Cloud Hosting

As the woman watched the slide show, the scanner tracked patterns of activation among her neurons. These patterns would be analyzed in terms of voxelsareas of activation that are roughly a cubic millimetre in size. In some ways, the fMRI data was extremely coarse: each voxel represented the oxygen consumption of about a million neurons, and could be updated only every few seconds, significantly more slowly than neurons fire. But, Norman said, it turned out that that information was in the data we were collectingwe just werent being as smart as we possibly could about how wed churn through that data. The breakthrough came when researchers figured out how to track patterns playing out across tens of thousands of voxels at a time, as though each were a key on a piano, and thoughts were chords.

The origins of this approach, I learned, dated back nearly seventy years, to the work of a psychologist named Charles Osgood. When he was a kid, Osgood received a copy of Rogets Thesaurus as a gift. Poring over the book, Osgood recalled, he formed a vivid image of words as clusters of starlike points in an immense space. In his postgraduate days, when his colleagues were debating how cognition could be shaped by culture, Osgood thought back on this image. He wondered if, using the idea of semantic space, it might be possible to map the differences among various styles of thinking.

Osgood conducted an experiment. He asked people to rate twenty concepts on fifty different scales. The concepts ranged widely: BOULDER, ME, TORNADO, MOTHER. So did the scales, which were defined by opposites: fair-unfair, hot-cold, fragrant-foul. Some ratings were difficult: is a TORNADO fragrant or foul? But the idea was that the method would reveal fine and even elusive shades of similarity and difference among concepts. Most English-speaking Americans feel that there is a difference, somehow, between good and nice but find it difficult to explain, Osgood wrote. His surveys found that, at least for nineteen-fifties college students, the two concepts overlapped much of the time. They diverged for nouns that had a male or female slant. MOTHER might be rated nice but not good, and COP vice versa. Osgood concluded that good was somewhat stronger, rougher, more angular, and larger than nice.

Osgood became known not for the results of his surveys but for the method he invented to analyze them. He began by arranging his data in an imaginary space with fifty dimensionsone for fair-unfair, a second for hot-cold, a third for fragrant-foul, and so on. Any given concept, like TORNADO, had a rating on each dimensionand, therefore, was situated in what was known as high-dimensional space. Many concepts had similar locations on multiple axes: kind-cruel and honest-dishonest, for instance. Osgood combined these dimensions. Then he looked for new similarities, and combined dimensions again, in a process called factor analysis.

When you reduce a sauce, you meld and deepen the essential flavors. Osgood did something similar with factor analysis. Eventually, he was able to map all the concepts onto a space with just three dimensions. The first dimension was evaluativea blend of scales like good-bad, beautiful-ugly, and kind-cruel. The second had to do with potency: it consolidated scales like large-small and strong-weak. The third measured how active or passive a concept was. Osgood could use these three key factors to locate any concept in an abstract space. Ideas with similar cordinates, he argued, were neighbors in meaning.

For decades, Osgoods technique found modest use in a kind of personality test. Its true potential didnt emerge until the nineteen-eighties, when researchers at Bell Labs were trying to solve what they called the vocabulary problem. People tend to employ lots of names for the same thing. This was an obstacle for computer users, who accessed programs by typing words on a command line. George Furnas, who worked in the organizations human-computer-interaction group, described using the companys internal phone book. Youre in your office, at Bell Labs, and someone has stolen your calculator, he said. You start putting in police, or support, or theft, and it doesnt give you what you want. Finally, you put in security, and it gives you that. But it actually gives you two things: something about the Bell Savings and Security Plan, and also the thing youre looking for. Furnass group wanted to automate the finding of synonyms for commands and search terms.

They updated Osgoods approach. Instead of surveying undergraduates, they used computers to analyze the words in about two thousand technical reports. The reports themselveson topics ranging from graph theory to user-interface designsuggested the dimensions of the space; when multiple reports used similar groups of words, their dimensions could be combined. In the end, the Bell Labs researchers made a space that was more complex than Osgoods. It had a few hundred dimensions. Many of these dimensions described abstract or latent qualities that the words had in commonconnections that wouldnt be apparent to most English speakers. The researchers called their technique latent semantic analysis, or L.S.A.

