1997 — 2002 |
Stabler, Edward Taylor, Charles (co-PI) [⬀] Chapman, Orville (co-PI) [⬀] Kellman, Philip (co-PI) [⬀] Gallistel, Charles Gelman, Rochel [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Learning and Intelligent Systems: Learning in Complex Environments by Natural and Artificial Systems @ University of California-Los Angeles
This project is being funded through the Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) Initiative. The focus is on learning as it occurs in complex environments, where the data have rich and potentially confusing structures. Nine investigators in five different disciplines - biology, chemistry, linguistics, psychology, and high school teaching of mathematics and science - will mount a collaborative, multi-level experimental and theoretical analysis of the mind's learning structures. The work integrates research on formal analyses of learnability, the evolution of complex natural and artificial adapative systems, the genetics of memory, the mind's ability to keep track of language learning data, perceptual learning of complex displays like equations and molecular models, and the creation of integrative math and science modules for use with interactive learning technologies. The unifying theme running through all of the projects, and across every level of analysis, is the interaction between the structure of the brain's learning mechanisms, and the structure of the data that support learning. Two related leitmotives cut across the planned work. First, the project itself is conceived of as a complex, interdisciplinary learning environment for people ranging from high school students and science teachers in the Los Angeles community, to senior faculty at UCLA. Second, the research efforts interact with and inform advancements in the rapidly evolving technologies for learning, instruction, genetic screening, and the development of artificial systems.
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1 |
2004 — 2010 |
Yao, Kung (co-PI) [⬀] Cody, Martin Stabler, Edward Taylor, Charles |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Sensor Arrays For Acoustic Monitoring of Bird Behavior and Diversity @ University of California-Los Angeles
This award supports the development of robust and adaptable sensor arrays and related software for observing and analyzing bird diversity and behavior. Birds have been selected as the test group for this work because of their importance in biodiversity, and because they are well-characterized with regard to the properties that will be explored (i.e. bird vocalizations). This project will make use of existing sensor arrays developed by the UCLA Center for Embedded Sensing (CENS).
The work will be performed in laboratories at UCLA and at several field sites: (1) the UC Riverside James Reserve, near Idyllwild, CA. - a heavily instrumented field site with full-time specialists on sensor arrays. Here, methods will be initially tested, then deployed to either (2) the Hastings Reserve, near Monterey CA, where acorn woodpeckers have been marked and studied. The sensor arrays will be used to identify individual woodpeckers, locate them, and to identify patterns in their behavior associated with the approximately 10 calls they employ. Arrays will also be deployed to (3) the Montes Azules Biodiversity Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico, which has a rich diversity of bird species in a tropical rainforest. Here, the sensor arrays will be developed to identify and locate different bird species in the region.
The sensor arrays, software, and methodology developed by this project will serve a severe need to assay biodiversity in ecosystems. The tools needed to remotely sense, record and automatically analyze acoustical behavior will be enormously helpful for studies of ecology, biodiversity and behavior.
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1 |
2005 — 2006 |
Stabler, Edward Szabolcsi, Anna [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Model Theoretic Semantics, Proof Theoretic Semantics, and Semantically Flavored Syntactic Features
One of the fundamental goals of grammatical research is to explain how form and meaning relate in language. Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic considerations come into play in at least three ways. First, grammar calculates the meaning of a sentence from the meanings of its component parts, defined typically with reference to truth in a modeled situation. For example, No whale flies is true if and only if the intersection of the sets of whales and things that fly is empty in the modeled situation. Second, the acceptability of a syntactic construction may depend on morpho-syntactic features with a semantic flavor. For example, Under no circumstances would a whale fly is acceptable, whereas Under some circumstances would a whale fly is not, corresponding to the negative vs. non-negative feature of the preposed phrase. Such features play a pervasive and theoretically prominent role in syntax. Third, speakers make various inferences based on semantic knowledge. For example, No whale flies entails No blue whale flies and No whale flies high.
It is usually assumed that once a compositional model theoretic semantics is specified for all expressions, its fruits can be freely enjoyed by syntax and inferencing. But especially computational linguists and logicians have argued that this is not feasible, and have developed proof theoretical methods. Recent work has furthermore indicated that proof theoretical considerations may not only be computationally advantageous but may also be enlightening from the perspective of "pure" theoretical linguistics.
The National Science Foundation will support a workshop, entitled "Model theoretic semantics, proof theoretic semantics, semantically-flavored syntactic features," to be held at the 2005 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its central goal is to explore how the use of proof theory as a mediator between model theoretic semantics and generative syntax can lead to theoretically interesting insights at the syntax/semantics interface. Starting with a proof theoretic tutorial, it will achieve this goal by bringing together semanticists, syntacticians, and theoretically inclined computational linguists, possibly also psycholinguists, to investigate the relation between these three uses of semantics. The broader impacts of the workshop derive from (i) fostering the interaction between "pure" theoretical linguistics and computational linguistics, (ii) promoting international collaboration, (iii) being freely accessible to the large numbers of graduate and undergraduate students attending the Institute, and (iv) serving as a basis for seminars by Dr. Anna Szabolcsi at New York University and Dr. Edward Stabler at UCLA. Journal publications and a website dedicated to the workshop will help dissemination of the results inside and outside academia.
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0.954 |
2011 — 2017 |
Yao, Kung (co-PI) [⬀] Cody, Martin Stabler, Edward Taylor, Charles Alwan, Abeer (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Cdi-Type Ii: Acoustic Sensor Arrays For Understanding Bird Communication @ University of California-Los Angeles
CDI-Type II. Acoustic Sensor Arrays for Understanding Bird Communication
The intent of this project is to permit humans to understand the grammar and meaning of bird songs. Recent advances in sensor arrays, computation, and computational linguistics finally make this long-sought goal achievable. The approach taken in this proposal is to: (1) collect very large amounts of bird song recordings from acoustic sensor arrays in a variety of natural settings; (2) process the data by software, some of which is recent and some of which will be developed using new advances in localizing source with beamforming, then filtering out noise, identifying events of interest, and then classifying them according to species and individual, and combining that with behavioral observations; (3) this information/knowledge will then be stored in a large database that can be shared among the collaborating research groups; and (4) it will be analyzed by computational-linguistic tools to identify the syntax of the songs, and combined with information about the context in which it occurred, then analyzed by new software methods to identify the meaning of those songs. The project begins testing inferences from those inferences and explore consequences for individual and community ecology.
The research will be transformational in several ways. First, it will contribute to a profound transformation that is already underway: the recognition of very sophisticated signaling strategies and syntactic structures in non-human species. The new tools and methods for collecting and analyzing bird song now allow a level of observation that previously would not have been possible. Scientists are now collecting truly vast amounts of data from previously inaccessible settings and subjecting data to previously undiscovered sophisticated structural analyses. It will be transformational to computational linguistics if the natural world beyond humans were shown to have languages that are radically different from our own (as seems quite likely). In addition, the project will radically expand the range of engineering with voice recognition and classification, which so far has been restricted almost exclusively to humans.
Other contributions will come from the database that will comprise huge amounts of data pertaining to bird songs and the environmental/behavioral context in which it occurs. Offering both thematic and outreach contributions, the project will bring together people from engineering, ecology, linguistics and art -- and from the US, Mexico and Japan. The educational part will bring together underserved K6-12 students with the research community and will involve them with well-established educational programs in engineering, biology and art | science. While the science portion of this project is high-payoff --- high-risk, the outreach portion will certainly be effective at furthering appreciation and learning of science.
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