Cortical Dynamics of Navigation and Steering in Natural Scenes: Motion-Based Object Segmentation, Heading, and Obstacle Avoidance

Visually guided navigation through a cluttered natural scene is a challenging problem that animals and humans accomplish with ease. The ViSTARS neural model proposes how primates use motion information to segment objects and determine heading for purposes of goal approach and obstacle avoidance in response to video inputs from real and virtual environments. The model produces trajectories similar to those of human navigators. It does so by predicting how computationally complementary processes in cortical areas MT-/MSTv and MT+/MSTd compute object motion for tracking and self-motion for navigation, respectively. The model retina responds to transients in the input stream. Model V1 generates a local speed and direction estimate. This local motion estimate is ambiguous due to the neural aperture problem. Model MT+ interacts with MSTd via an attentive feedback loop to compute accurate heading estimates in MSTd that quantitatively simulate properties of human heading estimation data. Model MT interacts with MSTv via an attentive feedback loop to compute accurate estimates of speed, direction and position of moving objects. This object information is combined with heading information to produce steering decisions wherein goals behave like attractors and obstacles behave like repellers. These steering decisions lead to navigational trajectories that closely match human performance.National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378, BCS-0235398); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624); National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NMA201-01-1-2016

Thermal and non-thermal emission from reconnecting twisted coronal loops

Twisted magnetic fields should be ubiquitous in flare-producing active regions where the magnetic fields are strongly non-potential. It has been shown that reconnection in helical magnetic coronal loops results in plasma heating and particle acceleration distributed within a large volume, including the lower coronal and chromospheric sections of the loops. This scenario can be an alternative to the standard flare model, where particles are accelerated only in a small volume located in the upper corona. We use a combination of MHD simulations and test-particle methods, which describe the development of kink instability and magnetic reconnection in twisted coronal loops using resistive compressible MHD, and incorporate atmospheric stratification and large-scale loop curvature. The resulting distributions of hot plasma let us estimate thermal X-ray emission intensities. The electric and magnetic fields obtained are used to calculate electron trajectories using the guiding-centre approximation. These trajectories combined with the MHD plasma density distributions let us deduce synthetic HXR bremsstrahlung intensities. Our simulations emphasise that the geometry of the emission patterns produced by hot plasma in flaring twisted coronal loops can differ from the actual geometry of the underlying magnetic fields. The twist angles revealed by the emission threads (SXR) are consistently lower than the field-line twist present at the onset of the kink-instability. HXR emission due to the interaction of energetic electrons with the stratified background are concentrated at the loop foot-points in these simulations, even though the electrons are accelerated everywhere within the coronal volume of the loop. The maximum of HXR emission consistently precedes that of SXR emission, with the HXR light-curve being approximately proportional to the temporal derivative of the SXR light-curve.Comment: (accepted for publication on A&A

Void-mediated formation of Sn quantum dots in a Si matrix

Atomic scale analysis of Sn quantum dots (QDs) formed during the molecular beam-epitaxy (MBE) growth of Sn_xSi_(1−x) (0.05 ⩽ x ⩽ 0.1) multilayers in a Si matrix revealed a void-mediated formation mechanism. Voids below the Si surface are induced by the lattice mismatch strain between Sn_xSi_(1−x) layers and Si, taking on their equilibrium tetrakaidecahedron shape. The diffusion of Sn atoms into these voids leads to an initial rapid coarsening of quantum dots during annealing. Since this formation process is not restricted to Sn, a method to grow QDs may be developed by controlling the formation of voids and the diffusion of materials into these voids during MBE growth

On the accuracy of retrieved wind information from Doppler lidar observations

A single pulsed Doppler lidar was successfully deployed to measure air flow and turbulence over the Malvern hills, Worcester, UK. The DERA Malvern lidar used was a CO2 µm pulsed Doppler lidar. The lidar pulse repetition rate was 120 Hz and had a pulse duration of 0.6 µs The system was set up to have 41 range gates with range resolution of 112 m. This gave a theoretical maximum range of approximately 4.6 km. The lidar site was 2 km east of the Malvern hill ridge which runs in a north-south direction and is approximately 6 km long. The maximum height of the ridge is 430 m. Two elevation scans (Range-Height Indicators) were carried out parallel and perpendicular to the mean surface flow. Since the surface wind was primarily westerly the scans were carried out perpendicular and parallel to the ridge of the Malvern hills. The data were analysed and horizontal winds, vertical winds and turbulent fluxes were calculated for profiles throughout the boundary layer. As an aid to evaluating the errors associated with the derivation of velocity and turbulence profiles, data from a simple idealized profile was also analysed using the same method. The error analysis shows that wind velocity profiles can be derived to an accuracy of 0.24 m s-1 in the horizontal and 0.3 m s-1 in the vertical up to a height of 2500 m. The potential for lidars to make turbulence measurements, over a wide area, through the whole depth of the planetary boundary layer and over durations from seconds to hours is discussed

