Cognitive Innovation, Irony and Collaboration

What seems clear from the experiences of researchers in CogNovo is that the concept of cognitive innovation offered a new vocabulary, and thus a clear space, within which creativity could be explored free from the baggage of prior conflicting definitions. The concept was, from its inception, intrinsically ironic in the sense that Rich⁠ard Rorty developed the term. Although initially we did not fully appreciate the potential this offered, approaching creativity under the rubric of cognitive innova⁠tion led to novel ideas that would not have emerged if we had taken a more con⁠ven⁠tional discipline-led approach. One example was expressing creativity as a mathematical function and as a media form in a parallel text. The absurdity of describing a process of such complexity in this form did not pass us by. However, this self-conscious irony, not a common rhetorical strategy in the sciences, clarified our understanding of cognitive innovation as a recursive function that allowed us to express a continuity between the basic life processes of exploration, innovation and the construction of the self, and the social and cultural ramifications of these processes; creativity. It led us to conclude that cognitive innovation furnishes a view of the self as a dynamic entity, for whom reality and novelty are contingent on one’s current state, both of which can change and be changed, and offers a means for enhancing the rigor of the current debate on what counts as creative. It also reveals the value of irony in not disavowing the inevitability of multiple perspectives and prospectives on reality, and consequently offers a way to avoid unnecessary reductivism. In this paper, we will argue, as we take the insights of CogNovo forward, that irony offers a hitherto unappreciated strategy for collaborative research

A-B-C of cost engineering

The author\u27s object is to make it possible for the busy executives of American manufacturing enterprises to grasp in minimum time, at least in outline, the principles and advantages of the newest and most practicable methods of determining the cost of producing and selling the products of their factories

Fundamentals of cost and profit calculation: A vigorous discussion of the vital elements of business

The two most vital factors in business are Cost and Profit, but few there are who can, in any transaction, define the point where the elements of Cost cease to accumulate, and Profit becomes a reality. It is extremely important, now more than at any other time in the history of America, that business men know the cost of doing business, the cost of manufacture, the cost of distribution, and the extent of the profits in the business

Cognitive Innovation: A View From The Bridge

Two pages in Journal with remainder published on-lin

ConversationPiece II: Displaced and Rehacked

Abstract: Conversations are amazing! Although we usually find the experience enjoyable and even relaxing, when one considers the difficulties of simultaneously generating sig- nals that convey an intended message while at the same time trying to understand the messages of another, then the pleasures of conversation may seem rather surprising. We manage to communicate with each other without knowing quite what will happen next. We quickly manufacture precisely timed sounds and gestures on the fly, which we exchange with each other without clashing—even managing to slip in some imita- tions as we go along! Yet usually meaning is all we really notice. In the Conversa- tionPiece project, we aim to transform conversations into musical sounds using neuro-inspired technology to expose the amazing world of sounds people create when talking with others. Sounds from a microphone are separated into different fre- quency bands by a computer-simulated “ear” (more precisely “basilar membrane”) and analyzed for tone onsets using a lateral-inhibition network, similar to some cor- tical neural networks. The detected events are used to generate musical notes played on a synthesizer either instantaneously or delayed. The first option allows for ex- changing timed sound events between two speakers with a speech-like structure, but without conveying (much) meaning. Delayed feedback further allows self-exploration of one’s own speech. We discuss the current setup (ConversationPiece version II), in- sights from first experiments, and options for future applications

Phylogenetic Relationships of the Decumbentes Group of Paspalum, Thrasya, and Thrasyopsis (Poaceae: Panicoideae: Paniceae)

