Depth is encoded in the visual cortex by a specialized receptive field structure

Binocular neurons in the visual cortex are thought to perform the first stage of processing for the fine stereoscopic depth discrimination exhibited by animals with frontally located eyes. Because lateral separation of the eyes gives a slightly different view to each eye, there are small variations in position (disparities), mainly along the horizontal dimension, between corresponding features in the two retinal images. The visual system uses these disparities to gauge depth. We studied neurons in the cat's visual cortex to determine whether the visual system uses the anisotropy in the range of horizontal and vertical disparities. We report here that there is a corresponding anisotropy in the cortical representation of binocular information: receptive-field profiles for left and right eyes are matched for cells that are tuned to horizontal orientations of image contours. For neurons tuned to vertical orientations, left and right receptive fields are predominantly dissimilar. Therefore, a major modification is required of the conventional notion of disparity processing. The modified scheme allows a unified encoding of monocular form and binocular disparity information.     

Parallel processing of motion and colour information

When the two eyes are confronted with sufficiently different versions of the visual environment, one or the other eye dominates perception in alternation. A similar situation may be created in the laboratory by presenting images to the left and right eyes which differ in orientation or colour. Although perception is dominated by one eye during rivalry, there are a number of instances in which visual processes nevertheless continue to integrate information from the suppressed eye. For example the interocular transfer of the motion after-effect is undiminished when induced during binocular rivalry. Thus motion information processing may occur in parallel with the rivalry process. Here we describe a novel example in which the visual system simultaneously exhibits binocular rivalry and vision that integrates signals from both eyes. This apparent contradiction is resolved by postulating parallel visual processes devoted to the analyses of colour and motion information. Counterphased gratings are viewed dichoptically such that for one eye the grating is composed of alternating yellow and black stripes (luminance) while for the other it is composed of alternating red and green stripes (chrominance). When the gratings are fused, a moving grating is perceived. A consistent direction of motion can only be achieved if left and right monocular signals are integrated by the nervous system. Yet the apparent colour of the binocular percept alternates between red-green and yellow-black. These observations demonstrate the segregation of processing by the early motion system from that affording the perception of colour. Although, in this stimulus, colour information in itself can play no part in the cyclopean perception of motion direction, colour is carried along perceptually (filled in) by the moving pattern which is integrated from both eyes.     

Advanced optics in a jellyfish eye

Cubozoans, or box jellyfish, differ from all other cnidarians by an active fish-like behaviour and an elaborate sensory apparatus. Each of the four sides of the animal carries a conspicuous sensory club (the rhopalium), which has evolved into a bizarre cluster of different eyes. Two of the eyes on each rhopalium have long been known to resemble eyes of higher animals, but the function and performance of these eyes have remained unknown. Here we show that box-jellyfish lenses contain a finely tuned refractive index gradient producing nearly aberration-free imaging. This demonstrates that even simple animals have been able to evolve the sophisticated visual optics previously known only from a few advanced bilaterian phyla. However, the position of the retina does not coincide with the sharp image, leading to very wide and complex receptive fields in individual photoreceptors. We argue that this may be useful in eyes serving a single visual task. The findings indicate that tailoring of complex receptive fields might have been one of the original driving forces in the evolution of animal lenses.     

Identified neurones isolated from leech CNS make selective connections in culture.

Neurones cultured in vitro offer distinct advantages for studying how processes grow towards their targets and form synaptic connections. In contrast to the complex events occurring during the development of the nervous system, synapse formation in culture can be analysed in a few neurones at a time and under controlled conditions. We have now dissected out and cultured single identified neurones from the central nervous system (CNS) of the adult leech. Various types of sensory cells, motor cells, and interneurones can be identified in leech ganglia--each with a stereotyped set of properties, including: (1) the electrical characteristics of its membrane, (2) the arborisation of its branches and the morphology of its terminals and (3) the pattern of connections it makes with other identified neurones, skin or muscle. Thus, cultured cells can be compared in detail with their counterparts in situ. We have found that isolated cells survive for several weeks, maintain their membrane properties, sprout and form selective connections.     

