences to the speech stream is modeled using features based on articulatory gestures. We present results on the acquisition of lexicons and language models from raw speech, text, and phonetic transcripts, and demonstrate that our algorithm compares very favorably to other reported results with respect to segmentation performance and statistical efficiency.Comment: 27 page technical repor

Cryogenic spectroscopy of ultra-low density colloidal lead chalcogenide quantum dots on chip-scale optical cavities towards single quantum dot near-infrared cavity QED

We present evidence of cavity quantum electrodynamics from a sparse density of strongly quantum-confined Pb-chalcogenide nanocrystals (between 1 and 10) approaching single-dot levels on moderately high-Q mesoscopic silicon optical cavities. Operating at important near-infrared (1500-nm) wavelengths, large enhancements are observed from devices and strong modifications of the QD emission are achieved. Saturation spectroscopy of coupled QDs is observed at 77K, highlighting the modified nanocrystal dynamics for quantum information processing.Comment: * new additional figures and text * 10 pages, 5 figure

ARCFOUR FINITE-STATE MACHINE MODEL

Pseudorandom number generator ARCFOUR is modeled by two consecutively connected finite-state machines. Using this model some characteristics of ARCFOUR internal permutation sequence period are calculated and provided. 

The evolution of cyclopropenium ions into functional polyelectrolytes

Versatile polyelectrolytes with tunable physical properties have the potential to be transformative in applications such as energy storage, fuel cells and various electronic devices. Among the types of materials available for these applications, nanostructured cationic block copolyelectrolytes offer mechanical integrity and well-defined conducting paths for ionic transport. To date, most cationic polyelectrolytes bear charge formally localized on heteroatoms and lack broad modularity to tune their physical properties. To overcome these challenges, we describe herein the development of a new class of functional polyelectrolytes based on the aromatic cyclopropenium ion. We demonstrate the facile synthesis of a series of polymers and nanoparticles based on monomeric cyclopropenium building blocks incorporating various functional groups that affect physical properties. The materials exhibit high ionic conductivity and thermal stability due to the nature of the cationic moieties, thus rendering this class of new materials as an attractive alternative to develop ion-conducting membranes

Prefrontal cortical microcircuits bind perception to executive control

During the perception-to-action cycle, our cerebral cortex mediates the interactions between the environment and the perceptual-executive systems of the brain. At the top of the executive hierarchy, prefrontal cortical microcircuits are assumed to bind perceptual and executive control information to guide goal-driven behavior. Here, we tested this hypothesis by comparing simultaneously recorded neuron firing in prefrontal cortical layers and the caudate-putamen of rhesus monkeys, trained in a spatial-versus-object, rule-based match-to-sample task. We found that during the perception and executive selection phases, cell firing in the localized prefrontal layers and caudate-putamen region exhibited similar location preferences on spatial-trials, but less on object- trials. Then, we facilitated the perceptual-executive circuit by stimulating the prefrontal infra-granular-layers with patterns previously derived from supra-granular-layers, and produced stimulation-induced spatial preference in percent correct performance on spatial trials, similar to neural tuning. These results show that inter-laminar prefrontal microcircuits play causal roles to the perception-to-action cycle

Access to a diverse array of bridged benzo[1,5]oxazocine and benzo[1,4]diazepine structures

The preparation of bridged benzo[1,5]oxazocines and benzo[1,4]diazepines is demonstrated from simple aniline and aldehyde starting materials. A one-pot condensation/6π electrocyclization is followed by an intramolecular trapping of the 2,3-dihydroquinoline intermediate by nitrogen or oxygen nucleophiles to give bridged seven- and eight-membered products. Using 3-hydroxypyridinecarboxaldehydes results in a stable zwitterionic structure that can undergo a diastereoselective reduction under hydrogenative conditions. A similar cyclization/hydrogenation pathway with excellent diastereoselectivity is also demonstrated from 2-pyridyl-substituted 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolines.PostprintPeer reviewe