Delayed feedback control of phase synchronisation in a neuronal network model

The human cerebral cortex can be separated into cortical areas forming a clustered network structure. We build two different clustered networks, where one network is based on a healthy brain and the other according to a brain affected by a neurodegenerative process. Each cortical area has a subnetwork with small-world properties. We verify that both networks exhibit rich-club organisation and phase synchronisation. Due to the fact that neuronal synchronisation can be related to brain diseases, we consider the delayed feedback control as a method to suppress synchronous behaviours. In this work, it is presented that depending on the feedback parameters, intensity and time delay, phase synchronisation in both networks can be suppressed. Therefore, one of our main results is to show that delayed feedback control can be used to suppress undesired synchronous behaviours not only in the healthy brain, but also in the brain marked by neurodegenerative processes.     

Deflection of sputtered ions by surface charges

The trajectories of ions sputtered from an insulating surface carrying a surface charge have been computed. The results show that yields measured in particular directions can be in serious error as the trajectories of low energy sputtered ions depend critically on surface charge and point of origin of the ion. The distorted yield curves for 1.2 eV ions and 10 eV ions leaving a surface with a ten volt surface potential are calculated.     

Hurst exponent footprints from activities on a large structural system

This paper presents Hurst exponent footprints from pseudo-dynamic measurements of significantly varied activities on a damaged bridge structure during rehabilitation through continuous monitoring. The system is interesting due to associated uncertainty in large-scale structures and significant presence of human intervention arising from fundamentally different processes. Investigations into the variation of computed Hurst exponents on time series of limited lengths are carried out in this regard. The Hurst exponents are compared with respect to specific events during the rehabilitation, as well as with the data collection locations. The variations of local Hurst exponents about the values computed for each activity are presented. The scaling of Hurst exponents for different activities is also investigated; these are representative of the extent of multifractality for each event. The extent of multifractality is assessed along with its source and time dependency.     

Signal-to-noise enhancement techniques for quantum cascade absorption spectrometers employing optimal filtering and other approaches

Optical feedback to the laser source in tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) is known to create intensity modulation noise due to elatoning and optical feedback (i.e. multiplicative technical noise) that usually limits spectral signal-to-noise (S/N). The large technical noise often limits absorption spectroscopy to noise floors 100-fold greater than the Poisson shot noise limit due to fluctuations in the laser intensity. The high output powers generated from quantum cascade (QC) lasers, along with their high gain, makes these injection laser systems especially susceptible to technical noise. In this article we discuss a method of using optimal filtering to reduce technical noise. We have observed S/N enhancements ranging from ∼20% to a factor of ∼50. The degree to which optimal filtering enhances S/N depends on the similarity between the Fourier components of the technical noise and those of the signal, with lower S/N enhancements observed for more similar Fourier decompositions of the signal and technical noise. We also examine the linearity of optimal filtered spectra in both time and intensity. This was accomplished by creating a synthetic spectrum for the species being studied (CH₄, N₂O, CO₂ and H₂O in ambient air) utilizing line positions and linewidths with an assumed Voigt profile from a commercial database (HITRAN). Agreement better than 0.036% in wavenumber and 1.64% in intensity (up to a 260-fold intensity ratio employed) was observed. Our results suggest that rapid ex post facto digital optimal filtering can be used to enhance S/N for routine trace gas detection. Received: 1 April 2002 / Revised version: 7 May 2002 / Published online: 21 August 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +1-509/376-6066, E-mail: robert.disselkamp@pnl.gov     

Resource pooling in congested networks: proportional fairness and product form

We review two areas of recent research linking proportional fairness with product form networks. The areas concern, respectively, the heavy traffic and the large deviations limiting regimes for the stationary distribution of a flow model, where the flow model is a stochastic process representing the randomly varying number of document transfers present in a network sharing capacity according to the proportional fairness criterion. In these two regimes we postulate the limiting form of the stationary distribution, by comparison with several variants of the fairness criterion. We outline how product form results can help provide insight into the performance consequences of resource pooling.     

Neural activity associated with distinguishing concurrent auditory objects

The neural processes underlying concurrent sound segregation were examined by using event-related brain potentials. Participants were presented with complex sounds comprised of multiple harmonics, one of which could be mistuned so that it was no longer an integer multiple of the fundamental. In separate blocks of trials, short-, middle-, and long-duration sounds were presented and participants indicated whether they heard one sound (i.e., buzz) or two sounds (i.e., buzz plus another sound with a pure-tone quality). The auditory stimuli were also presented while participants watched a silent movie in order to evaluate the extent to which the mistuned harmonic could be automatically detected. The perception of the mistuned harmonic as a separate sound was associated with a biphasic negative-positive potential that peaked at about 150 and 350 ms after sound onset, respectively. Long duration sounds also elicited a sustained potential that was greater in amplitude when the mistuned harmonic was perceptually segregated from the complex sound. The early negative wave, referred to as the object-related negativity (ORN), was present during both active and passive listening, whereas the positive wave and the mistuning-related changes in sustained potentials were present only when participants attended to the stimuli. These results are consistent with a two-stage model of auditory scene analysis in which the acoustic wave is automatically decomposed into perceptual groups that can be identified by higher executive functions. The ORN and the positive waves were little affected by sound duration, indicating that concurrent sound segregation depends on transient neural responses elicited by the discrepancy between the mistuned harmonic and the harmonic frequency expected based on the fundamental frequency of the incoming stimulus.