438 research outputs found
A dimensionless number for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of antigenically variable RNA viruses.
Antigenically variable RNA viruses are significant contributors to the burden of infectious disease worldwide. One reason for their ubiquity is their ability to escape herd immunity through rapid antigenic evolution and thereby to reinfect previously infected hosts. However, the ways in which these viruses evolve antigenically are highly diverse. Some have only limited diversity in the long-run, with every emergence of a new antigenic variant coupled with a replacement of the older variant. Other viruses rapidly accumulate antigenic diversity over time. Others still exhibit dynamics that can be considered evolutionary intermediates between these two extremes. Here, we present a theoretical framework that aims to understand these differences in evolutionary patterns by considering a virus's epidemiological dynamics in a given host population. Our framework, based on a dimensionless number, probabilistically anticipates patterns of viral antigenic diversification and thereby quantifies a virus's evolutionary potential. It is therefore similar in spirit to the basic reproduction number, the well-known dimensionless number which quantifies a pathogen's reproductive potential. We further outline how our theoretical framework can be applied to empirical viral systems, using influenza A/H3N2 as a case study. We end with predictions of our framework and work that remains to be done to further integrate viral evolutionary dynamics with disease ecology
Exponential Mixing for a Stochastic PDE Driven by Degenerate Noise
We study stochastic partial differential equations of the reaction-diffusion
type. We show that, even if the forcing is very degenerate (i.e. has not full
rank), one has exponential convergence towards the invariant measure. The
convergence takes place in the topology induced by a weighted variation norm
and uses a kind of (uniform) Doeblin condition.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
Random attractors for degenerate stochastic partial differential equations
We prove the existence of random attractors for a large class of degenerate
stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) perturbed by joint additive
Wiener noise and real, linear multiplicative Brownian noise, assuming only the
standard assumptions of the variational approach to SPDE with compact
embeddings in the associated Gelfand triple. This allows spatially much rougher
noise than in known results. The approach is based on a construction of
strictly stationary solutions to related strongly monotone SPDE. Applications
include stochastic generalized porous media equations, stochastic generalized
degenerate p-Laplace equations and stochastic reaction diffusion equations. For
perturbed, degenerate p-Laplace equations we prove that the deterministic,
infinite dimensional attractor collapses to a single random point if enough
noise is added.Comment: 34 pages; The final publication is available at
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10884-013-9294-
Exact master equation for a noncommutative Brownian particle
We derive the Hu-Paz-Zhang master equation for a Brownian particle linearly
coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators on the plane with spatial
noncommutativity. The results obtained are exact to all orders in the
noncommutative parameter. As a by-product we derive some miscellaneous results
such as the equilibrium Wigner distribution for the reservoir of noncommutative
oscillators, the weak coupling limit of the master equation and a set of
sufficient conditions for strict purity decrease of the Brownian particle.
Finally, we consider a high-temperature Ohmic model and obtain an estimate for
the time scale of the transition from noncommutative to ordinary quantum
mechanics. This scale is considerably smaller than the decoherence scale.Comment: Latex file, 28 pages, Published versio
Layer methods for stochastic Navier–Stokes equations using simplest characteristics
We propose and study a layer method for stochastic Navier-Stokes equations (SNSE) with spatial periodic boundary conditions and additive noise. The method is constructed using conditional probabilistic representations of solutions to SNSE and exploiting ideas of the weak sense numerical integration of stochastic differential equations. We prove some convergence results for the proposed method including its first mean-square order. Results of numerical experiments on two model problems are presented
Numerical methods for stochastic partial differential equations with multiples scales
A new method for solving numerically stochastic partial differential
equations (SPDEs) with multiple scales is presented. The method combines a
spectral method with the heterogeneous multiscale method (HMM) presented in [W.
E, D. Liu, and E. Vanden-Eijnden, Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 58(11):1544--1585,
2005]. The class of problems that we consider are SPDEs with quadratic
nonlinearities that were studied in [D. Blomker, M. Hairer, and G.A. Pavliotis,
Nonlinearity, 20(7):1721--1744, 2007.] For such SPDEs an amplitude equation
which describes the effective dynamics at long time scales can be rigorously
derived for both advective and diffusive time scales. Our method, based on
micro and macro solvers, allows to capture numerically the amplitude equation
accurately at a cost independent of the small scales in the problem. Numerical
experiments illustrate the behavior of the proposed method.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Comp. Phy
Observação sobre característica natural de oviposição de Culex (Melanoconion) Grupo Pilosus (Diptera: Culicidae)
Measurement of the p-pbar -> Wgamma + X cross section at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV and WWgamma anomalous coupling limits
The WWgamma triple gauge boson coupling parameters are studied using p-pbar
-> l nu gamma + X (l = e,mu) events at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The data were
collected with the DO detector from an integrated luminosity of 162 pb^{-1}
delivered by the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The cross section times branching
fraction for p-pbar -> W(gamma) + X -> l nu gamma + X with E_T^{gamma} > 8 GeV
and Delta R_{l gamma} > 0.7 is 14.8 +/- 1.6 (stat) +/- 1.0 (syst) +/- 1.0 (lum)
pb. The one-dimensional 95% confidence level limits on anomalous couplings are
-0.88 < Delta kappa_{gamma} < 0.96 and -0.20 < lambda_{gamma} < 0.20.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D Rapid Communication
Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV using Kinematic Characteristics of Lepton + Jets Events
We present a measurement of the top quark pair ttbar production cross section
in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV using 230 pb**{-1}
of data collected by the DO detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We
select events with one charged lepton (electron or muon), large missing
transverse energy, and at least four jets, and extract the ttbar content of the
sample based on the kinematic characteristics of the events. For a top quark
mass of 175 GeV, we measure sigma(ttbar) = 6.7 {+1.4-1.3} (stat) {+1.6- 1.1}
(syst) +/-0.4 (lumi) pb, in good agreement with the standard model prediction.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.Let
Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using Lepton + Jets Events with Lifetime b-tagging
We present a measurement of the top quark pair () production cross
section () in collisions at TeV
using 230 pb of data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab
Tevatron Collider. We select events with one charged lepton (electron or muon),
missing transverse energy, and jets in the final state. We employ
lifetime-based b-jet identification techniques to further enhance the
purity of the selected sample. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV, we
measure pb, in
agreement with the standard model expectation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables Submitted to Phys.Rev.Let
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