Information Processing Steps Research Articles

The "social" and "interpersonal" body in spatial cognition. The role of agency and interagency.

In order to interact effectively, we need to represent our action as produced by human beings. According to direct access theories, the first steps of visual information processing offer us an informed direct grasp of the situation, especially when social and interpersonal components are implicated. Biological system detection may be the gateway of such smart processes and then may influence initial stages of perception fostering adaptive social behaviour. To investigate early neural correlates of human agency detection in ecological situations with more high or low social impact, we compared scenes showing a human versus artificial agent interacting with a human agent. Twenty volunteers participated in the study. They were asked to observe dynamic visual stimuli showing realistic interactions. ERP (event-related potentials) were recorded. Each stimulus depicted an arm executing a gesture addressed to a human agent. Visual features of the arm were manipulated: in half of trials, it was real; in other trials, it was deprived of some details and transformed in a statue-like arm. EEG morphological analysis revealed an early negative deflection peaking at about 155ms. Peak amplitude data have been statistically analysed by repeated-measures ANOVAs. It was found that the peak was ampler in the left inferior posterior region when the gesturing arm was human. The early negative deflection, N150, which we found to be different between the human and artificial conditions, is presumably associated with human agency detection in high interpersonal context.

Regulation of Transcript Elongation.

Bacteria lack subcellular compartments and harbor a single RNA polymerase that synthesizes both structural and protein-coding RNAs, which are cotranscriptionally processed by distinct pathways. Nascent rRNAs fold into elaborate secondary structures and associate with ribosomal proteins, whereas nascent mRNAs are translated by ribosomes. During elongation, nucleic acid signals and regulatory proteins modulate concurrent RNA-processing events, instruct RNA polymerase where to pause and terminate transcription, or act as roadblocks to the moving enzyme. Communications among complexes that carry out transcription, translation, repair, and other cellular processes ensure timely execution of the gene expression program and survival under conditions of stress. This network is maintained by auxiliary proteins that act as bridges between RNA polymerase, ribosome, and repair enzymes, blurring boundaries between separate information-processing steps and making assignments of unique regulatory functions meaningless. Understanding the regulation of transcript elongation thus requires genome-wide approaches, which confirm known and reveal new regulatory connections.

Neural processing of social participation in borderline personality disorder and social anxiety disorder.

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) are known to be highly sensitive to social rejection. Social information processing is assumed to play a key role for this shared psychopathological phenomenon. The first steps in social information processing are to encode social cues and to create a mental representation of the social situation. The aim of the current study was to test whether the perception of social participation in patients with BPD and patients with SAD is biased in this initial stage of social processing. Focus was on the P3b, a brain potential related to stimulus evaluation that has been shown to be a sensitive indicator for the processes of interest. Twenty five unmedicated patients with BPD, 25 unmedicated patients with SAD and 25 healthy controls (HC) played an EEG-compatible version of Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing paradigm that experimentally induces social inclusion and exclusion. All participants showed a pronounced P3b when excluded. Only patients with BPD showed an enhanced P3b also during the inclusion condition, indicating altered processing of social inclusion. The EEG results for the BPD group were consistent with their self-report data. Patients with BPD felt more excluded during the inclusion condition of Cyberball than both HC and patients with SAD. Furthermore, heightened rejection expectancy (subscale of the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire) was associated with a smaller difference in the P3b amplitude between inclusion and exclusion. Results indicate a negatively biased perception of social inclusion in BPD already during the initial stage of social processing.

Impaired synaptic plasticity in the visual cortex of mice lacking α7-nicotinic receptor subunit

The primary visual cortex (V1) is the first step in visual information processing and its function may be modulated by acetylcholine through nicotinic receptors (nAChRs). Since our previous work demonstrated that visual acuity and cortical spatial resolution limit were significantly reduced in α7 knock-out (KO) mice in the absence of retinal alterations, we decided to characterize the contribution of homomeric α7 nicotinic receptors (α7nAChRs) to visual information processing at the cortical level. We evaluated long-term forms of synaptic plasticity in occipital slices containing V1 from α7 KO mice and in wild-type (WT) slices perfused with nAChRs selective blocking agents. In α7 KO mice slices, electrophysiological recordings demonstrated the absence of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) in layer II/III after the stimulation of different intracortical pathways (layer IV or II/III). Furthermore, the acute and selective blockade of α7nAChRs in slices from WT mice with either α-bungarotoxin or methyllycaconitine did not alter the expression of LTP and LTD. Conversely, the perfusion with the unspecific nAChRs antagonist mecamylamine impaired LTP and LTD. Our results suggest the presence of impaired synaptic plasticity in the V1 of α7 KO mice and indicate a different contribution of nAChRs to visual cortex function.

