Mixed Input Research Articles

Physiological and morphological characterization of ganglion cells in the salamander retina

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) integrate visual information from the retina and transmit collective signals to the brain. A systematic investigation of functional and morphological characteristics of various types of RGCs is important to comprehensively understand how the visual system encodes and transmits information via various RGC pathways. This study evaluated both physiological and morphological properties of 67 RGCs in dark-adapted flat-mounted salamander retina by examining light-evoked cation and chloride current responses via voltage-clamp recordings and visualizing morphology by Lucifer yellow fluorescence with a confocal microscope. Six groups of RGCs were described: asymmetrical ON–OFF RGCs, symmetrical ON RGCs, OFF RGCs, and narrow-, medium- and wide-field ON–OFF RGCs. Dendritic field diameters of RGCs ranged 102–490μm: narrow field (<200μm, 31% of RGCs), medium field (200–300μm, 45%) and wide field (>300μm, 24%). Dendritic ramification patterns of RGCs agree with the sublamina A/B rule. 34% of RGCs were monostratified, 24% bistratified and 42% diffusely stratified. 70% of ON RGCs and OFF RGCs were monostratified. Wide-field RGCs were diffusely stratified. 82% of RGCs generated light-evoked ON–OFF responses, while 11% generated ON responses and 7% OFF responses. Response sensitivity analysis suggested that some RGCs obtained separated rod/cone bipolar cell inputs whereas others obtained mixed bipolar cell inputs. 25% of neurons in the RGC layer were displaced amacrine cells. Although more types may be defined by more refined classification criteria, this report is to incorporate more physiological properties into RGC classification.

Neuronal Maximum a Posteriori Estimation on Microelectrode Arrays

Neuronal Maximum a Posteriori Estimation on Microelectrode Arrays

Geochemical and biomarker characteristics of crude oils and source rock hydrocarbon extracts: An implication to their correlation, depositional environment and maturation in the Northern Western Desert, Egypt

Oil–oil and oil–source rock correlations are used in this study in order to achieve their relationship, depositional environments and diagenetic processes in the source rocks. Three oil samples and source rock hydrocarbon extracts were analyzed using relative geochemical analyses, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry are used for this purpose. The results revealed that the extracts of the Alam El Bueib and Khatatba formations are derived from mixed organic sources in which terrestrial dominates marine sources, and deposited in transitional environments under less anoxic conditions. The extracts of Bahariya formation are derived from mixed marine inputs with a limited terrestrial contribution. The Alam El Bueib oil shows more contribution of terrestrial than marine sources. Also, a genetic close relation between them supported the indigenous mixed source of Alam El Bueib oil which related to different sources including the Khatatba, Alam El Bueib and Bahariya formations. Accordingly, the Alam El Bueib formation can be considered as an important source for petroleum generation in the Northern Western Desert.

Blind Estimation of Blur Kernels and Parameters from a Single Image

Image blur kernel estimation is critical to blind image deblurring. Most existing approaches exploit handcrafted blur features that are optimized for a certain uniform blur across the image, which is unrealistic in a real blind deconvolution setting, where the blur type is often unknown. To deal with this issue, we aim at identifying the blur type for each input image patch, and then estimating the kernel parameter in this paper. A learning-based method using a pre-trained deep neural network (DNN) and a general regression neural network (GRNN) is proposed to first classify the blur type and then estimate its parameters, taking advantages of both the classification ability of DNN and the regression ability of GRNN. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that pre-trained DNN and GRNN have been applied to the problem of blur analysis. First, our method identifies the blur type from a mixed input of image patches corrupted by various blurs with different parameters. To this aim, a supervised DNN is trained to project the input samples into a discriminative feature space, in which the blur type can be easily classified. Then, for each blur type, the proposed GRNN estimates the blur parameters with very high accuracy. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in several tasks with better or competitive results compared with the state of the art on two standard image data sets, i.e., the Berkeley segmentation data set and the Pascal VOC 2007 data set. In addition, blur region segmentation and deblurring on a number of real photographs show that our method outperforms the previous techniques even for non-uniformly blurred images.

