12,621 research outputs found
Michael Rodriguez interviews fiction writer Michael Kimball
No full textAuthor Michael Kimball talks about moving away from Michigan to become a successful writer, his education, the fiction reading series he has started in Baltimore, the life-story-on-postcard project, and his book "Dear everybody." Kimball is interviewed by Michigan State University Librarian Michael Rodriguez for the Michigan State University Libraries' Michigan Writers Series
A neurocomputational model for optimal temporal processing
Full text linkHumans can estimate the duration of intervals of time, and psychophysical experiments show that these estimations are subject to timing errors. According to standard theories of timing, these errors increase linearly with the interval to be estimated (Weber’s law), and both at longer and shorter intervals, deviations from linearity are reported. This is not easily reconciled with the accumulation of neuronal noise, which would only lead to an increase with the square root of the interval. Here, we offer a neuronal model which explains the form of the error function as a result of a constrained optimization process. The model consists of a number of synfire chains with different transmission times, which project onto a set of readout neurons. We show that an increase in the transmission time corresponds to a superlinear increase of the timing errors. Under the assumption of a fixed chain length, the experimentally observed error function emerges from optimal selection of chains for each given interval. Furthermore, we show how this optimal selection could be implemented by competitive spike-timing dependent plasticity in the connections from the chains to the readout network, and discuss implications of our model on selective temporal learning and possible neural architectures of interval timing
Michael Rodriguez interviews author Paul Clemens
No full textAuthor Paul Clemens talks about his book "Made in Detroit," the genre of memoir, and writing about race. Clemens is interviewed by Michigan State University Librarian Michael Rodriguez for the MSU Libraries' Michigan Writers Series. Held in the MSU Main Library
Nonlinear integration of evidence in a dynamic motor task
Full text linkReaching movements are governed by estimates of sensory and environmental quantities. If performed under uncertainty they are often based on prior expectations that summarise previous relevant information. We study the temporal evolution of the decision priors in a twoalternative forced-choice movement task
Emergence of behavioral primitives in self-organizing control and composition of behavior for autonomous robots
Full text linkMichael Rodriguez interviews author Tom Springer
No full textAuthor Tom Springer is interviewed about his writing career and his newest book "Looking for hickories". Springer talks about his career following after earning an Environmental Journalism degree from Michigan State University. He calls his genre "creative non-fiction" and explains how he weaves his memories into his books about life in rural and wild Michigan. Part of the Michigan State University Libraries' Michigan Writers Series. Springer is interviewed by Librarian Michael Rodriguez
Michael Rodriguez interviews author Gary Gildner
No full textAuthor Gary Gildner explains why he left his tenured teaching position to move to Idaho to became a full-time writer of poetry. Gildner talks about donating his personal papers to Michigan State University Libraries' Special Collections, his writing style and how he approaches writing. Gildner is interviewed by MSU Librarian Michael Rodriguez for the MSU Libraries' Michigan Writer Series. Held at the MSU Main Library
Michael Rodriguez interviews historian and author Keith Widder
No full textHistorian and author Keith Widder talks about his move to Michigan from Wisconsin, his career as Curator of History for the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, his research interests, his book "Michigan Agricultural College", and his current projects. Widder is interviewed by Michigan State University Librarian Michael Rodriguez for the MSU Libraries' Michigan Writers Series. Held in the MSU Main Library
A new heuristic for the total tardiness problem with parallel machines
Full text linkBiskup D, Herrmann J. A new heuristic for the total tardiness problem with parallel machines. Discussion paper / Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Universität Bielefeld. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2007.Scheduling jobs against due dates is one of the most important and best examined objectives in scheduling theory and practice. In this paper the parallel machine version of the well-known total tardiness problem is considered. The objective is to minimize the total tardiness of the jobs, while for all jobs an individual due date is given. The single machine version has been proven to be NP-hard, hence it is unlikely to find polynomially bounded optimization algorithms. Consequently, we concentrate on developing an efficient heuristic. Our extensive computational results confirm that our new heuristic is capable to deliver near optimal results
Inhibition in the dynamics of selective attention: an integrative model for negative priming
Full text linkWe introduce a computational model of the negative priming (NP) effect that includes perception, memory, attention, decision making, and action. The model is designed to provide a coherent picture across competing theories of NP. The model is formulated in terms of abstract dynamics for the activations of features, their binding into object entities, their semantic categorization as well as related memories and appropriate reactions. The dynamic variables interact in a connectionist network which is shown to be adaptable to a variety of experimental paradigms. We find that selective attention can be modeled by means of inhibitory processes and by a threshold dynamics. From the necessity of quantifying the experimental paradigms, we conclude that the specificity of the experimental paradigm must be taken into account when predicting the nature of the NP effect
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