Influence of the thalamus on spatial visual processing in frontal cortex

Each of our movements activates our own sensory receptors, and therefore keeping track of self-movement is a necessary part of analysing sensory input. One way in which the brain keeps track of self-movement is by monitoring an internal copy, or corollary discharge, of motor commands. This concept could explain why we perceive a stable visual world despite our frequent quick, or saccadic, eye movements: corollary discharge about each saccade would permit the visual system to ignore saccade-induced visual changes. The critical missing link has been the connection between corollary discharge and visual processing. Here we show that such a link is formed by a corollary discharge from the thalamus that targets the frontal cortex. In the thalamus, neurons in the mediodorsal nucleus relay a corollary discharge of saccades from the midbrain superior colliculus to the cortical frontal eye field. In the frontal eye field, neurons use corollary discharge to shift their visual receptive fields spatially before saccades. We tested the hypothesis that these two components-a pathway for corollary discharge and neurons with shifting receptive fields-form a circuit in which the corollary discharge drives the shift. First we showed that the known spatial and temporal properties of the corollary discharge predict the dynamic changes in spatial visual processing of cortical neurons when saccades are made. Then we moved from this correlation to causation by isolating single cortical neurons and showing that their spatial visual processing is impaired when corollary discharge from the thalamus is interrupted. Thus the visual processing of frontal neurons is spatiotemporally matched with, and functionally dependent on, corollary discharge input from the thalamus. These experiments establish the first link between corollary discharge and visual processing, delineate a brain circuit that is well suited for mediating visual stability, and provide a framework for studying corollary discharge in other sensory systems.     

压力AGC与监控AGC相关性研究

在带钢轧制过程中,不同性质的多个厚度精度控制AGC系统同时存在,有可能在调节辊缝的方向上相互影响和干扰.理论证明,厚控系统的压力AGC和监控AGC在一定条件下存在相互独立的可能性.通过数学意义上的公式推导,针对AGC系统的实际控制流程,对某热轧机厚控系统的控制参数和结构的调整和改变,得以使此厚控系统实现控制意义上的解耦,并且经过理论推导和计算机仿真.结果表明,此厚控系统的压力AGC和监控AGC是相互独立的.     

Neural subsystems for object knowledge.

Critical issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language are whether there are multiple systems for the representation of meaning, perhaps organized by processing system (such as vision or language), and whether further subsystems are distinguishable within these larger ones. We describe here a patient (K.R.) with cerebral damage whose pattern of acquired deficits offers direct evidence for a major division between visually based and language-based higher-level representations, and for processing subsystems within language. K.R. could not name animals regardless of the type of presentation (auditory or visual), but had no difficulty naming other living things and objects. When asked to describe verbally the physical attributes of animals (for example, 'what colour is an elephant?'), she was strikingly impaired. Nevertheless, she could distinguish the correct physical attributes of animals when they were presented visually (she could distinguish animals that were correctly coloured from those that were not). Her knowledge of input stimulus. To explain this selective deficit, these data mandate the existence of two distinct representations of such properties in normal individuals, one visually based and one language-based. Furthermore, these data establish that knowledge of physical attributes is strictly segregated from knowledge of other properties in the language system.     

Perception of three-dimensional shape influences colour perception through mutual illumination

Objects in the natural world possess different visual attributes, including shape, colour, surface texture and motion. Previous perceptual studies have assumed that the brain analyses the colour of a surface independently of its three-dimensional shape and viewing geometry, although there are neural connections between colour and two-dimensional form processing early in the visual pathway. Here we show that colour perception is strongly influenced by three-dimensional shape perception in a novel, chromatic version of the Mach Card--a concave folded card with one side made of magenta paper and the other of white paper. The light reflected from the magenta paper casts a pinkish glow on the white side. The perceived colour of the white side changes from pale pink to deep magenta when the perceived shape of the card flips from concave to convex. The effect demonstrates that the human visual system incorporates knowledge of mutual illumination-the physics of light reflection between surfaces--at an early stage in colour perception.     

Transforming the architecture of compound eyes

Eyes differ markedly in the animal kingdom, and are an extreme example of the evolution of multiple anatomical solutions to light detection and image formation. A salient feature of all photoreceptor cells is the presence of a specialized compartment (disc outer segments in vertebrates, and microvillar rhabdomeres in insects), whose primary role is to accommodate the millions of light receptor molecules required for efficient photon collection. In insects, compound eyes can have very different inner architectures. Fruitflies and houseflies have an open rhabdom system, in which the seven rhabdomeres of each ommatidium are separated from each other and function as independent light guides. In contrast, bees and various mosquitoes and beetle species have a closed system, in which rhabdomeres within each ommatidium are fused to each other, thus sharing the same visual axis. To understand the transition between open and closed rhabdom systems, we isolated and characterized the role of Drosophila genes involved in rhabdomere assembly. Here we show that Spacemaker, a secreted protein expressed only in the eyes of insects with open rhabdom systems, acts together with Prominin and the cell adhesion molecule Chaoptin to choreograph the partitioning of rhabdomeres into an open system. Furthermore, the complete loss of spacemaker (spam) converts an open rhabdom system to a closed one, whereas its targeted expression to photoreceptors of a closed system markedly reorganizes the architecture of the compound eyes to resemble an open system. Our results provide a molecular atlas for the construction of microvillar assemblies and illustrate the critical effect of differences in a single structural protein in morphogenesis.     

