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Two rhesus monkeys were implanted with silicon arrays of 96 microelectrodes. Neural activity was recorded periodically over a period of weeks to months. We have developed a method to determine whether single units in two separate recording sessions represent the same neuron. Pairwise cross-correlograms, the autocorrelogram, waveform shape, and mean firing rate were used together as identifying features of a neuron. When two units recorded on separate days were compared using these features, their similarity scores tended to be either high, indicating two recordings from the same neuron, or low, indicating different neurons. Although these metrics are individually weak, together they produce a strong classifier. Some neurons were recorded for 100 days. These monkeys performed a center-out reaching task, and we found that the firing properties of chronically recorded neurons were stable over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Transition edge sensors (TESs) are high-sensitivity thermometers used in cryogenic microcalorimeters which exploit the steep gradient in resistivity with temperature during the superconducting phase transition. Practical TES devices tend to exhibit a white noise of uncertain origin, arising inside the device. We discuss two candidate models for this excess noise, phase slip shot noise (PSSN) and percolation noise. We extend the existing PSSN model to include a magnetic field dependence and derive a basic analytical model for percolation noise. We compare the predicted functional forms of the noise current vs. resistivity curves of both models with experimental data and provide a set of equations for both models to facilitate future experimental efforts to clearly identify the source of excess noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Modern microchannel plate detectors exhibit low quantum efficiency in the extreme ultra violet range compared to those manufactured before 1990. The cause of this reduction in efficiency is unknown. We describe recent investigations into the along-channel surface compositions of a number of microchannel plates (MCPs) of varying efficiency. These compositional profiles, generated using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, provide insight into possible mechanisms underlying the efficiency reduction and may assist in efforts to restore good extreme ultraviolet (EUV) performance to MCPs through modifications to the manufacturing process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A fast imaging electron detector is being developed as part of the Toroidal Energy- and Angle-Resolved Electron Spectrometer (TEARES), a high-resolution electron spectrometer for use on synchrotron sources. The analysed solid angle of TEARES is about 100 times greater than that of a conventional hemispherical analyser of similar radius and entrance slit sizes. A ‘typical’ solid sample at a third-generation synchrotron source would yield count rates in excess of 1 GHz, >103 times the capability of available imaging electron detectors. We describe a prototype detector based on low-resistance microchannel plates and an adaptation of the cartesian two-dimensional CODACON encoder that aims to achieve a relatively modest 2 MHz counting rate with 32 by 128 simultaneous energy and angle channels. The encoder pattern has been optimised for the output electron distribution of TEARES and directly generates a binary address for each event using simple electronics and the minimum number of signal channels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Fast neutron radiography is a non-destructive testing technique with a variety of industrial applications and the capability for element sensitive imaging for contraband and explosives detection.Commonly used position sensitive detectors for fast neutron radiography are based on charge coupled devices (CCDs) and scintillators. The limited format of CCDs implies that complex optical systems involving lenses and mirrors are required to indirectly image areas that are larger than 8.6 cm×11.05 cm. The use of optics reduces the light collection efficiency of the imaging system, while the efficiency of hydrogen rich scintillators exploiting the proton recoil reaction is limited by the hydrogen concentration and the magnitude of the neutron scattering cross-section.The light conversion step inevitably involves a tradeoff in scintillator thickness between light yield and spatial resolution.The development of large area amorphous silicon (a-Si) panel flat panel photodiode arrays and direct neutron-to-charge converters based on microchannel plates, provide an attractive new form of high resolution, large area, fast neutron imaging detector for the non-destructive imaging of large structures. This paper describes some recent results of both Monte Carlo simulations and measurements for such a detector. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Efforts to study the neural correlates of learning are hampered by the size of the network in which learning occurs. To understand the importance of learning-related changes in a network of neurons, it is necessary to understand how the network acts as a whole to generate behavior. Here we introduce a paradigm in which the output of a cortical network can be perturbed directly and the neural basis of the compensatory changes studied in detail. Using a brain-computer interface, dozens of simultaneously recorded neurons in the motor cortex of awake, behaving monkeys are used to control the movement of a cursor in a three-dimensional virtual-reality environment. This device creates a precise, well-defined mapping between the firing of the recorded neurons and an expressed behavior (cursor movement). In a series of experiments, we force the animal to relearn the association between neural firing and cursor movement in a subset of neurons and assess how the network changes to compensate. We find that changes in neural activity reflect not only an alteration of behavioral strategy but also the relative contributions of individual neurons to the population error signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We report on a new optimal filtering algorithm for improved energy and position resolution in position sensitive Transition Edge Sensor (TES) based X-ray detectors. This algorithm takes account of the noise correlation between the detector outputs to minimise the variance on the estimated photon energy and position. Using numerical methods we show that improved energy and position resolution can be obtained than from previously published methods. Our simulations also reveal the trade-offs resulting from changes in the thermal conductances and heat capacities of the detector