At first, Bell Labs used L.S.A. to create a better internal search engine. Then, in 1997, Susan Dumais, one of Furnass colleagues, collaborated with a Bell Labs cognitive scientist, Thomas Landauer, to develop an A.I. system based on it. After processing Groliers American Academic Encyclopedia, a work intended for young students, the A.I. scored respectably on the multiple-choice Test of English as a Foreign Language. That year, the two researchers co-wrote a paper that addressed the question How do people know as much as they do with as little information as they get? They suggested that our minds might use something like L.S.A., making sense of the world by reducing it to its most important differences and similarities, and employing this distilled knowledge to understand new things. Watching a Disney movie, for instance, I immediately identify a character as the bad guy: Scar, from The Lion King, and Jafar, from Aladdin, just seem close together. Perhaps my brain uses factor analysis to distill thousands of attributesheight, fashion sense, tone of voiceinto a single point in an abstract space. The perception of bad-guy-ness becomes a matter of proximity.

In the following years, scientists applied L.S.A. to ever-larger data sets. In 2013, researchers at Google unleashed a descendant of it onto the text of the whole World Wide Web. Googles algorithm turned each word into a vector, or point, in high-dimensional space. The vectors generated by the researchers program, word2vec, are eerily accurate: if you take the vector for king and subtract the vector for man, then add the vector for woman, the closest nearby vector is queen. Word vectors became the basis of a much improved Google Translate, and enabled the auto-completion of sentences in Gmail. Other companies, including Apple and Amazon, built similar systems. Eventually, researchers realized that the vectorization made popular by L.S.A. and word2vec could be used to map all sorts of things. Todays facial-recognition systems have dimensions that represent the length of the nose and the curl of the lips, and faces are described using a string of cordinates in face space. Chess A.I.s use a similar trick to vectorize positions on the board. The technique has become so central to the field of artificial intelligence that, in 2017, a new, hundred-and-thirty-five-million-dollar A.I. research center in Toronto was named the Vector Institute. Matthew Botvinick, a professor at Princeton whose lab was across the hall from Normans, and who is now the head of neuroscience at DeepMind, Alphabets A.I. subsidiary, told me that distilling relevant similarities and differences into vectors was the secret sauce underlying all of these A.I. advances.

In 2001, a scientist named Jim Haxby brought machine learning to brain imaging: he realized that voxels of neural activity could serve as dimensions in a kind of thought space. Haxby went on to work at Princeton, where he collaborated with Norman. The two scientists, together with other researchers, concluded that just a few hundred dimensions were sufficient to capture the shades of similarity and difference in most fMRI data. At the Princeton lab, the young woman watched the slide show in the scanner. With each new imagebeach, cave, foresther neurons fired in a new pattern. These patterns would be recorded as voxels, then processed by software and transformed into vectors. The images had been chosen because their vectors would end up far apart from one another: they were good landmarks for making a map. Watching the images, my mind was taking a trip through thought space, too.

The larger goal of thought decoding is to understand how our brains mirror the world. To this end, researchers have sought to watch as the same experiences affect many peoples minds simultaneously. Norman told me that his Princeton colleague Uri Hasson has found movies especially useful in this regard. They pull peoples brains through thought space in synch, Norman said. What makes Alfred Hitchcock the master of suspense is that all the people who are watching the movie are having their brains yanked in unison. Its like mind control in the literal sense.

One afternoon, I sat in on Normans undergraduate class fMRI Decoding: Reading Minds Using Brain Scans. As students filed into the auditorium, setting their laptops and water bottles on tables, Norman entered wearing tortoiseshell glasses and earphones, his hair dishevelled.

He had the class watch a clip from Seinfeld in which George, Susan (an N.B.C. executive he is courting), and Kramer are hanging out with Jerry in his apartment. The phone rings, and Jerry answers: its a telemarketer. Jerry hangs up, to cheers from the studio audience.

Where was the event boundary in the clip? Norman asked. The students yelled out in chorus, When the phone rang! Psychologists have long known that our minds divide experiences into segments; in this case, it was the phone call that caused the division.

