06311 Executive Summary -- Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine

Today many technical systems are equipped with multiple sensors and information sources, like cameras, ultrasound sensors or web data bases. It is no problem to generate an exorbitantly large amount of data, but it is mostly unsolved how to take advantage of the expectation that the collected data provide more information than the sum of its parts. The design and analysis of algorithms for sensor data and information acquisition and fusion as well as the usage in a differentiated application field was the major focus of the Seminar held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. 24 researchers, practitioners, and application experts from different areas met to summarize the current state-of-the-art technology in data and information fusion, to discuss current research problems in fusion, and to envision future demands of this challenging research field. The considered application scenarios for data and information fusion were in the fields of computer vision and medicine

06311 Abstracts Collection -- Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine

From 30.07.06 to 04.08.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06311 ``Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. Sensor data fusion is of increasing importance for many research fields and applications. Multi-modal imaging is routine in medicine, and in robitics it is common to use multi-sensor data fusion. During the seminar, researchers and application experts working in the field of sensor data fusion presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. The second part briefly summarizes the contributions

Homomorphic encryption and some black box attacks

This paper is a compressed summary of some principal definitions and concepts in the approach to the black box algebra being developed by the authors. We suggest that black box algebra could be useful in cryptanalysis of homomorphic encryption schemes, and that homomorphic encryption is an area of research where cryptography and black box algebra may benefit from exchange of ideas

Trading on Preconceptions: Why World War I Was Not a Failure of Economic Interdependence

World War I is generally viewed by both advocates and critics of commercial liberal theory as the quintessential example of a failure of economic integration to maintain peace. Yet this consensus relies on both methodologically flawed inference and an incomplete accounting of the antecedents to the war. Crucially, World War I began in a weakly integrated portion of Europe with which highly integrated powers were entangled through the alliance system. Crises among the highly interdependent European powers in the decades leading up to the war were generally resolved without bloodshed. Among the less interdependent powers in Eastern Europe, however, crises regularly escalated to militarized violence. Moreover, the crises leading to the war created increased incentives for the integrated powers to strengthen commitments to their less interdependent partners. In attempting to make these alliances more credible, Western powers shifted foreign policy discretion to the very states that lacked strong economic disincentives to fight. Had globalization pervaded Eastern Europe, or if the rest of Europe had been less locked into events in the east, Europe might have avoided a “Great War.” </jats:p

Low-Temperature Physics

Contains reports on four research projects

Protein expression differs between neural progenitor cells from the adult rat brain subventricular zone and olfactory bulb

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neural progenitor cells can be isolated from various regions of the adult mammalian brain, including the forebrain structures of the subventricular zone and the olfactory bulb. Currently it is unknown whether functional differences in these progenitor cell populations can already be found on the molecular level. Therefore, we compared protein expression profiles between progenitor cells isolated from the subventricular zone and the olfactory bulb using a proteomic approach based on two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. The subventricular zone and the olfactory bulb are connected by the Rostral Migratory Stream (RMS), in which glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-positive cells guide neuroblasts. Recent literature suggested that these GFAP-positive cells possess neurogenic potential themselves. In the current study, we therefore compared the cultured neurospheres for the fraction of GFAP-positive cells and their morphology of over a prolonged period of time.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found significant differences in the protein expression patterns between subventricular zone and olfactory bulb neural progenitor cells. Of the differentially expressed protein spots, 105 were exclusively expressed in the subventricular zone, 23 showed a lower expression and 51 a higher expression in the olfactory bulb. The proteomic data showed that more proteins are differentially expressed in olfactory bulb progenitors with regard to proteins involved in differentiation and microenvironmental integration, as compared to the subventricular zone progenitors. Compared to 94% of all progenitors of the subventricular zone expressed GFAP, nearly none in the olfactory bulb cultures expressed GFAP. Both GFAP-positive subpopulations differed also in morphology, with the olfactory bulb cells showing more branching. No differences in growth characteristics such as doubling time, and passage lengths could be found over 26 consecutive passages in the two cultures.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this study, we describe differences in protein expression of neural progenitor populations isolated from two forebrain regions, the subventricular zone and the olfactory bulb. These subpopulations can be characterized by differential expression of marker proteins. We isolated fractions of progenitor cells with GFAP expression from both regions, but the GFAP-positive cells differed in number and morphology. Whereas in vitro growth characteristics of neural progenitors are preserved in both regions, our proteomic and immunohistochemical data suggest that progenitor cells from the two regions differ in morphology and functionality, but not in their proliferative capacity.</p

Low Temperature Physics

Contains reports on six research projects

Quantum control of proximal spins using nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging

Quantum control of individual spins in condensed matter systems is an emerging field with wide-ranging applications in spintronics, quantum computation, and sensitive magnetometry. Recent experiments have demonstrated the ability to address and manipulate single electron spins through either optical or electrical techniques. However, it is a challenge to extend individual spin control to nanoscale multi-electron systems, as individual spins are often irresolvable with existing methods. Here we demonstrate that coherent individual spin control can be achieved with few-nm resolution for proximal electron spins by performing single-spin magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is realized via a scanning magnetic field gradient that is both strong enough to achieve nanometric spatial resolution and sufficiently stable for coherent spin manipulations. We apply this scanning field-gradient MRI technique to electronic spins in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond and achieve nanometric resolution in imaging, characterization, and manipulation of individual spins. For NV centers, our results in individual spin control demonstrate an improvement of nearly two orders of magnitude in spatial resolution compared to conventional optical diffraction-limited techniques. This scanning-field-gradient microscope enables a wide range of applications including materials characterization, spin entanglement, and nanoscale magnetometry.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Ectopic A-lattice seams destabilize microtubules

Natural microtubules typically include one A-lattice seam within an otherwise helically symmetric B-lattice tube. It is currently unclear how A-lattice seams influence microtubule dynamic instability. Here we find that including extra A-lattice seams in GMPCPP microtubules, structural analogues of the GTP caps of dynamic microtubules, destabilizes them, enhancing their median shrinkage rate by >20-fold. Dynamic microtubules nucleated by seeds containing extra A-lattice seams have growth rates similar to microtubules nucleated by B-lattice seeds, yet have increased catastrophe frequencies at both ends. Furthermore, binding B-lattice GDP microtubules to a rigor kinesin surface stabilizes them against shrinkage, whereas microtubules with extra A-lattice seams are stabilized only slightly. Our data suggest that introducing extra A-lattice seams into dynamic microtubules destabilizes them by destabilizing their GTP caps. On this basis, we propose that the single A-lattice seam of natural B-lattice MTs may act as a trigger point, and potentially a regulation point, for catastrophe