Burst Structure Research Articles

New calibration circuitry and concept for AGIPD

AGIPD (adaptive gain integrating pixel detector) is a detector system developed for the European XFEL (XFEL.EU), which is currently being constructed in Hamburg, Germany. The XFEL.EU will operate with bunch trains at a repetition rate of 10 Hz. Each train consists of 2700 bunches with a temporal separation of 220 ns corresponding to a rate of 4.5 MHz. Each photon pulse has a duration of < 100 fs (rms) and contains up to 1012 photons in an energy range between 0.25 and 25 keV . In order to cope with the large dynamic range, the first stage of each bump-bonded AGIPD ASIC is a charge sensitive preamplifier with three different gain settings that are dynamically switched during the charge integration. Dynamic gain switching allows single photon resolution in the high gain stage and can cover a dynamic range of 104 × 12.4 keV photons in the low gain stage. The burst structure of the bunch trains forces to have an intermediate in-pixel storage of the signals. The full scale chip has 352 in-pixel storage cells inside the pixel area of 200 × 200 μm2. This contribution will report on the measurements done with the new calibration circuitry of the AGIPD1.1 chip (without sensor). These results will be compared with the old version of the chip (AGIPD1.0). A new calibration method (that is not AGIPD specific) will also be shown.

Wilson-Cowan Equations for Neocortical Dynamics.

In 1972–1973 Wilson and Cowan introduced a mathematical model of the population dynamics of synaptically coupled excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the neocortex. The model dealt only with the mean numbers of activated and quiescent excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and said nothing about fluctuations and correlations of such activity. However, in 1997 Ohira and Cowan, and then in 2007–2009 Buice and Cowan introduced Markov models of such activity that included fluctuation and correlation effects. Here we show how both models can be used to provide a quantitative account of the population dynamics of neocortical activity.We first describe how the Markov models account for many recent measurements of the resting or spontaneous activity of the neocortex. In particular we show that the power spectrum of large-scale neocortical activity has a Brownian motion baseline, and that the statistical structure of the random bursts of spiking activity found near the resting state indicates that such a state can be represented as a percolation process on a random graph, called directed percolation.Other data indicate that resting cortex exhibits pair correlations between neighboring populations of cells, the amplitudes of which decay slowly with distance, whereas stimulated cortex exhibits pair correlations which decay rapidly with distance. Here we show how the Markov model can account for the behavior of the pair correlations.Finally we show how the 1972–1973 Wilson–Cowan equations can account for recent data which indicates that there are at least two distinct modes of cortical responses to stimuli. In mode 1 a low intensity stimulus triggers a wave that propagates at a velocity of about 0.3 m/s, with an amplitude that decays exponentially. In mode 2 a high intensity stimulus triggers a larger response that remains local and does not propagate to neighboring regions.

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor as a new approach for functional neural networks reorganization in oxygen stress conditions

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor as a new approach for functional neural networks reorganization in oxygen stress conditions

Comparing drug-induced seizure-liability in human iPSC-derived and primary mouse neurons grown on micro-electrode arrays

Comparing drug-induced seizure-liability in human iPSC-derived and primary mouse neurons grown on micro-electrode arrays

Fractal frontiers of bursts and cracks in a fiber bundle model of creep rupture.

We investigate the geometrical structure of breaking bursts generated during the creep rupture of heterogeneous materials. Using a fiber bundle model with localized load sharing we show that bursts are compact geometrical objects; however, their external frontiers have a fractal structure which reflects their growth dynamics. The perimeter fractal dimension of bursts proved to have the universal value 1.25 independent of the external load and of the amount of disorder in the system. We conjecture that according to their geometrical features, breaking bursts fall in the universality class of loop-erased self-avoiding random walks with perimeter fractal dimension 5/4 similar to the avalanches of Abelian sand pile models. The fractal dimension of the growing crack front along which bursts occur proved to increase from 1 to 1.25 as bursts gradually cover the entire front.

Enhancement of Cortical Network Activity in vitro and Promotion of GABAergic Neurogenesis by Stimulation with an Electromagnetic Field with a 150 MHz Carrier Wave Pulsed with an Alternating 10 and 16 Hz Modulation.

