Linguistics and Information Theory: Analytic advantages

The analytic advantages of central concepts from linguistics and information theory, and the analogies demonstrated between them, for understanding patterns of retrieval from full-text indexes to documents are developed. The interaction between the syntagm and the paradigm in computational operations on written language in indexing, searching, and retrieval is used to account for transformations of the signified or meaning between documents and their representation and between queries and documents retrieved. Characteristics of the message, and messages for selection for written language, are brought to explain the relative frequency of occurrence of words and multiple word sequences in documents. The examples given in the companion article are revisited and a fuller example introduced. The signified of the sequence stood for, the term classically used in the definitions of the sign, as something standing for something else, can itself change rapidly according to its syntagm. A greater than ordinary discourse understanding of patterns in retrieval is obtained.

Emotion Recognition in Human-Computer Interaction

The authors are concerned with the development of computer systems that are capable of using information from faces and voices to recognise people's emotions in real-life situations. The paper addresses the nature of the challenges that lie ahead, and provides an assessment of the progress that has been made in the areas of signal processing and analysis techniques (with regard to speech and face), and the psychological and linguistic analyses of emotion. Ongoing developmental work by the authors in each of these areas is described.

Entanglement between two superconducting qubits via interaction with nonclassical radiation

We propose a scheme to physically interface superconducting nanocircuits and quantum optics. We address the transfer of quantum information between systems having different physical natures and defined in Hilbert spaces of different dimensions. In particular, we investigate the transfer of the entanglement initially in a nonclassical state of an infinite dimensional system to a pair of superconducting charge qubits. This setup is able to drive an initially separable state of the qubits into an almost pure, highly entangled state suitable for quantum information processing.

Dynamical entanglement transfer for quantum-information networks

A key element in the architecture of a quantum-information processing network is a reliable physical interface between fields and qubits. We study a process of entanglement transfer engineering, where two remote qubits respectively interact with an entangled two-mode continuous-variable (CV) field. We quantify the entanglement induced in the qubit state at the expenses of the loss of entanglement in the CV system. We discuss the range of mixed entangled states which can be obtained with this setup. Furthermore, we suggest a protocol to determine the residual entangling power of the light fields inferring, thus, the entanglement left in the field modes which, after the interaction, are no longer in a Gaussian state. Two different setups are proposed: a cavity-QED system and an interface between superconducting qubits and field modes. We address in detail the practical difficulties inherent in these two proposals, showing that the latter is promising in many aspects.

Cross-Kerr-based information transfer processes

The realization of nonclassical states is an important task for many applications of quantum information processing. Usually, properly tailored interactions, different from goal to goal, are considered in order to accomplish specific tasks within the general framework of quantum state engineering. In this paper, we remark on the flexibility of a cross-Kerr nonlinear coupling in hybrid systems as an important ingredient in the engineering of nonclassical states. The general scenario we consider is the implementation of high cross-Kerr nonlinearity in cavity-quantum electrodynamics. In this context, we discuss the possibility of performing entanglement transfer and swapping between matter qubits and light fields initially prepared in separable coherent states. The recently introduced concept of entanglement reciprocation is also considered and shown to be possible with our scheme. We reinterpret some of our results in terms of applications of a generalized Ising interaction to systems of different nature.

Making the law accessible to non-lawyers: effects of different kinds of expertise on perceived usability of online legal information services

To help design an environment in which professionals without legal training can make effective use of public sector legal information on planning and the environment - for Add-Wijzer, a European e-government project - we evaluated their perceptions of usefulness and usability. In concurrent think-aloud usability tests, lawyers and non-lawyers carried out information retrieval tasks on a range of online legal databases. We found that non-lawyers reported twice as many difficulties as those with legal training (p = 0.001), that the number of difficulties and the choice of database affected successful completion, and that the non-lawyers had surprisingly few problems understanding legal terminology. Instead, they had more problems understanding the syntactical structure of legal documents and collections. The results support the constraint attunement hypothesis (CAH) of the effects of expertise on information retrieval, with implications for the design of systems to support the effective understanding and use of information.

