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Individual Clusters (individual + cluster)
Selected AbstractsIllustrative White Matter Fiber BundlesCOMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2010Ron Otten Abstract Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) has made feasible the visualization of the fibrous structure of the brain white matter. In the last decades, several fiber-tracking methods have been developed to reconstruct the fiber tracts from DTI data. Usually these fiber tracts are shown individually based on some selection criteria like region of interest. However, if the white matter as a whole is being visualized clutter is generated by directly rendering the individual fiber tracts. Often users are actually interested in fiber bundles, anatomically meaningful entities that abstract from the fibers they contain. Several clustering techniques have been developed that try to group the fiber tracts in fiber bundles. However, even if clustering succeeds, the complex nature of white matter still makes it difficult to investigate. In this paper, we propose the use of illustration techniques to ease the exploration of white matter clusters. We create a technique to visualize an individual cluster as a whole. The amount of fibers visualized for the cluster is reduced to just a few hint lines, and silhouette and contours are used to improve the definition of the cluster borders. Multiple clusters can be easily visualized by a combination of the single cluster visualizations. Focus+context concepts are used to extend the multiple-cluster renderings. Exploded views ease the exploration of the focus cluster while keeping the context clusters in an abstract form. Real-time results are achieved by the GPU implementation of the presented techniques. [source] Synchronization patterns in spaghetti-like nanoclustersINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, Issue 15 2008Acep Purqon Abstract Spaghetti-like nanoclusters concern disordered shapes and irregular shape fluctuations in few correlated biological lipids. We evaluate the shape fluctuations by introducing Symmetry- S as a physical parameter for measuring symmetry degrees and detecting shape transitions. From numerical simulation of few correlated lipids of POPC and POPE at 300 K and 340 K by using molecular dynamics, we investigate the symmetry dynamics for each individual cluster by analyzing both spatiotemporal and frequency. From spatiotemporal analysis, we find several jump motions in S -dynamics and non-Gaussian distributions in S -distribution. Interestingly, the jump motions likely contribute on the existence of transitions in the non-Gaussian distributions. Additionally, even number of lipids show more symmetric than the odd number of lipids and the symmetry distributions shift at higher temperature, while, from three dimension of actual position of symmetry dynamics, they are not easy to configure high symmetry as well as showing certain patterns. From power spectra density analysis, each individual cluster shows nearly random fluctuation. Besides individual clusters, we also investigate mutual clusters. Surprisingly, although individual clusters show fluctuations randomly, mutual clusters show certain direction correlations. Moreover, they show certain patterns in delayed time analysis such as mutual fluctuations periodically occur for same number of lipids. It indicates that an existence of synchronization patterns occur in shape fluctuations of spaghetti-like nanoclusters. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2008 [source] Quantitative effects produced by modifications of neuronal activity on the size of GABAA receptor clusters in hippocampal slice culturesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 2 2004Serge Marty Abstract The number and strength of GABAergic synapses needs to be precisely adjusted for adequate control of excitatory activity. We investigated to what extent the size of GABAA receptor clusters at inhibitory synapses is under the regulation of neuronal activity. Slices from P7 rat hippocampus were cultured for 13 days in the presence of bicuculline or 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) to increase neuronal activity, or DNQX to decrease activity. The changes provoked by these treatments on clusters immunoreactive for the ,1 and ,2 subunits of the GABAA receptor or gephyrin were quantitatively evaluated. While an increase in activity augmented the density of these clusters, a decrease in activity provoked, in contrast, a decrease in their density. An inverse regulation was observed for the size of individual clusters. Bicuculline and 4-AP decreased whilst DNQX increased the mean size of the clusters. When the pharmacological treatments were applied for 2 days instead of 2 weeks, no effects on the size of the clusters were observed. The variations in the mean size of individual clusters were mainly due to changes in the number of small clusters. Finally, a regulation of the size of GABAA receptor clusters occurred during development in vivo, with a decrease of the mean size of the clusters between P7 and P21. This physiological change was also the result of an increase in the number of small clusters. These results indicate that neuronal activity regulates the mean size of GABAA receptor- and gephyrin-immunoreactive clusters by modifying specifically the number of synapses with small clusters of receptors. [source] Detecting functional nodes in large-scale cortical networks with functional magnetic resonance imaging: A principal component analysis of the human visual systemHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 9 2007Christine Ecker Abstract This study aimed to demonstrate how a regional variant of principal component analysis (PCA) can be used to delineate the known functional subdivisions of the human visual system. Unlike conventional eigenimage analysis, PCA was carried out as a second-level analysis subsequent to model-based General Linear Model (GLM)-type functional activation mapping. Functional homogeneity of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time series within and between clusters was examined on several