Finding attractors of continuous-time systems by parameter switching. There are many different interactions in nature and systems could evolve according to more than one dynamics for short periods of time. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that the evolution of some natural processes could be explained by the alternation of different dynamics for relatively short periods of time. RIST's Marius F. Danca has found that if the control parameter p, of a continuous-time nonlinear system belonging to a large class of systems, is switched within a set of chosen values in a deterministic or even random manner, while the underlying model is numerically integrated, the obtained attractor is a numerical approximation of one of the existing attractors of the considered system.
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Graduate student contest: Best PhD thesis project of the year in computational game theory. RIST will award a 1000 euros prize for the best PhD thesis project of the year in computational game theory. Applicants should submit a summary of their thesis by October 15, 2011, and the full-length thesis by November 15, 2011. The awards are sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.
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The brain's timescale correlates to the timescale of visual stimuli. Our researchers have found a way to group the recorded activity of multiple neurons and to measure how quickly they react together to the ever-changing visual world. They have found that the internal timescale of the brain, i.e., the time window needed by neurons to encode a given aspect of the visual stimulus, is tightly correlated to the external timescale of the visual stimulus, i.e., the speed with which the visual image on the retina changes.
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The Coneural – Max Planck Partner Group has been renewed. The partnership between the institute's Center for Cognitive and Neural Studies (Coneural) and the prestigious Max Plank Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, has been extended for another 2 years (2011-2013), after an evaluation of the work performed in the previous 3 years. Peter Gruss, the President of the Max Planck Society (Germany), stated in the renewal letter: “It is with great pleasure that I take this opportunity to inform you of the very successful outcome of the mid-term review of your Partner Group. The review report points out the impressive scientific output of the Partner Group during the first three years since its inception. I congratulate you upon this success”.
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Visualizing how the brain encodes information. The institute's scientists have developed a special visualization technique for how multiple neurons fire spikes together to encode information, by representing the identity of firing patterns of multiple neurons with color sequences.
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