Liquid monomer-powder particle interaction in acrylic bone cement

It is known that the method used to mix the liquid monomer and powder of PMMA bone cement influences the quality of the cement that is used in total joint replacements. Mixing theory indicates that the interaction between the liquid monomer and the powder is affected by a number of parameters, such as cement viscosity and degree of agitation, with this knowledge utilized in the design of cement mixing devices. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: (i) obtain information on the interaction of the liquid monomer and the powder in the case of an PMMA bone cement, (ii) show how this knowledge can be applied to the design of an automated cement mixing device, and (iii) compare the porosity, bending modulus, and bending strength of one commercially-available cement prepared using the automated mixer and prepared using a conventional mixer that is in current clinical use. Experimental data indicated that increasing the velocity and decreasing the viscosity of the systems produced cement that improved mechanical properties, which may contribute to better mechanical integrity and, hence, reduced tendency for aseptic loosening, of cemented hip implants.

The schistosome excretory system: a key to regulation of metabolism, drug excretion and host interaction

There is a gulf between the enormous information content of the various genome projects and the understanding of the life of the parasite in the host. In vitro studies with adult Schistosoma mansoni using several substrates suggest that the excretory system contains both P-glycoproteins and multiresistance proteins. If both these families of protein were active in vivo, they could regulate parasite metabolism and be responsible for the excretion of drugs. During skin penetration, membrane-impermeant molecules of a wide range of molecular weights can be taken into the cercaria and schistosomulum through the nephridiopore, through the surface membrane or through both. We speculate that this uptake process might stimulate novel signalling pathways involved in growth and development.

Prospective information for pass decisional behaviour in Rugby Union

Decision-making requires the perception of relevant information variables that emerge from the player–environment interaction. The purpose of the present article is to empirically assess whether players’ decisional behavior about which type of pass to make is influenced by the spatio-temporal variable tau. Time series positional data of rugby players were analyzed from video footage taken in real match scenarios. The tau of the distance motion gap between attacker and defender was calculated, along with the duration of the next pass. Results revealed that the initial tau value predicted 64% of the variance found in pass duration. A qualitative distinction of tau dynamics between two periods of the approach between the attacker and the defender was also observed. We argue that the time-to-contact between the attacker and the defender may yield information about future pass possibilities. Additionally, the informational fields constraining attacker–defender interaction may be viewed as a convergent channeling of possibilities towards a single pass solution.

Multimodal Biometric Human Recognition for Perceptual Human-Computer Interaction

In this paper, a novel video-based multimodal biometric verification scheme using the subspace-based low-level feature fusion of face and speech is developed for specific speaker recognition for perceptual human--computer interaction (HCI). In the proposed scheme, human face is tracked and face pose is estimated to weight the detected facelike regions in successive frames, where ill-posed faces and false-positive detections are assigned with lower credit to enhance the accuracy. In the audio modality, mel-frequency cepstral coefficients are extracted for voice-based biometric verification. In the fusion step, features from both modalities are projected into nonlinear Laplacian Eigenmap subspace for multimodal speaker recognition and combined at low level. The proposed approach is tested on the video database of ten human subjects, and the results show that the proposed scheme can attain better accuracy in comparison with the conventional multimodal fusion using latent semantic analysis as well as the single-modality verifications. The experiment on MATLAB shows the potential of the proposed scheme to attain the real-time performance for perceptual HCI applications.

How trophic interaction strength depends on traits

A key problem in community ecology is to understand how individual-level traits give rise to population-level trophic interactions. Here, we propose a synthetic framework based on ecological considerations to address this question systematically. We derive a general functional form for the dependence of trophic interaction coefficients on trophically relevant quantitative traits of consumers and resources. The derived expression encompasses-and thus allows a unified comparison of-several functional forms previously proposed in the literature. Furthermore, we show how a community's, potentially low-dimensional, effective trophic niche space is related to its higher-dimensional phenotypic trait space. In this manner, we give ecological meaning to the notion of the "dimensionality of trophic niche space." Our framework implies a method for directly measuring this dimensionality. We suggest a procedure for estimating the relevant parameters from empirical data and for verifying that such data matches the assumptions underlying our derivation. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.