Paspalum (Poaceae: Panicoideae: Paniceae) includes 330 species distributed mainly in tropical and subtropical regions of America. Due to the large number of species and convergence in many characters, an adequate infrageneric classification is still needed. Studies on Paniceae based on molecular and morphological data have suggested that Paspalum is paraphyletic, including the genus Thrasya, but none of these analyses have included a representative sample of these two genera. In this study, phylogenetic relationships among the informal group Decumbentes of Paspalum, plus subgenera and other informal groups, and the genera Thrasya and Thrasyopsis were estimated. A cladistic analysis under parsimony was performed using a matrix of 50 taxa and 77 morphological and anatomical characters. Different analytical parameters were explored, equally weighing characters and employing implied weights by varying the concavity constant, k, from 1 to 12. Almost all analyses showed that species of the Decumbentes group and Thrasya form a natural group, supported by the presence of axillary peduncles in the upper foliar sheath, the upper glume slightly shorter than the spikelet, margins of the lower lemma plicate on the upper anthecium, and the upper anthecium without simple papillae. The position of Thrasyopsis is not clear because it varies within the different analyses. The most important clades are discussed as well as diagnostic characters usually employed to distinguish the genera

Spatio-temporal pattern recognizers using spiking neurons and spike-timing-dependent plasticity.

It has previously been shown that by using spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), neurons can adapt to the beginning of a repeating spatio-temporal firing pattern in their input. In the present work, we demonstrate that this mechanism can be extended to train recognizers for longer spatio-temporal input signals. Using a number of neurons that are mutually connected by plastic synapses and subject to a global winner-takes-all mechanism, chains of neurons can form where each neuron is selective to a different segment of a repeating input pattern, and the neurons are feed-forwardly connected in such a way that both the correct input segment and the firing of the previous neurons are required in order to activate the next neuron in the chain. This is akin to a simple class of finite state automata. We show that nearest-neighbor STDP (where only the pre-synaptic spike most recent to a post-synaptic one is considered) leads to "nearest-neighbor" chains where connections only form between subsequent states in a chain (similar to classic "synfire chains"). In contrast, "all-to-all spike-timing-dependent plasticity" (where all pre- and post-synaptic spike pairs matter) leads to multiple connections that can span several temporal stages in the chain; these connections respect the temporal order of the neurons. It is also demonstrated that previously learnt individual chains can be "stitched together" by repeatedly presenting them in a fixed order. This way longer sequence recognizers can be formed, and potentially also nested structures. Robustness of recognition with respect to speed variations in the input patterns is shown to depend on rise-times of post-synaptic potentials and the membrane noise. It is argued that the memory capacity of the model is high, but could theoretically be increased using sparse codes

CogNovo: Cognitive Innovation for Technological, Artistic, and Social Domains

This paper was completed as part of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN, CogNovo, grant number 604764.CogNovo is a multi-national doctoral training programme of-fering a research network for cognitive innovation, both as a new field of artistic and scientific investigation, and as a strategy for research and innovation. We summarize the pro-gramme’s goals, themes, members, partners, and projects in this paper

A robust sound perception model suitable for neuromorphic implementation

Coath M, Sheik S, Chicca E, Indiveri G, Denham S, Wennekers T. A robust sound perception model suitable for neuromorphic implementation. Neuromorphic Engineering. 2014;7(278):1-10.We have recently demonstrated the emergence of dynamic feature sensitivity through exposure to formative stimuli in a real-time neuromorphic system implementing a hybrid analog/digital network of spiking neurons. This network, inspired by models of auditory processing in mammals, includes several mutually connected layers with distance-dependent transmission delays and learning in the form of spike timing dependent plasticity, which effects stimulus-driven changes in the network connectivity. Here we present results that demonstrate that the network is robust to a range of variations in the stimulus pattern, such as are found in naturalistic stimuli and neural responses. This robustness is a property critical to the development of realistic, electronic neuromorphic systems. We analyze the variability of the response of the network to “noisy” stimuli which allows us to characterize the acuity in information-theoretic terms. This provides an objective basis for the quantitative comparison of networks, their connectivity patterns, and learning strategies, which can inform future design decisions. We also show, using stimuli derived from speech samples, that the principles are robust to other challenges, such as variable presentation rate, that would have to be met by systems deployed in the real world. Finally we demonstrate the potential applicability of the approach to real sounds