Neural coding of naturalistic motion stimuli

We study a wide field motion sensitive neuron in the visual system of the blowfly {\em Calliphora vicina}. By rotating the fly on a stepper motor outside in a wooded area, and along an angular motion trajectory representative of natural flight, we stimulate the fly's visual system with input that approaches the natural situation. The neural response is analyzed in the framework of information theory, using methods that are free from assumptions. We demonstrate that information about the motion trajectory increases as the light level increases over a natural range. This indicates that the fly's brain utilizes the increase in photon flux to extract more information from the photoreceptor array, suggesting that imprecision in neural signals is dominated by photon shot noise in the physical input, rather than by noise generated within the nervous system itself.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Developing ontologies in OWL: An observational study

No abstract

Lifecycle-Support in Architectures for Ontology-Based Information Systems

Ontology-based applications play an increasingly important role in the public and corporate Semantic Web. While today there exist a range of tools and technologies to support specific ontology engineering and management activities, architectural design guidelines for building ontology-based applications are missing. In this paper, we present an architecture for ontology-based applications—covering the complete ontology-lifecycle—that is intended to support software engineers in designing and developing ontology based-applications. We illustrate the use of the architecture in a concrete case study using the NeOn toolkit as one implementation of the architecture

Rotational spectroscopy of the two conformers of 3-methylbutyronitrile (C_4H_9CN) between 2 and 400 GHz

We present high-resolution rotational spectroscopy of the two conformers of 3-methylbutyronitrile (C_4H_9CN). Spectra were taken between 2 and 24 GHz by means of Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. Spectra between 36 and 403 GHz were recorded by means of frequency modulated (FM) absorption spectroscopy. The analysis yields precise rotational constants and higher order distortion constants, as well as a set of ^(14)N nuclear electric quadrupole coupling parameters for each of the two conformers. In addition, quantum chemical calculations were performed in order to assist the assignments. Frequency calculations yield insight into the vibrational energy structure of the two conformers, from which partition functions and vibrational correction factors are determined. These factors are used to determine experimentally and computationally the energy difference between the two conformers, which is revealed to be negligible. Overall, this study provides precise spectroscopic constants for the search of 3-methylbutyronitrile in the interstellar medium. In particular, this molecule is a perfect test case for our knowledge of branched molecule formation in space

TiEV: The Tongji Intelligent Electric Vehicle in the Intelligent Vehicle Future Challenge of China

TiEV is an autonomous driving platform implemented by Tongji University of China. The vehicle is drive-by-wire and is fully powered by electricity. We devised the software system of TiEV from scratch, which is capable of driving the vehicle autonomously in urban paths as well as on fast express roads. We describe our whole system, especially novel modules of probabilistic perception fusion, incremental mapping, the 1st and the 2nd planning and the overall safety concern. TiEV finished 2016 and 2017 Intelligent Vehicle Future Challenge of China held at Changshu. We show our experiences on the development of autonomous vehicles and future trends