Sensing of Stimulus Artifact Suppressed Signals From Electrode Interfaces

Stimulus artifacts inhibit reliable acquisition of biological evoked potentials for several milliseconds if an electrode contact is utilized for both electrical stimulation and recording purposes. This hinders the measurement of evoked short-latency biological responses, which is otherwise elicited by stimulation in implantable prosthetic devices. We present an improved stimulus artifact suppression scheme using two electrode simultaneous stimulation and differential readout using high-gain amplifiers. Substantial reduction of artifact duration has been shown possible through the common-mode rejection property of an instrumentation amplifier for electrode interfaces. The performance of this method depends on good matching of electrode-electrolyte interface properties of the chosen electrode pair. A novel calibration algorithm has been developed that helps in artificial matching of impedance and thereby achieves the required performance in artifact suppression. Stimulus artifact duration has been reduced down to 50 mu s from the stimulation-cum-recording electrodes, which is similar to 6x improvement over the present state of the art. The system is characterized with emulated resistor-capacitor loads and a variety of in-vitro metal electrodes dipped in saline environment. The proposed method is going to be useful for closed-loop electrical stimulation and recording studies, such as bidirectional neural prosthesis of retina, cochlea, brain, and spinal cord.

Denoising neural data with state-space smoothing: Method and application

Neural data are inevitably contaminated by noise. When such noisy data are subjected to statistical analysis, misleading conclusions can be reached. Here we attempt to address this problem by applying a state-space smoothing method, based on the combined use of the Kalman filter theory and the Expectation–Maximization algorithm, to denoise two datasets of local field potentials recorded from monkeys performing a visuomotor task. For the first dataset, it was found that the analysis of the high gamma band (60–90 Hz) neural activity in the prefrontal cortex is highly susceptible to the effect of noise, and denoising leads to markedly improved results that were physiologically interpretable. For the second dataset, Granger causality between primary motor and primary somatosensory cortices was not consistent across two monkeys and the effect of noise was suspected. After denoising, the discrepancy between the two subjects was significantly reduced.

Effect of curve crossing on absorption and resonance Raman spectra: analytical treatment for delta-function coupling in parabolic potentials

We propose an exactly solvable model for the two-state curve-crossing problem. Our model assumes the coupling to be a delta function. It is used to calculate the effect of curve crossing on the electronic absorption spectrum and the resonance Raman excitation profile.

Dependence of low-lying energy eigenvalues on the short- and long-range parts of confining potentials

The potential description of a quark-antiquark system seems to work very well in describing a number of hadronic properties. However, the precise form of the potential is unknown. The changes in the low-lying eigenvalues as a result of changes in the long-range part of the potential are investigated in a non-perturbative manner. It is shown by considering a variety of examples that the low-lying eigenvalues are insensitive to the long-range part of the potential.

Exact evaluation of Gaussian path integrals involving non-local potentials

An exact expression for the calculation of gaussian path integrals involving non-local potentials is given. Its utility is demonstrated by using it to evaluate a path integral arising in the study of an electron gas in a random potential.

Calculation of Sparking Potentials of SF6 and SF6-GAS Mixtures in Uniform and Non-Uniform Electric Fields

A simple formula is developed to predict the sparking potentials of SF6 and SF6-gas mixture in uniform and non-uniform fields. The formula has been shown to be valid over a very wide range from 1 to 1800 kPa·cm of pressure and electrode gap separation for mixtures containing 5 to 100% SF6. The calculated values are found to be in good agreement with the previously reported measurements in the literature. The formula should aid design engineers in estimating electrode-spacings and clearances in power apparatus and systems.

Sparking potentials and swarm coefficients in Freon and mixtures of Freon and air

The sparking potentials and swarm coefficients ( ionization and attachment coefficients) were measured in Freon and Freon-air mixtures over the range of 24·3 times 10-16≤ E/ N ≤ 303 times 10-16 V cm2. Addition of Freon increased the sparking potential, and the rate of increase of the attachment coefficient with increasing percentage of Froon in the mixture was much larger than the rate of change of the first ionization coefficient.

Townsend's First Ionization Coefficients and Sparking Potentials in Crossed Electric and Magnetic Fields

Townsend's first ionization coefficients have been measured in corssed electric and magnetic fields for values of B/p ranging from 0.013 TESLA. TORR-1 to 0.064 TESLA.TORR-1 and for 103 x 102¿ E/p 331 x 102 V.M-1. TORR-1 in oxygen and for 122 x 102¿ E/pÂ488 x 102 V.M-1.TORR-1 for dry air. The values of effective collision frequencies determined from the equivalent pressure (pe) concept generally increase with E/p at constant B/p and decrease with increasing B/p at constant E/p. Effective collision frequencies determined from measured sparking potentials at high values of E/p increase with decreasing E/pe. The drift velocity and mean energy of electrons in oxygen in crossed electric and magnetic fields have been derived.