Fate and source distribution of organic constituents in a river-dominated tropical estuary

We investigated spatial and temporal changes in the quality of sedimentary organic matter and trophic status of the Cochin estuarine system, southwest coast of India. Sediment samples were collected in five sampling campaigns from January 2009 to April 2010. TOC/N ratio implied mixed input of autochthonous as well as remarkable allochthonous terrestrial higher plant debris into the sedimentary system. More depleted δ 13C values at riverine and industrial zone suggested a major contribution of terrestrial higher plant debris to sedimentary organic matter. Trophic status of the estuary changed seasonally to eutrophic via oligotrophic and mesotrophic conditions during the period January 2009 to April 2010. The protein to carbohydrate ratio was lower (<1), indicating heterotrophic nature and the higher lipid to carbohydrate ratio (>1) denoted preservation of lipid compounds in the sediments. Correlation analyses provide evidence of the association of chlorophyll pigments with carbohydrates and account for the highly productive nature of the estuary and algal contributions to organic matter. Canonical correspondence analysis clearly illustrated prominence of phaeopigments in fishing zone, lipids in sewage/tourism influenced zone, carbohydrates in riverine zone and proteins in industrial zone. It also indicated the influence of sedimentary texture, pH and organic carbon to the distribution of biochemical constituents.

Methodologic Considerations for Quantitative 18F-FDG PET/CT Studies of Hepatic Glucose Metabolism in Healthy Subjects.

PET with the glucose analog (18)F-FDG is used to measure regional tissue metabolism of glucose. However, (18)F-FDG may have affinities different from those of glucose for plasma membrane transporters and intracellular enzymes; the lumped constant (LC) can be used to correct these differences kinetically. The aims of this study were to investigate the feasibility of measuring human hepatic glucose metabolism with dynamic (18)F-FDG PET/CT and to determine an operational LC for (18)F-FDG by comparison with (3)H-glucose measurements. Eight healthy human subjects were included. In all studies, (18)F-FDG and (3)H-glucose were mixed in saline and coadministered. A 60-min dynamic PET recording of the liver was performed for 180 min with blood sampling from catheters in a hepatic vein and a radial artery (concentrations of (18)F-FDG and (3)H-glucose in blood). Hepatic blood flow was determined by indocyanine green infusion. First, 3 subjects underwent studies comparing bolus administration and constant-infusion administration of tracers during hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamping. Next, 5 subjects underwent studies comparing fasting and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamping with tracer infusions. Splanchnic extraction fractions of (18)F-FDG (E*) and (3)H-glucose (E) were calculated from concentrations in blood, and the LC was calculated as ln(1 - E*)/ln(1 - E). Volumes of interest were drawn in the liver tissue, and hepatic metabolic clearance of (18)F-FDG (mL of blood/100 mL of liver tissue/min) was estimated. For bolus versus infusion, E* values were always negative when (18)F-FDG was administered as a bolus and were always positive when it was administered as an infusion. For fasting versus clamping, E* values were positive in 4 of 5 studies during fasting and were always positive during clamping. Negative extraction fractions were ascribed to the tracer distribution in the large volume of distribution in the prehepatic splanchnic bed. The LC ranged from 0.43 to 2.53, with no significant difference between fasting and clamping. The large volume of distribution of (18)F-FDG in the prehepatic splanchnic bed may complicate the analysis of dynamic PET data because it represents the mixed tracer input to the liver via the portal vein. Therefore, dynamic (18)F-FDG data for human hepatic glucose metabolism should be interpreted with caution, but constant tracer infusion seems to yield more robust results than bolus injection.

Tight bound on the trace distance between a realistic device with partially indistinguishable bosons and the ideal BosonSampling

We study the closeness of an experimental unitary bosonic network with only partially indistinguishable bosons in an arbitrary mixed input state, in particular an experimental realization of the BosonSampling, to the ideal bosonic network, where the measure of closeness of two networks is the trace distance between the output probability distributions. An upper bound on the trace distance to the ideal bosonic network is proven and also a bound on the difference between probabilities of an output configuration. Moreover, the upper bound on the trace distance is tight, provided that a physically transparent distinguishability conjecture is true. For a small distinguishability error, it is shown that a realistic device with $N$ bosons is at a constant trace distance to ideal BosonSampling under the $O({N}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$ scaling of the mismatch of internal states of bosons.

A novel low voltage CMOS controllable fuzzy inference circuit

Fuzzy inference is one of the most important parts of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC), which has been implemented by several operators between the rules of controller, such as min or max operators. In this paper a new low voltage CMOS circuit is presented to implement min---max operators. This circuit has many advantages such as mixed input signal, which increases the flexibility and controllability of FLC, low power consumption, simple and symmetrical circuit and small die area due to a few number of transistors. These advantages are useful in circuits that require both operators in the specific conditions. The proposed circuit has been designed using 90 nm, 1.5 V CMOS standard in Hspice simulator. Simulation results demonstrate that the power consumption of this circuit is only about 40 µW, furthermore it has the delay time and error of less than 1 ns and 1.4 % respectively. (98.6 % accuracy).

