26554848
What is observable in a class of neurodynamics?
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.
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.
11160456
Structure of Lateral Inhibition in an Olfactory Bulb Model
It has been shown that mutual lateral inhibition of the projection neurones in the olfactory bulb, mediated by interneurones, serves to tune the representation of odours in the bulb and reduce the overlap between similaz odorants. In this paper we demonstrate that the parameters of the lateral interaction, specifically the relation of synaptic strength to cell separation and the effective overall gain of the network, have a significant effect on the strength and range of lateral inhibition in a simple model of the olfactory bulb.
206848726
Viewing a Class of Neurodynamics on Parameter Space
Nearly all models in neural networks start from the assumption that the input-output characteristic is a sigmoidal function. On parameter space we present a systematic and feasible method for analyzing the whole spectrum of attractors-all saturated, all-but-one saturated, all-but-two saturated, etc. — of a neurodynamical system with a saturated sigmoidal function as its input-output characteristic. We present an argument which claims, under a mild condition, that only all saturated or all-but-one saturated attractors are observable for the neurodynamics. For any given all saturated configuration ξ (all-but-one saturated configuration η) the paper shows how to construct an exact parameter region R(ξ) (¯R(η)) such that if and only if the parameters fall within R(ξ) (¯R(η)), then ξ (η) is an attractor (a fixed point) of the dynamics. The parameter region for an all saturated fixed point attractor is independent of the specific choice of a saturated sigmoidal function, whereas for an all-but-one saturated fixed point it is sensitive to the input-output characteristic.
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.
9973306
The Earth System Grid: Supporting the Next Generation of Climate Modeling Research
Understanding the Earth's climate system and how it might be changing is a preeminent scientific challenge. Global climate models are used to simulate past, present, and future climates, and experiments are executed continuously on an array of distributed supercomputers. The resulting data archive, spread over several sites, currently contains upwards of 100 TB of simulation data and is growing rapidly. Looking toward mid-decade and beyond, we must anticipate and prepare for distributed climate research data holdings of many petabytes. The Earth System Grid (ESG) is a collaborative interdisciplinary project aimed at addressing the challenge of enabling management, discovery, access, and analysis of these critically important datasets in a distributed and heterogeneous computational environment. The problem is fundamentally a Grid problem. Building upon the Globus toolkit and a variety of other technologies, ESG is developing an environment that addresses authentication, authorization for data access, large-scale data transport and management, services and abstractions for high-performance remote data access, mechanisms for scalable data replication, cataloging with rich semantic and syntactic information, data discovery, distributed monitoring, and Web-based portals for using the system.
4634224
Structural analysis of the KGD sequence loop of barbourin, an αIIbβ3-specific disintegrin
Disintegrins constitute a class of small proteins that inhibit platelet aggregation by binding to the fibrinogen receptor, also referred to as integrin αIIbβ3. Contrarily to other disintegrins that bind to a series of integrins via their Arg-Gly-Asp domain, the recognition site of barbourin contains a Lys-Gly-Asp sequence that ensures its specificity towards αIIbβ3. In this article, a three-dimensional model of barbourin is proposed using homology modeling and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. The conformations of the Lys-Gly-Asp sequence of barbourin are analyzed and compared to those of peptidomimetics that exhibit similar specificity towards αIIbβ3. The tryptophan residue following the Lys-Gly-Asp sequence of the binding domain is shown to play a crucial role in the biological activity and the specificity of barbourin. Our results suggest that this disintegrin anchors to the binding pocket of the γ-chain of fibrinogen rather than to those of the Arg-Gly-Asp sequence.
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.
27497470
OVERTURE: An Object-Oriented Framework for High Performance Scientific Computing
The Overture Framework is an object-oriented environment for solving PDEs on serial and parallel architectures. It is a collection of C++ libraries that enables the use of finite difference and finite volume methods at a level that hides the details of the associated data structures, as well as the details of the parallel implementation. It is based on the A++/P++ array class library and is designed for solving problems on a structured grid or a collection of structured grids. In particular, it can use curvilinear grids, adaptive mesh refinement and the composite overlapping grid methods to represent problems with complex moving geometry. This paper introduces Overture, its motivation, and specifically the aspects of the design central to portability and high performance. In particular we focus on the mechanisms within Overture that permit a hierarchy of abstractions and those mechanisms which permit their efficiency on advanced serial and parallel architectures. We expect that these same mechanisms will become increasingly important within other object-oriented frameworks in the future.
28101453
HCI Professional Involvement in k-12 Education: On Target or Missing the Mark?
Abstract. The state of learning across geographic, socioeconomic, age, and gender boundaries can be enhanced greatly by Human-Computer Information (HCI) infusion into blended learning [1][2][3] or Course Management System (CMS) software [4][3][5]. The major thrust of this paper is to examine problematic issues examined in popular software such as MoodleTM in which the HCI community could be beneficial. By regarding the ultimate students' goal, i.e. grades, and the desirable benefit of course material understanding, one can develop an understanding of what CMS software needs and CMS software users expect on the high school level.