Information support of an automated control system of work of the rolling stock

The article describes the structure of the database to work with the information obtained from the automated control system (ACS) parameters of diesel rolling stock and diesel fuel accounting. There are presented the main steps of information processing, to ensure data integrity, improve per-formance and simplify the work with the database.

Computational modeling of the cone mosaic based on the anatomy and physiology of the vertebrate retina

Event Abstract Back to Event Computational modeling of the cone mosaic based on the anatomy and physiology of the vertebrate retina Hiroaki Kunisada1, Naomi Saito1 and Yoshimi Kamiyama1* 1 Information Science and Technology, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan The retina converts the light into action potentials which are carried by the optic nerve to the brain. The anatomy and physiology of the retina are relatively well known. Anatomical studies have revealed the morphological principles governing the structure of the retina such as the layered structure and the spatial arrangement of the photoreceptors. Physiological studies of the retina have uncovered a number of cellular and subcellular mechanisms such as phototransduction and the characteristics of the ion channels found in retinal cells. These data provide information about the functional role of ion channels in generating and shaping the light response of the cells. We have been working developing mathematical models of the retinal cells. The models in various simulation codes have been archived in Visiome platform(https://visiome.neuroinf.jp/), and we can test, reuse and even improve the published results. It is now possible to understand some computational operations that the retina performs and to relate them to specific physiological mechanisms, on the basis of computational modeling work. In the present work, we developed a computational model of the cone mosaic based on the anatomical and physiological characteristics. The model incorporated the anatomical characteristics such as the cone density and diameter, as well as the ratio of spectral subtypes which mediate color vision. Each cone was modeled based on the biophysical and physiological properties. The single cone model consists of three functional parts, i.e., outer, inner segments and synaptic terminal. In simulation, the model well reproduced the electrical responses similar to those observed experimentally. We also analyzed how the cone mosaic affects our ability to transform the spatial and color information in the retinal image. In conclusion, the present model can be used for analyzing the first step of visual information processing quantitatively. Figure 1 Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI #25330340. Keywords: Retina, cone photoreceptor, computational modeling, Ion Channels, Cone mosaic Conference: Neuroinformatics 2015, Cairns, Australia, 20 Aug - 22 Aug, 2015. Presentation Type: Poster, not to be considered for oral presentation Topic: Computational neuroscience Citation: Kunisada H, Saito N and Kamiyama Y (2015). Computational modeling of the cone mosaic based on the anatomy and physiology of the vertebrate retina. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2015. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2015.91.00007 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 20 Apr 2015; Published Online: 05 Aug 2015. * Correspondence: Prof. Yoshimi Kamiyama, Information Science and Technology, Aichi Prefectural University, Nagakute, Aichi, 4801198, Japan, kamiyama@ist.aichi-pu.ac.jp Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Hiroaki Kunisada Naomi Saito Yoshimi Kamiyama Google Hiroaki Kunisada Naomi Saito Yoshimi Kamiyama Google Scholar Hiroaki Kunisada Naomi Saito Yoshimi Kamiyama PubMed Hiroaki Kunisada Naomi Saito Yoshimi Kamiyama Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Can bio-inspired information processing steps be realized as synthetic biochemical processes?

We consider possible designs and experimental realiza-tions in synthesized rather than naturally occurring bio-chemical systems of a selection of basic bio-inspired information processing steps. These include feed-forward loops, which have been identified as the most common information processing motifs in many natural pathways in cellular functioning, and memory-involving processes, specifically, associative memory. Such systems should not be designed to literally mimic nature. Rather, we can be guided by nature's mechanisms for experimenting with new information/signal processing steps which are based on coupled biochemical reactions, but are vastly simpler than natural processes, and which will provide tools for the long-term goal of understanding and harnessing nature's information processing paradigm. Our biochemical processes of choice are enzymatic cascades because of their compatibility with physiological processes in vivo and with electronics (e.g., electrodes) in vitro allowing for networking and interfacing of enzyme-catalyzed processes with other chemical and biochemical reactions. In addition to designing and realizing feed-forward loops and other processes, one has to develop approaches to probe their response to external control of the time-dependence of the input(s), by measuring the resulting time-dependence of the output. The goal will be to demonstrate the expected features, for example, the delayed response and stabilizing effect of the feed-forward loops.