Global Impacts of the Automotive Supply Chain Disruption Following the Japanese Earthquake of 2011

This paper provides an input–output method to estimate worldwide economic impacts generated by supply chain disruptions. The method is used to analyse global economic effects due to the disruptions in the automotive industry that followed the Japanese earthquake and the consequent tsunami and nuclear crisis of March 2011. By combining a mixed multi-regional input–output model, the World Input–Output Database and data at the factory level, the study quantifies the economic impacts of the disruptions broken down by country and industry. The results show that the global economic effect (in terms of value added) of this disruption amounted to US$139 billion. The most affected (groups of) countries were Japan (39%), the USA (25%), China (8%) and the European Union (7%). The most strongly affected industries were transport equipment (37%), other business activities (10%), basic and fabricated metals (8%), wholesale trade (7%) and financial intermediation (4%).

Mixed signal learning by spike correlation propagation in feedback inhibitory circuits.

The brain can learn and detect mixed input signals masked by various types of noise, and spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) is the candidate synaptic level mechanism. Because sensory inputs typically have spike correlation, and local circuits have dense feedback connections, input spikes cause the propagation of spike correlation in lateral circuits; however, it is largely unknown how this secondary correlation generated by lateral circuits influences learning processes through STDP, or whether it is beneficial to achieve efficient spike-based learning from uncertain stimuli. To explore the answers to these questions, we construct models of feedforward networks with lateral inhibitory circuits and study how propagated correlation influences STDP learning, and what kind of learning algorithm such circuits achieve. We derive analytical conditions at which neurons detect minor signals with STDP, and show that depending on the origin of the noise, different correlation timescales are useful for learning. In particular, we show that non-precise spike correlation is beneficial for learning in the presence of cross-talk noise. We also show that by considering excitatory and inhibitory STDP at lateral connections, the circuit can acquire a lateral structure optimal for signal detection. In addition, we demonstrate that the model performs blind source separation in a manner similar to the sequential sampling approximation of the Bayesian independent component analysis algorithm. Our results provide a basic understanding of STDP learning in feedback circuits by integrating analyses from both dynamical systems and information theory.

Fidelity between Gaussian mixed states with quantum state quadrature variances**Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB338002) and the Foundation of Science and Technology on Information Assurance Laboratory (Grant No. KJ-14-001).

In this paper, from the original definition of fidelity in a pure state, we first give a well-defined expansion fidelity between two Gaussian mixed states. It is related to the variances of output and input states in quantum information processing. It is convenient to quantify the quantum teleportation (quantum clone) experiment since the variances of the input (output) state are measurable. Furthermore, we also give a conclusion that the fidelity of a pure input state is smaller than the fidelity of a mixed input state in the same quantum information processing.

State Dependent Riccati Equation controlled drug delivery for mixed therapy of cancer treatment

The paper presents a drug delivery solution to the mixed therapy of cancer treatment using the State Dependent Riccati Equations (SDRE) control method. A sixth-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation describes the cancer dynamics considering the number of cells of tumor, natural killers, circulating lymphocytes and cytotoxic T-cells, together with chemotherapy drug concentration and immunotherapy drug concentration. The control problem is posed as the suboptimal solution for minimizing a quadratic objective function, which is constructed using the states and mixed therapy inputs of “chemotherapy” and “immunotherapy” drug injections. The SDRE approach provides an attractive solution to the highly nonlinear multi-input (mixed therapy) cancer dynamics problem, which is compared with the results presented in the literature.

Mixed input to olfactory glomeruli from two subsets of ciliated sensory neurons does not impede relay neuron specificity in the crucian carp.