elements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We describe optimal filtering algorithms for determining energy and position resolution in position-sensitive Transition Edge Sensor (TES) Distributed Read-Out Imaging Devices (DROIDs). Improved algorithms, developed using a small-signal finite-element model, are based on least-squares minimisation of the total noise power in the correlated dual TES DROID. Through numerical simulations we show that significant improvements in energy and position resolution are theoretically possible over existing methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We report on the experimental characterisation and modelling of Transition Edge Sensor (TES)-based Distributed Read-Out Imaging Devices (DROIDs), for use as position-sensitive detectors in X-ray astronomy. Latest experimental results from prototype DROIDs using Ir TESs with Au absorbers are reported. Through modelling and the development of signal processing algorithms we are able to design the DROID for optimum spectral and spatial resolution depending upon application. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We are investigating Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs) for future X-ray Astronomy missions. In this paper, we report the first X-ray results from a one-dimensional imaging spectrometer or Distributed Read-Out Imaging Device (DROID). The DROID consists of two Iridium TESs with transitions temperatures of ∼172 mK, at the ends of a 250 μm by 4.7 mm Gold absorber. The event position can be determined from pulse height and rise/fall time information. Initial results were obtained by reading one end of the DROID only. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract X-ray polarimetry, sometimes alone, and sometimes coupled to spectral and temporal variability measurements and to imaging, allows a wealth of physical phenomena in astrophysics to be studied. X-ray polarimetry investigates the acceleration process, for example, including those typical of magnetic reconnection in solar flares, but also emission in the strong magnetic fields of neutron stars and white dwarfs. It detects scattering in asymmetric structures such as accretion disks and columns, and in the so-called molecular torus and ionization cones. In addition, it allows fundamental physics in regimes of gravity and of magnetic field intensity not accessible to experiments on the Earth to be probed. Finally, models that describe fundamental interactions (e.g. quantum gravity and the extension of the Standard Model) can be tested. We describe in this paper the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer (XIPE), proposed in June 2012 to the first ESA call for a small mission with a launch in 2017. The proposal was, unfortunately, not selected. To be compliant with this schedule, we designed the payload mostly with existing items. The XIPE proposal takes advantage of the completed phase A of POLARIX for an ASI small mission program that was cancelled, but is different in many aspects: the detectors, the presence of a solar flare polarimeter and photometer and the use of a light platform derived by a mass production for a cluster of satellites. XIPE is composed of two out of the three existing JET-X telescopes with two Gas Pixel Detectors (GPD) filled with a He-DME mixture at their focus. Two additional GPDs filled with a 3-bar Ar-DME mixture always face the Sun to detect polarization from solar flares. The Minimum Detectable Polarization of a 1 mCrab source reaches 14 % in the 2–10 keV band in 10 5 s for pointed observations, and 0.6 % for an X10 class solar flare in the 15–35 keV energy band. The imaging capability is 24 arcsec Half Energy Width (HEW) in a Field of View of 14.7 arcmin × 14.7 arcmin. The spectral resolution is 20 % at 6 keV and the time resolution is 8 μs. The imaging capabilities of the JET-X optics and of the GPD have been demonstrated by a recent calibration campaign at PANTER X-ray test facility of the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE, Germany). XIPE takes advantage of a low-earth equatorial orbit with Malindi as down-link station and of a Mission Operation Center (MOC) at INPE (Brazil). The data policy is organized with a Core Program that comprises three months of Science Verification Phase and 25 % of net observing time in the following 2 years. A competitive Guest Observer program covers the remaining 75 % of the net observing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Large Observatory For X-ray Timing (LOFT), currently in an assessment phase in the framework the ESA M3 Cosmic Vision programme, is an innovative medium-class mission specifically designed to answer fundamental questions about the behaviour of matter, in the very strong gravitational and magnetic fields around compact objects and in supranuclear density conditions. Having an effective area of ∼10 m 2 at 8 keV, LOFT will be able to measure with high sensitivity very fast variability in the X-ray fluxes and spectra. A good knowledge of the in-orbit background environment is essential to assess the scientific performance of the mission and optimize the design of its main instrument, the Large Area Detector (LAD). In this paper the results of an extensive Geant-4 simulation of the instrumentwillbe discussed, showing the main contributions to the background and the design solutions for its reduction and control. Our results show that the current LOFT/LAD design is expected to meet its scientific requirement of a background rate equivalent to 10 mCrab in 2‒30 keV, achieving about 5 mCrab in the most important 2–10 keV energy band. Moreover, simulations show an anticipated modulation of the background rate as small as 10 % over the orbital timescale. The intrinsic photonic origin of the largest background component also allows for an efficient modelling, supported by an in-flight active monitoring, allowing to predict systematic residuals significantly better than the requirement of 1 %, and actually meeting the 0.25 % science goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the development of a scintillator-coated charge coupled device (CCD) based camera for imaging small volumes of radionuclide uptake in tissues. The high-resolution gamma imager (HRGI) is a collimated, scintillator-coated, low cost, imager using low noise CCDs. The HRGI operates in photon counting mode using a peltier cooler to achieve an operating temperature of -5° C. We have measured the spatial resolution and efficiency of a prototype CCD from e2v Technologies Ltd coated with a 500-µm-thick Gadox (Gd2O2S(Tb)) layer using 59.5 keV radiation from a 241Am source and 140 keV gamma-rays from a 99 mTc source. We also describe our first images using 99 mTc phantoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]