Results from a set of three-dimensional numerical experiments of a hot Jupiter atmosphere

We present highlights from a large set of simulations of a hot Jupiter atmosphere, nominally based on HD 209458b, aimed at exploring both the evolution of the deep atmosphere, and the acceleration of the zonal flow or jet. We find the occurrence of a super-rotating equatorial jet is robust to changes in various parameters, and over long timescales, even in the absence of strong inner or bottom boundary drag. This jet is diminished in one simulation only, where we strongly force the deep atmosphere equator-to-pole temperature gradient over long timescales. Finally, although the eddy momentum fluxes in our atmosphere show similarities with the proposed mechanism for accelerating jets on tidally-locked planets, the picture appears more complex. We present tentative evidence for a jet driven by a combination of eddy momentum transport and mean flow.Comment: 26 pages, 22 Figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

The late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstȁtte: an extraordinary post-glacial fossil and sedimentary record

Fossils of the Late Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstätte are characterized by exceptional preservation of their soft tissues in clay minerals. The low-diversity community lived in an unusual cold-water setting, dominated by anoxic bottom waters, in the immediate aftermath of the Hirnantian glaciation. Giant conodonts represented by complete tooth sets, and one with trunk musculature and liver preserved, unarmoured jawless fish, lobopods and enigmatic taxa are some of the more important fossils. Furthermore, this Lagerstätte also preserves biomineralized Ordovician taxa such as brachiopods, orthoconic nautiloids and trilobites. It is important in capturing the only known examples of many taxa, extending temporal ranges of others and providing a unique glimpse of a post-glacial refugium, at a time when other Lagerstätten are unknown

Simulation of a Rising Sun Magnetron Employing a Faceted Cathode with a Continuous Current Source

It has been proposed that gated field emitters could be used in place of conventional thermionic cathodes to control the current injection in a magnetron, both temporally and spatially. Since gated field emitters have to be fabricated on flat surfaces, a faceted cathode would be used to implement this approach. A 2D ten cavity, rising sun magnetron has been modeled using the particle-in-cell code VORPAL. Cylindrical, five-sided, and ten-sided faceted cathodes were modeled to study the variation of magnetron operation due to the cathode shape. This work shows the results of the device performance employing three different cathode geometries with a typical continuous current source. The cathode voltage is −22.2 kV; magnetic field is 0.09 T; and linear current density is 326 A/m. The three models oscillated at the π-mode, at a frequency of 960 MHz for the cylindrical cathode and 957 MHz for the faceted cathodes. Simulations show a faster start up time for the ten-sided faceted cathode. This resulted in a reduced overall startup time of the device from 200 to 110 ns. A strong current instability was observed in the five-sidedcathode case with a periodicity range from 250 to 350 ns. This instability was limited to the start-up period of the ten-sided cathode model; hence the ten-sided case was more stable

The atomic structure of large-angle grain boundaries Σ5\Sigma 5 and Σ13\Sigma 13 in YBa2Cu3O7−δ{\rm YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}} and their transport properties

We present the results of a computer simulation of the atomic structures of large-angle symmetrical tilt grain boundaries (GBs) $\Sigma 5$ (misorientation angles \q{36.87}{^{\circ}} and \q{53.13}{^{\circ}}), $\Sigma 13$ (misorientation angles \q{22.62}{^{\circ}} and \q{67.38}{^{\circ}}). The critical strain level $\epsilon_{crit}$ criterion (phenomenological criterion) of Chisholm and Pennycook is applied to the computer simulation data to estimate the thickness of the nonsuperconducting layer ${\rm h_n}$ enveloping the grain boundaries. The ${\rm h_n}$ is estimated also by a bond-valence-sum analysis. We propose that the phenomenological criterion is caused by the change of the bond lengths and valence of atoms in the GB structure on the atomic level. The macro- and micro- approaches become consistent if the $\epsilon_{crit}$ is greater than in earlier papers. It is predicted that the symmetrical tilt GB $\Sigma5$ \theta = \q{53.13}{^{\circ}} should demonstrate a largest critical current across the boundary.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure