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First provide a summary of the paper, and then address the following criteria: Quality, clarity, originality and significance. This manuscript presents a flexible discrete latent-state model for population neural data. Approximations (variational and eq 10,11) are necessary to do inference in powerful flexible model. This is a tool for confirmatory analysis; one major weakness as a explorative tool is the necessity to set up the state hierarchy in advance. Originality: It is a novel approach.