Tag: tapping

Categories
Health

Tapping Into the Mind to Assist a Paralyzed Man Communicate

Tapping Into the Brain to Help a Paralyzed Man Speak

For years, Pancho communicated by spelling out words on a computer using a pointer attached to a baseball cap, an arduous method that allowed him to type about five correct words per minute.

“I had to bend/lean my head forward, down, and poke a key letter one-by-one to write,” he emailed.

Last year, the researchers gave him another device involving a head-controlled mouse, but it is still not nearly as fast as the brain electrodes in the research sessions.

Through the electrodes, Pancho communicated 15 to 18 words per minute. That was the maximum rate the study allowed because the computer waited between prompts. Dr. Chang says faster decoding is possible, although it’s unclear if it will approach the pace of typical conversational speech: about 150 words per minute. Speed is a key reason the project focuses on speaking, tapping directly into the brain’s word production system rather than hand movements involved in typing or writing.

“It’s the most natural way for people to communicate,” he said.

Pancho’s buoyant personality has helped the researchers navigate challenges, but also occasionally makes speech recognition uneven.

“I sometimes can’t control my emotions and laugh a lot and don’t do too good with the experiment,” he emailed.

Dr. Chang recalled times when, after the algorithm successfully identified a sentence, “you could see him visibly shaking and it looked like he was kind of giggling.” When that happened or when, during the repetitive tasks, he’d yawn or get distracted, “it didn’t work very well because he wasn’t really focused on getting those words. So, we’ve got some things to work on because we obviously want it to work all the time.”

The algorithm sometimes confused words with similar phonetic sounds, identifying “going” as “bring,” “do” as “you,” and words beginning with “F” — “faith,” “family,” “feel” — as a V-word, “very.”

Categories
Entertainment

Evaluation: Jacob’s Pillow Is Again, With a Tapping Tour of the Grounds

Review: Jacob’s Pillow Is Back, With a Tapping Tour of the Grounds

BECKET, Massachusetts – For the past year and a half, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival has faced bigger challenges than the weather. Last summer, for the first time in its 88-year history, the festival had to cancel all performances in its idyllic home here in the Berkshires. Last November, when the pandemic was still raging, one of the festival’s two theaters was destroyed in a fire.

Jacob’s Pillow has recovered and has a full summer season of performances planned, both on-site and online. But the pandemic isn’t over yet, so all on-site shows are outdoors and subject to Covid protocols and weather. On Wednesday, the opening day, the main obstacle was the rain.

The festival hired a meteorologist to call a few hours before the show. The matinee took place on Wednesday, but the evening performance was not. That means I’ve only seen one of the two programs Dorrance Dance – the leading tap company for the past decade and a regular pillow type – has been preparing to kick off the season.

It was a happy reintroduction, especially since the matinee program is a kind of theme park tour of the grounds. (The video of this will be available for free on the festival website from July 15-29.) Spectators will be divided into small groups, marked with colored armbands, and each group will be guided by instructors to a series of stations, on which members of Dorrance Dance perform vignettes on a loop.

In the open-air pub we meet Aaron Marcellus, Claudia Rahardjanoto and Luke Hickey, who after the last call pretend they are squeezing in another jam session. Marcellus is a singer, a soulful and talented one, but at some point he also contributes a bit of tap. Hickey replaces him on the piano and Rahardjanoto, who plays bass, joins him in a tap-and-song duet. This circular trade is characteristic of Dorrance Dance and the playful, welcoming, and improvised spirit that makes the company a smart choice to welcome audiences back in.

The next piece in the Tea Garden shows a different side. In what looks like beekeeping suits, Warren Craft and Rena Kinoshita are tinkering with electronics and antennas and turning the faucet into an esoteric attempt at communication over potentially interstellar distances – or something like that. Is it the latest report on UFOs?

