87,331 research outputs found
On the role of chemical synapses in coupled neurons with noise
We examine the behavior in the presence of noise of an array of Morris-Lecar
neurons coupled via chemical synapses. Special attention is devoted to
comparing this behavior with the better known case of electrical coupling
arising via gap junctions. In particular, our numerical simulations show that
chemical synapses are more efficient than gap junctions in enhancing coherence
at an optimal noise (what is known as array-enhanced coherence resonance): in
the case of (nonlinear) chemical coupling, we observe a substantial increase in
the stochastic coherence of the system, in comparison with (linear) electrical
coupling. We interpret this qualitative difference between both types of
coupling as arising from the fact that chemical synapses only act while the
presynaptic neuron is spiking, whereas gap junctions connect the voltage of the
two neurons at all times. This leads in the electrical coupling case to larger
correlations during interspike time intervals which are detrimental to the
array-enhanced coherence effect. Finally, we report on the existence of a
system-size coherence resonance in this locally coupled system, exhibited by
the average membrane potential of the array.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
Classical singularities and Semi-Poisson statistics in quantum chaos and disordered systems
We investigate a 1D disordered Hamiltonian with a non analytical step-like
dispersion relation whose level statistics is exactly described by Semi-Poisson
statistics(SP). It is shown that this result is robust, namely, does not depend
neither on the microscopic details of the potential nor on a magnetic flux but
only on the type of non-analyticity. We also argue that a deterministic kicked
rotator with a non-analytical step-like potential has the same spectral
properties. Semi-Poisson statistics (SP), typical of pseudo-integrable
billiards, has been frequently claimed to describe critical statistics, namely,
the level statistics of a disordered system at the Anderson transition (AT).
However we provide convincing evidence they are indeed different: each of them
has its origin in a different type of classical singularities.Comment: typos corrected, 4 pages, 3 figure
Computability of the causal boundary by using isocausality
Recently, a new viewpoint on the classical c-boundary in Mathematical
Relativity has been developed, the relations of this boundary with the
conformal one and other classical boundaries have been analyzed, and its
computation in some classes of spacetimes, as the standard stationary ones, has
been carried out.
In the present paper, we consider the notion of isocausality given by
Garc\'ia-Parrado and Senovilla, and introduce a framework to carry out
isocausal comparisons with standard stationary spacetimes. As a consequence,
the qualitative behavior of the c-boundary (at the three levels: point set,
chronology and topology) of a wide class of spacetimes, is obtained.Comment: 44 pages, 5 Figures, latex. Version with minor changes and the
inclusion of Figure
Heat fluxes between the Guadalquivir river and the Gulf of Cádiz Continental Shelf
An 18-year time series of daily sea surface temperature of Gulf of Cadiz and an 18-month time series of temperature collected in the vicinity of the Guadalquivir estuary mouth have been analyzed to investigate the heat exchange between the estuary and the adjacent continental shelf. The first time identifies a continental shelf area where seasonal thermal oscillation signal (amplitudes and phase) changes abruptly.
In order to explain this anomaly, the second data set allows a description of thermal fluctuations in a wide range of frequencies and an estimation of the upstream heat budget of the Guadalquivir estuary. Results show that high frequency thermal signal, diurnal and semidiurnal, and water flux signal through Guadalquivir mouth, mainly semidiurnal, apparently interact randomly to give a small exchange of thermal energy at high frequency. There is no trace, at the estuary's mouth, of daily heat exchanges with intertidal mudflats probably because it tends to cancel on daily time scales. Results also show that fluctuations of estimated air-sea fluxes force fluctuations of temperature in a quite homogeneous estuarine, with a delay of 20 days. The along-channel thermal energy gradient reaches magnitudes of 300-400 J m-4 near the mouth during the summer and winter and drives the estuary-shelf exchange of thermal energy at seasonal scale. Particularly, the thermal heat imported by the estuary from the shelf area during late fall-winter-early spring of 2008/2009 is balanced by the thermal heat that the estuary exports to the shelf area during late spring-summer of 2008. In summary, Guadalquivir river removes/imports excess of thermal energy towards/from the continental shelf seasonally, as a mechanism to accommodate excess of heat from one side respect to the other side.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech. Autoridad Portuaria de Sevilla (APS
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