Based on measuring responses to rat whiskers as they are mechanically stimulated, one recent study suggests that barrel-related areas in layer 2/3 rat primary somatosensory cortex (S1) contain a pinwheel map of whisker motion directions. Because this map is reminiscent of topographic organization for visual direction in primary visual cortex (V1) of higher mammals, we asked whether the S1 pinwh...

Wind speed and direction are important essential climate variables (ECVs). GNSS-R is an emerging remote sensing technique that can be potentially used to retrieve wind speed from space. However, few studies have addressed the wind direction retrieval from spaceborne GNSS-R observables, namely the Delay Doppler map (DDM). In this study, the feasibility of retrieving wind direction from the synth...

Feedback retargeting combines the benefits of two previous retargeting methods: Bidirectional similarity [1] and Shift-Map [2]. The first method may have blurry areas due to patch averaging and the latter can remove entire objects. Feedback retargeting has the sharpness of shift-map and the completeness of bidirectional similarity, avoiding the removal of salient objects. In Shift-Map retargeti...

Mobile robot localization is a common problem in the robotics community, yet many proposed solutions are hardware dependent, requiring various sensors with prior environment information, or solutions that require continuous feature tracking such as the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework, where prior motion dynamics or accurate odometry is required. However, these localizatio...

Bank of Japan May 2011 The earthquake that struck Japan in March 2011 has reduced the supply capacity of the economy, which works in the direction of tightening the output gap. At the same time, however, if weak household and corporate sentiment lead to a decline in aggregate demand, this will work in the direction of increasing the slack in the economy. Moreover, developments in supply and dem...

We used two-dimensional (2-D) sparse noise to map simultaneous and sequential two-spot interactions in simple and complex direction-selective cells in macaque V1. Sequential-interaction maps for both simple and complex cells showed preferred-direction facilitation and null-direction suppression for same-contrast stimulus sequences and the reverse for inverting-contrast sequences, although the m...

We make a map of interstellar polarization direction around the North Galactic Pole and study the distribution of the revealed magnetic field lines. We study in detail Markkanen’s (1979) cloud and other local features apparent in the polarization map, and compare them with the IRAS 100 micron map. The elongated Markkanen’s cloud (at a distance of 100–200 pc) and its magnetic field lines coincid...

Mammalian navigation is thought to depend on an internal map of space consisting of functionally specialized cells in the hippocampus and the surrounding parahippocampal cortices. Basic properties of this map are present when rat pups explore the world outside of their nest for the first time, around postnatal day 16-18 (P16-P18). One of the first functions to be expressed in navigating animals...

background: the aim of this prospective study was to evaluate the characteristics of patients, treated by acute peritoneal dialysis (pd). we also assessed the indications for pd, pd-associated complications and neonatal outcomes in our patients. methods: during five years, 30 term newborns underwent temporary cycling pd. the procedure was performed by applying the manual technique. a straight a...

This paper presents a navigation method for a mobile robot in urban environments. The navigation method employs a socalled Polar Traversability Index (PTI) to evaluate terrain traversal property along a specific direction and guide the robot’s motion. In the navigation system, a 2-D Laser Rangefinder (LRF) is used to produce terrain maps in various formats, such as 3-D point-cloud map, 2.5 D el...