8,151 research outputs found
Correlation of hippocampal theta rhythm with changes in cutaneous temperature
A possible role for the hippocampus in alerting an animal to changes in cutaneous temperature was examined. Following local warming or cooling of the ears of unanesthetized, loosely restrained rabbits, theta waves (4-7 Hz EEG waves) were recorded from electrodes straddling the hippocampus. The onset of the hippocampal theta rhythm was correlated with changes in cutaneous temperature, an observation consistent with studies indicating that the theta rhythm is a nonspecific response evoked by stimulation of several sensory modalities. Additional data from cats and rabbits were correlated with specific neurons within the hippocampus, namely pyramidal cells. Post stimulus time histograms obtained by excitation of the dorsal fornix were interpreted in terms of excitatory and inhibitory inputs to pyramidal cells. Thus, the theta rhythm, which appears to be evoked by changes in cutaneous temperature, can be related to a specific type of hippocampal neuron which is in turn connected with other areas of the brain involved in temperature regulation
Correlation of the Hippocampal theta rhythm to changes in hypothalamic temperature
Warming and cooling the preoptic anterior hypothalamic area in awake, loosely restrained rabbits was found to evoke theta rhythm. This is consistent with previous studies indicating that theta rhythm is a nonspecific response evoked by stimulation of several sensory modalities. Several studies have correlated theta rhythm with alertness. A neural pathway involving the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the septal area, and the reticular formation is proposed. Thus, a role of this pathway may be to alert the animal to changes in its body temperature
Electronic and optical properties in non-uniformly shaped QDashes
We theoretically study the optical properties and the electronic structure of
highly elongated quantum dots (quantum dashes) and show how carrier trapping
due to geometrical fluctuations of the confining potential affects the
excitonic spectrum of the system. We focus on the study of the optical
properties of a single exciton confined in the structure. The dependence of the
absorption and emission intensities on the geometrical properties (depth and
position) of the trapping center of a quantum dash is analyzed and the
dependence of the degree of linear polarization on these geometrical parameters
is studied in detail.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure
Generation of Entangled Photon Holes using Quantum Interference
In addition to photon pairs entangled in polarization or other variables,
quantum mechanics also allows optical beams that are entangled through the
absence of the photons themselves. These correlated absences, or ``entangled
photon holes'', can lead to counter-intuitive nonlocal effects analogous to
those of the more familiar entangled photon pairs. Here we report an
experimental observation of photon holes generated using quantum interference
effects to suppress the probability that two photons in a weak laser pulse will
separate at an optical beam splitter.Comment: 4 pages, color figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Finite Mirror Effects in Advanced Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors
Thermal noise is expected to be the dominant source of noise in the most
sensitive frequency band of second generation ground based gravitational wave
detectors. Reshaping the beam to a flatter wider profile which probes more of
the mirror surface reduces this noise. The "Mesa" beam shape has been proposed
for this purpose and was subsequently generalized to a family of hyperboloidal
beams with two parameters: twist angle alpha and beam width D. Varying alpha
allows a continuous transition from the nearly-flat to the nearly-concentric
Mesa beam configurations. We analytically prove that in the limit of infinite D
hyperboloidal beams become Gaussians. The Advanced LIGO diffraction loss design
constraint is 1 ppm per bounce. In the past the diffraction loss has often been
calculated using the clipping approximation that, in general, underestimates
the diffraction loss. We develop a code using pseudo-spectral methods to
compute the diffraction loss directly from the propagator. We find that the
diffraction loss is not a strictly monotonic function of beam width, but has
local minima that occur due to finite mirror effects and leads to natural
choices of D. For the Mesa beam a local minimum occurs at D = 10.67 cm and
leads to a diffraction loss of 1.4 ppm. We find that if one requires a
diffraction loss of strictly 1 ppm, the alpha = 0.91 pi hyperboloidal beam is
optimal, leading to the coating thermal noise being lower by about 10% than for
a Mesa beam while other types of thermal noise decrease as well. We then
develop an iterative process that reconstructs the mirror to specifically
account for finite mirror effects. This allows us to increase the D parameter
and lower the coating noise by about 30% compared to the original Mesa
configuration.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables. Referee input included and typos
fixed. Accepted by Phys. Rev.
