French Doctoral Thesis available: neural information processing in retina

[William Beaudot]

Hi,

Sorry, but this announce mainly concerns French readers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following FRENCH Doctoral Thesis is available by FTP from the TIRFLab
ftp-server (Grenoble, France) and via WWW from my homepage.

FTP-host: 	tirf.inpg.fr
FTP-file: 	/pub/beaudot/MYTHESIS/*.ps.Z

WWW-link:   	ftp://tirf.inpg.fr/pub/HTML/beaudot/thesis.html

(8.6 Mo compressed, 30 Mo uncompressed, 249 pages,
 splited into 11 compressed files,
 one compressed postscript file per chapter) 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE NEURAL INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE VERTEBRATE RETINA:

	A Melting Pot of Ideas for Artificial Vision


 KEYWORDS :	biological neural networks, retina
		motion detection, directional selectivity
		visual adaptation, signal processing
		spatiotemporal processing, silicon retina


 English Abstract:

   The retina is the first neural structure involved in visual perception.
 Researchers in Artificial Vision often see in it only a hard-wired circuit
 scarcely more sophisticated than a video-camera, and dedicated to the
 scanning of images and to the extraction of features leading to a simple
 computation of Laplacian or temporal derivative.

   In this thesis, we argue that it makes a lot of more, in particularly from
 a dynamical point of view, aspect often neglected in  Artificial Vision.
 From a neurobiological inspiration, we show that the retina achieves a
 spatiotemporal processing really suited to the regularization of visual data,
 that it extracts a reliable and relevant spatiotemporal information, that it
 performs a rough motion analysis composed of a motion detection and a
 directional selectivity, and that it finally presents an elaborate mechanism
 for the control of sensitivity.

   This work emphasizes the fact once more that the solutions implemented by
 nature are both simple and efficient (by a rather good trade-off between
 complexity and performance), and that they should inspire the designers of
 artificial visual systems. It also follows from this work two basic
 consequences: a better understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in
 early vision and a theoretical framework for the synthesis and analysis of
 neuromorphic systems straight implementable into silicon.


 French Abstract:

 LE TRAITEMENT NEURONAL DE L'INFORMATION DANS LA RETINE DES VERTEBRES :

		Un creuset d'idees pour la vision artificielle.

   La retine est la toute premiere structure neuronale impliquee dans la
 perception visuelle. Les chercheurs en Vision Artificielle n'y voient bien
 souvent qu'un circuit cable a peine plus sophistique qu'une camera, dediee
 a l'acquisition de l'image et a l'extraction de primitives se ramenant a un
 simple calcul de laplacien et de derivee temporelle.

   Dans cette these, nous soutenons qu'elle realise bien plus, en particulier
 d' un point de vue dynamique, aspect encore souvent neglige en Vision Arti-
 -ficielle. En nous appuyant sur des donnees neurobiologiques, nous montrons
 qu'elle effectue un traitement spatio-temporel bien adapte a la regularisation
 de l'information visuelle, qu'elle extrait une information spatio-temporelle
 fiable et pertinente, qu'elle effectue une analyse rudimentaire du mouvement
 composee d'une detection et d'une selectivite directionnelle, et enfin qu'elle
 presente un mecanisme de controle de la sensibilite tout a fait remarquable.

   Ce travail souligne encore une fois le fait que les solutions mises en
 oeuvre par la nature sont a la fois simples et efficaces (par un bon compromis
 entre la complexite et la performance), lesquelles devraient inspirer les
 concepteurs de systemes en Vision Artificielle. De ce travail decoulent aussi
 deux corollaires fondamentaux : une meilleure comprehension des mecanismes
 neuronaux impliques dans la vision precoce et un cadre theorique pour la
 synthese et l'analyse de systemes neuromorphiques directement implantables
 sur silicium.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FTP INSTRUCTIONS:

unix> ftp tirf.inpg.fr (or 192.70.29.33)
    Name: anonymous
    Password: <your e-mail address>
    ftp> cd pub/beaudot/MYTHESIS
    ftp> binary
    ftp> mget *.ps.Z
    ftp> quit
unix> uncompress *.ps.Z

Be careful : Compressed files require 8.6 Mo 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to contact me if you have any problem.

--
 Dr. William H.A. BEAUDOT          E-mail:  beaudot at design.csemne.ch    
 C.S.E.M. IC & Systems             Dept.:   Bio-Inspired Advanced Research
 Maladire 71, Case postale 41	   Phone:   (41) 38 205 251
 CH-2007 Neuchtel (Switzerland)   Fax:     (41) 38 205 770