There is provided a basic association unit for creating an information processing apparatus capable of performing information processing like information processing that actually occurs in central nerve systems of animals including human beings. The association unit is an unit for repeating input and output signals having m input terminals and n output terminals. When a first input signal which is a rectangular wave signal in the form of a pulse is simultaneously input to input terminals in a quantity less than m, an output signal having the same contents as the first input signal is output from particular output terminals which are associated with the input terminals in advance. When a third input signal is input to input terminals in a quantity less than m within a predetermined period of time after a second input signal is simultaneously input to input terminals in a quantity equal to or greater than m, an output signal having the same contents as that of the third input signal is output from all output terminals.

The present invention relates to systems and methods for managing sensors. In preferred embodiments of the invention, a sensor management system determines system information needs, selects one of several measurement functions capable of satisfying the system information needs, and identifies sensors to be used for performing the selected measurement function.

An associative storage includes: a plurality of storage elements having at least one internal signal outputting element for outputting an internal outputting signal toward another storage element and at least one internal signal inputting element for receiving an internal inputting signal outputted form another storage element, a learning signal inputting element for each respective storage element for inputting a learning signal thereto, a recalling signal inputting element for each respective storage element for inputting a recalling signal thereto, an internal state switching element for each respective storage element for turning an internal state of the respective storage element to an ON state when either the learning signal or the recalling signal is inputted thereto and/or the sum of the internal inputting signals exceeds a threshold value while the internal state is kept in an OFF state, wherein the internal state switching element outputs the internal signal towards another storage element when the internal state is turned ON, and an enhancing element for each respective internal signal inputting element for enhancing a signal transmitting efficiency thereof when the internal state of the storage element is turned ON and the internal signal inputting element receives the inputting signal from another storage element.

The e-cell is a computational element for the construction of circuits capable of performing transform invariant pattern recognition, scene segmentation, and regularity extraction in a variety of sensory modes including vision, hearing, olefaction, touch, etc. The e-cell consists of a cell body, an output terminal, and set of tree-connected input regions each of which have one or more input terminals and corresponding stored weights. The e-cell is capable of learning and subsequently discriminating multidimensional (in the mathematical sense) activation patterns applied to its inputs. The strictness with which the e-cell requires the presence in the target of each dimension of a learned pattern is dynamically adjustable, thus making it suitable to recognition of learned patterns under occlusion and various kinds of degradation. The strictness of discrimination across the region dimension is independent of the strictness of recognition within each dimension. The e-cell can also be configured to perform non-memory roles such as contrast enhancement, pattern comparison, signal routing, and event timing. The e-cell pair totem provides a circuit construction module of cortically inspired circuits for transform invariant pattern recognition and scene segmentation in a variety of sensory modes including vision, hearing, olefaction, touch, etc. The e-cell pair totem implements the forward and backward paths, feedback connections and consequent oscillatory dynamics characteristic of e-circuits. The basic totem circuit is specialized to create a basic memory circuit. The basic memory circuit is extended to allow contextual and associative information to influence recognition by the memory stage of the basic memory circuit.

The invention comprises e-circuits built from basic modules of e-cells which are capable of: recognizing a previously memorized percept anywhere within an arbitrarily large input field without incurring delay related to size of the search space; isolating a previously memorized percept within the input field when in the adjacent presence of other percepts and closely related distractors; locating and recognizing all occurrences of a repeated subfield within the input field, even in the presence of closely related distractors; and performing sequential shift attention between a number of different percepts in the input field. The invention is applicable to various recognition tasks including those in sensory domains such as speech and music recognition, vision, olefaction, and touch. The invention also comprises a method to apply these e-circuits specifically to the task of learning and recognizing subjects in images in any two dimensional signal space under translation, and if necessary, scaling, rotation and other transforms.