GE Global Research

While recently abroad for two weeks in lovely Busan, South Korea, I worked my way through John Searls’s “Mind, Language and Society”. In this very accessible piece of work, the author provides a synthesis of his views regarding the lofty topics listed in his title. From a computer vision point of view his thoughts on consciousness may turn out to be particularly relevant. The book starts by asserting that the author espouses a rather Victorian view of philosophy, which insists that there is in fact a physical universe out there that persists regardless of what we do or do not think of it. This then corners us in to a declaration of whether consciousness is part of the supernatural or the material world. Since big bad Richard Dawkins has pretty much sealed the coffin on the former, we must accept the latter as our starting point for this discussion.

The author uses a number of interesting arguments to tease out what is and what is not consciousness. Most alarming is his conclusion that this phenomenon may not yield to reductionism, which is the mainstay of the modern scientific approach to things. Put another way, it may be the case that we simply cannot reduce consciousness into a set of constituent parts that are more easily understood. His arguments revolve around a number qualities than can be associated with human consciousness including its intrinsic subjective nature.

When presented with a black box variant of a computer vision system, I am always interested in how it fails, because this often provides me with potential insights into how it works. For example, a face model-fitting algorithm, which attempts to locate facial landmarks such as the eye’s nose and mouth, are often based on some sort of optimization process. The problem with this type of algorithm is that the search process can become trapped in what is known as a local maximum. This would be similar to you looking at your mother’s face and confusing her lips for her nose. By observing these local-maxima failure modes, one can come up with a pretty good guess as to what kind of mechanisms are being brought to bear. Recently, my colleague Jilin Tu (no genetic relation to yours truly) put together a new face-modeling algorithm based on linear programming. By approximating the face-modeling problem in linear formulation, the globally optimal solution can be found is a systematic fashion. While the algorithm can still fail, these failures are usually due to approximation errors. It turns out that such failures are not particularly informative. In a creepy way one starts to feel that the quest for human-like computer vision capabilities may hinge on achieving a certain level of inscrutability. As Marvin Minsky once commented, the veneer of intelligence seems to disappear once you know how its done…

For this week’s Stump the Scientist question, we’ve got a question that was submitted by someone who is (we’re guessing) a Capital Region resident who posted a question on the blog after reading about Jim Bray and our Stump the Scientist feature in the Albany Times Union. Thanks for writing in Ken!

Question submitted on 8/15 by Edison’s Desk reader, Ken Champagne:

I was taught the old theories of atomic structure with orbit electrons. I believe this has changed a bit since then to perhaps a theory of vibrating electrons. Does each atom have a resonate frequency? Do molecules have a resonant frequency? If so, could atoms be joined and molecules separated by exciting them with a key frequency i.e. – along the lines of Tesla’s concepts of sympathetic vibrations?

Response from Chief Scientist, Jim Bray:

Yes, atoms and molecules have resonant frequencies because their electronic and nuclear energy levels are quantized. I have just said a mouthful of theoretical physics, so I will try to explain.

You remember that atoms are made of electrons with a negative electric charge circling a small nucleus with a positive charge. The electrons are allowed by the laws of nature to be in only certain specific configurations (called energy levels). The electrons can move from one configuration, or energy level, to another by absorbing (or expelling) energy of a specific amount (often in the form of a bit of light called a “photon”). This specific energy change is called an energy resonance, which can be associated with a specific frequency of light, hence being called a resonant frequency.

Similarly, the nucleus is composed of particles (protons and neutrons) that have specific configurations (energy levels) and resonances for their changes from one energy level to another. These are used to accomplish MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), among other things.

And yes, these resonances can be used to separate or aid the joining of molecules by bombarding them with energy of the correct “resonant frequency”.

