ADRIAN TREVISAN.EU

Final Chapter … or just the start?…

On certain days I usually stop and wonder why do I actually bother to do what I do and not just stay at home watching Tv? Travelling all over Europe to pursue research has so far come at such an expensive price that at times I do ponder on the idea of how life could be when living in a routine….

I have lived in France since last May and indeed a lot of things happened since then that shaped my life ( and the way I look at life) forever. I made some amazing friends that will last a lifetime and I recently passed from what I can clearly label as the worst part of my life ( with my father passing away a handful of days ago) . I have indeed a river of regrets when it comes to the fact that I was not in Malta for my dad’s last months ( and only managed to get to Malta for his last few days of life) , but on the other hand I think that he would be happy to know that most of my daily achievments and long term goals are always done asking myself what would his opinion be…

My research work in France was not only the most exciting experience in a professional way , but also the fact that I had to communicate with people from a number of different ethnicities and cultures helped me to better understand how different opinions can indeed help to solve problems and by no means that criticism is just a mere way of destroying an idea ( I beleive that such a point should really be assimilated by the Maltese society) .

I do look forward to move back to living in London next week … knowing not just that a new adventure is awaiting me … but that when I’ll look at this chapter in my life I’ll always have a smile on my face .

Thanks to everyone!

Terror…

These last 2 weeks have been indeed extremely important , but also extremely tiring for me . Indeed when a human element is inserted into a research context it automatically becomes extremely stressful . These weeks we where extremely busy testing subjects with a number of psychoacoustic testing and as anyone into research would be aware , in testing that require an individual answer ( and not a yes or no one) you can really expect anything happening.

However , the fact that next week I will be visiting Malta for a few days is keeping my moral up and also my smile well visible. I have now been nearly 2 months in Lannion and I feel that this experience so far has been extremely interesting and fruitful ( so I hope I will have the same opinion by the end of it) . The weeks I’ll be back from Malta will also see other interesting aspects from this research ( such as the analysis part  and the running of another trial) . But I will make sure to keep everyone posted about both the pains and joys of my adventure

The Wider view..

When I arrived in France 5 weeks ago to take up my research post I was extremely fascinated by the experience for me to get more immersed in the mathematical  area behind audio  called “Ambisonics” ( and more specifically Higher Order Ambisonics). Sharing office and labs with some of the people that mostly contributed to this area ( such as Dr Jerome Daniel and Dr Rozen Nicol) I felt a bit like a 7year old landing in Eurodisney .  5 weeks down the line and indeed the experience  and the down to earth personality of these mentioned people (and others) made it possible for me to be able to build up on the work done in the area .

My work here has made me reflect on why Malta does not actually host such a research facility . At the center of Orange Labs I work we are about 5000 people coming from 500 nationalities , with the main resource being the knopwledge and will to experiment in order to create new technologies and ideas that can be used to improve the day to day life of the common citizen . Since Malta can only count on the human resources as a main income , I truly beleive that the improvement and investment in such facilities can contribute heavily to the national economy.

Of course this cannot properly happen as our Maltese University continues to offer restricted courses ( I was one of those unlucky guys that had to move ot Uk to complete educational formation ). The university needs to diversify more the type of courses offered and allow more Interdisciplenary collaborations between its own department ( basically trying to function like a realistic Research Center rather than just as an Educational one) . I think that once Malta has something like this going on , it will provide quality of service that we as Maltese are known for and will make less professionals leaving the Maltese shores .

This is just something I felt I needed to share .

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Decisions

Living in a country with everyone speaking a language that you are not good at is indeed frustrating . Even if I must thank all my work mates for the support and help , it is a nightmare with settling some tasks on your own . An experience that reflects all this was to open a bank account . I was awed at the news that nobody in the bank spoke English , and I had to struggle with my hopeless French to get my way around.

This week was also hard for me , due to some health issues my father is experiencing and being on the other edge of Europe does not help me focus that much .

On a more positive note , and also the reason why this post was a recent discussion I had with one of the managers at Orange Labs that just asked me a single question that made me reflect a lot . He asked me , what do you want to do after you finish your studies?  The question seemed so easy to answer a few weeks ago , but I don’t know if its that easy anymore . Before arriving here I had only experienced research within a University perspective , but never worked on a research within a large organization . I must admit that the feeling I get working on a project that I know will not just be shelved in some library does give me motivation .

