458 research outputs found
Extracting Kinematic Parameters for Monkey Bipedal Walking from Cortical Neuronal Ensemble Activity
The ability to walk may be critically impacted as the result of neurological injury or disease. While recent advances in brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) have demonstrated the feasibility of upper-limb neuroprostheses, BMIs have not been evaluated as a means to restore walking. Here, we demonstrate that chronic recordings from ensembles of cortical neurons can be used to predict the kinematics of bipedal walking in rhesus macaques – both offline and in real time. Linear decoders extracted 3D coordinates of leg joints and leg muscle electromyograms from the activity of hundreds of cortical neurons. As more complex patterns of walking were produced by varying the gait speed and direction, larger neuronal populations were needed to accurately extract walking patterns. Extraction was further improved using a switching decoder which designated a submodel for each walking paradigm. We propose that BMIs may one day allow severely paralyzed patients to walk again
A Brain-Machine Interface Instructed by Direct Intracortical Microstimulation
Brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) establish direct communication between the brain and artificial actuators. As such, they hold considerable promise for restoring mobility and communication in patients suffering from severe body paralysis. To achieve this end, future BMIs must also provide a means for delivering sensory signals from the actuators back to the brain. Prosthetic sensation is needed so that neuroprostheses can be better perceived and controlled. Here we show that a direct intracortical input can be added to a BMI to instruct rhesus monkeys in choosing the direction of reaching movements generated by the BMI. Somatosensory instructions were provided to two monkeys operating the BMI using either: (a) vibrotactile stimulation of the monkey's hands or (b) multi-channel intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) delivered to the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in one monkey and posterior parietal cortex (PP) in the other. Stimulus delivery was contingent on the position of the computer cursor: the monkey placed it in the center of the screen to receive machine–brain recursive input. After 2 weeks of training, the same level of proficiency in utilizing somatosensory information was achieved with ICMS of S1 as with the stimulus delivered to the hand skin. ICMS of PP was not effective. These results indicate that direct, bi-directional communication between the brain and neuroprosthetic devices can be achieved through the combination of chronic multi-electrode recording and microstimulation of S1. We propose that in the future, bidirectional BMIs incorporating ICMS may become an effective paradigm for sensorizing neuroprosthetic devices
Nanoelectromechanics of Piezoresponse Force Microscopy
To achieve quantitative interpretation of Piezoresponse Force Microscopy
(PFM), including resolution limits, tip bias- and strain-induced phenomena and
spectroscopy, analytical representations for tip-induced electroelastic fields
inside the material are derived for the cases of weak and strong indentation.
In the weak indentation case, electrostatic field distribution is calculated
using image charge model. In the strong indentation case, the solution of the
coupled electroelastic problem for piezoelectric indentation is used to obtain
the electric field and strain distribution in the ferroelectric material. This
establishes a complete continuum mechanics description of the PFM contact
mechanics and imaging mechanism. The electroelastic field distribution allows
signal generation volume in PFM to be determined. These rigorous solutions are
compared with the electrostatic point charge and sphere-plane models, and the
applicability limits for asymptotic point charge and point force models are
established. The implications of these results for ferroelectric polarization
switching processes are analyzed.Comment: 81 pages, 19 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Color conductivity and ladder summation in hot QCD
The color conductivity is computed at leading logarithmic order using a Kubo
formula. We show how to sum an infinite series of planar ladder diagrams,
assuming some approximations based on the dominance of soft scattering
processes between hard particles in the plasma. The result agrees with the one
obtained previously from a kinetical approach.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Explanations enlarged, two figures and some refs
added, typos corrected. Final version to be published in Phys.Rev.
Dynamical renormalization group approach to transport in ultrarelativistic plasmas: the electrical conductivity in high temperature QED
The DC electrical conductivity of an ultrarelativistic QED plasma is studied
in real time by implementing the dynamical renormalization group. The
conductivity is obtained from the realtime dependence of a dissipative kernel
related to the retarded photon polarization. Pinch singularities in the
imaginary part of the polarization are manifest as growing secular terms that
in the perturbative expansion of this kernel. The leading secular terms are
studied explicitly and it is shown that they are insensitive to the anomalous
damping of hard fermions as a result of a cancellation between self-energy and
vertex corrections. The resummation of the secular terms via the dynamical
renormalization group leads directly to a renormalization group equation in
real time, which is the Boltzmann equation for the (gauge invariant) fermion
distribution function. A direct correspondence between the perturbative
expansion and the linearized Boltzmann equation is established, allowing a
direct identification of the self energy and vertex contributions to the
collision term.We obtain a Fokker-Planck equation in momentum space that
describes the dynamics of the departure from equilibrium to leading logarithmic
order in the coupling.This determines that the transport time scale is given by
t_{tr}=(24 pi)/[e^4 T \ln(1/e)}]. The solution of the Fokker-Planck equation
approaches asymptotically the steady- state solution as sim e^{-t/(4.038
t_{tr})}.The steady-state solution leads to the conductivity sigma = 15.698
T/[e^2 ln(1/e)] to leading logarithmic order. We discuss the contributions
beyond leading logarithms as well as beyond the Boltzmann equation. The
dynamical renormalization group provides a link between linear response in
quantum field theory and kinetic theory.Comment: LaTex, 48 pages, 14 .ps figures, final version to appear in Phys.
