An Information-Theoretic Solution to Parameter Setting*

In this paper, we point out a possible way by which the child could obtain the target values of the word order parameters for her language. The essential idea is an entropy-based statistical analysis of the input stream

The repulsive and feeding-deterrent effects of electropositive metals on juvenile sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus)

Reducing shark bycatch and depredation (i.e., damage caused by sharks to gear, bait, and desired fish species) in pelagic longline fisheries targeting tunas and swordfish is a priority. Electropositive metals (i.e., a mixture of the lanthanide elements lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and praseodymium) have been shown to deter spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias, primarily a coastal species) from attacking bait, presumably because of interactions with the electroreceptive system of this shark. We undertook to determine the possible effectiveness of electropositive metals for reducing the interactions of pelagic sharks with longline gear, using sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus, family Carcharhinidae) as a model species. The presence of electropositive metal deterred feeding in groups of juvenile sandbar sharks and altered the swimming patterns of individuals in the absence of food motivation (these individuals generally avoided approaching electropositive metal closer than ~100 cm). The former effect was relatively short-lived however; primarily (we assume) because competition with other individuals increased feeding motivation. In field trials with bottom longline gear, electropositive metal placed within ~10 cm of the hooks reduced the catch of sandbar sharks by approximately two thirds, compared to the catch on hooks in the proximity of plastic pieces of similar dimensions. Electropositive metals therefore appear to have the potential to reduce shark interactions in pelagic longline fisheries, although the optimal mass, shape, composition, and distance to baited hooks remain to be determined

Deducing linguistic structure from the statistics of large corpora

Within the last two years, approaches using both stochastic and symbolic techniques have proved adequate to deduce lexical ambiguity resolution rules with less than 3-4 % error rate, when trained on moderat

The interaction of knowledge sources in word sense disambiguation

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is a computational linguistics task likely to benefit from the tradition of combining different knowledge sources in artificial in telligence research. An important step in the exploration of this hypothesis is to determine which linguistic knowledge sources are most useful and whether their combination leads to improved results. We present a sense tagger which uses several knowledge sources. Tested accuracy exceeds 94% on our evaluation corpus.Our system attempts to disambiguate all content words in running text rather than limiting itself to treating a restricted vocabulary of words. It is argued that this approach is more likely to assist the creation of practical systems

Vibrotactile Stimuli Parameters on Detection Reaction Times

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Signaling system designers are leveraging the tactile modality to create alarms, alerts, and warnings. The purpose of this research was to map detection reaction times (RT) toward tactile stimuli with various parameter manipulations. We employed a 3 (wave form) × 3 (inter-pulse interval) × 3 (envelope) within subjects design. The dependent measure was detection RT. Twenty participants (15 female) responded to 270 tactile stimuli. ANOVAs indicated three two-way interactions. Generally, shorter inter-pulse intervals led to quicker RT and the fade-in envelope led to longer RT, when compared to envelopes starting at the maximum amplitude. Square and sinusoidal waves tended to prompt quicker RT than the noise wave. The strength of these relationships, however, depended upon the presence of the other parameters. Designers can use the results of this study to effectively and appropriately assign tactile parameter manipulations to signals that require varied levels of response urgencies

Neurophysiology

Contains reports on seven research projects.National Institutes of Health (Training Grant 5 TO1 EY00090)Bell Laboratories (Grant