This calendar is your conduit to the events in Plan-It Purple that pertain specifically to the McCormick School of Engineering. If you would like to list an event on the calendar, please consult the list of department contacts.
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Event List
This list shows events for May 23 only. [Show all events]
CBB Seminar: Synchronized firing and visual signaling in the primate retina - E. J. Chichilnisky
Friday May 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM — Cook Hall, room 3118 A&B, 2220 Campus Drive
CBB Seminar:
Synchronized firing and visual signaling in the primate retina
E. J. Chichilnisky - Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Associate Professor - Systems Neurobiology Laboratories
Abstract:
Synchronized firing has been hypothesized to play a role in the function of many neural circuits. In the retina, synchronized firing has been observed in several species, but its impact on visual signals remains unclear. First, no previous studies have examined synchronized firing in the retina of primates, the dominant model for human visual system function. Second, synchronized firing has been studied almost entirely on the basis of recordings from pairs of cells, but may occur at a much larger scale. Third, capturing the full structure of synchronized firing and its impact on visual processing presents substantial analytical challenges. As a consequence, the overall structure of synchronized firing and its impact on visual signals remains unclear. Using large-scale recordings from the primate retina in vitro, we have characterized the full structure of synchronized firing in populations of hundreds of retinal ganglion cells. Using two novel analysis methods, we find that the large-scale structure of synchronized firing can be explained
by simple interactions between neighboring cells in the network.
Further, accounting for this structure in decoding the retinal signal can yield up to 20% improvement in visual performance. Thus, synchronized firing in the primate retina may be understood with simple models and may represent a significant aspect of visual signaling to the brain.
For more information, contact:
Suzana Han
suzana@northwestern.edu
847-467-1972
McCormick - Computational Biology and Bioinformati
[Show detail]
Hansen: Singular Velocities Within a Low Reynolds Number...
Friday May 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM — Tech M416
Applied Math Colloquium
Title: Singular Velocities Within a Low Reynolds Number Fluid
Speaker: David Hansen, Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University
Abstract: Fluids in the Stokes (creeping) flow regime have been well-studied and are typically well-behaved.
Most of the time, their flow fields can be
represented by linear combinations of Stokes singularities
For problems described with spherical coordinates, these singularities involve decaying
radial velocities multiplying spherical harmonics.
Inspired by problems in
low-Reynolds number streaming flow, we study a case of an axisymmetric flow
above a plane, where seemingly benign boundary conditions on the plane
theoretically require logarithmically singular velocities along the axis of
symmetry. Such a flow would exhibit arbitrarily large velocity values, yet
still fulfill the conditions for Stokes flow. I will analyze this problem
using analytical and numerical methods and discuss its relation to
applications in microfluidics.
This talk is part of the RTG seminar series.
For more information, contact:
Alvin Bayliss
a-bayliss@northwestern.edu
847-491-7221
McCormick-Colloquia Engineering Sciences and Appli
[Show detail]
