344 research outputs found
Daphnia revisited: Local stability and bifurcation theory for physiologically structured population models explained by way of an example
We consider the interaction between a general size-structured consumer population and an unstructured resource. We show that stability properties and bifurcation phenomena can be understood in terms of solutions of a system of two delay equations (a renewal equation for the consumer population birth rate coupled to a delay differetial equation for the resource concentration). As many results for such systems are available, we can draw rigorous conclusions concerning dynamical behaviour from an analysis of a characteristic equation. We derive the characteristic equation for a fairly general class of population models, including those based on the Kooijman-Metz Daphnia model and a model introduced by Gurney-Nisbet and Jones et al., and next obtain various ecological insights by analytical or numerical studies of special cases
Hybrid Equation/Agent-Based Model of Ischemia-Induced Hyperemia and Pressure Ulcer Formation Predicts Greater Propensity to Ulcerate in Subjects with Spinal Cord Injury
Pressure ulcers are costly and life-threatening complications for people with spinal cord injury (SCI). People with SCI also exhibit differential blood flow properties in non-ulcerated skin. We hypothesized that a computer simulation of the pressure ulcer formation process, informed by data regarding skin blood flow and reactive hyperemia in response to pressure, could provide insights into the pathogenesis and effective treatment of post-SCI pressure ulcers. Agent-Based Models (ABM) are useful in settings such as pressure ulcers, in which spatial realism is important. Ordinary Differential Equation-based (ODE) models are useful when modeling physiological phenomena such as reactive hyperemia. Accordingly, we constructed a hybrid model that combines ODEs related to blood flow along with an ABM of skin injury, inflammation, and ulcer formation. The relationship between pressure and the course of ulcer formation, as well as several other important characteristic patterns of pressure ulcer formation, was demonstrated in this model. The ODE portion of this model was calibrated to data related to blood flow following experimental pressure responses in non-injured human subjects or to data from people with SCI. This model predicted a higher propensity to form ulcers in response to pressure in people with SCI vs. non-injured control subjects, and thus may serve as novel diagnostic platform for post-SCI ulcer formation. © 2013 Solovyev et al
Sheldon Spectrum and the Plankton Paradox: Two Sides of the Same Coin : A trait-based plankton size-spectrum model
The Sheldon spectrum describes a remarkable regularity in aquatic ecosystems: the biomass density as a function of logarithmic body mass is approximately constant over many orders of magnitude. While size-spectrum models have explained this phenomenon for assemblages of multicellular organisms, this paper introduces a species-resolved size-spectrum model to explain the phenomenon in unicellular plankton. A Sheldon spectrum spanning the cell-size range of unicellular plankton necessarily consists of a large number of coexisting species covering a wide range of characteristic sizes. The coexistence of many phytoplankton species feeding on a small number of resources is known as the Paradox of the Plankton. Our model resolves the paradox by showing that coexistence is facilitated by the allometric scaling of four physiological rates. Two of the allometries have empirical support, the remaining two emerge from predator-prey interactions exactly when the abundances follow a Sheldon spectrum. Our plankton model is a scale-invariant trait-based size-spectrum model: it describes the abundance of phyto- and zooplankton cells as a function of both size and species trait (the maximal size before cell division). It incorporates growth due to resource consumption and predation on smaller cells, death due to predation, and a flexible cell division process. We give analytic solutions at steady state for both the within-species size distributions and the relative abundances across species
Beauty photoproduction measured using decays into muons in dijet events in ep collisions at =318 GeV
The photoproduction of beauty quarks in events with two jets and a muon has
been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of
110 pb. The fraction of jets containing b quarks was extracted from the
transverse momentum distribution of the muon relative to the closest jet.
Differential cross sections for beauty production as a function of the
transverse momentum and pseudorapidity of the muon, of the associated jet and
of , the fraction of the photon's momentum participating in
the hard process, are compared with MC models and QCD predictions made at
next-to-leading order. The latter give a good description of the data.Comment: 32 pages, 6 tables, 7 figures Table 6 and Figure 7 revised September
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The dependence of dijet production on photon virtuality in ep collisions at HERA
The dependence of dijet production on the virtuality of the exchanged photon,
Q^2, has been studied by measuring dijet cross sections in the range 0 < Q^2 <
2000 GeV^2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of
38.6 pb^-1.
Dijet cross sections were measured for jets with transverse energy E_T^jet >
7.5 and 6.5 GeV and pseudorapidities in the photon-proton centre-of-mass frame
in the range -3 < eta^jet <0. The variable xg^obs, a measure of the photon
momentum entering the hard process, was used to enhance the sensitivity of the
measurement to the photon structure. The Q^2 dependence of the ratio of low- to
high-xg^obs events was measured.
Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions were found to generally underestimate
the low-xg^obs contribution relative to that at high xg^obs. Monte Carlo models
based on leading-logarithmic parton-showers, using a partonic structure for the
photon which falls smoothly with increasing Q^2, provide a qualitative
description of the data.Comment: 35 pages, 6 eps figures, submitted to Eur.Phys.J.
Search for a narrow charmed baryonic state decaying to D^*+/- p^-/+ in ep collisions at HERA
A resonance search has been made in the D^*+/- p^-/+ invariant-mass spectrum
with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 126 pb^-1. The
decay channels D^*+ -> D^0 pi^+_s -> (K^- pi^+) pi^+_s and D^*+ -> D^0 pi^+_s
-> (K^- pi^+ pi^+ pi^-) pi^+_s (and the corresponding antiparticle decays) were
used to identify D^*+/- mesons. No resonance structure was observed in the
D^*+/- p^-/+ mass spectrum from more than 60000 reconstructed D^*+/- mesons.
The results are not compatible with a report of the H1 Collaboration of a
charmed pentaquark, Theta^0_c.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 1 table; minor text revisions; 2 references
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Angular and Current-Target Correlations in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
Correlations between charged particles in deep inelastic ep scattering have
been studied in the Breit frame with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an
integrated luminosity of 6.4 pb-1. Short-range correlations are analysed in
terms of the angular separation between current-region particles within a cone
centred around the virtual photon axis. Long-range correlations between the
current and target regions have also been measured. The data support
predictions for the scaling behaviour of the angular correlations at high Q2
and for anti-correlations between the current and target regions over a large
range in Q2 and in the Bjorken scaling variable x. Analytic QCD calculations
and Monte Carlo models correctly describe the trends of the data at high Q2,
but show quantitative discrepancies. The data show differences between the
correlations in deep inelastic scattering and e+e- annihilation.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures (submitted to Eur. J. Phys. C
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