In recent years, various stimuli were identified capable of enhancing neurogenesis, a process which is dysfunctional in the senescent brain and in neurodegenerative and certain neuropsychiatric diseases. Applications of electromagnetic fields to brain tissue have been shown to affect cellular properties and their importance for therapies in medicine is recognized. In this study, differentiating murine cortical networks on multiwell microelectrode arrays were repeatedly exposed to an extremely low-electromagnetic field (ELEMF) with alternating 10 and 16 Hz frequencies piggy backed onto a 150 MHz carrier frequency. The ELEMF exposure stimulated the electrical network activity and intensified the structure of bursts. Further, the exposure to electromagnetic fields within the first 28 days in vitro of the differentiation of the network activity induced also reorganization within the burst structure. This effect was already most pronounced at 14 days in vitro after 10 days of exposure. Overall, the development of cortical activity under these conditions was accelerated. These functional electrophysiological changes were accompanied by morphological ones. The percentage of neurons in the neuron glia co-culture was increased without affecting the total number of cells, indicating an enhancement of neurogenesis. The ELEMF exposure selectively promoted the proliferation of a particular population of neurons, evidenced by the increased proportion of GABAergic neurons. The results support the initial hypothesis that this kind of ELEMF stimulation could be a treatment option for specific indications with promising potential for CNS applications, especially for degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Structure of gamma-ray burst jets: intrinsic versus apparent properties

With this paper we introduce the concept of apparent structure of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) jet, as opposed to its intrinsic structure. The latter is customarily defined specifying the functions ϵ(θ) (the energy emitted per jet unit solid angle) and Γ(θ) (the Lorentz factor of the emitting material); the apparent structure is instead defined by us as the isotropic equivalent energy Eiso(θv) as a function of the viewing angle θv. We show how to predict the apparent structure of a jet given its intrinsic structure. We find that a Gaussian intrinsic structure yields a power-law apparent structure: this opens a new viewpoint on the Gaussian (which can be understood as a proxy for a realistic narrow, well-collimated jet structure) as a possible candidate for a quasi-universal GRB jet structure. We show that such a model (a) is consistent with recent constraints on the observed luminosity function of GRBs; (b) implies fewer orphan afterglows with respect to the standard uniform model; (c) can break out the progenitor star (in the collapsar scenario) without wasting an unreasonable amount of energy; (d) is compatible with the explanation of the Amati correlation as a viewing angle effect; (e) can be very standard in energy content, and still yield a very wide range of observed isotropic equivalent energies.

Differential Effects of Cell-derived Amyloid-beta Monomers and Dimers on Spontaneous Neuronal Network Activity

Introduction Growing evidence suggests that soluble amyloid-beta (Abeta) peptides play a pivotal role in Alzheimer’s disease(AD) pathogenesis by mediating synaptotoxic effects particularly at early disease stages. Objectives/ Aims We quantified the effects of different order Abeta assemblies on spontaneous firing dynamics ofneuronal networks cultured on multielectrode arrays ('neurochips”) as a read-out. We used naturally secreted, stable and conformationally highly homogenous Abeta monomers, dimers, and a mixture of different low-noligomers, derived from permanently transfected cell lines. Results Abeta dimers promoted a dose-dependent suppression of overall activity and network synchrony and altered the burst structure already in the low picomolar dose range. By contrast, Abeta monomers exhibited no effect on overall activity, but only a slight effect on burst structure and a moderate effect on network synchrony. A yet different response pattern was seen for a mixture of various low-n Abeta oligomers. Thus, multiparametric assessment of electrical activity changes on neurochips revealed characteristic signatures of the network response for the different Abeta assemblies. Since alterations of Network function likely occur in initial disease stages, these results confirm the pivotal role of Abeta dimers in early AD pathogenesis. Conclusions Neurochip recordings of toxic dimeric Abeta species may serve as a valuable diagnostic read-out in early AD and may also be applicable for future testing of drugs, antibodies, or small molecules aiming at Abeta dimers.

Luminosity function and jet structure of Gamma-Ray Burst

The structure of Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) jets impacts on their prompt and afterglow emission properties. The jet of GRBs could be uniform, with constant energy per unit solid angle within the jet aperture, or it could instead be structured, namely with energy and velocity that depend on the angular distance from the axis of the jet. We try to get some insight about the still unknown structure of GRBs by studying their luminosity function. We show that low (1e46-1e48 erg/s) and high (i.e. with L > 1e50 erg/s) luminosity GRBs can be described by a unique luminosity function, which is also consistent with current lower limits in the intermediate luminosity range (1e48-1e50} erg/s). We derive analytical expressions for the luminosity function of GRBs in uniform and structured jet models and compare them with the data. Uniform jets can reproduce the entire luminosity function with reasonable values of the free parameters. A structured jet can also fit adequately the current data, provided that the energy within the jet is relatively strongly structured, i.e. E propto theta^{-k} with k > 4. The classical E propto theta^{-2} structured jet model is excluded by the current data.