Having said that , I still like the academic life and especially the flexibility you are given while conducting research in such a place . So indeed I do have a dilemma of my future .

I hope these weeks and months to come will give me a clearer frame of mind about my future . In either ways , even if its hard to be working so far away from all my family and friends , such an experience is making me change my mind on a lot of  goals I had set.

French twist

My second week in Lannion has just kicked off ! . It is indeed great to work on research from an organizational point of view , even if the research stages are quite similar to the academic ones you can finally start seeing a more applicable of what you are searching on . I am also very lucky to have some people around me that are very supportive to the problems I face when trying to communicate in French ( so they do their best to speak in English) .

So getting back to my academic research . The AES conference in London is approaching , and I have been contacted by some interested parties that are attending the conference ( and also my presentation) . I was glad to have been approached by the likes of Sony and Philips , as it really means that BCI is really moving ahead and we will soon see some outcomes from these Research giants .

I will try to keep this post updated as much as possible , however I am still getting used to this French living , which will last for a few months !

Ady

Crazy Week

Apologies for spending over a week without posting anything . This week was extremely eventful , starting off with my parents and brothers jetting off to London for medical reasons , leaving me on my own in Malta.

From the academic aspect , it was extremely interesting  featuring also an article written about the Brain Music System published on the Times of Malta ( article available from : http://www.timesofmalta.com/technology/view/20100415/news/playing-music-by-a-simple-thought  )

Research has also done well this week , with Niki Young ( a good friend of mine , and also one of the tested people which took part in the exerimantal stages of testing the system ) .He managed  to master the EEG waves and uploading the results on his you tube page ( Below kindly see his EEG to music representation to the Brain Music system ) All this shows that the main aims of the system are being reached , and I am looking forward to develop this further

Of course I need to thank everyone that help in the development of my research further , and I look forward for more people to give the well appreciated help .

Enough stuffing :)

One of the most food indulging feasts in Malta has just passed and I managed to survive it . This month is very hectic due to my move to France, due to a lot of written material I’m finishing and not the least are the students that I am supervising for their final dissertation . It has been a good experience and all of them are doing a good job (here  is a video of  David Micallef , one of my student’s project , where he is finalizing an algorithm of face tracking for video games , where even if using cheap webcams , one can play a game by just moving his head)

Back to the EEG project , this weekend I received a lot of corrispondence by people that worked on similar projects as mine ( just that they didn’t have the low end concept in mind , so my project is very much restricted) . I was told a lot of downsides (especially when implementing the LORETA algorithm) and I think such advice will help me a lot in these coming months.

Thats all , hope to post another ( more fruitful) blog in the coming day or 2

Good Friday

Most probably Good Friday is the most boring day of the year in Malta as everything is closed and people are often doing nothing for most of the time . My day has indeed started well late after a long night working on an update to my EEG project .

A few days ago I read a few papers on attempts of representing “unspoken words” via EEG results and indeed I found these papers extremely interesting especially since this is the major goal that I will be looking at towards the end of my project . I emailed some of the authors of these papers , asking them for glitches they encountered and for future research questions they would suggest to investigate . I was impressed by the response I got , with some of the authors forwarding me also some unpublished work they gave up on or didn’t pursue further for other plans or as they moved to another university.

This is looking very interesting and I am sure it will also fill Good Friday for me . I will keep everyone updated with what I find ( of course this is a very early stage , but I will strive to get deeper into the available literature and try to move from there)

C ya

Reflection .

I must admit I didn’t work much on the research for these last couple of weeks , and indeed I feel guilty everytime I use the device to do some demonstration . I am in the state of trying to consolidate what I came up with in the last few months , and try to come up with proper presentations and write ups .

Yesterday I was guest of  the University of Malta to hold a seminar titled ” Playing with Brainwaves”  at the Physics Department . I was quite sceptic on how the actual turnout would be and what kind of people would actually attend since there isn’t a Neuroscience department in place at the university.

I was surprised to see students and lecturers from the engineering department , together with physics students  , Music staff and even someone from Philosophy. The seminar indeed was something that made me reflect on a few points , especially when I was confronted by some music professor on a more musical question such as “ if by having the system controlling the harmonics of a sound , we would be better off than by just having the system only controlling the pitch and structure?”. The discussion clearly also showed the need for an interdisciplinary centre of Neuroscience within the University of Malta , as clearly the adeguate staff is already in Place.