Text-to-picture tools, systems, and approaches: a survey
Text-to-picture systems attempt to facilitate high-level, user-friendly communication between humans and computers while promoting understanding of natural language. These systems interpret a natural language text and transform it into a visual format as pictures or images that are either static or dynamic. In this paper, we aim to identify current difficulties and the main problems faced by prior systems, and in particular, we seek to investigate the feasibility of automatic visualization of Arabic story text through multimedia. Hence, we analyzed a number of well-known text-to-picture systems, tools, and approaches. We showed their constituent steps, such as knowledge extraction, mapping, and image layout, as well as their performance and limitations. We also compared these systems based on a set of criteria, mainly natural language processing, natural language understanding, and input/output modalities. Our survey showed that currently emerging techniques in natural language processing tools and computer vision have made promising advances in analyzing general text and understanding images and videos. Furthermore, important remarks and findings have been deduced from these prior works, which would help in developing an effective text-to-picture system for learning and educational purposes. - 2019, The Author(s).This work was made possible by NPRP grant #10-0205-170346 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors
PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS AMONGST 10 Durio SPECIES BASED ON PCR-RFLP ANALYSIS OF TWO CHLOROPLAST GENES
Twenty seven species of Durio have been identified in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia, but their relationships have not been studied. This study was conducted to analyse phylogenetic relationships amongst 10 Durio species in Malaysia using PCR-RFLP on two chloroplast DNA genes, i.e. ndhC-trnV and rbcL. DNAs were extracted from young leaves of 11 accessions from 10 Durio species collected from the Tenom Agriculture Research Station, Sabah, and University Agriculture Park, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Two pairs of oligonucleotide primers, N1-N2 and rbcL1-rbcL2, were used to flank the target regions ndhC-trnV and rbcL. Eight restriction enzymes, HindIII, BsuRI, PstI, TaqI, MspI, SmaI, BshNI, and EcoR130I, were used to digest the amplicons. Based on the results of PCR-RFLP on ndhC-trnV gene, the 10 Durio species were grouped into five distinct clusters, and the accessions generally showed high variations. However, based on the results of PCR-RFLP on the rbcL gene, the species were grouped into three distinct clusters, and generally showed low variations. This means that ndhC-trnV gene is more reliable for phylogenetic analysis in lower taxonomic level of Durio species or for diversity analysis, while rbcL gene is reliable marker for phylogenetic analysis at higher taxonomic level. PCR-RFLP on the ndhC-trnV and rbcL genes could therefore be considered as useful markers to phylogenetic analysis amongst Durio species. These finding might be used for further molecular marker assisted in Durio breeding program
Signal-to-noise ratio of Gaussian-state ghost imaging
The signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of three Gaussian-state ghost imaging
configurations--distinguished by the nature of their light sources--are
derived. Two use classical-state light, specifically a joint signal-reference
field state that has either the maximum phase-insensitive or the maximum
phase-sensitive cross correlation consistent with having a proper
representation. The third uses nonclassical light, in particular an entangled
signal-reference field state with the maximum phase-sensitive cross correlation
permitted by quantum mechanics. Analytic SNR expressions are developed for the
near-field and far-field regimes, within which simple asymptotic approximations
are presented for low-brightness and high-brightness sources. A high-brightness
thermal-state (classical phase-insensitive state) source will typically achieve
a higher SNR than a biphoton-state (low-brightness, low-flux limit of the
entangled-state) source, when all other system parameters are equal for the two
systems. With high efficiency photon-number resolving detectors, a
low-brightness, high-flux entangled-state source may achieve a higher SNR than
that obtained with a high-brightness thermal-state source.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. This version incorporates additional references
and a new analysis of the nonclassical case that, for the first time,
includes the complete transition to the classical signal-to-noise ratio
asymptote at high source brightnes
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