Applied Mathematics Laboratory, CIMS & Center for Neural Science

Louis Tao E-mail: tao@cims.nyu.edu Address: 251 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012 Telephone: (212) 998-3303 (voice), 995-4121 (fax)

NeuroThursday Schedule My Research Interests: Mathematical models of the visual cortex Nonlinear instabilities of shear flows Formation and dynamics of coherent structures Radiative fluid dynamics Magnetohydrodynamics of the Sun Transport in random media Multifluid and surface tension-driven flows Fractal analysis and chaotic dynamical systems

Recently I have started my new life as a computational neuroscientist at CIMS. At the present, I am collaborating with Michael Shelley, Dave McLaughlin, Bob Shapley and David Cai, on a mathematical model of the visual cortex. The existing model already makes some interesting predictions about orientation tuning in V1, offers an explanation of the so-called Simple Cells, and suggests a particular statistical operating point for the visual cortex during visual stimulus. In particular, large inhibitory conductances are seen to play a major role in the large-scale network dynamics of V1. I am currently trying to develop fast numerical methods to take advantage of this over-damping. At the same time, I am developing efficient numerics to find solutions of a set of mean-field equation (a coarse-grained description of the dynamics, derived by Shelley & McLaughlin).

My CV (PS, PDF), Publications and Resume (Postscript, Word Document, PDF)

Background:

Recent Publications & Pre-prints:

• `` An Egalitarian Network Model for the Emergence of Simple and Complex Cells in Visual Cortex ,'' Louis Tao, Michael J. Shelley, David W. McLaughlin & Robert M. Shapley
• `` Bistability and Tunable Gating in a Recurrent Neuronal Network with Synaptic Failure and Hidden Neurons ,'' Louis Tao, David Cai & Michael J. Shelley
• `` Efficient and Accurate Time-Stepping Schemes for Integrate-and-Fire Neural Networks,'' Michael J. Shelley & Louis Tao, J. Comput. Neurosci. 11 111-119 (2001).

Other Publications:

• `` Resonant Vibrational Instabilities in Magnetized Stellar Atmospheres'' Aaron C. Birch, Alexander G. Kosovichev, Edward A. Spiegel & Louis Tao, accepted for publication in Solar Physics
• `` A Central Engine for Cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst Sources,'' M.A. Ruderman, L. Tao & W. Kluzniak ApJ542 243 (2000)
• `` Domain Growth in Ternary Fluids: A Level Set Approach,'' K.A. Smith, F.J. Solis, L. Tao, K. Thornton, and M. Olvera de la Cruz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 91 (2000) (may be downloaded as PDF file)
• `` Photofluid instabilities of hot stellar atmospheres,'' Edward A. Spiegel and Louis Tao, Phys. Rep. 311 163 (1999)
• `` Stellar oscillons,'' O. Matt Umurhan, Louis Tao, and Edward A. Spiegel, Ann. NY Acad. Sci. as part of the Proceedings of the Florida Workshop 867 298 (1999) (Figure 1, Figure 2)
• `` Flux expulsion by inhomogeneous turbulence,'' L. Tao, M.R.E. Proctor, and N.O. Weiss Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc 300 907-914 (1998) (also available as PDF)
• `` Flux separation in stellar magnetoconvection,'' L. Tao, N.O. Weiss, D.P. Brownjohn, and M.R.E. Proctor Astrophys. J. Lett. 496 39-42 (1998) also available as PDF)
• `` The lacunarity of random fractals,'' Francisco J. Solis and Louis Tao, Physics Letters A 228, 351-356 (1997)
• `` Fluctuations in quasi-two-dimensional fast dynamos,'' F. Cattaneo, E.-J. Kim, M. Proctor, and L. Tao, Physical Review Letters 75, 1522-1525 (1995)
• `` On the suppression of thermal conduction by magnetic fields,'' PhD Thesis, the University of Chicago, Department of Physics, 1995.
• `` On the suppression of thermal conduction by magnetic fields,'' (PDF) Louis Tao, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 275, 965-975 (1995)
• `` On the spatial distribution of magnetic fields on the solar surface,'' Louis Tao, Yunson Du, Robert Rosner, and Fausto Cattaneo, Astrophysical Journal 443, 434-443 (1995)
• `` Evidence for the suppression of the alpha-effect by weak magnetic fields,'' Louis Tao, Fausto Cattaneo, and Samuel I. Vainshtein, in Solar and Planetary Dynamos, eds. M.R.E. Proctor, P.C. Matthews, and A.M.Rucklidge, Cambridge University Press (1993)
• `` Turbulent magnetic transport effects and their relation to magnetic field intermittency,'' Samuel I. Vainshtein, Louis Tao, Fausto Cattaneo, and Robert Rosner, in Solar and Planetary Dynamos, eds. M.R.E. Proctor, P.C. Matthews, and A.M.Rucklidge, Cambridge University Press (1993)

Personal:

``Cupcakes''

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Last updated: Monday, 3 February 2003.