Endogenous driving and synchronization in cardiac and uterine virtual tissues: bifurcations and local coupling

Cardiac and uterine muscle cells and tissue can be either autorhythmic or excitable. These behaviours exchange stability at bifurcations produced by changes in parameters, which if spatially localized can produce an ectopic pacemaking focus. The effects of these parameters on cell dynamics have been identified and quantified using continuation algorithms and by numerical solutions of virtual cells. The ability of a compact pacemaker to drive the surrounding excitable tissues depends on both the size of the pacemaker and the strength of electrotonic coupling between cells within, between, and outside the pacemaking region. We investigate an ectopic pacemaker surrounded by normal excitable tissue. Cell–cell coupling is simulated by the diffusion coefficient for voltage. For uniformly coupled tissues, the behaviour of the hybrid tissue can take one of the three forms: (i) the surrounding tissue electrotonically suppresses the pacemaker; (ii) depressed rate oscillatory activity in the pacemaker but no propagation; and (iii) pacemaker driving propagations into the excitable region. However, real tissues are heterogeneous with spatial changes in cell–cell coupling. In the gravid uterus during early pregnancy, cells are weakly coupled, with the cell–cell coupling increasing during late pregnancy, allowing synchronous contractions during labour. These effects are investigated for a caricature uterine tissue by allowing both excitability and diffusion coefficient to vary stochastically with space, and for cardiac tissues by spatial gradients in the diffusion coefficient

Abstract book

Welcome at the International Conference on Differential and Difference Equations & Applications 2015. The main aim of this conference is to promote, encourage, cooperate, and bring together researchers in the fields of differential and difference equations. All areas of differential & difference equations will be represented with special emphasis on applications. It will be mathematically enriching and socially exciting event. List of registered participants consists of 169 persons from 45 countries. The five-day scientific program runs from May 18 (Monday) till May 22, 2015 (Friday). It consists of invited lectures (plenary lectures and invited lectures in sections) and contributed talks in the following areas: Ordinary differential equations, Partial differential equations, Numerical methods and applications, other topics

[Book of abstracts]

USPCAPESCNPqFAPESPICMC Summer Meeting on Differential Equations (2016 São Carlos

Nonlinear physics of electrical wave propagation in the heart: a review

The beating of the heart is a synchronized contraction of muscle cells (myocytes) that are triggered by a periodic sequence of electrical waves (action potentials) originating in the sino-atrial node and propagating over the atria and the ventricles. Cardiac arrhythmias like atrial and ventricular fibrillation (AF,VF) or ventricular tachycardia (VT) are caused by disruptions and instabilities of these electrical excitations, that lead to the emergence of rotating waves (VT) and turbulent wave patterns (AF,VF). Numerous simulation and experimental studies during the last 20 years have addressed these topics. In this review we focus on the nonlinear dynamics of wave propagation in the heart with an emphasis on the theory of pulses, spirals and scroll waves and their instabilities in excitable media and their application to cardiac modeling. After an introduction into electrophysiological models for action potential propagation, the modeling and analysis of spatiotemporal alternans, spiral and scroll meandering, spiral breakup and scroll wave instabilities like negative line tension and sproing are reviewed in depth and discussed with emphasis on their impact in cardiac arrhythmias.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Asymptotic solutions of forced nonlinear second order differential equations and their extensions

Using a modified version of Schauder's fixed point theorem, measures of non-compactness and classical techniques, we provide new general results on the asymptotic behavior and the non-oscillation of second order scalar nonlinear differential equations on a half-axis. In addition, we extend the methods and present new similar results for integral equations and Volterra-Stieltjes integral equations, a framework whose benefits include the unification of second order difference and differential equations. In so doing, we enlarge the class of nonlinearities and in some cases remove the distinction between superlinear, sublinear, and linear differential equations that is normally found in the literature. An update of papers, past and present, in the theory of Volterra-Stieltjes integral equations is also presented

Dynamics of Current, Charge and Mass

Electricity plays a special role in our lives and life. Equations of electron dynamics are nearly exact and apply from nuclear particles to stars. These Maxwell equations include a special term the displacement current (of vacuum). Displacement current allows electrical signals to propagate through space. Displacement current guarantees that current is exactly conserved from inside atoms to between stars, as long as current is defined as Maxwell did, as the entire source of the curl of the magnetic field. We show how the Bohm formulation of quantum mechanics allows easy definition of current. We show how conservation of current can be derived without mention of the polarization or dielectric properties of matter. Matter does not behave the way physicists of the 1800's thought it does with a single dielectric constant, a real positive number independent of everything. Charge moves in enormously complicated ways that cannot be described in that way, when studied on time scales important today for electronic technology and molecular biology. Life occurs in ionic solutions in which charge moves in response to forces not mentioned or described in the Maxwell equations, like convection and diffusion. Classical derivations of conservation of current involve classical treatments of dielectrics and polarization in nearly every textbook. Because real dielectrics do not behave in a classical way, classical derivations of conservation of current are often distrusted or even ignored. We show that current is conserved exactly in any material no matter how complex the dielectric, polarization or conduction currents are. We believe models, simulations, and computations should conserve current on all scales, as accurately as possible, because physics conserves current that way. We believe models will be much more successful if they conserve current at every level of resolution, the way physics does.Comment: Version 4 slight reformattin

New Trends in Differential and Difference Equations and Applications

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open-access journal Axioms (ISSN 2075-1680) from 2018 to 2019 (available at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/axioms/special issues/differential difference equations)