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A calcium-dependent interaction between calmodulin and the calponin homology domain of human IQGAP1

IQGAPs are cytoskeletal scaffolding proteins which collect information from a variety of signalling pathways and pass it on to the microfilaments and microtubules. There is a well-characterised interaction between IQGAP and calmodulin through a series of IQ-motifs towards the middle of the primary sequence. However, it has been shown previously that the calponin homology domain (CHD), located at the N-terminus of the protein, can also interact weakly with calmodulin. Using a recombinant fragment of human IQGAP1 which encompasses the CHD, we have demonstrated that the CHD undergoes a calcium ion-dependent interaction with calmodulin. The CHD can also displace the hydrophobic fluorescent probe 1-anilinonaphthalene-8-sulphonate from calcium-calmodulin, suggesting that the interaction involves non-polar residues on the surface of calmodulin. Molecular modelling identified a possible site on the CHD for calmodulin interaction. The physiological significance of this interaction remains to be discovered.

How position, velocity, and temporal information combine in the prospective control of catching:data and model

The cerebral cortex contains circuitry for continuously computing properties of the environment and one's body, as well as relations among those properties. The success of complex perceptuomotor performances requires integrated, simultaneous use of such relational information. Ball catching is a good example as it involves reaching and grasping of visually pursued objects that move relative to the catcher. Although integrated neural control of catching has received sparse attention in the neuroscience literature, behavioral observations have led to the identification of control principles that may be embodied in the involved neural circuits. Here, we report a catching experiment that refines those principles via a novel manipulation. Visual field motion was used to perturb velocity information about balls traveling on various trajectories relative to a seated catcher, with various initial hand positions. The experiment produced evidence for a continuous, prospective catching strategy, in which hand movements are planned based on gaze-centered ball velocity and ball position information. Such a strategy was implemented in a new neural model, which suggests how position, velocity, and temporal information streams combine to shape catching movements. The model accurately reproduces the main and interaction effects found in the behavioral experiment and provides an interpretation of recently observed target motion-related activity in the motor cortex during interceptive reaching by monkeys. It functionally interprets a broad range of neurobiological and behavioral data, and thus contributes to a unified theory of the neural control of reaching to stationary and moving targets.

Label-free Analysis of Conformational Dynamics and Molecular Interaction of Biomolecules by Vis-NIR Metasensor

Analysis of binding recognition and conformation of biomolecules is of paramount important in understanding of their vital functions in complex biological systems. By enabling sub-wavelength light localization and strong local field enhancement, plasmonic biosensors have become dominant tools used for such analysis owing to their label-free and real-time attributes1,2. However, the plasmonic biosensors are not well-suited to provide information regarding conformation or chemical fingerprint of biomolecules. Here, we show that plasmonic metamaterials, consisting of periodic arrays of artificial split-ring resonators (SRRs)3, can enable capabilities of both sensing and fingerprinting of biomolecules. We demonstrate that by engineering geometry of individual SRRs, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) frequency of the metamaterials could be tuned to visible-near infrared regimes (Vis-NIR) such that they possess high local field enhancement for surface-enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy (SERS). This will provide the basis for the development of a dual mode label-free conformational-resolving and quantitative detection platform. We present here the ability of each sensing mode to independently detect binding adsorption and to identify different conformational states of Guanine (G)-rich DNA monolayers in different environment milieu. Also shown is the use of the nanosensor for fingerprinting and detection of Arginine-Glycine-Glycine (RGG) peptide binding to the G-quadruplex aptamer. The dual-mode nanosensor will significantly contribute to unraveling the complexes of the conformational dynamics of biomolecules as well as to improving specificity of biodetection assays that the conventional, population-averaged plasmonic biosensors cannot achieve.

Interfacing cellular networks of S. cerevisiae and E. coli: Connecting dynamic and genetic information

Background: In recent years, various types of cellular networks have penetrated biology and are nowadays used omnipresently for studying eukaryote and prokaryote organisms. Still, the relation and the biological overlap among phenomenological and inferential gene networks, e.g., between the protein interaction network and the gene regulatory network inferred from large-scale transcriptomic data, is largely unexplored.

Results: We provide in this study an in-depth analysis of the structural, functional and chromosomal relationship between a protein-protein network, a transcriptional regulatory network and an inferred gene regulatory network, for S. cerevisiae and E. coli. Further, we study global and local aspects of these networks and their biological information overlap by comparing, e.g., the functional co-occurrence of Gene Ontology terms by exploiting the available interaction structure among the genes.

Conclusions: Although the individual networks represent different levels of cellular interactions with global structural and functional dissimilarities, we observe crucial functions of their network interfaces for the assembly of protein complexes, proteolysis, transcription, translation, metabolic and regulatory interactions. Overall, our results shed light on the integrability of these networks and their interfacing biological processes.