Rev.
Proximity effect at superconducting Sn-Bi2Se3 interface
We have investigated the conductance spectra of Sn-Bi2Se3 interface junctions
down to 250 mK and in different magnetic fields. A number of conductance
anomalies were observed below the superconducting transition temperature of Sn,
including a small gap different from that of Sn, and a zero-bias conductance
peak growing up at lower temperatures. We discussed the possible origins of the
smaller gap and the zero-bias conductance peak. These phenomena support that a
proximity-effect-induced chiral superconducting phase is formed at the
interface between the superconducting Sn and the strong spin-orbit coupling
material Bi2Se3.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Centrality Dependence of the High p_T Charged Hadron Suppression in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV
PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of charged hadron p_T spectra
from central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV. The truncated mean p_T
decreases with centrality for p_T > 2 GeV/c, indicating an apparent reduction
of the contribution from hard scattering to high p_T hadron production. For
central collisions the yield at high p_T is shown to be suppressed compared to
binary nucleon-nucleon collision scaling of p+p data. This suppression is
monotonically increasing with centrality, but most of the change occurs below
30% centrality, i.e. for collisions with less than about 140 participating
nucleons. The observed p_T and centrality dependence is consistent with the
particle production predicted by models including hard scattering and
subsequent energy loss of the scattered partons in the dense matter created in
the collisions.Comment: 7 pages text, LaTeX, 6 figures, 2 tables, 307 authors, resubmitted to
Phys. Lett. B. Revised to address referee concerns. Plain text data tables
for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications
are publicly available at
http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm
The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC
The physics emphases of the PHENIX collaboration and the design and current
status of the PHENIX detector are discussed. The plan of the collaboration for
making the most effective use of the available luminosity in the first years of
RHIC operation is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Further details of the PHENIX physics program
available at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/phenix
Energy and system size dependence of \phi meson production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions
We study the beam-energy and system-size dependence of \phi meson production
(using the hadronic decay mode \phi -- K+K-) by comparing the new results from
Cu+Cu collisions and previously reported Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_NN} = 62.4
and 200 GeV measured in the STAR experiment at RHIC. Data presented are from
mid-rapidity (|y|<0.5) for 0.4 < pT < 5 GeV/c. At a given beam energy, the
transverse momentum distributions for \phi mesons are observed to be similar in
yield and shape for Cu+Cu and Au+Au colliding systems with similar average
numbers of participating nucleons. The \phi meson yields in nucleus-nucleus
collisions, normalised by the average number of participating nucleons, are
found to be enhanced relative to those from p+p collisions with a different
trend compared to strange baryons. The enhancement for \phi mesons is observed
to be higher at \sqrt{s_NN} = 200 GeV compared to 62.4 GeV. These observations
for the produced \phi(s\bar{s}) mesons clearly suggest that, at these collision
energies, the source of enhancement of strange hadrons is related to the
formation of a dense partonic medium in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions
and cannot be alone due to canonical suppression of their production in smaller
systems.Comment: 20 pages and 5 figure
Formation of dense partonic matter in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX collaboration
Extensive experimental data from high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions were
recorded using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
(RHIC). The comprehensive set of measurements from the first three years of
RHIC operation includes charged particle multiplicities, transverse energy,
yield ratios and spectra of identified hadrons in a wide range of transverse
momenta (p_T), elliptic flow, two-particle correlations, non-statistical
fluctuations, and suppression of particle production at high p_T. The results
are examined with an emphasis on implications for the formation of a new state
of dense matter. We find that the state of matter created at RHIC cannot be
described in terms of ordinary color neutral hadrons.Comment: 510 authors, 127 pages text, 56 figures, 1 tables, LaTeX. Submitted
to Nuclear Physics A as a regular article; v3 has minor changes in response
to referee comments. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures
for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available
at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm
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