3,176 research outputs found
Convolutional Drift Networks for Video Classification
Analyzing spatio-temporal data like video is a challenging task that requires
processing visual and temporal information effectively. Convolutional Neural
Networks have shown promise as baseline fixed feature extractors through
transfer learning, a technique that helps minimize the training cost on visual
information. Temporal information is often handled using hand-crafted features
or Recurrent Neural Networks, but this can be overly specific or prohibitively
complex. Building a fully trainable system that can efficiently analyze
spatio-temporal data without hand-crafted features or complex training is an
open challenge. We present a new neural network architecture to address this
challenge, the Convolutional Drift Network (CDN). Our CDN architecture combines
the visual feature extraction power of deep Convolutional Neural Networks with
the intrinsically efficient temporal processing provided by Reservoir
Computing. In this introductory paper on the CDN, we provide a very simple
baseline implementation tested on two egocentric (first-person) video activity
datasets.We achieve video-level activity classification results on-par with
state-of-the art methods. Notably, performance on this complex spatio-temporal
task was produced by only training a single feed-forward layer in the CDN.Comment: Published in IEEE Rebooting Computin
Spatio-temporal spike trains analysis for large scale networks using maximum entropy principle and Monte-Carlo method
Understanding the dynamics of neural networks is a major challenge in
experimental neuroscience. For that purpose, a modelling of the recorded
activity that reproduces the main statistics of the data is required. In a
first part, we present a review on recent results dealing with spike train
statistics analysis using maximum entropy models (MaxEnt). Most of these
studies have been focusing on modelling synchronous spike patterns, leaving
aside the temporal dynamics of the neural activity. However, the maximum
entropy principle can be generalized to the temporal case, leading to Markovian
models where memory effects and time correlations in the dynamics are properly
taken into account. In a second part, we present a new method based on
Monte-Carlo sampling which is suited for the fitting of large-scale
spatio-temporal MaxEnt models. The formalism and the tools presented here will
be essential to fit MaxEnt spatio-temporal models to large neural ensembles.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figure
Ephemeral point-events: is there a last remnant of physical objectivity?
For the past two decades, Einstein's Hole Argument (which deals with the
apparent indeterminateness of general relativity due to the general covariance
of the field equations) and its resolution in terms of Leibniz equivalence (the
statement that Riemannian geometries related by active diffeomorphisms
represent the same physical solution) have been the starting point for a lively
philosophical debate on the objectivity of the point-events of space-time. It
seems that Leibniz equivalence makes it impossible to consider the points of
the space-time manifold as physically individuated without recourse to
dynamical individuating fields. Various authors have posited that the metric
field itself can be used in this way, but nobody so far has considered the
problem of explicitly distilling the metrical fingerprint of point-events from
the gauge-dependent components of the metric field. Working in the Hamiltonian
formulation of general relativity, and building on the results of Lusanna and
Pauri (2002), we show how Bergmann and Komar's intrinsic pseudo-coordinates
(based on the value of curvature invariants) can be used to provide a physical
individuation of point-events in terms of the true degrees of freedom (the
Dirac observables) of the gravitational field, and we suggest how this
conceptual individuation could in principle be implemented with a well-defined
empirical procedure. We argue from these results that point-events retain a
significant kind of physical objectivity.Comment: LaTeX, natbib, 34 pages. Final journal versio
Spike train statistics and Gibbs distributions
This paper is based on a lecture given in the LACONEU summer school,
Valparaiso, January 2012. We introduce Gibbs distribution in a general setting,
including non stationary dynamics, and present then three examples of such
Gibbs distributions, in the context of neural networks spike train statistics:
(i) Maximum entropy model with spatio-temporal constraints; (ii) Generalized
Linear Models; (iii) Conductance based Inte- grate and Fire model with chemical
synapses and gap junctions.Comment: 23 pages, submitte
Linear response for spiking neuronal networks with unbounded memory
We establish a general linear response relation for spiking neuronal
networks, based on chains with unbounded memory. This relation allows us to
predict the influence of a weak amplitude time-dependent external stimuli on
spatio-temporal spike correlations, from the spontaneous statistics (without
stimulus) in a general context where the memory in spike dynamics can extend
arbitrarily far in the past. Using this approach, we show how linear response
is explicitly related to neuronal dynamics with an example, the gIF model,
introduced by M. Rudolph and A. Destexhe. This example illustrates the
collective effect of the stimuli, intrinsic neuronal dynamics, and network
connectivity on spike statistics. We illustrate our results with numerical
simulations.Comment: 60 pages, 8 figure
The Physical Role of Gravitational and Gauge Degrees of Freedom in General Relativity - II: Dirac versus Bergmann observables and the Objectivity of Space-Time
(abridged)The achievements of the present work include: a) A clarification of
the multiple definition given by Bergmann of the concept of {\it (Bergmann)
observable. This clarification leads to the proposal of a {\it main conjecture}
asserting the existence of i) special Dirac's observables which are also
Bergmann's observables, ii) gauge variables that are coordinate independent
(namely they behave like the tetradic scalar fields of the Newman-Penrose
formalism). b) The analysis of the so-called {\it Hole} phenomenology in strict
connection with the Hamiltonian treatment of the initial value problem in
metric gravity for the class of Christoudoulou -Klainermann space-times, in
which the temporal evolution is ruled by the {\it weak} ADM energy. It is
crucial the re-interpretation of {\it active} diffeomorphisms as {\it passive
and metric-dependent} dynamical symmetries of Einstein's equations, a
re-interpretation which enables to disclose their (nearly unknown) connection
to gauge transformations on-shell; this is expounded in the first paper
(gr-qc/0403081). The use of the Bergmann-Komar {\it intrinsic
pseudo-coordinates} allows to construct a {\it physical atlas} of 4-coordinate
systems for the 4-dimensional {\it mathematical} manifold, in terms of the
highly non-local degrees of freedom of the gravitational field (its four
independent {\it Dirac observables}), and to realize the {\it physical
individuation} of the points of space-time as {\it point-events} as a
gauge-fixing problem, also associating a non-commutative structure to each
4-coordinate system.Comment: 41 pages, Revtex
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