Como Category Seminar: What does "observable" mean? Hidden Markov models

In various applications, for example in language recognition, there is a variation of the notion of Markov chain called the Hidden Markov model. The word "hidden" refers to the fact that the states are regarded as hidden or unobservable. Roughly the idea is this: the states are syntactical classes, and there is a given probability of passing from one class to another. Further, in a certain class there is a probability associated with each element of the class, the probability that this element is output, or visible.

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Italian enterprise

Italian academics have discovered Spin-offs (the english word is used, though in a sense particularly Italian). The small set of offices where I work in Como now contains three Spin-offs. One, called Light in Light occupies the meeting room where we used to hold seminars, meetings of department, televised lectures (transmitted to Varese), discussion with graduate students etc. The second called Opensoftengineering occupies the office which used to be occupied by graduate students, visitors etc. The last, which is perhaps not technically a Spin-off, but is certainly a centre, is called the Centro di Ricerca in Knowledge and Service Management for Business Applications, and occupies what was formerly a staff office.

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Teaching and learning, and research management

I have been a teacher for more than 40 years. I have taught thousands of students (including 9 PhD's). I have written textbooks. I have always found it hard work.
Towards the end of my career in Sydney (1998) I discovered the astonishing fact that in order to prove that one was an excellent teacher (which I was not) to the satisfaction of university committees one needed to have published research in education. At the same time the university started using the word learning rather than teaching.
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Cherries

This is the moment when the hills around our house are daubed with the white of flowering cherry trees

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