Controlling photons in a box and exploring the quantum to classical boundary

Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this "photon box" at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called "Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics." We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of "Schrödinger cat" states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts with an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding with a discussion comparing our work to other research dealing with the control of single quantum particles.

Insights into the reception and acceptance of risk messages: nuclear emergency communication

The objective of this paper is to test whether the effect of variables such as knowledge, attitudes, trust, risk perception, and psychometric risk characteristics changes in the different stages of risk-related information processing. To address this question, a distinction is made between two information-processing steps, reception (measured as a person’s ability to retain the information communicated) and acceptance (measured as a person’s level of agreement with the communicated information). An empirical study was conducted, using a radiological accident (2008) in Belgium as a communication case study. Face-to-face interviews were conducted on a large sample of Belgian population representative with respect to province, region, level of urbanization, gender, age, and professionally active status (N = 1031) and among the population living in vicinity of the accident (N = 104). All factors were measured on reliable scales (Cronbach’s α > .75). The reception–acceptance model was used to produce new insights into risk communication. The results demonstrate that knowledge was the driving factor only for the reception of risk messages, while heuristic predictors such as psychometric risk characteristics, attitudes, and trust were most influential for the acceptance of risk messages. It is discussed how the results will facilitate a more thorough understanding of information processing and how they could be used to design more focused risk communication strategies.

Управление фотонами в ящике и изучение границы между квантовым и классическим

Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called Quantum Electrodynamics. We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of Schrodinger cat states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts with an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding with a discussion comparing our work to other research dealing with the control of single quantum particles.

ChemInform Abstract: Controlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary (Nobel Lecture)

AbstractReview: 118 refs.

Controlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary (Nobel Lecture)

Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this "photon box" at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called "Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics". We have realized the non-destructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of "Schrödinger cat" states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts by an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last twenty years and concluding by a discussion comparing our work to other researches dealing with the control of single quantum particles.

Modularity of Biochemical Filtering for Inducing Sigmoid Response in Both Inputs in an Enzymatic AND Gate

We report the first systematic study of designed two-input biochemical systems as information processing gates with favorable noise transmission properties accomplished by modifying the gate's response from a convex shape to sigmoid in both inputs. This is realized by an added chemical "filter" process, which recycles some of the output back into one of the inputs. We study a system involving the biocatalytic function of the enzyme horseradish peroxidase, functioning as an AND gate. We consider modularity properties, such as the use of three different input chromogens that when oxidized yield signal detection outputs for various ranges of the primary input, hydrogen peroxide. We also examine possible uses of different filter effect chemicals (reducing agents) to induce the sigmoid response. A modeling approach is developed and applied to our data, allowing us to describe the enzymatic kinetics in the framework of a formulation suitable for evaluating the noise-handling properties of the studied systems as logic gates for information processing steps.

Nobel Lecture: Controlling photons in a box and exploring the quantum to classical boundary

Microwave photons trapped in a superconducting cavity constitute an ideal system to realize some of the thought experiments imagined by the founding fathers of quantum physics. The interaction of these trapped photons with Rydberg atoms crossing the cavity illustrates fundamental aspects of measurement theory. The experiments performed with this ``photon box'' at Ecole Normale Sup\'erieure (ENS) belong to the domain of quantum optics called ``cavity quantum electrodynamics.'' We have realized the nondestructive counting of photons, the recording of field quantum jumps, the preparation and reconstruction of ``Schr\"odinger cat'' states of radiation and the study of their decoherence, which provides a striking illustration of the transition from the quantum to the classical world. These experiments have also led to the demonstration of basic steps in quantum information processing, including the deterministic entanglement of atoms and the realization of quantum gates using atoms and photons as quantum bits. This lecture starts by an introduction stressing the connection between the ENS photon box and the ion-trap experiments of David Wineland, whose accompanying lecture recalls his own contribution to the field of single particle control. I give then a personal account of the early days of cavity quantum electrodynamics before describing the main experiments performed at ENS during the last 20 years and concluding by a discussion comparing our work to other researches dealing with the control of single quantum particles.

ChAT-ChR2-EYFP Mice Have Enhanced Motor Endurance But Show Deficits in Attention and Several Additional Cognitive Domains

Acetylcholine (ACh) is an important neuromodulator in the nervous system implicated in many forms of cognitive and motor processing. Recent studies have used bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) transgenic mice expressing channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) protein under the control of the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) promoter (ChAT-ChR2-EYFP) to dissect cholinergic circuit connectivity and function using optogenetic approaches. We report that a mouse line used for this purpose also carries several copies of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter gene (VAChT), which leads to overexpression of functional VAChT and consequently increased cholinergic tone. We demonstrate that these mice have marked improvement in motor endurance. However, they also present severe cognitive deficits, including attention deficits and dysfunction in working memory and spatial memory. These results suggest that increased VAChT expression may disrupt critical steps in information processing. Our studies demonstrate that ChAT-ChR2-EYFP mice show altered cholinergic tone that fundamentally differentiates them from wild-type mice.