Intermolecular potentials in the dimer, the excimers, and the dimer ions of ethylene

Calculations are reported on the interaction energies in the dimer, the excimers, and the dimer ions of ethylene. The various a- and u-electron terms for different conformations of the dimeric species are determined by using the exchange perturbation method. The results predict that the singlet excimer and the dimer cation are stable primarily because of the large magnitude of the exciton-resonance and charge-resonance terms, respectively, while the neutral dimer, the triplet excimer, and the dimer anion are weakly stable. The variations of the various energy terms with conformations suggest that these dimeric species cannot have identifical structure.

Quinone Studies—II : Reduction potentials of some 3-substituted phenanthrene quinones

Polarographic reduction potentials of seven 3-substituted phenanthrenequinones have been determined in aqueous dioxan and aqueous ethanol under different pH conditions. The substituent effects on the reduction potentials could be correlated with the Hammett σ- constants (correlation coefficients> 0·995). The possibility of using reduction potentials as an accurate measure of resonance energy has been pointed out.

Chemical potentials of oxygen for fayalite-quartz-lron and fayalite-quartz-magnetite equilibria

The oxygen potentials corresponding to fayalite-quartz-iron (FQI) and fayalite-quartz-magnetite (FQM) equilibria have been determined using solid-state galvanic cells: Pt,Fe + Fe2SiO4 + SiO2/(Y2O3)ZrO2/Fe + \r"FeO,\l"Pt and Pt, Fe3O4 + Fe2SiO4 + SiO2/(Y2O3)ZrO2/Ni + NiO, Pt in the temperature ranges 900 to 1400 K and 1080 to 1340 K, respectively. The cells are written such that the right-hand electrodes are positive. Silica used in this study had the quartz structure. The emf of both cells was found to be reversible and to vary linearly with temperature. From the emf, Gibbs energy changes were deduced for the reactions: 0.106Fe (s) + 2Fe0.947O (r.s.) + SiO2 (qz) → Fe2SiO4 (ol) δG‡= -39,140+ 15.59T(± 150) J mol-1 and 3Fe2SiO4 (ol) + O2 (g) → 2Fe3O4 (sp) + 3SiO2 (qz) δG‡ = -471,750 + 160.06 T±} 1100) J mol-1 The “third-law≓ analysis of fayalite-quartz-wustite and fayalite-quartz-magnetite equilibria gives value for δH‡298 as -35.22 (±0.1) and -528.10 (±0.1) kJ mol-1, respectively, independent of temperature. The Gibbs energy of formation of the spinel form of Fe2SiO4 is derived by com-bining the present results on FQI equilibrium with the high-pressure data on olivine to spinel transformation of Fe2SiO4.

Bond length distortions associated with torsion potentials; ab-initio studies on methanedio

The 4-31G basis set is used to study the bond length variations as functions of dihedral angels in methanediol. This study is compared with O---C---O bond angle optimization studies by Gorenstein and Kar and the possible reason for bond length shorteing in the trans---trans configuration is analysed.

Nonadiabatic charge pumping by oscillating potentials in one dimension: Results for infinite system and finite ring

We study charge pumping when a combination of static potentials and potentials oscillating with a time period T is applied in a one-dimensional system of noninteracting electrons. We consider both an infinite system using the Dirac equation in the continuum approximation and a periodic ring with a finite number of sites using the tight-binding model. The infinite system is taken to be coupled to reservoirs on the two sides which are at the same chemical potential and temperature. We consider a model in which oscillating potentials help the electrons to access a transmission resonance produced by the static potentials and show that nonadiabatic pumping violates the simple sin phi rule which is obeyed by adiabatic two-site pumping. For the ring, we do not introduce any reservoirs, and we present a method for calculating the current averaged over an infinite time using the time evolution operator U(T) assuming a purely Hamiltonian evolution. We analytically show that the averaged current is zero if the Hamiltonian is real and time-reversal invariant. Numerical studies indicate another interesting result, namely, that the integrated current is zero for any time dependence of the potential if it is applied to only one site. Finally we study the effects of pumping at two sites on a ring at resonant and nonresonant frequencies, and show that the pumped current has different dependences on the pumping amplitude in the two cases.

Predicting the Timing of Spikes Evoked by Tactile Stimulation of the Hand

Kim SS, Sripati AP, Bensmaia SJ. Predicting the timing of spikes evoked by tactile stimulation of the hand. J Neurophysiol 104: 1484-1496, 2010. First published July 7, 2010; doi: 10.1152/jn.00187.2010. What does the hand tell the brain? Tactile stimulation of the hand evokes remarkably precise patterns of neural activity, suggesting that the timing of individual spikes may convey information. However, many aspects of the transformation of mechanical deformations of the skin into spike trains remain unknown. Here we describe an integrate-and-fire model that accurately predicts the timing of individual spikes evoked by arbitrary mechanical vibrations in three types of mechanoreceptive afferent fibers that innervate the hand. The model accounts for most known properties of the three fiber types, including rectification, frequency-sensitivity, and patterns of spike entrainment as a function of stimulus frequency. These results not only shed light on the mechanisms of mechanotransduction but can be used to provide realistic tactile feedback in upper-limb neuroprostheses.