7,965 research outputs found
Can we identify non-stationary dynamics of trial-to-trial variability?"
Identifying sources of the apparent variability in non-stationary scenarios is a fundamental problem in many biological data analysis settings. For instance, neurophysiological responses to the same task often vary from each repetition of the same experiment (trial) to the next. The origin and functional role of this observed variability is one of the fundamental questions in neuroscience. The nature of such trial-to-trial dynamics however remains largely elusive to current data analysis approaches. A range of strategies have been proposed in modalities such as electro-encephalography but gaining a fundamental insight into latent sources of trial-to-trial variability in neural recordings is still a major challenge. In this paper, we present a proof-of-concept study to the analysis of trial-to-trial variability dynamics founded on non-autonomous dynamical systems. At this initial stage, we evaluate the capacity of a simple statistic based on the behaviour of trajectories in classification settings, the trajectory coherence, in order to identify trial-to-trial dynamics. First, we derive the conditions leading to observable changes in datasets generated by a compact dynamical system (the Duffing equation). This canonical system plays the role of a ubiquitous model of non-stationary supervised classification problems. Second, we estimate the coherence of class-trajectories in empirically reconstructed space of system states. We show how this analysis can discern variations attributable to non-autonomous deterministic processes from stochastic fluctuations. The analyses are benchmarked using simulated and two different real datasets which have been shown to exhibit attractor dynamics. As an illustrative example, we focused on the analysis of the rat's frontal cortex ensemble dynamics during a decision-making task. Results suggest that, in line with recent hypotheses, rather than internal noise, it is the deterministic trend which most likely underlies the observed trial-to-trial variability. Thus, the empirical tool developed within this study potentially allows us to infer the source of variability in in-vivo neural recordings
Earthquake Arrival Association with Backprojection and Graph Theory
The association of seismic wave arrivals with causative earthquakes becomes
progressively more challenging as arrival detection methods become more
sensitive, and particularly when earthquake rates are high. For instance,
seismic waves arriving across a monitoring network from several sources may
overlap in time, false arrivals may be detected, and some arrivals may be of
unknown phase (e.g., P- or S-waves). We propose an automated method to
associate arrivals with earthquake sources and obtain source locations
applicable to such situations. To do so we use a pattern detection metric based
on the principle of backprojection to reveal candidate sources, followed by
graph-theory-based clustering and an integer linear optimization routine to
associate arrivals with the minimum number of sources necessary to explain the
data. This method solves for all sources and phase assignments simultaneously,
rather than in a sequential greedy procedure as is common in other association
routines. We demonstrate our method on both synthetic and real data from the
Integrated Plate Boundary Observatory Chile (IPOC) seismic network of northern
Chile. For the synthetic tests we report results for cases with varying
complexity, including rates of 500 earthquakes/day and 500 false
arrivals/station/day, for which we measure true positive detection accuracy of
> 95%. For the real data we develop a new catalog between January 1, 2010 -
December 31, 2017 containing 817,548 earthquakes, with detection rates on
average 279 earthquakes/day, and a magnitude-of-completion of ~M1.8. A subset
of detections are identified as sources related to quarry and industrial site
activity, and we also detect thousands of foreshocks and aftershocks of the
April 1, 2014 Mw 8.2 Iquique earthquake. During the highest rates of aftershock
activity, > 600 earthquakes/day are detected in the vicinity of the Iquique
earthquake rupture zone
How to suppress undesired synchronization
It is delightful to observe the emergence of synchronization in the blinking
of fireflies to attract partners and preys. Other charming examples of
synchronization can also be found in a wide range of phenomena such as, e.g.,
neurons firing, lasers cascades, chemical reactions, and opinion formation.
However, in many situations the formation of a coherent state is not pleasant
and should be mitigated. For example, the onset of synchronization can be the
root of epileptic seizures, traffic congestion in communication networks, and
the collapse of constructions. Here we propose the use of contrarians to
suppress undesired synchronization. We perform a comparative study of different
strategies, either requiring local or total knowledge of the system, and show
that the most efficient one solely requires local information. Our results also
reveal that, even when the distribution of neighboring interactions is narrow,
significant improvement in mitigation is observed when contrarians sit at the
highly connected elements. The same qualitative results are obtained for
artificially generated networks as well as two real ones, namely, the Routers
of the Internet and a neuronal network
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