Norman showed the class a series of slides. One described a 2017 study by Christopher Baldassano, one of his postdocs, in which people watched an episode of the BBC show Sherlock while in an fMRI scanner. Baldassanos guess going into the study was that some voxel patterns would be in constant flux as the video streamedfor instance, the ones involved in color processing. Others would be more stable, such as those representing a character in the show. The study confirmed these predictions. But Baldassano also found groups of voxels that held a stable pattern throughout each scene, then switched when it was over. He concluded that these constituted the scenes voxel signatures.

Read this article:
The Science of Mind Reading - The New Yorker

UP photo by Sierra Kondos.

As a single-mother, graduating college student, journalist and small business owner, I know that day-to-day stress takes a toll on the human mind. However, a few months ago, I learned the hard way that the effects of stress are not limited to the brain.

A few months ago, I hit my breaking point. The day began like any other. My alarm went off, I slowly removed myself from my bed so not wake up my son, grabbed my robe and sneaked out of the room. However, I noticed that my neck was hot and burning at the base. It was uncomfortable but I chose to ignore it.

The kitchen is my happy place and I began the morning ritual of counting the scoops of coffee and pouring them into the filter, and once that was done, I hit the strong button before walking to my home office located in the living room. This has been my routine since 2013, beginning my mornings in a quiet house with the only loud noise coming from within, as I tick off my to-do list for the day.

Before I made it to opening my laptop to catch up on my homework for my last semester of college, my sons nana knocked on the door. I welcomed her in, offered coffee and sat down in my favorite green chair. I could tell that she was unhappy. I had been receiving texts throughout the week about her unhappiness. I knew this was coming just not before coffee.

Before she began, she motioned behind me, and I realized my son had woken up silently and had gotten dressed. She asked him to walk next door to go help his grandpa. I knew this was not going to be good. It never is when you send a child away but she also knew that I do not burden my child with adult matters.

Before I show her in a negative light, or make her the villain of this story, I would like to take note that she has a lot on her plate as I do. We have a common trait, even though she isnt my mother, of shouldering a lot of responsibility. Not because we want to, but because we have to. I already knew what she was angry about, but I let her begin the speech.

She was mad that my dog, Mathieu, got out of the pet cage and killed the neighbors cat. I am aware that my dog turns wild when I let him run loose in the country. He also ran loose with grandpas dogs and they hunted rabbits and squirrels. I knew Mathieu killed the cat there was no doubt in my mind. However, that was the breaking point for us both.

The speech got out of hand very quickly and I felt trapped not just in the situation but in my body. And quite suddenly, I was extremely hot. The heat spread quickly from my neck throughout my body and I thought I was about to combust. I ran to the bathroom and I discover I was covered in a red, whelped-up rash from my face to my toes.

It happened so fast, that in my panic, I grabbed my keys and drove from Kirbyville to Jasper to the urgent care without even changing my pajamas. By the time I arrived, I had to wait an hour and a half for the doctor to come back from lunch. My panic did not cease and my face had swollen so tight that my eyelids and ears looked as though they would split down the middle from the pressure.

When I was finally seen, the doctor thought I was having an allergic reaction but to what, she did not know. She gave me a steroid shot and a prescription and said if it got worse to go to the hospital. I drove to Walmart to wait on my prescription, but to my horror, the rash got angrier than before and I felt like ripping my skin off other shoppers steered clear of me like I was a leper. I left the prescription at the store, drove home to pick up my son and drove to the hospital in Jasper.

I was admitted at once and the doctor took one look at me and gave me Benadryl. They did not urine or blood test me they just sent me home. I called my mother, thinking She will know what to do. and asked her to come help me. She had never seen anything like it either. I was literally trapped inside a burning hell.

It took a week and a half for the rash to fade. However, the burning stayed under my skin and still makes appearances in random places every day. The weeks that followed, I had my blood and urine tested, nothing unusual was found. I had to give up drinking coffee, the most sacred part of my morning ritual, and replace it with white teas.

