Challenging the Limits of Learning

TAU measures the human mind against the yardstick of a machine

Although we’re convinced that baby is brilliant when she mutters her first words, cognitive scientists have been conducting a decades-long debate about whether or not human beings actually “learn” language.

Most theoretical linguists, including the noted researcher Noam Chomsky, argue that people have little more than a “language organ” — an inherent capacity for language that’s activated during early childhood. On the other hand, researchers like Dr. Roni Katzir of Tel Aviv University‘s Department of Linguistics insist that what humans can actually learn is still an open question — and he has built a computer program to try and find an answer.

“I have built a computer program that learns basic grammar using only the bare minimum of cognitive machinery — the bare minimum that children might have — to test the hypothesis that language can indeed be learned,” says Dr. Katzir, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he took classes taught by Chomsky) and a former faculty member at Cornell University. His early results suggest that the process of language acquisition might be much more active than the majority of linguists have assumed up until now.

Dr. Katzir’s work was recently presented at a Cornell University workshop, where researchers from fields in linguistics, psychology, and computer science gathered to discuss learning processes.

A math model in mind

Able to learn basic grammar, the computer program relies on no preconceived assumptions about language or how it might be learned. Still in its early stages of development, the program helps Dr. Katzir explore the limits of learning — what kinds of information can a complex cognitive system like the human mind acquire and then store at the unconscious level? Do people “learn” language, and if so, can a computer be made to learn the same way?

Using a type of machine learning known as “unsupervised learning,” Dr. Katzir has programmed his computer to “learn” simple grammar on its own. The program sees raw data and conducts a random search to find the best way to characterize what it sees.

The computer looks for the simplest description of the data using a criterion known as Minimum Description Length. “The process of human learning is similar to the way computers compress files: it searches for recognizable patterns in the data. Let’s say, for instance, that you want to describe a string of 1,000 letters. You can be very naïve and list all the letters in order, or you can start to notice patterns — maybe every other character is a vowel — and use that information to give a more compact description. Once you understand something better, you can describe it more efficiently,” he says.

Artificial intelligence for answering machines

His early results point to the conclusion that the computer, modeling the human mind, is indeed able to “learn” — that language acquisition need not be limited to choosing from a finite series of possibilities.

While it’s primarily theoretical, Dr. Katzir’s research may have applications in technologies such as voice dialogue systems: a computer that, on its own, can better understand what callers are looking for. A more advanced version of Dr. Katzir’s program might learn natural language grammar and be able to process data received in a realistic setting, reflecting the manner in which humans actually talk.

The results of the research might also be applied to study how we learn to “read” visual images, and may be able to teach a robot how to reconstruct a three-dimensional space from a two-dimensional image and describe what it sees. Dr. Katzir plans to pursue this line of research with engineering colleagues at Tel Aviv University and abroad.

“Many linguists today assume that there are severe limits on what is learnable,” Dr. Katzir says. “I take a much more optimistic view about those limitations and the capacity of humans to learn.”

Reference Link
http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13753

Courtesy
American Friends of Tel Aviv University

The power of ‘convergence’ In white paper, MIT scientists discuss potential for revolutionary advances in biomedicine and other fields.

Graphic: Christine Daniloff

A new model for scientific research known as “convergence” offers the potential for revolutionary advances in biomedicine and other areas of science, according to a white paper issued today by 12 leading MIT researchers. The white paper, presented Tuesday morning at a forum hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), says that the United States should capitalize on the trend of convergence — which involves the merger of life, physical and engineering sciences — to foster the innovation necessary to meet the growing demand for accessible, affordable health care.

“Convergence is a broad rethinking of how all scientific research can be conducted, so that we capitalize on a range of knowledge bases, from microbiology to computer science to engineering design,” MIT Institute Professor and Nobel Laureate Phillip Sharp, one of the report’s authors, told the AAAS forum.

“It entails collaboration among research groups but, more deeply, the integration of disciplinary approaches that were originally viewed as separate and distinct. This merging of technologies, processes and devices into a unified whole will create new pathways and opportunities for scientific and technological advancement.”

Sharp and the other MIT authors say that convergence offers the potential for a “Third Revolution” in biomedicine that may be as profound as the two life-science revolutions that preceded it: the breakthroughs accompanying the development of molecular and cellular biology, and the sequencing of the human genome, which has made it possible to identify the genetic foundations of many diseases.