Genetic deletion of the adaptor protein p66Shc increases susceptibility to short-term ischaemic myocardial injury via intracellular salvage pathways.

Several intracellular mediators have been implicated as new therapeutic targets against myocardial ischaemia and reperfusion injury. However, clinically effective salvage pathways remain undiscovered. Here, we focused on the potential role of the adaptor protein p66(Shc) as a regulator of myocardial injury in a mouse model of cardiac ischaemia and reperfusion. Adult male p66(Shc) deficient (p66(Shc) (-/-)) and C57Bl/6 wild-type (WT) mice were exposed to 30, 45, or 60 min of ischaemia and reperfusion (5, 15 min, or 24 h). Infarct size, systemic and intracardiac inflammation and oxidants, as well as cytosolic and mitochondrial apoptotic pathways were investigated. Following 30, but not 45 or 60 min of ischaemia, genetic p66(Shc) deficiency was associated with larger infarcts. In WT mice, in vivo p66(Shc) knock down by siRNA with transient protein deficiency confirmed these findings. P66(Shc) inhibition was not associated with any modification in post-infarction inflammation, oxidative burst nor cardiac vessel density or structure. However, in p66(Shc) (-/-) mice activation of the protective and anti-apoptotic Reperfusion Injury Salvage Kinases and Survivor Activating Factor Enhancement pathways were blunted and mitochondrial swelling and cellular apoptosis via the caspase-3 pathway increased compared with WT. Genetic deletion of p66(Shc) increased susceptibility to myocardial injury in response to short-term ischaemia and reperfusion in mice. Still, additional studies are needed for assessing the role of this pathway in acute coronary syndrome patients.

The importance of source positions during radio fine structure observations

The measurement of positions and sizes of radio sources in the observations of the fine structure of solar radio bursts is a determining factor for the selection of the radio emission mechanism. The identical parameters describing the radio sources for zebra structures (ZSs) and fiber bursts confirm there is a common mechanism for both structures. It is very important to measure the size of the source in the corona to determine if it is distributed along the height or if it is point-like. In both models of ZSs (the double plasma resonance (DPR) and the whistler model) the source must be distributed along the height, but by contrast to the stationary source in the DPR model, in the whistler model the source should be moving. Moreover, the direction of the space drift of the radio source must correlate with the frequency drift of stripes in the dynamic spectrum. Some models of ZSs require a local source, for example, the models based on the Bernstein modes, or on explosive instability. The selection of the radio emission mechanism for fast broadband pulsations with millisecond duration also depends on the parameters of their radio sources.

SPECTRAL STRUCTURES AND THEIR GENERATION MECHANISMS FOR SOLAR RADIO TYPE-I BURSTS

The fine spectral structures of solar radio type-I bursts were observed by the solar radio telescope AMATERAS. The spectral characteristics, such as the peak flux, duration, and bandwidth, of the individual burst elements were satisfactorily detected by the highly resolved spectral data of AMATEAS with the burst detection algorithm that is improved in this study. The peak flux of the type-I bursts followed a power-law distribution with a spectral index of 2.9-3.3, whereas their duration and bandwidth were distributed more exponentially. There were almost no correlations between the peak flux, duration, and bandwidth. That means there were no similarity shapes in the burst spectral structures. We defined the growth rate of a burst as the ratio between its peak flux and duration. There was a strong correlation between the growth rate and peak flux. These results suggest that the free energy of type-I bursts that is originally generated by non-thermal electrons is modulated in the subsequent stages of the generation of non-thermal electrons, such as plasma wave generation, radio wave emissions, and propagation. The variation of the time scale of the growth rate is significantly larger than that of the coronal environments. These results can be explained by the situation that the source region may have the inhomogeneity of an ambient plasma environment, such as the boundary of open and closed field lines, and the superposition of entire emitted bursts was observed by the spectrometer.