I took Benadryl every three hours and covered my body in calamine lotion until the rash disappeared and I still take one pill every day to keep the rash at bay. My ears were swollen for so long that I was deaf in my left ear. The doctors at the Lamar University Speech and Hearing Department scheduled me twice, which was free of charge because I am a student, and they made sure my ear drum was not damaged.

They explained that the swelling went from outside to inward which caused the earwax to impact. The solution was to switch between swimmers ear drops and regular ear wax removal drops to remove the wax. I have hearing in both my ears now.

The doctor that read the lab reports finally diagnosed me with a stress rash. I was under so much duress, from graduating college to trying to make my bookstore successful again that my body had finally had enough. The rash on my neck was the warning to get my stress under control, or it was going to get worse.

I researched the types of things that irritate a stress rash which range from foods high in histamines to working out and getting hot. My normally smooth skin now has a textured appearance and that makes me feel insecure that I could rash out at any moment.

To reduce stress, I listen to white noise while I concentrate on my deep breathing or when I go to bed my go-to is thunder and rain.

This incident changed my life in a very inconvenient way, but I took this as a learning opportunity to finally listen to my body and to just slow down.

I believe my need to be in control of everything and to make people happy all the time is physically impossible and my stress was warning me that I could only handle so much and the best kind of control is self-control.

We all struggle with day-to-day stresses, but we need to take time to decompress unless we end up in a mystery show about spontaneous combustion.

Continued here:
Stress affects more than the mind - University Press

Get one of these deep frying pans for your kitchen

A kitchen setup is packed with a variety of cookware and utensils. Each serves its own purpose and more than often cannot be substituted for something else. The easiest example of this is frying pans, while they are pretty similar to other pans, their rounded deep bottom makes sure that the oil does not splutter out of the pan when you are frying anything in it. Hence keeping in mind your own safety, it is necessary for you to get the right pan for the right use. If you don't have them already, it is high time to get a deep bottomed frying pan to avoid any mishaps in the kitchen. Here is a list of frying pans that will help you optimize your frying process by making it easy and safe.

The depth and width of this frying pan make it one of the best options you can go for. It is easy to use and clean, it heats evenly and fast. The even heat distribution makes it perfect for quick deep frying, stir-fries and more. It is equipped with energy-saving heat storage technology. It is compatible with gas, electric, induction, glass-ceramic (CERAN) and is also oven safe up to 160 degrees.

Made from high quality 100% food-grade virgin aluminium, this kadhai is ideal for deep frying, sauting and cooking vegetables, meat, gravies etc. The high quality hard anodized coating on the product makes it scratch resistant, durable, Non-toxic, non-reactive and offers great heat distribution. It is easy to clean and store and comes with high-quality bakelite handles that prevent heat transfer to the hands and also offers comfortable holding.

It is made of food-grade stainless steel that facilitates healthy and low-oil cooking. It has a heavy-gauge aluminium core that spreads heat evenly, and the extra-thick tri-ply material retains heat in a great manner. It comes with a tough heat-resistant glass lid with a strong stainless steel rim, stay-cool, natural, durable rosewood handles and firmly fixed stainless steel rivets and brackets that will not loosen for a really long duration.

This triply deep frypan is made up of triple-layer construction. The first layer is made of stainless steel which is rust free for healthy cooking. Second is encapsulated layer of aluminium right throughout the cookware to ensure even heat distribution, less cooking time and minimum burning of food. The third layer is of magnetic stainless steel that makes it both induction and gas stove friendly.

The cooking surface of Futura Nonstick Cookware is made with a unique patented process by which high quality nonstick coating is locked firmly into the tough Hard Anodised surface underneath. These pans are ideal for sauting and stir-frying foods with minimal quantities of oil. They can also be used for deep-frying and for cooking gravies, curries and sauces. The extra-thick base and sides of the Deep-Fry Pan spread heat evenly, retain heat well and avoid hot spots. So food tends to not burn or stick. The curved sides make it ideal for deep-frying and stir-frying.

Get one of these deep frying pans for a safe and fuss-free experience in the kitchen

Waiting for response to load...