Convergence also provides a blueprint for addressing the country’s future medical and healthcare challenges, which will only increase as the population ages and diseases such as Alzheimer’s become more prevalent. However, federal investment in biomedical research is critical — “and a smart investment if we are to keep our biomedical research the finest in the world,” said Sharp. As an example, he cited NIH investments in heart-disease research, which average $4 per year per American and have helped to cut the incidence of fatal heart attacks and stroke by more than 60 percent since 1975.

A new model

The report, “The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering,” noted the impact that convergence is already having in a broad array of fields.

Just as advances in information technology, materials, imaging, nanotechnology and related fields — coupled with advances in computing, modeling and simulation — have transformed the physical sciences, so are they are beginning to transform life science. The result is critical new biology-related fields, such as bioengineering, computational biology, synthetic biology and tissue engineering.

At the same time, biological models (understanding complex, self-arranged systems) are already transforming engineering and the physical sciences, making possible advances in biofuels, food supply, viral self assembly and much more.

The report gives particular focus to biomedicine, a field that is already being transformed by convergence. At MIT, for example, scientists are using nanoparticles to transport time-release anticancer drugs directly to cancerous cells, developing drugs that fight diseases without damaging healthy tissues and cells, and improving new predictive models of disease.

Recommendations

The report says providing adequate financial support and a well-organized focus within NIH for convergence research are key to the success of the convergence model, as is encouraging investigation that crosses existing research boundaries. Among the report’s other recommendations are establishing a convergence “ecosystem,” which would build connections across funding agencies; reforming the peer-review process to support interdisciplinary grants; and educating, expanding and supporting the next generation of convergence researchers.

Other MIT speakers at the forum included Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and a winner of the Millennium Technology Prize and the National Medal of Science; Paula Hammond, the Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering; and Tyler Jacks, director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and the David H. Koch Professor of Biology.

Commentators at the forum included Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Kalil, deputy director for policy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Dr. Alan Guttmacher, director of the National institute of Child Health and Human Development at NIH; and Dr. Keith Yamamoto, professor and executive vice dean, University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, and chair of the Coalition for Life Sciences.

Reference Link
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/convergence-0104.html

Courtesy
HT Media

MIT Breakthrough: Thermo-Chemical Solar Power

MIT researchers are hopeful of capturing and releasing solar energy with the help of thermo-chemical technology. Scientists were already working on this technology in seventies but this project was aborted due to its expensiveness and termed as too impractical to achieve. But MIT researchers are now gearing up to take this thermo-chemical technology that is supposed to convert solar energy into electrical energy.

Currently we depend on the photovoltaic cells that transform light energy into electricity. Thermo-chemical technology is a bit different. It traps the solar energy and stores it in the form of heat in molecules of chemicals. This heat energy can be converted and utilized by humans whenever the need arises. What happens in a conventional solar system is that heat gets leached away over time but when, heat is stored using the thermo-chemical fuel it remains stable.

Jeffrey Grossman is the associate Professor of Power Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. According to him this chemical-electrical process makes it possible to produce a “rechargeable heat battery” that can repeatedly store and release heat gathered from sunlight or other sources. In principle, Grossman said, when fuel made from fulvalene diruthenium is stored, heat is released, and it “can get as hot as 200 degrees C, plenty hot enough to heat your home, or even to run an engine to produce electricity.”

One of the major drawbacks of this project is they were depending on a chemical, ruthenium. This is a rare element and the cost is effectively is out of question. But the MIT team is still hopeful and they are saying that they have found out the exact working mechanism of ruthenium and soon they will find out another chemical element that will not be expensive and will be available easily in nature.

Jeffrey Grossman explains that fulvalene diruthenium shows the potential to replace ruthenium. Fulvalene diruthenium can absorb solar energy. After trapping solar energy it can achieve a higher-energy state where it can remain stable ad infinitum. If a stimulus can be given in the form of heat or a catalyst, it reverts to its unique shape, releasing heat in the process.

Professor Grossman states, “It takes many of the advantages of solar-thermal energy, but stores the heat in the form of a fuel. It’s reversible, and it’s stable over a long term. You can use it where you want, on demand. You could put the fuel in the sun, charge it up, then use the heat, and place the same fuel back in the sun to recharge.”

But the path to clean and green energy is not so easy. The MIT team has to tackle the challenges lying ahead. First they have to find out an easy way to synthesize the material in the laboratory that can absorb and trap heat inside it and secondly they have to search for a good catalyst that can release the trapped heat energy without much fuss.

Reference Link
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/mit-thermo-chemical-solar-power/

Courtesy
AE News Network

Cellphones reveal emerging disease outbreaks

YOUR cellphone could be a key tool in the fight against disease by relaying a telltale signature of illness to doctors and agencies monitoring new outbreaks.