QUASI-PERIODIC OSCILLATIONS IN SHORT RECURRING BURSTS OF THE SOFT GAMMA REPEATER J1550–5418

The discovery of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in magnetar giant flares has opened up prospects for neutron star asteroseismology. The scarcity of giant flares makes a search for QPOs in the shorter, far more numerous bursts from Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) desirable. In Huppenkothen et al (2013), we developed a Bayesian method for searching for QPOs in short magnetar bursts, taking into account the effects of the complicated burst structure, and have shown its feasibility on a small sample of bursts. Here, we apply the same method to a much larger sample from a burst storm of 286 bursts from SGR J1550-5418. We report a candidate signal at 260 Hz in a search of the individual bursts, which is fairly broad. We also find two QPOs at 93 Hz and one at 127 Hz, when averaging periodograms from a number of bursts in individual triggers, at frequencies close to QPOs previously observed in magnetar giant flares. Finally, for the first time, we explore the overall burst variability in the sample, and report a weak anti-correlation between the power-law index of the broadband model characterising aperiodic burst variability, and the burst duration: shorter bursts have steeper power law indices than longer bursts. This indicates that longer bursts vary over a broader range of time scales, and are not simply longer versions of the short bursts.

Modified Cramér-Rao Bounds for Continuous-Phase Modulated Signals

We consider the estimation of signal amplitude, time offset, and the parameters of a polynomial-phase signal from a continuous-phase modulated (CPM) signal that contains both unknown data symbols and known pilot symbols. Transformation of the polynomial-phase signal into an orthogonal basis allows us to derive the modified Cramér-Rao bounds (MCRB) for the problem of vector-parameter estimation in closed form. Numerical results demonstrate that the achievable estimation accuracy significantly depends on the burst structure and highlight the need for properly designed pilot sequences. Since our bounds are easy to evaluate, they can aid the design of pilot and burst configuration for CPM systems.

Hierarchical excitatory synaptic connectivity in mouse olfactory cortex

Topological motifs in synaptic connectivity-such as the cortical column-are fundamental to processing of information in cortical structures. However, the mesoscale topology of cortical networks beyond columns remains largely unknown. In the olfactory cortex, which lacks an obvious columnar structure, sensory-evoked patterns of activity have failed to reveal organizational principles of the network and its structure has been considered to be random. We probed the excitatory network in the mouse olfactory cortex using variance analysis of paired whole-cell recording in olfactory cortex slices. On a given trial, triggered network-wide bursts in disinhibited slices had remarkably similar time courses in widely separated and randomly selected cell pairs of pyramidal neurons despite significant trial-to-trial variability within each neuron. Simulated excitatory network models with random topologies only partially reproduced the experimental burst-variance patterns. Network models with local (columnar) or distributed subnetworks, which have been predicted as the basis of encoding odor objects, were also inconsistent with the experimental data, showing greater variability between cells than across trials. Rather, network models with power-law and especially hierarchical connectivity showed the best fit. Our results suggest that distributed subnetworks are weak or absent in the olfactory cortex, whereas a hierarchical excitatory topology may predominate. A hierarchical excitatory network organization likely underlies burst generation in this epileptogenic region, and may also shape processing of sensory information in the olfactory cortex.

Burst structure of auroral kilometric radiation

Burst structure of auroral kilometric radiation

Short-Term Effects of Pacifier Texture on NNS in Neurotypical Infants

The dense representation of trigeminal mechanosensitive afferents in the lip vermilion, anterior tongue, intraoral mucosa, and temporomandibular joint allows the infant's orofacial system to encode a wide range of somatosensory experiences during the critical period associated with feed development. Our understanding of how this complex sensorium processes texture is very limited in adults, and the putative role of texture encoding in the infant is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the short-term effects of a novel textured pacifier experience in healthy term infants (N = 28). Nonnutritive suck (NNS) compression pressure waveforms were digitized in real time using a variety of custom-molded textured pacifiers varying in spatial array density of touch domes. MANCOVA, adjusted for postmenstrual age at test and sex, revealed that infants exhibited an increase in NNS burst attempts at the expense of a degraded suck burst structure with the textured pacifiers, suggesting that the suck central pattern generator (sCPG) is significantly disrupted and reorganized by this novel orocutaneous experience. The current findings provide new insight into oromotor control as a function of the oral somatosensory environment in neurotypically developing infants.

Scalable and energy-efficient packet switches based on multi-granular forwarding operations