Different factors from the central nervous system and periphery regulate the survival of sensory neurones

Work on nerve growth factor has established that the survival of developing vertebrate neurones depends on the supply of a neurotrophic factor from their target field. The discovery of several new neurotrophic factors has raised the possibility that neurones which innervate multiple target fields require several different neurotrophic factors for survival. Here we show that two distinct neurotrophic factors, one in the central nervous system (CNS) and the other in skeletal muscle, promote the survival of proprioceptive neurones in culture. At saturating concentrations, either factor alone supported most neurones and there was no additional survival in the presence of both factors, but at subsaturating concentrations the combined effect was additive. The neurotrophic activity of each factor was greatest during the period of natural neuronal death. Our results demonstrate that each cultured proprioceptive neurone responds to two distinct neurotrophic factors present in its respective central and peripheral target fields, and suggest that these factors cooperate in regulating survival during development.     

利用信号与系统概念分析线天线的互阻抗

基于信号与系统理论 ,并利用数字信号处理技术 ,提出了一种分析线天线互阻抗的新方法 .在这种方法中 ,借用信号与系统的概念 ,将天线阵中天线单元的电流视为激励信号 ,将天线阵的空间结构视为系统函数 (或传递函数 ) ,而将单元天线间的互阻抗 (或其它电磁特性 )视为整个系统的响应 .通过这种等效 ,可将天线阵中天线单元间相互耦合看作信号与系统中的系统响应 ,进而可利用数字信号处理方法进行分析 .最后给出了利用该方法计算对称振子天线互阻抗的实例 ,计算结果证明了该方法的有效性 .     

Central nervous system and peripheral nerve growth factor provide trophic support critical to mature sensory neuronal survival

Primary sensory neurones in cranial and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of adult animals are generally thought to be maintained through connections with their peripheral (but not central) targets by trophic factor(s) other than nerve growth factor (NGF). Damage to the peripheral process of sensory neurones results in a dramatic response or even death of the neurones, whereas axotomy (cutting) of the central process does not initiate profound reaction in these neurones. The development and maintenance of neurones are highly dependent on a supply of trophic agents produced by targets and retrogradely transported via the peripheral process to the cell body. NGF deprivation in fetal rodents produced either by exogenously administered antibodies or by those of maternal origin, results in death of DRG and of some cranial sensory neurones. However, as chronic NGF deprivation in neonatal or adult rodents produces little or no cell death, it has been assumed that some other trophic factor(s) derived from the peripheral target sustains sensory neurones in postnatal life. By inducing NGF deprivation by autoimmunizing guinea pigs with mouse NGF and/or by cutting the central root (process) of a DRG, we demonstrate here that under certain conditions DRG neurones require NGF and centrally derived trophic support. Our results indicate that sensory neurones are maintained by the trophic support provided by both peripheral and central targets. This support is mediated by NGF and other as yet unidentified trophic factors. The relative importance of the two target fields and NGF compared with other trophic factors changes during development.     

基于视网膜中央凹视觉的生产监控图像处理方法

在面向生产现场的远程视频监控系统中,视频图像的庞大数据量与系统的处理能力和网络带宽条件往往容易形成冲突,而繁杂冗余的现场视觉信息也难以符合生产监控的需求。该文提出了一种基于视网膜中央凹视觉的生产监控图像处理方法,从生产监控的特点和需求出发,模仿人眼的视觉感知特性对视频图像进行空间变分辨率转换,从而降低数据量并实现对监控效用信息(MEI)的筛选。实验结果表明,该方法能够帮助远程视频监控系统有效降低视频传输码率,在保证系统实时性的同时提高了生产监控的效率。     

Coupled quantized mechanical oscillators

The harmonic oscillator is one of the simplest physical systems but also one of the most fundamental. It is ubiquitous in nature, often serving as an approximation for a more complicated system or as a building block in larger models. Realizations of harmonic oscillators in the quantum regime include electromagnetic fields in a cavity and the mechanical modes of a trapped atom or macroscopic solid. Quantized interaction between two motional modes of an individual trapped ion has been achieved by coupling through optical fields, and entangled motion of two ions in separate locations has been accomplished indirectly through their internal states. However, direct controllable coupling between quantized mechanical oscillators held in separate locations has not been realized previously. Here we implement such coupling through the mutual Coulomb interaction of two ions held in trapping potentials separated by 40?μm (similar work is reported in a related paper). By tuning the confining wells into resonance, energy is exchanged between the ions at the quantum level, establishing that direct coherent motional coupling is possible for separately trapped ions. The system demonstrates a building block for quantum information processing and quantum simulation. More broadly, this work is a natural precursor to experiments in hybrid quantum systems, such as coupling a trapped ion to a quantized macroscopic mechanical or electrical oscillator.     

