Mathematical models of avascular cancer

This review will outline a number of illustrative mathematical models describing the growth of avascular tumours. The aim of the review is to provide a relatively comprehensive list of existing models in this area and discuss several representative models in greater detail. In the latter part of the review, some possible future avenues of mathematical modelling of avascular tumour development are outlined together with a list of key questions

Comparison of POD reduced order strategies for the nonlinear 2D Shallow Water Equations

This paper introduces tensorial calculus techniques in the framework of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) to reduce the computational complexity of the reduced nonlinear terms. The resulting method, named tensorial POD, can be applied to polynomial nonlinearities of any degree $p$. Such nonlinear terms have an on-line complexity of $\mathcal{O}(k^{p+1})$, where $k$ is the dimension of POD basis, and therefore is independent of full space dimension. However it is efficient only for quadratic nonlinear terms since for higher nonlinearities standard POD proves to be less time consuming once the POD basis dimension $k$ is increased. Numerical experiments are carried out with a two dimensional shallow water equation (SWE) test problem to compare the performance of tensorial POD, standard POD, and POD/Discrete Empirical Interpolation Method (DEIM). Numerical results show that tensorial POD decreases by $76\times$ times the computational cost of the on-line stage of standard POD for configurations using more than $300,000$ model variables. The tensorial POD SWE model was only $2-8\times$ slower than the POD/DEIM SWE model but the implementation effort is considerably increased. Tensorial calculus was again employed to construct a new algorithm allowing POD/DEIM shallow water equation model to compute its off-line stage faster than the standard and tensorial POD approaches.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, 5 table

On the foundations of cancer modelling: selected topics, speculations, & perspectives

This paper presents a critical review of selected topics related to the modelling of cancer onset, evolution and growth, with the aim of illustrating, to a wide applied mathematical readership, some of the novel mathematical problems in the field. This review attempts to capture, from the appropriate literature, the main issues involved in the modelling of phenomena related to cancer dynamics at all scales which characterise this highly complex system: from the molecular scale up to that of tissue. The last part of the paper discusses the challenge of developing a mathematical biological theory of tumour onset and evolution

A phase-field model for fractures in incompressible solids

Within this work, we develop a phase-field description for simulating fractures in incompressible materials. Standard formulations are subject to volume-locking when the solid is (nearly) incompressible. We propose an approach that builds on a mixed form of the displacement equation with two unknowns: a displacement field and a hydro-static pressure variable. Corresponding function spaces have to be chosen properly. On the discrete level, stable Taylor-Hood elements are employed for the displacement-pressure system. Two additional variables describe the phase-field solution and the crack irreversibility constraint. Therefore, the final system contains four variables: displacements, pressure, phase-field, and a Lagrange multiplier. The resulting discrete system is nonlinear and solved monolithically with a Newton-type method. Our proposed model is demonstrated by means of several numerical studies based on two numerical tests. First, different finite element choices are compared in order to investigate the influence of higher-order elements in the proposed settings. Further, numerical results including spatial mesh refinement studies and variations in Poisson's ratio approaching the incompressible limit, are presented