The consensus view of olfactory processing is that the axons of receptor-specific primary olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) converge to a small subset of glomeruli, thus preserving the odour identity before the olfactory information is processed in higher brain centres. In the present study, we show that two different subsets of ciliated OSNs with different odorant specificities converge to the same glomeruli. In order to stain different ciliated OSNs in the crucian carp Carassius carassius we used two different chemical odorants, a bile salt and a purported alarm substance, together with fluorescent dextrans. The dye is transported within the axons and stains glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. Interestingly, the axons from the ciliated OSNs co-converge to the same glomeruli. Despite intermingled innervation of glomeruli, axons and terminal fields from the two different subsets of ciliated OSNs remained mono-coloured. By 4-6 days after staining, the dye was transported trans-synaptically to separately stained axons of relay neurons. These findings demonstrate that specificity of the primary neurons is retained in the olfactory pathways despite mixed innervation of the olfactory glomeruli. The results are discussed in relation to the emerging concepts about non-mammalian glomeruli.

Signature-tagged mutagenesis of Vibrio vulnificus.

Vibrio vulnificus is the causative agent of primary septicemia, wound infection and gastroenteritis in immunocompromised people. In this study, signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM) was applied to identify the virulence genes of V. vulnificus. Using STM, 6,480 mutants in total were constructed and divided into 81 sets (INPUT pools); each mutant in a set was assigned a different tag. Each INPUT pool was intraperitoneally injected into iron-overloaded mice, and in vivo surviving mutants were collected from blood samples from the heart (OUTPUT pools). From the genomic DNA of mixed INPUT or OUTPUT pools, digoxigenin-labeled DNA probes against the tagged region were prepared and used for dot hybridization. Thirty tentatively attenuated mutants, which were hybridized clearly with INPUT probes but barely with OUTPUT probes, were negatively selected. Lethal doses of 11 of the 30 mutants were reduced to more than 1/100; of these, the lethal doses of 2 were reduced to as low as 1/100,000. Transposon-inserted genes in the 11 attenuated mutants were those for IMP dehydrogenase, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine-2-epimerase, aspartokinase, phosphoribosylformylglycinamidine cyclo-ligase, malate Na (+) symporter and hypothetical protein. When mice were immunized with an attenuated mutant strain into which IMP dehydrogenase had been inserted with a transposon, they were protected against V. vulnificus infection. In this study, we demonstrated that the STM method can be used to search for the virulence genes of V. vulnificus.

Channel covariance, twirling, contraction and some upper bounds on the quantum capacity

Evaluating the quantum capacity of quantum channels is an important but difficult problem, even for channels of low input and output dimension. Smith and Smolin showed that the quantum capacity of the Clifford-twirl of a qubit amplitude damping channel (a qubit depolarizing channel) has a quantum capacity that is at most the coherent information of the qubit amplitude damping channel evaluated on the maximally mixed input state. We restrict our attention to obtaining upper bounds on the quantum capacity using a generalization of Smith and Smolin's degradable extension technique. Given a degradable channel $\cN$ and a finite projective group of unitaries $\cV$, we show that the $\cV$-twirl of $\cN$ has a quantum capacity at most the coherent information of $\cN$ maximized over a $\cV$-contracted space of input states. As a consequence, degradable channels that are covariant with respect to diagonal Pauli matrices have quantum capacities that are their coherent information maximized over just the diagonal input states. As an application of our main result, we supply new upper bounds on the quantum capacity of some unital and non-unital channels -- $d$-dimensional depolarizing channels, two-qubit locally symmetric Pauli channels, and shifted qubit depolarizing channels.

The four Neoproterozoic glaciations of southern Namibia and their detrital zircon record: The fingerprints of four crustal growth events during two supercontinent cycles

