14367385
Impact of Correlated Inputs on the Output of the Integrate-and-Fire Model
For the integrate-and-fire model with or without reversal potentials, we consider how correlated inputs affect the variability of cellular output. For both models, the variability of efferent spike trains measured by coefficient of variation (CV) of the interspike interval is a nondecreasing function of input correlation. When the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.09, the CV of the integrate-and-fire model without reversal potentials is always above 0.5, no matter how strong the inhibitory inputs. When the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.05, CV for the integrate- and-fire model with reversal potentials is always above 0.5, independent of the strength of the inhibitory inputs. Under a given condition on correlation coefficients, we find that correlated Poisson processes can be decomposed into independent Poisson processes. We also develop a novel method to estimate the distribution density of the first passage time of the integrate-and-fire model.
652273
Decoding Input Signals in Time Domain—A Model Approach
From an observation of efferent interspike intervals of a neuron, we consider how to decode the input temporal information. It is found that the integrate-and-fire model is blind in the temporal domain due to the fact that its efferent firing rate is independent of the input temporal frequency. The conclusion is then confirmed for the integrate-and-fire model with correlated inputs, with reversal potentials, with a nonlinear leakage and with a subthreshold oscillation. For the Hodgkin-Huxley model, however, in terms of efferent firing rates alone, it is possible to read out the input temporal information.
10774169
Significance of random neuronal drive
Abstract Effectively random firing occurs frequently in the brain. Random components of neuronal drive are therefore often major influences on activity. We describe here how level of drive, inhibitory/excitatory balance, correlation between input streams, EPSP/IPSP characteristics, the nature of the postsynaptic neuron all affect pattern and level of firing, the influence often interacting in complex ways. Random firing might also be instrumental in facilitating synchronized firing. These factors are possibly important elements of the mechanisms by which some neural networks encode information. Clarifying them might therefore facilitate a deeper understanding of the nature of the neural code.
7897839
Effects of Correlation and Degree of Balance in Random Synaptic Inputs on the Output of the Hodgkin-Huxley Model
We examine the effects of degree of balance between inhibitory and excitatory random synaptic inputs, and of positive correlation between the inputs on the mean and variability of the output of the classical Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) model for squid giant axon, using computer simulation. The mean interspike interval (ISI) and the coefficient of variation of ISI change little as the degree of balance changes, unlike the leaky integrate-and-fire model, frequently used in stochastic network modelling as an approximation to more biophysically based models. Low correlations (up to about 0.1) between 100 excitatory inputs each firing at 100 Hz reduce the mean(ISI) to below a third of its value when the inputs are independent, and CV by a factor of 5 from a near-Poisson range to one associated with regular firing.
9793653
Paradoxical Relationship between Output and Input Regularity for the FitzHugh-Nagumo Model
We examine the effects of changing the coefficient of variation (CV) of the inter-stimulus interval on the CV of the output interspike interval (ISI), using constant magnitude, supra-threshold point-process stimuli of the membrane potential variable in the FitzHugh-Nagumo model. The coefficient of variation of the input is changed within the context of a displaced exponential distribution. We find that for some values of mean inter-stimulus interval, CV of ISI has an inverse relationship with input coefficient of variation, whereas for other mean stimulation rates, CV of ISI increases with input coefficient of variation. Over a wide range of input regularity CV of ISI is approximately constant, and is less than 0.4.
877766
Inhibitory inputs increase a neurons's firing rate
Abstract Neurons are typically thought of as receiving information primarily through excitatory inputs, with inhibitory inputs playing a gating or regulating role. In this paper we demonstrate that increasing the strength of inhibitory inputs to the Hodgkin–Huxley and FitzHugh–Nagumo models can induce them to fire faster. This result is counter-intuitive and important in neural network modelling where inhibitory inputs are often neglected.
327923
Implicit interest indicators
Recommender systems provide personalized suggestions about items that users will find interesting. Typically, recommender systems require a user interface that can ``intelligently'' determine the interest of a user and use this information to make suggestions. The common solution, ``explicit ratings'', where users tell the system what they think about a piece of information, is well-understood and fairly precise. However, having to stop to enter explicit ratings can alter normal patterns of browsing and reading. A more ``intelligent'' method is to useimplicit ratings, where a rating is obtained by a method other than obtaining it directly from the user. These implicit interest indicators have obvious advantages, including removing the cost of the user rating, and that every user interaction with the system can contribute to an implicit rating.
Current recommender systems mostly do not use implicit ratings, nor is the ability of implicit ratings to predict actual user interest well-understood. This research studies the correlation between various implicit ratings and the explicit rating for a single Web page. A Web browser was developed to record the user's actions (implicit ratings) and the explicit rating of a page. Actions included mouse clicks, mouse movement, scrolling and elapsed time. This browser was used by over 80 people that browsed more than 2500 Web pages.
Using the data collected by the browser, the individual implicit ratings and some combinations of implicit ratings were analyzed and compared with the explicit rating. We found that the time spent on a page, the amount of scrolling on a page and the combination of time and scrolling had a strong correlation with explicit interest, while individual scrolling methods and mouse-clicks were ineffective in predicting explicit interest.
36256315
Visual-Based View-Invariant Human Motion Analysis: A Review
This paper provides a comprehensive survey of research on view-invariant human motion analysis. Recent research has shown that view-invariant related issues has been one of the bottlenecks for human motion understanding. The priority in this paper has been given to view-invariant pose representation and estimation, behaviour understanding. Research challenges and future directions are discussed in the end.
13017049
Identities for the exponential integral and the complementary error transforms
Abstract In the present paper the authors introduce the exponential integral transform and the complementary error transform, then it is shown that the third iterate of the Laplace transform is the exponential integral transform and a modified third iterate of the Laplace transform is the complementary error transform. Some identities involving these new transforms, the Laplace transform and the Stieltjes transform are given. Using the identities, Parseval–Goldstein type results involving these transforms are proved. Some illustrative examples are also given.
9882695
Rigorously Defining and Analyzing Medical Processes: An Experience Report
This paper describes our experiences in defining the processes associated with preparing and administrating chemotherapy and then using those process definitions as the basis for analyses aimed at finding and correcting defects. The work is a collaboration between medical professionals from a major regional cancer center and computer science researchers. The work uses the Little-JIL language to create precise process definitions, the Propel system to specify precise process requirements, and the FLAVERS system to verify that the process definitions adhere to the requirement specifications. The paper describes how these technologies were applied to successfully identify defects in the chemotherapy process. Although this work is still ongoing, early experiences suggest that this approach can help reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. The work has also helped us to learn about the desiderata for process definition and analysis technologies, both of which are expected to be broadly applicable to other domains.
37865441
Adapting robot kinematics for human-arm motion recognition
This paper presents a novel method to the analysis of human-arm motion, in particular improving the efficiency of conventional motion recognition algorithms. Contrary to the prior art methods, this research develops a framework for human-arm motion recognition where qualitative normalised templates (QNTs) is proposed to replace the conventional approaches. First of all, the conventional robotic model has been employed to build a generic vision model for a human-arm, that is we utilise the robot kinematics to construct a stick model. Secondly, the qualitative robotic model is adopted to learn and construct the QNTs where human-arm motion is termed as, whose execution is consistent and could be easily characterised by a definite space-time trajectory in configuration space. Finally, classification of the human-arm motion is achieved by comparing the QNTs to the parameters learnt with particle filter based motion tracking algorithm. Experimental evaluation has demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in human-arm motion classification, and our future work is focused on extending the proposed method to recognise complex human motion, e.g. walking and running.