Karl Deisseroth and "Comparing Tissue Transparency Methods for Intact Analyses"

I think we are getting closer to have a clear, non destructive and non invasive strategy to create images of the brain at a neural circuitry level.

Images are simply astonishing.

Link to CLARITY HERE

Link to Dr. Karl Deisseroth publications, HERE

And then "one president became another president"

Computer graphics analysis and understanding is evolving at a speed that is really scaring me. A paper recently published in the 2015 edition of the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) showed how to process a video with gestures from a person and then create a 3D computer graphics model of another person doing the same gestures.

In the video that can be shown in the following LINK (from minute 1:07 onwards) a 3D computer graphics model of a U. S. president makes the same gestures as those made by another president.

There are moral implications for me in this scenario.  

Joseph Lucas & Guillermo Sapiro: "Cancer: What's luck got to do with it?"

I enjoyed reading a communication by Prof. Joseph E. Lucas and Prof. Guillermo Sapiro about the conclusions that can be drawn from a research paper by Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein.

You can read the "comment" HERE

I think we have here an example of at least two assumptions that might be misleading in statistical data analysis:

a) how "population averages" translate into individual "cases". Several different individual "configurations" may give the same "average".

b) consider that (process) variables are independent among them, and therefore if some have an effect-result on others, simply infer that the others do not have a "statistically significant" similar effect ("Environment" and "Genetics" in the "Number of stem cell divisions", Figure 1, in this paper).

Physical Sciences Informatics (PSI) Data Repository open to the public

Imagine a "combustion experiment" at the "International Space Station" (ISS).

How much does an experiment of this kind cost?

Should anyone have access to data associated to each one of these experiments?

NASA thinks so.

Links:

1)  "Physical Sciences Research Program" (HERE)

2) "Physical Sciences Informatics System" (HERE)

3) "Open Science data" (Wikipedia - HERE)

Summing and counting

No better summary than NASA's title:

"Record-Breaking Climate Trends 2016 – Rising Temperatures and Shrinking Sea Ice"

"Qui habet aures audiendi audiat" - Matthew 13 (Link HERE)

The meritocracy that once was?

The term meritocracy has fascinated me for so many years... You can find a good definition even in Wikipedia (HERE):

"Meritocracy (merit, from Latin mereō "I earn" and -cracy, from Ancient Greek κράτος kratos "strength, power") is a political philosophy holding that power should bevested in individuals almost exclusively based on ability and talent.^[1] Advancement in such a system is based on performance measured through examination and/or demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented"

In a society I would like to live in, I would like to feel that I am where my effort and capabilities have allowed me to arrive.

I am happy where I am. But not everybody can say the same.

In a study by Emilio J Castilla whose details are:

Gender, Race, and Meritocracy in Organizational Careers
Emilio J. Castilla
American Journal of Sociology
Vol. 113, No. 6 (May 2008), pp. 1479-1526

he shows that even companies that apply policies based on meritocracy, other factors affect decisions about who to hire, how much to pay, etc.

Can't you think of examples in your own life where you say to yourself: "this person should have...but he/she does not and the criteria do not have anything to do with capabilities...". All of us can think of at least one example, and that makes millions of examples in the end.

Therefore, I should think we do not live and will not live even in something similar to a meritocratic social system.

Final note: Even all of the above, I still find it fascinating some Youtube videos like the following one:

"NASA’s Global Tour of Precipitation in Ultra HD (4K)"

Dr. Dorin Comaniciu - Cinematic Rendering technology

Dr. Dorin Comaniciu is the example that shows a company can make a balance between good science and profits.

Why shouldn't Siemens apply the best machine learning tools available?

Why shouldn't a company and "university style research" be together?

The following video showing Siemens Cinematic Rendering technology is simply amazing!

Ron Mello - Kintsugi - My professional life

Ron Mello's studio and gallery web page can be found HERE

Extraordinary new things are always "just around the corner"

Just look and will find.

Walt Whitman - oppression and shame - I sit and look out

List of ongoing armed conflicts.

From Wikipedia: HERE

- And the sea also has a preminence

- And the prisoners

- And the tyranny

- And I read Walt Whitman's "I sit and look out":

"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; 

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after
 deeds done; 

I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt,
 desperate; 

I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of young women; 

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid—I see these
 sights on the earth;

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners; 

I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be
 kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest; 

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor,
 and upon negroes, and the like; 

All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon, 
See, hear, and am silent."

"Even if the cold burns, even if fear bites..." - Mario Benedetti

Below you will find a poem by uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti

The spanish only version: HERE

English and spanish: HERE

Noah Smith and "Economics Has a Math Problem"

I found this story almost by chance, and I do not quite agree with this person.

Link HERE

Economics will be "saved" by mathematics, I agree with that, but I do not think it may not be evolving in a mathematical framework.

I am not convinced either by the fact that its guidlines might be "data driven".

Some science disciplines are fact is evolving under two competing "pulses":

a) the need to have a "model" to explain the data

b) the possibility to infer data behaviour without a model (i. e., to use "data driven prediction" tools)

I think there is not a clear answer about which approach is best.

The little boy - Helen Buckley

I could not resist the temptation to write this post.

Text (one option): HERE

A story inspired by that text (sorry, only in spanish):

¿Bailamos? - Shall we dance? (New opportunity)

I have found this video subtitled in french, but not into english, sorry!

Machine Learning for Social Good - II

May be this kind of R&D projects and initiatives is just starting to "take off" and also take a "fair shape" in terms of recognition.

Link (to the information - call) below:

IBM Social Good Fellowship

Do we really want this?

As you can read HERE:

"Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)..."

Casey Greene and "Why we preprint"

I would recommend you to read the following post by Prof. Casey Greene titled:

"Why we preprint"

That post is in the very center of a "hot" discussion currently happening at the vision sciences community. However, it has been taking part in other fields like biology, physics, etc. for some time now.

Should we publish our work in a freely available public platform, or should we submit our papers and let them get into a typical/traditional peer review process?

There are reasons for both "processes"...