Tuning of MST neurons to spiral motions

Cells in the dorsal division of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd) have large receptive fields and respond to expansion/contraction, rotation, and translation motions. These same motions are generated as we move through the environment, leading investigators to suggest that area MSTd analyzes the optical flow. One influential idea suggests that navigation is achieved by decomposing the optical flow into the separate and discrete channels mentioned above, that is, expansion/contraction, rotation, and translation. We directly tested whether MSTd neurons perform such a decomposition by examining whether there are cells that are preferentially tuned to intermediate spiral motions, which combine both expansion/contraction and rotation components. The finding that many cells in MSTd are preferentially selective for spiral motions indicates that this simple three-channel decomposition hypothesis for MSTd does not appear to be correct. Instead, there is a continuum of patterns to which MSTd cells are selective. In addition, we find that MSTd cells maintain their selectivity when stimuli are moved to different locations in their large receptive fields. This position invariance indicates that MSTd cells selective for expansion cannot give precise information about the retinal location of the focus of expansion. Thus, individual MSTd neurons cannot code, in a precise fashion, the direction of heading by using the location of the focus of expansion. The only way this navigational information could be accurately derived from MSTd is through the use of a coarse, population encoding. Positional invariance and selectivity for a wide array of stimuli suggest that MSTd neurons encode patterns of motion per se, regardless of whether these motions are generated by moving objects or by motion induced by observer locomotion.     

Spectral nephelometry for making extravirgin olive oil fingerprints

In spectral nephelometry, absorption spectroscopy and nephelometry are innovatively combined to provide simultaneous online monitoring of color and turbidity of edible oils. Spectral nephelometry instrumentation consists of an optoelectronic device that measures the absorption spectrum of the oil sample at different angles. Data processing, carried out by principal component analysis (PCA), allows identification of the oil sample and creates a two-dimensional map as a fingerprint of oil types.     

A compact model for multiterminal bipolar devices used in smartpower applications

Complex technologies merging low-voltage bipolar devices and vertical current-flow power transistor allow more smart functions at low chip cost but pose problems during the design phase because there is no way to predict the influence of the high-voltage transistor over the control components by using standard bipolar junction transistor (BJT) models. In fact the large inductive load usually present in high-voltage power transistors applications forces both negative substrate voltage and spurious currents that can induce positive feedback among parasitic devices, downgrading the performance of a single device and so of the whole circuit. In this work we introduce a model for the five-terminal bipolar devices used in smart power applications. The model accounts for all main static and dynamic parasitic effects and gives results in very good agreement with experimental data on both simple devices and complex integrated circuits currently implemented in commercial products for microprocessor based engine management systems (EMS's)     

Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?

Three multimethod studies (total N?=?348) probed the hypothesis that women's attraction to men would be influenced by male prosocial orientation. In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid "personalism," but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men. Results are discussed in terms of the place of altruism and dominance in evolutionary approaches to human interpersonal attraction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robust consensus for uncertain multi‐agent systems with discrete‐time dynamics

This paper investigates robust consensus for multi‐agent systems with discrete‐time dynamics affected by uncertainty. In particular, the paper considers multi‐agent systems with single and double integrators, where the weighted adjacency matrix is a polynomial function of uncertain parameters constrained into a semialgebraic set. Firstly, necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for robust consensus based on the existence of a Lyapunov function polynomially dependent on the uncertainty. In particular, an upper bound on the degree required for achieving necessity is provided. Secondly, a necessary and sufficient condition is provided for robust consensus with single integrator and nonnegative weighted adjacency matrices based on the zeros of a polynomial. Lastly, it is shown how these conditions can be investigated through convex programming by exploiting linear matrix inequalities and sums of squares of polynomials. Some numerical examples illustrate the proposed results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robustness analysis of genetic regulatory networks affected by model uncertainty

A fundamental problem in systems biology consists of investigating robustness properties of genetic regulatory networks (GRNs) with respect to model uncertainty. This paper addresses this problem for GRNs where the coefficients are rationally affected by polytopic uncertainty, and where the saturation functions are not exactly known. First, it is shown that a condition for ensuring that the GRN has a globally asymptotically stable equilibrium point for all admissible uncertainties can be obtained in terms of a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), hence generalizing existing results that mainly consider only the case of GRNs where the coefficients are linearly affected by the uncertainty and the regulatory functions are in SUM form. Second, the problem of estimating the worst-case convergence rate of the trajectories to the equilibrium point over all admissible uncertainties is considered, and it is shown that a lower bound of this rate can be computed by solving a quasi-convex optimization problem with LMIs. Third, the paper considers the problem of estimating the set of uncertainties for which the GRN has a globally asymptotically stable equilibrium point. This problem is addressed, first, by showing how one can compute estimates with fixed shape by solving a quasi-convex optimization problem with LMIs, and second, by deriving a procedure for computing estimates with variable shape. Numerical examples illustrate the use of the proposed techniques.