Motion-induced blindness in normal observers.

Cases in which salient visual stimuli do not register consciously are known to occur in special conditions, such as the presentation of dissimilar stimuli to the two eyes or when images are stabilized on the retina. Here, we report a striking phenomenon of 'visual disappearance' observed with normal-sighted observers under natural conditions. When a global moving pattern is superimposed on high-contrast stationary or slowly moving stimuli, the latter disappear and reappear alternately for periods of several seconds. We show that this motion-induced blindness (MIB) phenomenon is unlikely to reflect retinal suppression, sensory masking or adaptation. The phenomenology observed includes perceptual grouping effects, object rivalry and visual field anisotropy. This is very similar to that found in other types of visual disappearance, as well as in clinical cases of attention deficits, in which partial invisibility might occur despite the primary visual areas being intact. Disappearance might reflect a disruption of attentional processing, which shifts the system into a winner-takes-all mode, uncovering the dynamics of competition between object representations within the human visual system.     

昆虫复眼视觉系统的计算机模拟

采用计算机技术与生物科学结合的方法来模拟昆虫复眼的视觉系统 .相对于其他实现方法 ,它的模拟结果更具有真实性和可视性     

A Computational Model of Concept Generalization in Cross-Modal Reference

Cross-modal interactions between visual understanding and linguistic processing substantially contribute to the remarkable robustness of human language processing.We argue that the formation of cross-modal referential links is a prerequisite for the occurrence of cross-modal interactions between vision and language.In this paper we examine a computational model for a cross-modal reference formation with respect to its robustness against conceptual underspecification in the visual modality.This investigation is motivated by the fact that natural systems are well capable of establishing a cross-modal reference between modalities with different degrees of conceptual specification.In the investigated model,conceptually underspecified context information continues to drive the syntactic disambiguation of verb-centered syntactic ambiguities as long as the visual context contains the situation arity information of the visual scene.     

人眼明度视觉空间频率传递特性的研究

为描述人眼视觉系统对空间复杂颜色刺激的信息处理机制,研究人眼视觉系统空间频率信息传递的多通道特性.设计心理物理实验,测量人眼视觉系统在感知均匀色空间CIELAB明度通道上的对比度敏感度数据.实验选取明度轴上5个明度值作为颜色样本,制作明度对比度随正弦波频率调制的图像刺激序列,挑选正常视觉观察者,采集5个明度样本的12个空间频率的对比度敏感度数据.对实验数据进行相关性分析发现:单个明度样本的不同空间频率对应的观察值之间是非线性相关的;随着明度样本数量增多,观察值之间的线性相关性增强.因此,人眼视觉系统对明度颜色通道的信息处理机制可用线性模型描述;明度颜色通道的空间频率传递特性可用3条空间频率调谐曲线表征;3条空间频率调谐曲线作用的频段不同,峰值不同,表现了人眼视觉系统具有不同的空间频率感受野.      

基于以太网的现场网络化控制系统

为使分布在不同地域的现场控制设备和控制系统有机地连接成一体,达到宽广地域的远程监视与控制,提出了基于以太网的现场网络化控制系统.该系统设计采用以太网作为现场设备之间的通信网络,在研究基于以太网的现场网络化控制系统结构的基础上,开发了现场网络化控制系统可视控制组态平台和现场网络化控制系统可视监控组态平台.该系统具有成本低、结构简单、可靠性高、控制分散,可实现真正的"E网到底"控制等特点,能够组成开放式自动化控制系统;因而可克服以往集散控制系统和现场总线控制系统的局限性,大大降低控制系统的成本、提高控制系统的性能,并获得优良的性能价格比.该系统的研究与开发,可应用于缩短工业控制系统的开发周期.     

以太网互连的两套S7-400CPU在火电厂中的应用

随着工业自动化控制技术的不断发展,自动控制系统越来越多的应用到工业领域。在实际应用中,多套控制系统可能在同时部署到应用领域。此时,如何解决不同控制系统之间的互连以实现系统之间的数据共享成为实际中必须解决的问题。以某火电厂的辅机自动控制系统为背景,介绍一种应用工业以太网技术来实现两套PLC之间通讯的方法。该方法可以减少实现PLC通讯的程序配置和程序编写的工作量,另外,由于Pro-fibus总线的通讯速率为12 M/s,而以太网的通讯速率可达到100 M/S,因此提出的方法也可以提高多套PLC之间的通讯效率。