7,001 research outputs found
Osteoblasts infill irregular pores under curvature and porosity controls: A hypothesis-testing analysis of cell behaviours
The geometric control of bone tissue growth plays a significant role in bone
remodelling, age-related bone loss, and tissue engineering. However, how
exactly geometry influences the behaviour of bone-forming cells remains
elusive. Geometry modulates cell populations collectively through the evolving
space available to the cells, but it may also modulate the individual
behaviours of cells. To factor out the collective influence of geometry and
gain access to the geometric regulation of individual cell behaviours, we
develop a mathematical model of the infilling of cortical bone pores and use it
with available experimental data on cortical infilling rates. Testing different
possible modes of geometric controls of individual cell behaviours consistent
with the experimental data, we find that efficient smoothing of irregular pores
only occurs when cell secretory rate is controlled by porosity rather than
curvature. This porosity control suggests the convergence of a large scale of
intercellular signalling to single bone-forming cells, consistent with that
provided by the osteocyte network in response to mechanical stimulus. After
validating the mathematical model with the histological record of a real
cortical pore infilling, we explore the infilling of a population of randomly
generated initial pore shapes. We find that amongst all the geometric
regulations considered, the collective influence of curvature on cell crowding
is a dominant factor for how fast cortical bone pores infill, and we suggest
that the irregularity of cement lines thereby explains some of the variability
in double labelling data as well as the overall speed of osteon infilling.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, Appendi
Analysis of cross-correlations in electroencephalogram signals as an approach to proactive diagnosis of schizophrenia
We apply flicker-noise spectroscopy (FNS), a time series analysis method
operating on structure functions and power spectrum estimates, to study the
clinical electroencephalogram (EEG) signals recorded in children/adolescents
(11 to 14 years of age) with diagnosed schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms at the
National Center for Psychiatric Health (NCPH) of the Russian Academy of Medical
Sciences. The EEG signals for these subjects were compared with the signals for
a control sample of chronically depressed children/adolescents. The purpose of
the study is to look for diagnostic signs of subjects' susceptibility to
schizophrenia in the FNS parameters for specific electrodes and
cross-correlations between the signals simultaneously measured at different
points on the scalp. Our analysis of EEG signals from scalp-mounted electrodes
at locations F3 and F4, which are symmetrically positioned in the left and
right frontal areas of cerebral cortex, respectively, demonstrates an essential
role of frequency-phase synchronization, a phenomenon representing specific
correlations between the characteristic frequencies and phases of excitations
in the brain. We introduce quantitative measures of frequency-phase
synchronization and systematize the values of FNS parameters for the EEG data.
The comparison of our results with the medical diagnoses for 84 subjects
performed at NCPH makes it possible to group the EEG signals into 4 categories
corresponding to different risk levels of subjects' susceptibility to
schizophrenia. We suggest that the introduced quantitative characteristics and
classification of cross-correlations may be used for the diagnosis of
schizophrenia at the early stages of its development.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables; to be published in "Physica A
A space-time multivariate Bayesian model to analyse road traffic accidents by severity
The paper investigates the dependences between levels of severity of road traffic accidents, accounting at the same time for spatial and temporal correlations. The study analyses road traffic accidents data at ward level in England over the period 2005–2013. We include in our model multivariate spatially structured and unstructured effects to capture the dependences between severities, within a Bayesian hierarchical formulation. We also include a temporal component to capture the time effects and we carry out an extensive model comparison. The results show important associations in both spatially structured and unstructured effects between severities, and a downward temporal trend is observed for low and high levels of severity. Maps of posterior accident rates indicate elevated risk within big cities for accidents of low severity and in suburban areas in the north and on the southern coast of England for accidents of high severity. The posterior probability of extreme rates is used to suggest the presence of hot spots in a public health perspective.Areti Boulieri acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health Research and the Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership. Marta Blangiardo acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health Research and the Medical Research Council–Public Health England Centre for Environment and Health. Silvia Liverani acknowledges support from the Leverhulme Trust (grant ECF-2011-576)
Analysis of satellite data to deduce stratospheric constituents and UV spectroscopic properties of the atmosphere
The objective is to better understand the stratosphere, its constituents, and its ultraviolet optical properties, through detailed analysis of data from the SBUV instrument on Nimbus 7 and comparison with data from other instruments, including the NOAA 9 SBUV 2, SAGE, SME, and SMM. One conclusion to be drawn from the Ozone Trends Panel report is that there are unresolved differences in the ozone profiles measured by different instruments. While the purpose of the work is more to understand the details of the UV radiation field in the stratosphere than it is to assess the accuracy of the SBUV ozone measurement itself, improved understanding of specific problems in the UV will lead to more accurate ozone retrievals. Areas of study include the effect of aerosols on the backscattered albedo, the shape of the ozone profile near the stratopause, the effect of possible polar mesospheric clouds, and the measureability of nitric oxide and sulfur dioxide
Multifractal analysis of discretized X-ray CT images for the characterization of soil macropore structures
A correct statistical model of soil pore structure can be critical for understanding flow and transport processes in soils, and creating synthetic soil pore spaces for hypothetical and model testing, and evaluating similarity of pore spaces of different soils. Advanced visualization techniques such as X-ray computed tomography (CT) offer new opportunities of exploring heterogeneity of soil properties at horizon or aggregate scales. Simple fractal models such as fractional Brownian motion that have been proposed to capture the complex behavior of soil spatial variation at field scale rarely simulate irregularity patterns displayed by spatial series of soil properties. The objective of this work was to use CT data to test the hypothesis that soil pore structure at the horizon scale may be represented by multifractal models. X-ray CT scans of twelve, water-saturated, 20-cm long soil columns with diameters of 7.5 cm were analyzed. A reconstruction algorithm was applied to convert the X-ray CT data into a stack of 1480 grayscale digital images with a voxel resolution of 110 microns and a cross-sectional size of 690 × 690 pixels. The images were binarized and the spatial series of the percentage of void space vs. depth was analyzed to evaluate the applicability of the multifractal model. The series of depth-dependent macroporosity values exhibited a well-defined multifractal structure that was revealed by singularity and Rényi spectra. The long-range dependencies in these series were parameterized by the Hurst exponent. Values of the Hurst exponent close to one were observed indicating the strong persistence in variations of porosity with depth. The multifractal modeling of soil macropore structure can be an efficient method for parameterizing and simulating the vertical spatial heterogeneity of soil pore space
Numerical validation of a population balance model describing cement paste rheology
Rheology control is essential during the period in which cement and concrete pastes are encountered in the fresh state, due to the fact that it directly affects workability, initial placement and the structural performance of the hardened material. Optimizations of clinker formulations and reductions in cement-to-water ratios induced by economic and environmental considerations have a significant effect in rheology, which invokes the need for mechanistic models capable of describing the effect of multiple relevant phenomena on the observed paste flow. In this work, the population balance framework was implemented to develop a model able to relate the transient microstructural evolution of cement pastes under typical experimental conditions with its macroscopic rheological responses. Numerical details and performance are assessed and discussed. It was found that the model is capable of reproducing experimentally observed flow curves by using measured cluster size distribution information. It is also able to predict the complex rheological characteristics typically found in cement pastes. Furthermore, a spatially resolved scheme was proposed to investigate the nature of flow inside a parallel-plates rheometer geometry with the objective of assessing the ability of the model of qualitatively predicting experimentally observed behavior and to gain insight into the effect of possible secondary flows
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