Mathematical models for erosion and the optimal transportation of sediment

We investigate a mathematical theory for the erosion of sediment which begins with the study of a non-linear, parabolic, weighted 4-Laplace equation on a rectangular domain corresponding to a base segment of an extended landscape. Imposing natural boundary conditions, we show that the equation admits entropy solutions and prove regularity and uniqueness of weak solutions when they exist. We then investigate a particular class of weak solutions studied in previous work of the first author and produce numerical simulations of these solutions. After introducing an optimal transportation problem for the sediment flow, we show that this class of weak solutions implements the optimal transportation of the sediment

Dynamic energy budget approach to evaluate antibiotic effects on biofilms

Quantifying the action of antibiotics on biofilms is essential to devise therapies against chronic infections. Biofilms are bacterial communities attached to moist surfaces, sheltered from external aggressions by a polymeric matrix. Coupling a dynamic energy budget based description of cell metabolism to surrounding concentration fields, we are able to approximate survival curves measured for different antibiotics. We reproduce numerically stratified distributions of cell types within the biofilm and introduce ways to incorporate different resistance mechanisms. Qualitative predictions follow that are in agreement with experimental observations, such as higher survival rates of cells close to the substratum when employing antibiotics targeting active cells or enhanced polymer production when antibiotics are administered. The current computational model enables validation and hypothesis testing when developing therapies.Comment: to appear in Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulatio

Asymptotic Behavior of 2-d Black Holes

We consider the solutions of the field equations for the large $N$ dilaton gravity model in $1+1$ dimensions recently proposed by Callan, Giddings, Harvey and Strominger (CGHS). We find time dependant solutions with finite mass and vanishing flux in the weak coupling regime, as well as solutions which lie entirely in the Liouville region.Comment: 10 page

A model for aperiodicity in earthquakes

International audienceConditions under which a single oscillator model coupled with Dieterich-Ruina's rate and state dependent friction exhibits chaotic dynamics is studied. Properties of spring-block models are discussed. The parameter values of the system are explored and the corresponding numerical solutions presented. Bifurcation analysis is performed to determine the bifurcations and stability of stationary solutions and we find that the system undergoes a Hopf bifurcation to a periodic orbit. This periodic orbit then undergoes a period doubling cascade into a strange attractor, recognized as broadband noise in the power spectrum. The implications for earthquakes are discussed

Religion and Coalition Politics

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The literature holds that coalition-building parties prefer the policy distance of coalition partners to be as small as possible. In light of continued importance of religion in electoral politics cross-nationally, the distance argument is worrisome for minorities seeking political access because many minorities are of different religion than the majority representatives forming coalitions. The authors suggest plurality parties’ objectives to demonstrate inclusiveness outweigh the concern over policy distance. They test their hypotheses on a sample of all electorally active ethnic minorities in democracies from 1945 to 2004. The authors find support for their hypothesis that ethnic parties representing minorities that diverge in religious family from the majority are more likely to be included in governing coalitions than are ethnic minorities at large. It is interesting, however, that they also find that minority parties representing ethnic groups that differ in denomination from the majority are less likely to be included in governing coalitions

The Paulsen Problem, Continuous Operator Scaling, and Smoothed Analysis

The Paulsen problem is a basic open problem in operator theory: Given vectors $u_1, \ldots, u_n \in \mathbb R^d$ that are $\epsilon$-nearly satisfying the Parseval's condition and the equal norm condition, is it close to a set of vectors $v_1, \ldots, v_n \in \mathbb R^d$ that exactly satisfy the Parseval's condition and the equal norm condition? Given $u_1, \ldots, u_n$, the squared distance (to the set of exact solutions) is defined as $\inf_{v} \sum_{i=1}^n \| u_i - v_i \|_2^2$ where the infimum is over the set of exact solutions. Previous results show that the squared distance of any $\epsilon$-nearly solution is at most $O({\rm{poly}}(d,n,\epsilon))$ and there are $\epsilon$-nearly solutions with squared distance at least $\Omega(d\epsilon)$. The fundamental open question is whether the squared distance can be independent of the number of vectors $n$. We answer this question affirmatively by proving that the squared distance of any $\epsilon$-nearly solution is $O(d^{13/2} \epsilon)$. Our approach is based on a continuous version of the operator scaling algorithm and consists of two parts. First, we define a dynamical system based on operator scaling and use it to prove that the squared distance of any $\epsilon$-nearly solution is $O(d^2 n \epsilon)$. Then, we show that by randomly perturbing the input vectors, the dynamical system will converge faster and the squared distance of an $\epsilon$-nearly solution is $O(d^{5/2} \epsilon)$ when $n$ is large enough and $\epsilon$ is small enough. To analyze the convergence of the dynamical system, we develop some new techniques in lower bounding the operator capacity, a concept introduced by Gurvits to analyze the operator scaling algorithm.Comment: Added Subsection 1.4; Incorporated comments and fixed typos; Minor changes in various place