“This technology is an early warning system,” says Anmol Madan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose team concluded that you can spot cases of flu by looking for changes in the movement and communication patterns of infected people.

This technology could be an early warning system to enable us to spot outbreaks of influenza

Epidemiologists know that disease outbreaks change mobility patterns, but until now have been unable to track these patterns in any detail. So Madan and colleagues gave cellphones to 70 students in an undergraduate dormitory. The phones came with software that supplied the team with anonymous data on the students’ movements, phone calls and text messages. The students also completed daily surveys on their mental and physical health.

A characteristic signature of illness emerged from the data, which was gathered over a 10-week period in early 2009. Students who came down with a fever or full-blown flu tended to move around less and make fewer calls late at night and early in the morning. When Madan trained software to hunt for this signature in the cellphone data, a daily check correctly identified flu victims 90 per cent of the time.

The technique could be used to monitor the health status of individuals who live alone. Madan is developing a smartphone app that will alert a named contact, perhaps a relative or doctor, when a person’s communication and movement patterns suggest that they are ill.

Public health officials could also use the technique to spot emerging outbreaks of illness ahead of conventional detection systems, which today rely on reports from doctors and virus-testing labs. Similar experiments in larger groups and in different communities will have to be done first though.

Leon Danon at the University of Warwick, UK, is negotiating with the ministry of health of a northern European nation about a project that would combine the anonymous cellphone records of around 10,000 people with their health records to produce signatures of disease from a larger population.

Researchers will need to think hard about the causes of the changes they see in the cellphone data, says Nathan Eagle at MIT, who is working with Danon. Eagle looked at cellular data from a series of cholera outbreaks in Rwanda between 2006 and 2009. He saw a clear reduction in people’s movement, which may have been due to the disease. But the outbreak was caused by floods, which also limited mobility. Distinguishing between the two possible causes on the basis of phone data alone was impossible, he says.

Madan presented his paper last month at the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reference Link
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827824.800-cellphones-reveal-emerging-disease-outbreaks.html

Courtesy
Reed Business Information Ltd.

Eco-Friendly Planes Designed by MIT-Led Team on the Anvil

The NASA Research Program ‘N+3′ has thrown open a challenge for exploring the potential to develop quieter subsonic commercial planes as well as supersonic commercial aircraft that burn less fuel and pollute less. The team led by MIT are working on developing two models to meet the NASA criteria as well to accommodate the demands created by increased air traffic by 2035 A.D.

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NASA’s plans:
NASA’s plans are for designing planes that have fuel-burn reduction, emissions reduction and which can take off from shorter runways. Four teams – one led by MIT, Boeing, GE Aviation and Northrop Grumman work on subsonic designs. AeroAstro faculty & students, ED Greitzer, Principal Investigator, Professor H Nelson Slator, Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation and Pratt & Whitney have jointly developed concepts and technologies to design D series and H series aircrafts that will meet the stringent criteria demanded by NASA.

D Series:
This will be the “double bubble” series to replace the Boeing 737 class aircraft conceived with reconfiguring the traditional tube and wing structure. Resembling two soap bubbles joined together, a wider structure was created with two side-by-side partial cylinders and engines were moved to the rear of fuselage. Using the BLI (boundary layer ingestion) technique, engines use less fuel. Because it travels 10% slower and the planes have longer and thinner wings, smaller tail, most drawbacks of this design are mitigated somewhat. Planes wider size saves time by allowing quicker loading and unloading.

Twin advantages of D Series:
There are two types of D series on the anvil:

1. A high tech version with 70% fuel-burn reduction.
2. A traditional aluminum body plane with current jet technology but on double-bubble design.

Advantages:

• Use less fuel by about 50%.
• Very good environmental performance.
• Traditional design will help better integration with existing airport infrastructure and so save money otherwise needed to fit radically different designs.

H Series:
The 350-passenger 777 class ‘hybrid wing body’ planes will be larger but will be based on the same technology as D Series. A Triangular-shaped hybrid wing body and a wider fuselage result in improved aerodynamics while larger centre creates a forward lift and balances the plane without the need for a tail. Propulsion architectures and technology are under study still awaiting further exploration.

I Phase over:
With first phase of research and design is over, the MIT team is awaiting word about continuing into the second phase of program to meet more of NASA’s objectives. Sanction of additional funds and approval of the designs and technology identified in the first phase will be know in the next few months.

Future Plans:
Whether or not the work continues for NASA, the researchers hope to continue to develop these models, testing them and collaborating with manufacturers to make the concepts a reality.