The science fiction theme is picked up later when we meet Michelle Dorrance, Leonardo Sandoval and Byron Tittle in overalls setting up a ladder and satellite dish. Nearby, chairs are arranged around a gravel pit, in which the three dancers with shovels and boots work out a small symphony in rhythm, paying attention to the tonal possibilities of the gravel: crunching, scratching, rattling.

Before that we visited Ephrat Asherie and Matthew West in the woods and performed a sad dance of separation to greyhounds. And we’ve spied on Josette Wiggan’s friend in a secluded and rustic cabin, hanging up the laundry to dry as she moves to Sarah Vaughan’s records in the heat and comes amazingly close to a dance equivalent of Vaughan’s voice. We end up finding the rest of the company (including the stellar trumpeter Keyon Harrold in a guest appearance) around more booths, pounding on washtubs and washboards, and having a great old time.

Where are we? When are we These vignettes have something to replace, something that is far too reminiscent of theme parks in backyards. The well-known scenarios also miss an opportunity, because the pillow has its own rich history of architecture and location. (Could the hut dances allude to the history of the place as a subway station?) The camp setups reinforce the feeling of thinness. As soon as the last party starts and we are set up to participate, we will be led away. The journey is over.

In these circumstances these mistakes are forgivable. Dorrance Dance offers a pleasant tour. Had I seen the other program with two new works for the festival’s open-air stage, the matinee might have seemed like the perfect starter. But the evening show on Thursday was also rainy and I had to go back to Brooklyn.

Fortunately, part of the program I missed – a premiere by Wiggan’s friend to music by Harrold – will be on July 9th and 10th at the Queens Theater in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. These shows are also held outdoors (but with an indoor backup plan, if it rains). I watch the weather.

Dorrance dance

See you Sunday at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Mass .; jacobspillow.org.

Categories
Business

No financial system can succeed with out tapping girls’s potential

No economy can succeed without tapping women's potential

Indra Nooyi speaks on stage during the 2020 Women’s Watermark Conference at the San Jose Convention Center on February 12, 2020 in San Jose, California.

Marla Aufmuth | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

When economies enter a new phase of growth, the next 20 years will be “the decades of women,” says former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi.

The Indian-American businesswoman said the coming years will mark a turning point for women as society tries to recover from the pandemic while addressing demographic challenges. She also called on companies and countries to stand behind the change.

“I don’t think there is an economy in the world that can thrive without realizing the incredible potential of women in the future. I just don’t think that is possible,” said Nooyi, an integral part of the world ranking of powerful women .

“I also think that almost every economy in the world needs women in order to have children because we need the replacement rate for the world,” she continued. “We should sit down and say, ‘You need us.’ They need us for the economy, they need us to have children, and we’ve put all the unpaid work in. So I look to the next few decades and say, ‘it’s our time’. “

They need us for the economy, they need us to have children … So I look to the next couple of decades and say, “It’s our time.”

Indra Nooyi

Ex-CEO, PepsiCo

Nooyi spoke at a virtual event hosted by Procter & Gamble and the United Nations Women, titled #WeSeeEqual.

Closing the gender gap

In a report last year, the United Nations predicted that the coronavirus pandemic will affect women more than men, further exacerbating existing gender gaps.

However, Nooyi, who was widely lauded for her transformation of PepsiCo, including its diversity and inclusion agenda, said there is an opportunity for companies and countries to fill the void by focusing on three key areas.

“First, every business and government should insist on paid leave,” she said, highlighting paid maternity, paternity and family leave as critical.

“Second, thank God for Covid, now we have flexibility,” she continued, noting that flexible work can be a huge opportunity for women to participate. Not only does that mean moving the office home, it also means enabling hybrid work models and flextime so employees can “find a new equation” that works for them, she said.

“The third most important is childcare facilities,” she said.

These three elements need to work together to bring about change, Nooyi said. But she is hopeful: “I would say it will be a different world; there will be a lot more equality than we saw before.”