Go here to see the original:
5 Of The Best Deep Frying Pans You Need In Your Kitchen Setup - NDTV

If you've ever spent hours worrying about what the future holds or dwelling on past mistakes, you know how deep and unsettling anxiety can be. When you're caught in the tight grip of anxiety, it can seem impossible to center yourself but there are, in fact, ways to shift your focus back to the present and calm your mind. POPSUGAR spoke with mindfulness experts to find out how exactly you can ground yourself when you start to feel overwhelmed. The next time you're feeling uneasy, try one of the 25 grounding techniques listed here. But first, let's talk about why they're so helpful.

Being grounded means being aware of the present moment. In mindfulness practice, grounding techniques are widely used to center yourself through stillness and staying present. When anxiety strikes, you may feel restless or overwhelmed, and focusing on anything else can be challenging. In order to ground yourself, you might take a few deep breaths, count to 10, or find a quiet place to collect yourself through meditation.

"Grounding is a way to turn one's attention away from thoughts and emotions that cause physiological arousal responses in response to stress. For example, when someone has experienced trauma, they can have flashbacks, anxiety, and other symptoms that may be difficult to endure," Anandhi Narasimhan, MD, a double board-certified adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist, told POPSUGAR. "Grounding is a way to reduce the physiological responses associated with those symptoms such as elevated heart rate, sweating, and a sense of impending doom."

Grounding is also a great stress reliever and has other health benefits as well. "Grounding can help reduce anxiety, depression, and even pain symptoms," Dr. Narasimhan explained. "The body's stress response is dialed down, and this can ultimately benefit not only your mental health, but also cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure." When you make these rituals part of your routine, you can train yourself to stay centered in moments when you're experiencing anxiety and feel good knowing that it may benefit your health in the long run.

Training yourself to stay grounded takes effort, but it isn't as intimidating as it sounds. "Grounding can be done at any time and any place, and I think that's what can make it so beneficial for those experiencing anxiety and also for folks who aren't," explained Dora Kamau, a registered psychiatric nurse, mindfulness teacher, and host of Sunday Scaries by Headspace. Even something as simple as taking a deep breath or connecting with your surroundings can help you feel more grounded, Kamau added. So the next time you start to feel yourself spiraling into a fit of anxiety, try to find the time and space to practice one of these grounding techniques. You may be surprised at just how quickly you begin to feel calmer.

"A classic grounding technique that's often used for anxiety is reconnecting to our five senses as a way to destimulate and recenter the mind and body," Kamau told POPSUGAR. The 5-4-3-2-1 technique is even recommended for those who experience panic attacks. To try it for yourself, "list five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste," Dr. Narasimhan said.

Deep breathing is a staple in meditation, and focusing on those intentional breaths can be an effective way to bring yourself back to the present. "By breathing deeply into the stomach, you can stimulate the vagus nerve, which cues the 'rest and digest' part of the brain that calms the body and mind," Kamau explained. "It's as simple as bringing your attention to the breath and breathing deeply into the abdomen."

Take your deep, mindful breathing to another level. "Bee breath or 'humming breath' is a breathing technique that helps to soothe and calm the body. You breathe in through the nose and exhale making a buzzing or humming sound," Kamau said. This sensation can help redirect your attention to your body and away from whatever's causing you anxiety.

Practicing meditation as part of your morning or nightly routine can help you feel more prepared to use it in a stressful situation. Dr. Narasimhan suggests practicing mindfulness meditation, where you focus on one thing (such as your breath or a mantra), and try to gently push other thoughts out of your mind.

Getting some fresh air and sun really can have an impact. "Physically putting ourselves in a different space helps to also put ourselves in a different mental and emotional space," explained William Chum, LMHC, a licensed psychotherapist.

If you've ever owned a stress ball or found comfort in keeping your hands busy, you may want to give this technique a try the next time you start to feel anxious. "Progressive muscle relaxation helps to ease the body when it's tense or rigid," Kamau told POPSUGAR. Try this: "Squeeze the hands and gently release them," she said. "Squeezing the hands is one way to try this technique, but you can do this throughout the entire body."

