7,017 research outputs found
Neural-inspired sensors enable sparse, efficient classification of spatiotemporal data
Sparse sensor placement is a central challenge in the efficient
characterization of complex systems when the cost of acquiring and processing
data is high. Leading sparse sensing methods typically exploit either spatial
or temporal correlations, but rarely both. This work introduces a new sparse
sensor optimization that is designed to leverage the rich spatiotemporal
coherence exhibited by many systems. Our approach is inspired by the remarkable
performance of flying insects, which use a few embedded strain-sensitive
neurons to achieve rapid and robust flight control despite large gust
disturbances. Specifically, we draw on nature to identify targeted
neural-inspired sensors on a flapping wing to detect body rotation. This task
is particularly challenging as the rotational twisting mode is three
orders-of-magnitude smaller than the flapping modes. We show that nonlinear
filtering in time, built to mimic strain-sensitive neurons, is essential to
detect rotation, whereas instantaneous measurements fail. Optimized sparse
sensor placement results in efficient classification with approximately ten
sensors, achieving the same accuracy and noise robustness as full measurements
consisting of hundreds of sensors. Sparse sensing with neural inspired encoding
establishes a new paradigm in hyper-efficient, embodied sensing of
spatiotemporal data and sheds light on principles of biological sensing for
agile flight control.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figure
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
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