Telecommunication networks are evolving due to rapid growth of internet traffic and the necessity to satisfy the new requirements of emerging packet services. Upgrading of network devices so as they can allow scalable and full line rate traffic aggregation and eliminate any internal performance bottlenecks is crucial. In packet switching devices, since data plane functionalities need to be executed for each incoming packet and power per given bandwidth is strongly related to the amount of processing on this data, packet processing at ultra-high rate is becoming the major challenge. The main trend to address such power consumption and scalability issues is to bypass packet switches by switching traffic at lower layers. This results in the packet optical transport network approach, where packet switching provides flexible end-to-end connectivity based on tunnel encapsulation while wavelength switching, exploiting optical bypass, allows reducing electrical switch size at transit nodes. There are also opportunities consisting in simplifying packet switch functionalities or designing completely different packet switch architectures. In this paper a new Ethernet aggregation and switching solution with potentialities to simplify and scale Ethernet switch forwarding functionality is proposed. This solution, based on a burst-basis transmission compliant with the Ethernet Standard, is able to maintain flexibility and any to any connectivity deriving from the connectionless nature of Ethernet. At the same time, it provides Ethernet technology with efficient aggregation capabilities allowing to reduce processing of transit traffic. This is allowed thanks to an Ethernet burst structure conceived as a variable number of consecutive frames of the same connection preceded by a proprietary burst control frame carrying information necessary for burst data frames classification. As a result, burst control frames experience the conventional Ethernet switch packet processing while data frames are mapped on the corresponding queue/output port according to the result of control frames classification. The proposed solution also provides the possibility to recognize data frames of the same burst through a proprietary inter-frame gap inserted among them; that allows to dynamically adapt burst size to the available bandwidth at transit nodes in order to limit frame delay and jitter and to support intermediate grooming. These features make it a very competitive approach in the context of packet optical transport being able to support dynamic multi-granular switching. The proposed solution has been validated by estimating its efficiency in terms of energy consumption with respect to a commercial packet switch. The impact of burst transmission on packet delay and jitter across ring and mesh networks has been also evaluated through different sets of simulations.

차기 군 위성통신망 체계에서 이기종 단말 운용을 고려한 전력제어 기반 MF-TDMA 자원할당 기법

본 논문에서는 차기 군 위성통신망 체계에서 서로 다른 통신 능력을 갖는 이기종 단말을 동일 중계기 대역폭내에서 효과적으로 통합하여 운용하기 위해 전력제어를 적용한 MF-TDMA 자원할당기법을 제안한다. 제안하는 알고리즘은 burst 크기 결정 단계와 burst 구조 결정단계의 2단계로 수행된다. 먼저 burst 크기 결정 단계에서는 각 단말의 채널 상태를 기반으로 링크 버짓을 분석하여 적용 가능한 ACM 레벨과 이에 따른 burst 크기를 결정한다. 다음으로 burst 구조 결정단계에서는 앞서 도출된 각 단말 별 burst 크기를 기반으로 시간-주파수 축 상에서 할당 가능한 burst 구조를 도출하고 각 구조 별 가용 Power spectral density(PSD) 구간을 계산한다. 이기종 단말을 단일 중계기로 통합하기 위해 각 burst의 가용 PSD 구간 내에서 전력제어를 수행하며, 동일 PSD 구간을 갖는 burst를 그룹화하여 MF-TDMA 프레임 내에 할당한다. 추가적으로 할당되지 못하고 남는 슬롯에 대한 자원할당 효율을 향상시키기 위해 설정된 PSD 구간 내에서 ACM 레벨을 조절하여 빈 슬롯을 활용할 수 있는 방안을 적용하였다. 제안하는 알고리즘은 주파수 사용효율, 슬롯할당 거부율 및 burst packing 효율 측면에서 기존 방식과 비교하였으며, 기존 방식에 비해 우수한 성능을 제공함을 확인하였다. In this paper, an efficient power control based MF-TDMA resource allocation scheme is proposed for next generation military satellite communication systems. The proposed scheme has the flexibility is used to support heterogeneous terminals with differ in transmission capabilities. The method can be divided into two parts : burst size calculation and burst structure determination. At first, we estimate the link budget taken into account a dynamic satellite link state variation. Then, applicable ACM level and burst size is chosen. In burst structure determination phase, we reorganize the burst structure in time-frequency domain by controlling limited power, bandwidth, time resources. In particular, we compensate the power spectral density among different terminals to integrate them in same transponder, Furthermore, we increase the packing efficiency by controlling the ACM level of the burst in applicable power spectral density range. Simulation results show that the method increase the spectral efficiency and burst packing efficiency. In addition, slot allocation rejection ratio is successfully reduced.

Supernova Neutrino Detection

A core-collapse supernova will produce an enormous burst of neutrinos of all flavors in the few-tens-of-MeV range. Measurement of the flavor, time, and energy structure of a nearby core-collapse neutrino burst will yield answers to many physics and astrophysics questions. The neutrinos left over from past cosmic supernovae are also observable, and their detection will improve knowledge of core-collapse rates and average neutrino emission. This review describes experimental techniques for detection of core-collapse neutrinos, as well as the sensitivities of current and future detectors.