levels of the visual network, starting from the level of individual clusters up to the network level comprising two or more distinct visual regions. On each level, the number of significant components was identified and compared with the number of clusters in the data set. Eigenimages were used to examine the regional distribution of the extracted components. It was shown that voxels within individual clusters and voxels located in bilateral homologue visual regions can be represented by a single component, constituting the characteristic functional specialization of the cluster(s). If, however, PCA was applied to time series of voxels located in functionally distinct visual regions, more than one component was observed with each component being dominated by voxels in one of the investigated regions. The model of functional connections derived by PCA was in accordance with the well-known functional anatomy and anatomical connectivity of the visual system. PCA in combination with conventional activation mapping might therefore be used to identify the number of functionally distinct nodes in an fMRI data set in order to generate a model of functional connectivity within a neuroanatomical network. Hum Brain Mapp, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Synchronization patterns in spaghetti-like nanoclustersINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, Issue 15 2008Acep Purqon Abstract Spaghetti-like nanoclusters concern disordered shapes and irregular shape fluctuations in few correlated biological lipids. We evaluate the shape fluctuations by introducing Symmetry- S as a physical parameter for measuring symmetry degrees and detecting shape transitions. From numerical simulation of few correlated lipids of POPC and POPE at 300 K and 340 K by using molecular dynamics, we investigate the symmetry dynamics for each individual cluster by analyzing both spatiotemporal and frequency. From spatiotemporal analysis, we find several jump motions in S -dynamics and non-Gaussian distributions in S -distribution. Interestingly, the jump motions likely contribute on the existence of transitions in the non-Gaussian distributions. Additionally, even number of lipids show more symmetric than the odd number of lipids and the symmetry distributions shift at higher temperature, while, from three dimension of actual position of symmetry dynamics, they are not easy to configure high symmetry as well as showing certain patterns. From power spectra density analysis, each individual cluster shows nearly random fluctuation. Besides individual clusters, we also investigate mutual clusters. Surprisingly, although individual clusters show fluctuations randomly, mutual clusters show certain direction correlations. Moreover, they show certain patterns in delayed time analysis such as mutual fluctuations periodically occur for same number of lipids. It indicates that an existence of synchronization patterns occur in shape fluctuations of spaghetti-like nanoclusters. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2008 [source] Three-dimensional fine-scale genetic structure of the neotropical epiphytic orchid, Laelia rubescensMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2004Dorset W. Trapnell Abstract Epiphytic plants occupy three-dimensional space, which allows more individuals to be closely clustered spatially than is possible for populations occupying two dimensions. The unique characteristics of epiphytes can act in concert to influence the fine-scale genetic structure of their populations which can, in turn, influence mating patterns and other population phenomena. Three large populations of Laelia rubescens (Orchidaceae) in the Costa Rican seasonal dry forest were sampled at two levels of intensity to determine: (i) whether individual clusters contain more than one genotype, and (ii) the spatial distribution and fine-scale genetic structure of genotypes within populations. Samples were assayed for their multilocus allozyme genotypes and spatial autocorrelation analyses were performed. High levels of genetic diversity, high genotypic diversity and low among-population variation were found. In the larger clusters, multiple genets per cluster were common with discrete clusters containing up to nine genotypes. Spatial autocorrelation analyses indicated significant positive genetic structure at distances of , 45 cm. This result is likely due to the formation of discrete clusters by vegetative reproduction, as well as the establishment of sexually derived progeny within and near maternal clusters. [source] The estimation of the Sunyaev,Zel'dovich effects with unbiased multifiltersMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2005D. Herranz ABSTRACT In this work we study the performance of linear multifilters for the estimation of the amplitudes of the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev,Zel'dovich (SZ) effects. We show that when both effects are present, estimation of these effects with standard matched multifilters is intrinsically biased. This bias is due to the fact that both signals have basically the same spatial profile. We find a new family of multifilters related to the matched multifilters that cancel this systematic bias, hence we call them unbiased matched multifilters. We test the unbiased matched multifilters and compare them with the standard matched multifilters using simulations that reproduce the future Planck mission observations. We find that in the case of the standard matched multifilters the systematic bias in the estimation of the kinematic Sunyaev,Zel'dovich effect can be very large, even greater than the statistical error bars. Unbiased matched multifilters cancel this kind of bias effectively. In concordance with other works in the literature, our results indicate that the sensitivity and resolution of Planck will not be enough to give reliable estimations of the kinematic Sunyaev,Zel'dovich effects of individual clusters. However, as the estimation with the unbiased matched multifilters is not intrinsically biased, it can be possible to use them to study statistically any peculiar cosmological bulk flows via the kinematic SZ effect. [source] | ||||||||||