SHF: Small: Collaborative Research: Computing with cells-the neuron case

这项工作将集中在脑细胞的计算模型上，更具体地说，是神经元和它们在大脑中的主要支持细胞——神经胶质。该项目的主要新颖之处在于在这些计算模型中考虑了神经胶质细胞。神经胶质细胞和神经元之间的相互作用至今尚未在领域文献中得到考虑。因此，该项目不仅将着眼于如何从神经元和神经胶质的组织中获得灵感来执行计算，而且还将探索诸如调查与这些设备的顺序性/并行性、同步、数据处理和操作相关的能力等主题，例如考虑不同类型的计算输出编码。已经考虑过的神经系统的其他几个主题，如具有各种限制的网络的普适性/非普适性，正常形式和考虑神经元的不应期，也将在新设备中进行研究。该项目将在时间表的第二年纳入实验部分，届时在项目高级研究员Mark DeCoster博士（生物医学工程教授）的帮助下，第一阶段的工作结果将在实验室进行验证。这项工作有望对几个研究领域以及新兴的细胞计算领域产生重大影响。在计算机科学领域，研究可能会产生新的范式和新的计算技术（就像遗传算法和神经网络的发现一样）。在生物学方面，该项目可能会提供对脑细胞网络组织的深入了解，包括神经元的支持细胞，神经胶质。该项目的主要目标之一是获得更多的知识和洞察非凡的生物系统。细胞，并以系统的方式理解亚细胞过程是如何工作的以及细胞-细胞之间的通信如何对执行分布式计算有用。该项目的算法、源代码和结果将通过该项目的网站免费向公众发布。

The work will focus on models of computing with brain cells, more specifically the neurons and their major support cells in the brain, the glia. The major novelty of the project is the consideration of the glia cells in these models of computation. The interplay between glia and neurons has not been considered in the domain literature until now. Thus the project will not only look at how to perform computation taking inspiration from the organization of the neurons and glia into networks, but also explore topics such as investigating the power related to sequentiality/parallelism of such devices, synchronization, data processing and manipulation such as considering different types of output encoding for the computation. Several other topics considered already for neuronal systems such as universality/non-universality of networks with various restrictions, normal forms and consideration of the refractory period of neurons will also be investigated for the new devices.The project will incorporate an experimental part in the second year of the timeline when with the help of the senior researcher on the project, Dr. Mark DeCoster (professor of Biomedical Engineering) the results of the first phase of the work will be validated in the lab. The work holds promise to significantly impact several research areas as well as the emerging area of computing with cells. In Computer Science, the research may yield new paradigms and new computing techniques (as has happened in the discovery of genetic algorithms and neural networks). In Biology, the project is likely to provide insight into the organization of brain cells networks, including the support cells for neurons, the glia. One of the major objectives of this project is to gain more knowledge and insight into the extraordinary biological systems ? the cells and also to understand in a systemic way how the sub-cellular processes work and how the cell-cell communications can be useful for performing distributed computations. Algorithms, source codes and results of the project will be freely disseminated to the public through the project's website.