An increasing number of laboratories are studying population properties of the nervous system using data where the spike activity of more than one neuron is recorded on each electrode and where, accidentally or deliberately, these activities are not resolved into single unit spike trains. We have previously examined the consequences for measurement of cross-correlation between two such electrod...

A rapid fluorescence imaging system was developed and utilised to investigate the time-course of intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca]i) gradients generated by action potentials in CA1-CA3 pyramidal cells within brain slices of the rat hippocampus. The system, which is based on a fast commercial CCD camera, can acquire hundreds of 128×128 pixel images in sequence, with minimal inter-frame i...

Numerous physiological conditions as well as behavioral conditions have been shown to influence central nervous system vascular structure. Many of the methods used to investigate these structural alterations take advantage of the visibility of viscous substances (e.g. India ink in gelatin) perfused into the vasculature. The high viscosity of the solution, however, can cause incomplete vessel pe...

Electroneurographic recordings suffer from low signal to noise (S/N) ratios. The S/N ratio can be improved by different signal processing methods including optimal filtering. A method to design two types of optimal filters (Wiener and Matched filters) was developed for use with neurographic signals, and the calculated filters were applied to nerve cuff recordings from the cat S1 spinal root tha...

There is substantial evidence that speakers co-ordinate their contributions in dialogue. Until now, experimental studies of co-ordination have concentrated on the development of shared strategies for reference. We present an experiment that employed a novel confederate-scripting technique to investigate whether speakers also co-ordinate syntactic structure in dialogue. Pairs of speakers took it...

The eye's longitudinal chromatic aberration (LCA) is known to drive `reflex' accommodation to moving objects, but the evidence is not as clear for stationary objects. The present study examined whether accommodation can be driven by static simulations of the effects of defocus and LCA. Accommodation was recorded continuously while each of 12 subjects viewed images (through a 0.75 mm pinhole) th...

Although children's knowledge of the sound patterns of words has been a focus of debate for many years, little is known about the lexical representations very young children use in word recognition. In particular, researchers have questioned the degree of speci®city encoded in early lexical representations. The current study addressed this issue by presenting 18±23month-olds with object labels ...

Ð This paper explores the reasons why recent evaluations of the empowerment potential of credit programs for rural women in Bangladesh have arrived at very con ̄icting conclusions. Although these evaluations use somewhat di€erent methodologies and have been carried out at di€erent points of time, the paper argues that the primary source of the con ̄ict lies in the very di€erent understandings of ...

Time-dependent buckling phenomena of polysilicon micro beams have been demonstrated and reported. These beams are suspended 2 mm above the silicon substrate with dimensions of 100 mm (length) × 2 mm (width) × 2 mm (thickness). When a constant input current is supplied at or above a threshold value, electro-thermally induced buckling occurs. It is observed and recorded that the beams exhibit tim...