Reference Link
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/eco-friendly-planes-mit/

Courtesy
AE News Network

MIT Researchers Print a Solar Cell on Paper

We love the idea of clean and green fuel. But they come with certain disadvantages. First one is they are heavy on pocket of a commoner. Second disadvantage is their power conversion rate is quite low. Last one is you need storage space to save all the power converted by a clean and green technology. Now MIT researchers are coming out of solar cells printed on paper. Though the technology still has to wait for years before it can be converted into a commercially viable entity but it’s an interesting development.

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Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have effectively coated paper with a solar cell. It is a part of a suite of research projects aimed at energy breakthroughs.

Susan Hockfield, MIT’s president, and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian oil company Eni, formally dedicated the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center. Eni financed the research project by investing $5 million into the center. This project is also financed by National Science Foundation. They are granting a fund of $2 million.

The MIT people took inspiration from the inkjet printer. They molded the solar paper panels on the similar lines. They used organic semi conductor material. The technique will be quite helpful in lowering the weight of solar panels. “If you could use a staple gun to install a solar panel, there could be a lot of value,” Vladimir Bulovic, director of the National Science Foundation, said.

MIT researchers utilized carbon-based dyes. The efficiency of paper based solar cells is not great, at around 1.5% to 2%. But Vladimir Bulovic says that one can use any material if it can be deposited at room temperature. He further says, “Absolutely, the trick was coming up with ways to use paper,” he said.

Prof. Karen Gleason is the head of the MIT research team. She has submitted a paper for scientific review but it has yet to be published. MIT and Eni have confirmed that this is the first time a solar cell has been printed on paper.

During the press conference, Paolo Scaroni said that Eni is funding the center because the company understands that hydrocarbons will eventually run out and believes that solar can be a replacement, although the currently available technology isn’t sufficient enough.

Paolo Scaroni said, “We are not very active (in alternative energy) today because we don’t believe today’s technologies are the answer of our problems.”

Reference Link
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/mit-solar-cell-on-paper/

Courtesy
AE News Network

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Using Carbon Nanotubes to Produce Electricity

The researchers of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have uncovered a new phenomenon of carbon nanotubes. They found that carbon nanotubes discharge powerful waves of electricity under certain circumstances. MIT team named it as thermopower waves. They are pinning their hope on thermopower waves to produce electricity to be utilized in small electrical appliances or maybe in large-scale applications too. This project was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

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This discharge of electricity from carbon nanotubes is a very rare occurrence. Traditionally we derive electricity from water, sun, wind, coal or heat produced by burning of fossil fuels. The thermopower wave, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” said Michael Stranowho is MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey associate professor of Chemical Engineering. His work was published in scientific journal Nature Materials.

Carbon nanotubes are submicroscopic structures. They are just billionths of a meter in diameter. Carbon nanotubes resemble honeycombs. For the past twenty years scientists are focusing their energies on carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets and buckeyballs. They find these three most promising for clean and green energy research. These three substances can be valuable for the medicine, nanotechnology, geoengineering, biology, and for the electronics industry.

Researchers associated with this project find the whole phenomenon quite unusual. They have observed that as the moving pulses of heat pass through the carbon naotubes, electrons also travel along. This movement of electrons is responsible for generation of electric current. Strano says, “There’s something else happening here. We call it electron entrainment since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.”

Researchers coated carbon nanotubes with a layer of reactive fuel that can generate heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited by a laser beam or high voltage spark at the one end of the nanotube. This ignition resulted in fast moving thermal waves. When this thermal wave enters into carbon nanotube its velocity increases thousand times than the fuel itself. When heat waves contact the thermal coating they produce a temperature of 3,000 kelvins. This ring of heat runs to the length of the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The unusual occurrence is that electrons also travel with the heat inside the tube. Strano says that events like this “have been studied mathematically for more than 100 years” but he was the first to envisage that such waves could be guided by a nanotube or nanowire and that this wave of heat could thrust an electrical current all along that wire.

Strano explains, “There’s something else happening here. We call it electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.” He confirms that the thermal waves are behaving like ocean waves. We have observed that when ocean waves travel they carry the debris on their surface. Strano thinks that this property is responsible for the high power output by the system. Strano suggests the possible use of this discovery. He says that one possible use could be enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices having sensors or treatment devices that would be injected into the body.

Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, shares his views regarding the whole project that it “started with a seminal initial idea, which some might find crazy, and provided exciting experimental results, the discovery of new phenomena, deep theoretical understanding, and prospects for applications.” Because it revealed a previously unknown phenomenon, he says, it could open up “an exciting new area of investigation.”

Reference Link
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/carbon-nanotubes-produce-electricity/

Courtesy
AENews Network