5,416 research outputs found
Effects of ethylenediamine – a putative GABA-releasing agent – on rat hippocampal slices and neocortical activity in vivo
The simple diamine diaminoethane (ethylenediamine, EDA) has been shown to activate GABA receptors in the central and peripheral nervous systems, partly by a direct action and partly by releasing endogenous GABA. These effects have been shown to be produced by the complexation of EDA with bicarbonate to form a carbamate. The present work has compared EDA, GABA and [beta]-alanine responses in rat CA1 neurons using extracellular and intracellular recordings, as well as neocortical evoked potentials in vivo. Superfusion of GABA onto hippocampal slices produced depolarisation and a decrease of field epsps, both effects fading rapidly, but showing sensitivity to blockade by bicuculline. EDA produced an initial hyperpolarisation and increase of extracellular field epsp size with no fade and only partial sensitivity to bicuculline, with subsequent depolarisation, while [beta]-alanine produces a much larger underlying hyperpolarisation and increase in fepsps, followed by depolarisation and inhibition of fepsps. The responses to [beta]-alanine, but not GABA or EDA, were blocked by strychnine. In vivo experiments, recording somatosensory evoked potentials, confirmed that EDA produced an initial increase followed by depression, and that this effect was not fully blocked by bicuculline. Overall the results indicate that EDA has actions in addition to the activation of GABA receptors. These actions are not attributable to activation of [beta]-alanine-sensitive glycine receptors, but may involve the activation of sites sensitive to adipic acid, which is structurally equivalent to the dicarbamate of EDA. The results emphasise the complex pharmacology of simple amines in bicarbonate-containing solution
Mathematical Modeling of Product Rating: Sufficiency, Misbehavior and Aggregation Rules
Many web services like eBay, Tripadvisor, Epinions, etc, provide historical
product ratings so that users can evaluate the quality of products. Product
ratings are important since they affect how well a product will be adopted by
the market. The challenge is that we only have {\em "partial information"} on
these ratings: Each user provides ratings to only a "{\em small subset of
products}". Under this partial information setting, we explore a number of
fundamental questions: What is the "{\em minimum number of ratings}" a product
needs so one can make a reliable evaluation of its quality? How users' {\em
misbehavior} (such as {\em cheating}) in product rating may affect the
evaluation result? To answer these questions, we present a formal mathematical
model of product evaluation based on partial information. We derive theoretical
bounds on the minimum number of ratings needed to produce a reliable indicator
of a product's quality. We also extend our model to accommodate users'
misbehavior in product rating. We carry out experiments using both synthetic
and real-world data (from TripAdvisor, Amazon and eBay) to validate our model,
and also show that using the "majority rating rule" to aggregate product
ratings, it produces more reliable and robust product evaluation results than
the "average rating rule".Comment: 33 page
Block-Structured Supermarket Models
Supermarket models are a class of parallel queueing networks with an adaptive
control scheme that play a key role in the study of resource management of,
such as, computer networks, manufacturing systems and transportation networks.
When the arrival processes are non-Poisson and the service times are
non-exponential, analysis of such a supermarket model is always limited,
interesting, and challenging.
This paper describes a supermarket model with non-Poisson inputs: Markovian
Arrival Processes (MAPs) and with non-exponential service times: Phase-type
(PH) distributions, and provides a generalized matrix-analytic method which is
first combined with the operator semigroup and the mean-field limit. When
discussing such a more general supermarket model, this paper makes some new
results and advances as follows: (1) Providing a detailed probability analysis
for setting up an infinite-dimensional system of differential vector equations
satisfied by the expected fraction vector, where "the invariance of environment
factors" is given as an important result. (2) Introducing the phase-type
structure to the operator semigroup and to the mean-field limit, and a
Lipschitz condition can be obtained by means of a unified matrix-differential
algorithm. (3) The matrix-analytic method is used to compute the fixed point
which leads to performance computation of this system. Finally, we use some
numerical examples to illustrate how the performance measures of this
supermarket model depend on the non-Poisson inputs and on the non-exponential
service times. Thus the results of this paper give new highlight on
understanding influence of non-Poisson inputs and of non-exponential service
times on performance measures of more general supermarket models.Comment: 65 pages; 7 figure
A Matrix-Analytic Solution for Randomized Load Balancing Models with Phase-Type Service Times
In this paper, we provide a matrix-analytic solution for randomized load
balancing models (also known as \emph{supermarket models}) with phase-type (PH)
service times. Generalizing the service times to the phase-type distribution
makes the analysis of the supermarket models more difficult and challenging
than that of the exponential service time case which has been extensively
discussed in the literature. We first describe the supermarket model as a
system of differential vector equations, and provide a doubly exponential
solution to the fixed point of the system of differential vector equations.
Then we analyze the exponential convergence of the current location of the
supermarket model to its fixed point. Finally, we present numerical examples to
illustrate our approach and show its effectiveness in analyzing the randomized
load balancing schemes with non-exponential service requirements.Comment: 24 page
Homotopy Method for the Large, Sparse, Real Nonsymmetric Eigenvalue Problem
A homotopy method to compute the eigenpairs, i.e., the eigenvectors and eigenvalues, of a given real matrix A1 is presented. From the eigenpairs of some real matrix A0, the eigenpairs of
A(t) ≡ (1 − t)A0 + tA1
are followed at successive "times" from t = 0 to t = 1 using continuation. At t = 1, the eigenpairs of the desired matrix A1 are found. The following phenomena are present when following the eigenpairs of a general nonsymmetric matrix:
• bifurcation,
• ill conditioning due to nonorthogonal eigenvectors,
• jumping of eigenpaths.
These can present considerable computational difficulties. Since each eigenpair can be followed independently, this algorithm is ideal for concurrent computers. The homotopy method has the potential to compete with other algorithms for computing a few eigenvalues of large, sparse matrices. It may be a useful tool for determining the stability of a solution of a PDE. Some numerical results will be presented
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