Functional Neuroimaging and Psychology: What Have You Done for Me Lately?

Functional imaging has become a primary tool in the study of human psychology but is not without its detractors. Although cognitive neuroscientists have made great strides in understanding the neural instantiation of countless cognitive processes, commentators have sometimes argued that functional imaging provides little or no utility for psychologists. And indeed, myriad studies over the last quarter century have employed the technique of brain mapping-identifying the neural correlates of various psychological phenomena-in ways that bear minimally on psychological theory. How can brain mapping be made more relevant to behavioral scientists broadly? Here, we describe three trends that increase precisely this relevance: (i) the use of neuroimaging data to adjudicate between competing psychological theories through forward inference, (ii) isolating neural markers of information processing steps to better understand complex tasks and psychological phenomena through probabilistic reverse inference, and (iii) using brain activity to predict subsequent behavior. Critically, these new approaches build on the extensive tradition of brain mapping, suggesting that efforts in this area-although not initially maximally relevant to psychology-can indeed be used in ways that constrain and advance psychological theory.

Predicting the human reaction time based on natural image statistics in a rapid categorization task

The human visual system is developed by viewing natural scenes. In controlled experiments, natural stimuli therefore provide a realistic framework with which to study the underlying information processing steps involved in human vision. Studying the properties of natural images and their effects on the visual processing can help us to understand underlying mechanisms of visual system. In this study, we used a rapid animal vs. non-animal categorization task to assess the relationship between the reaction times of human subjects and the statistical properties of images. We demonstrated that statistical measures, such as the beta and gamma parameters of a Weibull, fitted to the edge histogram of an image, and the image entropy, are effective predictors of subject reaction times. Using these three parameters, we proposed a computational model capable of predicting the reaction times of human subjects.

Assessing print quality by machine in offset colour printing

Information processing steps in printing industry are highly automated, except the last one—print quality assessment, which usually is a manual, tedious, and subjective procedure. This article presents a random forests-based technique for automatic print quality assessment based on objective values of several print quality attributes. Values of the attributes are obtained from soft sensors through data mining and colour image analysis. Experimental investigations have shown good correspondence between print quality evaluations obtained by the technique proposed and the average observer.

A small fraction of strongly cooperative sodium channels boosts neuronal encoding of high frequencies.

Generation of action potentials (APs) is a crucial step in neuronal information processing. Existing biophysical models for AP generation almost universally assume that individual voltage-gated sodium channels operate statistically independently, and their avalanche-like opening that underlies AP generation is coordinated only through the transmembrane potential. However, biological ion channels of various types can exhibit strongly cooperative gating when clustered. Cooperative gating of sodium channels has been suggested to explain rapid onset dynamics and large threshold variability of APs in cortical neurons. It remains however unknown whether these characteristic properties of cortical APs can be reproduced if only a fraction of channels express cooperativity, and whether the presence of cooperative channels has an impact on encoding properties of neuronal populations. To address these questions we have constructed a conductance-based neuron model in which we continuously varied the size of a fraction of sodium channels expressing cooperativity and the strength of coupling between cooperative channels . We show that starting at a critical value of the coupling strength , the activation curve of sodium channels develops a discontinuity at which opening of all coupled channels becomes an all-or-none event, leading to very rapid AP onsets. Models with a small fraction, , of strongly cooperative channels generate APs with the most rapid onset dynamics. In this regime APs are triggered by simultaneous opening of the cooperative channel fraction and exhibit a pronounced biphasic waveform often observed in cortical neurons. We further show that presence of a small fraction of cooperative Na+ channels significantly improves the ability of neuronal populations to phase-lock their firing to high frequency input fluctuation. We conclude that presence of a small fraction of strongly coupled sodium channels can explain characteristic features of cortical APs and has a functional impact of enhancing the spike encoding of rapidly varying signals.

Active Vision: Fixational Eye Movements Help Seeing Space in Time

The significance of the miniature eye movements that we make during visual fixation has been intensely debated for the last 80 years. Recent studies have revealed that these motions of the eyes fulfill an important functional role: helping to extract useful information from natural scenes.