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Real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech dialogue using human cortical activity.
Natural communication often occurs in dialogue, differentially engaging auditory and sensorimotor brain regions during listening and speaking. However, previous attempts to decode speech directly from the human brain typically consider listening or speaking tasks in isolation. Here, human participants listened to questions and responded aloud with answers while we used high-density electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings to detect when they heard or said an utterance and to then decode the utterance's identity. Because certain answers were only plausible responses to certain questions, we could dynamically update the prior probabilities of each answer using the decoded question likelihoods as context. We decode produced and perceived utterances with accuracy rates as high as 61% and 76%, respectively (chance is 7% and 20%). Contextual integration of decoded question likelihoods significantly improves answer decoding. These results demonstrate real-time decoding of speech in an interactive, conversational setting, which has important implications for patients who are unable to communicate
A New Template Family For The Detection Of Gravitational Waves From Comparable Mass Black Hole Binaries
In order to improve the phasing of the comparable-mass waveform as we
approach the last stable orbit for a system, various re-summation methods have
been used to improve the standard post-Newtonian waveforms. In this work we
present a new family of templates for the detection of gravitational waves from
the inspiral of two comparable-mass black hole binaries. These new adiabatic
templates are based on re-expressing the derivative of the binding energy and
the gravitational wave flux functions in terms of shifted Chebyshev
polynomials. The Chebyshev polynomials are a useful tool in numerical methods
as they display the fastest convergence of any of the orthogonal polynomials.
In this case they are also particularly useful as they eliminate one of the
features that plagues the post-Newtonian expansion. The Chebyshev binding
energy now has information at all post-Newtonian orders, compared to the
post-Newtonian templates which only have information at full integer orders. In
this work, we compare both the post-Newtonian and Chebyshev templates against a
fiducially exact waveform. This waveform is constructed from a hybrid method of
using the test-mass results combined with the mass dependent parts of the
post-Newtonian expansions for the binding energy and flux functions. Our
results show that the Chebyshev templates achieve extremely high fitting
factors at all PN orders and provide excellent parameter extraction. We also
show that this new template family has a faster Cauchy convergence, gives a
better prediction of the position of the Last Stable Orbit and in general
recovers higher Signal-to-Noise ratios than the post-Newtonian templates.Comment: Final published version. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Searching for Massive Black Hole Binaries in the first Mock LISA Data Challenge
The Mock LISA Data Challenge is a worldwide effort to solve the LISA data
analysis problem. We present here our results for the Massive Black Hole Binary
(BBH) section of Round 1. Our results cover Challenge 1.2.1, where the
coalescence of the binary is seen, and Challenge 1.2.2, where the coalescence
occurs after the simulated observational period. The data stream is composed of
Gaussian instrumental noise plus an unknown BBH waveform. Our search algorithm
is based on a variant of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method that uses
Metropolis-Hastings sampling and thermostated frequency annealing. We present
results from the training data sets and the blind data sets. We demonstrate
that our algorithm is able to rapidly locate the sources, accurately recover
the source parameters, and provide error estimates for the recovered
parameters.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to CQG proceedings of GWDAW 11, AEI,
Germany, Dec 200
Performing against the odds: developmental trajectories of children in the EPPSE 3 to 16 study
The Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3 to 16) research project is a large scale, longitudinal, mixed-methods research that is following the progress of 3,000 children since 1997 from the age of 3- to 16-years-old.
A focus for EPPSE has been the extent to which pre-school, compulsory education and children’s home learning experiences (HLE) can reduce inequality. Earlier EPPSE found that what parents did with their children was important in terms of the children’s outcomes, not simply ‘who they were’ in terms of social class and income.
Following a pilot study with disadvantaged children who were ‘succeeding against the odds’ towards the end of primary school, this study provides in-depth exploration and explanation of how risks and protective factors in the lives of children shape their learning life-courses, and why they lead to academic resilience for some but not for others
Discussion of the selection and use of teaching aids and standard materials in the lower school at Perkins School for the Blind
Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit
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