Being aware of your body is key to remaining mindful and present. "Mindfully stretching the body to let go of any tension or tightness can invite more presence into the areas of the body that hold anxiety," Kamau said.

If you're struggling to stay focused on the present, try using your imagination to transport yourself somewhere else. "Practice visualizing yourself in a calming place, such as near the ocean or elsewhere that you find relaxing," Dr. Narasimhan said. It's a good way to redirect your focus.

"If you have a furry friend, connecting with them helps to create a sense of connection and comfort, which is helpful for bringing the mind and body to a calm, centered place," Kamau explained. "If you don't have a pet, you can opt for a fuzzy or soft blanket, which is quite soothing as well!"

"It sounds counterintuitive, but taking ice-cold showers or even splashing the face with cold water can definitely help to redirect our thoughts, and it can also boost our moods," Kamau said. In fact, research suggests that being immersed in cold water may lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Being vulnerable may feel scary, but voicing what's on your mind can be cathartic. "People are the best emotional equalizers," Chum told POPSUGAR. "Talking to a trusted friend or family member that we feel safe with helps us to reconnect with our reality."

When you can't drown out your thoughts, it could help to change the tone in the room by listening to artists who comfort you. "Playing your favorite songs can help with shifting the mind away from any ruminating thought patterns and even evoke uplifting feelings in the body," Kamau said.

Picking up a creative project like drawing or painting can help bring you back to the present. "You don't have to be Picasso, but a favorite art practice of mine is taking a pen and paper and, as you breathe in and out, tracing the breath on the paper," Kamau said. "Try drawing mountains or waves and using different colors!"

"Dancing to your favorite music helps to shake and release tension in the body and ease your mood," Kamau said. "Notice the different movements of the body parts, and take your time exploring different bends and shapes."

"Gratitude can help us shift our mind from focusing on what we don't have to what we do have, and this is another soothing way to ground," Kamau explained. She suggests writing down some things you're grateful for. (You might even consider keeping a regular gratitude journal.)

If you're struggling to stay present, it might do you good to engage in a chore, such as washing dishes, Dr. Narasimhan explained. Doing anything mechanical can help you feel more grounded.

In meditation, one powerful way to stay focused is to do a body scan, which helps make you more aware of how you're feeling physically. "By mindfully bringing attention to different areas of the body, you can strengthen your mind-body connection," Kamau said. "As you scan the body from head to toe, just notice the different sensations in and throughout the body as if you're exploring something you've never seen before."

Directing your awareness to an object, especially one that has a special meaning to you, can help get your mind and heart in the right place. "Holding something like a rock, crystal, or sentimental item and focusing on it is a great way to ground yourself," Dr. Narasimhan said.

This is a common practice in meditation. "Holding a raisin, or candy, in your hand, put all your focus on all the details of the raisin, paying attention to the texture, color, shape, etc.," Chum said, adding that this will redirect your focus from any unwanted thoughts to what's right in front of you.

Taking a relaxing bath can help quiet those racing thoughts. "Having a warm bath helps to soothe the body and mind. I love adding eucalyptus or lavender to my baths to help with calming the nervous system," Kamau explained.

When you're feeling overwhelmed, try this simple activity to train your mind on something else. "Naming things in a category colors, fruits, animals helps to redirect the thoughts," Chum said.

A great way to stay grounded is to become one with it. "Laying down on the bed or the floor and relaxing every muscle, as if to feel like you are sinking, is a way of physically grounding the emotions in the body," Chum explained.

"Finding a mantra that one believes in and brings comfort is helpful to ground any unwelcome thoughts," Chum told POPSUGAR. Try listing some self-affirmations you can repeat to yourself anytime you start to feel anxiety creep in.

"Counting backwards from 100 can help ground you. It's something that uses a lot of brainpower, and paying attention helps redirect the focus from the emotional thoughts," Chum said.

"You can do this indoors or outdoors! As you walk, notice the movement of the body, pay attention to your surroundings, or even try syncing the breath with each footstep," Kamau said. "This helps to focus our attention away from any racing or ruminating thoughts."

Read more:
25 Grounding Techniques That Can Help Instantly Ease Anxiety - POPSUGAR