9417206 Durand Description: This project supports cooperation between Dr. Dominique Durand, Biomedical Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, and Dr. Bassel Tawfik, Biomedical Engineering Department at Cairo University in Egypt. The project deals with a new method for parameter estimation, especially in the environment of biological systems. The method, which utilizes Linear Associative Memories (LAM) has been applied to the estimation of electronic parameters of nerve cells. The initial results indicate that parameter estimates for a neural estimation problems obtained by LAM, always fall within the neighborhood of the "true" solution. The objectives of this project are: to assess the degree of immunity of the LAM methods to the problem of local minima; to develop the method further by first using a recursive algorithm to improve its range; to add non-linear terms to improve the accuracy; and finally to apply this technique to the estimation of neuronal parameters of granule cells in the hippocampus using data collected in Dr. Durand laboratory. Scope: This project will allow a cooperative activity between the two investigators and their respective departments where data collection will be done at CWRU while data analysis will be performed at Cairo University, and where the final examination and evaluation of the results will be the mutual responsibility of the two principal investigators. The project meets the criteria of the Division of International Programs well. ***