The transition from supercontinent Rodinia to Gondwana took place in the Neoproterozoic. The western margin of the Kalahari Craton in southern Namibia underwent rifting at c. 750Ma, caused by the break-up of Rodinia, followed by drift-events and ongoing sedimentation throughout the Cryogenian (at least from 750 to 630Ma) in Namibia. These sediments comprise at least three different deposits of glacio-marine diamictites (Kaigas at c. 750–720Ma, Sturtian at c. 716Ma and Marinoan at c. 635Ma). The Ediacaran is characterised by collision during the assembly of Gondwana and includes a fourth glacial deposit (post-Gaskiers Vingerbreek glaciation at c. 547Ma). This study presents more than 1050 single zircon grain U–Pb analyses of different diamictite horizons from southern Namibia and discusses their correlation. For all samples from sediments related to the Kaigas, Sturtian and Marinoan glacial events, the youngest obtained zircon ages were at c. 1.0Ga, making differentiation by the maximum age of sedimentation impossible. But a correlation was still possible by using the complete detrital zircon U–Pb age patterns, with a significant change in the relative abundance of concordant Mesoproterozoic to Paleoproterozoic zircons. This P/M ratio seems to be a good tool to distinguish the Cryogenian diamictites (Marinoan: P/M<0.4, Sturtian: 0.4<P/M<10, Kaigas: P/M>10). Although all the observed ages from the detrital zircons can be explained by derivation of local material, none of our samples correspond to the Cryogenian rifting events in southern Namibia. Therefore the source area cannot be local and more probably is located in the east of the studied areas. The constancy of the main U–Pb ages suggests a constant sediment supply direction throughout the Cryogenian. The same age populations occurring in the Ediacaran Aar Member indicate the same sediment transport direction from the east, but with an increased proportion of zircon grains older than 2.2Ga. This marks a transition to the unconformably overlying Vingerbreek (post-Gaskiers) diamictite horizons, which show a significant change in the age spectra. Probably due to mixed input from the east (Kalahari Craton) and from the west (Gariep Belt), the Vingerbreek diamictites show a wider range of zircon ages with youngest ages at c. 590Ma. This time is characterised by collision events and the Gondwana formation. The Hf isotope record shows that the only input of juvenile material in our samples occurred in the Mesoproterozoic during the Namaqua Natal Orogeny (formation of the Namaqua Belt). In total, four Archaean to Proterozoic crustal growth events are recognised in the western part of the Kalahari Craton: (1) Meso- to Paleoarchean (c. 3.42–2.8Ga), (2) lower Paleoproterozoic to Neoarchaean (c. 2.8–2.27Ga), (3) lower to upper Paleoproterozoic (c. 2.27–1.7Ga) and (3) Mesoproterozoic (c. 1.6–1.0Ga).

On the existence of telescopers for mixed hypergeometric terms

We present a criterion for the existence of telescopers for mixed hypergeometric terms, which is based on additive and multiplicative decompositions. The criterion enables us to determine the termination of Zeilberger's algorithms for mixed hypergeometric inputs, and to verify that certain indefinite sums do not satisfy any polynomial differential equation.

Characterizing soil surface structure in a temperate tree-based intercropping system using X-ray computed tomography

The objective of this work was to characterize differences in the soil surface (top 3.5 cm) microstructure, as influenced by four tree species, within a temperate tree based intercropping (TBI) system. Soils adjacent to walnut (Juglans nigra), poplar (Populus spp.), red oak (Quercus rubra), Norway spruce (Picea abies), as well as three types of ground cover [row crop, willow (Salix spp.), and perennial grass tree rows] were analyzed. X-ray computed micro –tomography (µCT) was employed to evaluate soil void phase characteristics, as well as heterogeneity of soil matrix radiodensity. X-ray µCT identified void phase parameters were not affected by tree species due to confounding effects caused by perennial vegetation and mixed leaf litter inputs.. A positive correlation was found between traditionally measured soil bulk density and bulk X-ray radiodensity (rs = 0.53, p < 0.01) and a negative correlation between mean intra-aggregate X-ray radiodensity and soil organic carbon (rs = −0.48, p = 0.03). It was determined, through the use of geostatistics, that there were no distinct or consistent anisotropic structures, in directional semivariograms, evident for the various species. However, the semivariograms revealed greater variability, correlated with less directional anisotropy within the tree row as compared to cropping alley soils. It was interpreted that processes within soils in the tree rows were leading to a homogenous type of structure, and that soils under row crops exhibited a greater tendency for destruction of surface structure, leading to more directional anisotropy (trends).

Combined Accelerations Produced by Vibrafuge

Various environmental factors will adversely influence accelerometers working in the field. Mixed inputs, including external causes and the intended acceleration, are important contributors to the problem. As a consequence, calibrating accelerometers with multiple accelerations is required by manufacturers and customers. We introduce a multi-component mechanical system called vibrafuge to provide multiple accelerations. In this paper, we deduce a general model of the accelerations reproduced by an ideal vibrafuge with homogeneous transformation of matrix. Based on the model, we have an elementary analysis of the components of the output acceleration and point out two byproducts. Investigation in this paper could lay the groundwork for vibrafuge testing of accelerometers.

Non-fragile observer-based sliding mode control for Markovian jump systems with mixed mode-dependent time delays and input nonlinearity

This paper is concerned with the state estimation and the sliding mode control (SMC) for a class of Markovian jump systems with mixed mode-dependent time delays and input nonlinearity. A non-fragil...