Hi everybody!  Recently, some of our Global Research bloggers and projects have been recognized for honors and awards within their industries.  I wanted to take a minute to just do a short entry and direct you to a few of these stories on the Web.  Here is a little round-up:

• Kevin Harding, who has contributed to both the Stump the Scientist and the Laser Diode-logues blog series received “the 2010 SPIE President’s award in recognition of his contributions and dedication to SPIE in governance, industrial and global outreach, symposia and educational activities.” You can read more in this statement from SPIE.
• Edison’s Desk blog editor, Vincent Smentkowski was named a 2010 fellow of the American Vacuum Society.  Fellowship recognizes American Vacuum Society members who have made sustained and outstanding scientific and technical contributions in areas of interest to AVS.  Vincent is the first GE employee to obtain this award.
• Edison’s Desk blog editor, Ajilli Hardy, was featured as one of  Black Enterprise’s “40 Next” celebrating 40 of the next generation’s entrepreneurs and business leaders. Read the article in Black Enterprise.
• Adam Rasheed, who brought you the “In the blink of an eye” series was featured on the “Frontiers of Engineering Alumni Spotlight.” Check it out by visiting the site.
• Mehmet Arik was just appointed to the Scientific Council of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer. This is a prestigious appointment for the largest heat transfer organization in the world.Visit the Website of the Scientific Council here.
• The Arc Flash and JFWTC researcher, Asokan T. were featured in Electrical Monitor newsletter. Check out the article here.
• The “Stump the Scientist” feature was mentioned in the Albany Times Union, in a “My Other Life” featured based on one of the main minds behind the Stump the Scientist answers, Jim Bray. Read the “My Other Life” story on the Times Union site.
• As Jon Janssen already pointed out, blog editor, Andrea Howard, was featured in a GE Careers video on the Edison program. You can check that out if you missed it by visiting here.
• One of our former colleagues and bloggers Mike Montalto, was profiled in Nature Medicine journal.  In the profile he discusses the start of the Bioscience organization and the development of the new Omnyx business out of a research project here at Global Research.  You can read the full article here.

Congratulations to all of my colleagues!

Hi all, I wanted to tell you about some of the interesting new work I’ve been doing with the Natural History Museum in London. This new project is really an extension of the studies I’ve been doing in DNA sequencing. My team at Global Research, along with GE Healthcare and the Museum, are now trying to improve methods of obtaining DNA from fresh and preserved historical samples of endangered species (like the giant squid you see below) in order to learn more about them. In the past the team has worked on methods to enzymatically amplify specimen DNA, long term preservation of samples, and the repair of specimen DNA that has been damaged by exposure to the environment (such as sunlight or oxygen). This work may seem very “Jurassic Park”-like and a bit far out, but if successful, the methods that we are researching will likely also help doctors obtain better genetic information from medical samples, as the methods of preservation for human biopsy samples are nearly identical to those used to preserve the museum samples.

I recently traveled to visit my collaborators and to attend a special symposium titled: “Sequencing the Red and the Dead” at The Linnean Society of London. The Linnean Society of London is the world’s premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history, and the symposium focused on new methods and issues associated with obtaining DNA from species that are extinct, or currently on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources “Red List”. This Red List includes all species that are “Critically Endangered”. Critically endangered means that a species numbers have decreased, or will decrease, by 80% within three generations. After the symposium, there was a workshop where experts from across the field gathered to discuss how best to improve collection techniques and storage so that as new technology is developed, the historical samples will have as good a chance as possible of yielding more information about the different species. The presentations at the meeting discussed the various storage facilities at the San Diego Zoo, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Natural History Museum of London, along with the most recent methods being used to extract DNA from fresh and preserved specimens. Also, officials discussed government regulations on transport of samples from one research institute to another, and specialists discussed zoological and botanical issues with properly categorizing samples.

During the meeting I had the opportunity to tour the museum and once again visit the private “Tank Room”, where 250,000 different historical samples are stored in glass jars full of preservative. Particularly interesting is the 30 foot long giant squid, Architeuthis dux, and some of the samples obtained from the Galapagos Islands during Darwin’s development of the Theory of Evolution.

The original motivation of the GE Healthcare sponsored research collaboration was to explore the application of paper based sample storage using GE’s proprietary FTA products, towards further stabilizing samples that have been preserved using formaldehyde fixation. Dr. Michael Kenrick, who is based in Cardiff, Great Britain, is leading the GE Healthcare effort and Dr. Aidan Emery is leading the team out of the Natural History Museum.