20,401 research outputs found
Promiscuity and the Evolution of Sexual Transmitted Diseases
We study the relation between different social behaviors and the onset of
epidemics in a model for the dynamics of sexual transmitted diseases. The model
considers the society as a system of individual sexuated agents that can be
organized in couples and interact with each other. The different social
behaviors are incorporated assigning what we call a promiscuity value to each
individual agent. The individual promiscuity is taken from a distributions and
represents the daily probability of going out to look for a sexual partner,
abandoning its eventual mate. In terms of this parameter we find a threshold
for the epidemic which is much lower than the classical fully mixed model
prediction, i.e. (basic reproductive number) . Different forms for
the distribution of the population promiscuity are considered showing that the
threshold is weakly sensitive to them. We study the homosexual and the
heterosexual case as well.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Complexity and anisotropy in host morphology make populations safer against epidemic outbreaks
One of the challenges in epidemiology is to account for the complex
morphological structure of hosts such as plant roots, crop fields, farms,
cells, animal habitats and social networks, when the transmission of infection
occurs between contiguous hosts. Morphological complexity brings an inherent
heterogeneity in populations and affects the dynamics of pathogen spread in
such systems. We have analysed the influence of realistically complex host
morphology on the threshold for invasion and epidemic outbreak in an SIR
(susceptible-infected-recovered) epidemiological model. We show that disorder
expressed in the host morphology and anisotropy reduces the probability of
epidemic outbreak and thus makes the system more resistant to epidemic
outbreaks. We obtain general analytical estimates for minimally safe bounds for
an invasion threshold and then illustrate their validity by considering an
example of host data for branching hosts (salamander retinal ganglion cells).
Several spatial arrangements of hosts with different degrees of heterogeneity
have been considered in order to analyse separately the role of shape
complexity and anisotropy in the host population. The estimates for invasion
threshold are linked to morphological characteristics of the hosts that can be
used for determining the threshold for invasion in practical applications.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure
Modelling Oscillator synchronisation during vertebrate axis segmentation
he somitogenesis clock regulates the periodicity with which somites form in the posterior pre-somitic mesoderm. Whilst cell heterogeneity results in noisy oscillation rates amongst constituent cells, synchrony within the population is maintained as oscillators are entrained via juxtracine signalling mechanisms. Here we consider a population of phase-coupled oscillators and investigate how biologically motivated perturbations to the entrained state can perturb synchrony within the population. We find that the ratio of mitosis length to clock period can influence levels of desynchronisation. Moreover, we observe that random cell movement, and hence change of local neighbourhoods, increases synchronisation
Evolved stars hint to an external origin of enhanced metallicity in planet-hosting stars
Exo-planets are preferentially found around high metallicity main sequence
stars. We aim at investigating whether evolved stars share this property, and
what this tells about planet formation. Statistical tools and the basic
concepts of stellar evolution theory are applied to published results as well
as our own radial velocity and chemical analyses of evolved stars. We show that
the metal distributions of planet-hosting (P-H) dwarfs and giants are
different, and that the latter do not favor metal-rich systems. Rather, these
stars follow the same age-metallicity relation as the giants without planets in
our sample. The straightforward explanation is to attribute the difference
between dwarfs and giants to the much larger masses of giants' convective
envelopes. If the metal excess on the main sequence is due to pollution, the
effects of dilution naturally explains why it is not observed among evolved
stars. Although we cannot exclude other explanations, the lack of any
preference for metal-rich systems among P-H giants could be a strong indication
of the accretion of metal-rich material. We discuss further tests, as well as
some predictions and consequences of this hypothesis.Comment: A&A, in pres
Epidemics in Networks of Spatially Correlated Three-dimensional Root Branching Structures
Using digitized images of the three-dimensional, branching structures for
root systems of bean seedlings, together with analytical and numerical methods
that map a common 'SIR' epidemiological model onto the bond percolation
problem, we show how the spatially-correlated branching structures of plant
roots affect transmission efficiencies, and hence the invasion criterion, for a
soil-borne pathogen as it spreads through ensembles of morphologically complex
hosts. We conclude that the inherent heterogeneities in transmissibilities
arising from correlations in the degrees of overlap between neighbouring
plants, render a population of root systems less susceptible to epidemic
invasion than a corresponding homogeneous system. Several components of
morphological complexity are analysed that contribute to disorder and
heterogeneities in transmissibility of infection. Anisotropy in root shape is
shown to increase resilience to epidemic invasion, while increasing the degree
of branching enhances the spread of epidemics in the population of roots. Some
extension of the methods for other epidemiological systems are discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure
Improving the normalization of complex interventions: measure development based on normalization process theory (NoMAD): study protocol
<b>Background</b> Understanding implementation processes is key to ensuring that complex interventions in healthcare are taken up in practice and thus maximize intended benefits for service provision and (ultimately) care to patients. Normalization Process Theory (NPT) provides a framework for understanding how a new intervention becomes part of normal practice. This study aims to develop and validate simple generic tools derived from NPT, to be used to improve the implementation of complex healthcare interventions.<p></p>
<b>Objectives</b> The objectives of this study are to: develop a set of NPT-based measures and formatively evaluate their use for identifying implementation problems and monitoring progress; conduct preliminary evaluation of these measures across a range of interventions and contexts, and identify factors that affect this process; explore the utility of these measures for predicting outcomes; and develop an online usersâ manual for the measures.<p></p>
<b>Methods</b> A combination of qualitative (workshops, item development, user feedback, cognitive interviews) and quantitative (survey) methods will be used to develop NPT measures, and test the utility of the measures in six healthcare intervention settings.<p></p>
<b>Discussion</b> The measures developed in the study will be available for use by those involved in planning, implementing, and evaluating complex interventions in healthcare and have the potential to enhance the chances of their implementation, leading to sustained changes in working practices
PopSparse: Accelerated block sparse matrix multiplication on IPU
Reducing the computational cost of running large scale neural networks using
sparsity has attracted great attention in the deep learning community. While
much success has been achieved in reducing FLOP and parameter counts while
maintaining acceptable task performance, achieving actual speed improvements
has typically been much more difficult, particularly on general purpose
accelerators (GPAs) such as NVIDIA GPUs using low precision number formats. In
this work we introduce PopSparse, a library that enables fast sparse operations
on Graphcore IPUs by leveraging both the unique hardware characteristics of
IPUs as well as any block structure defined in the data. We target two
different types of sparsity: static, where the sparsity pattern is fixed at
compile-time; and dynamic, where it can change each time the model is run. We
present benchmark results for matrix multiplication for both of these modes on
IPU with a range of block sizes, matrix sizes and densities. Results indicate
that the PopSparse implementations are faster than dense matrix multiplications
on IPU at a range of sparsity levels with large matrix size and block size.
Furthermore, static sparsity in general outperforms dynamic sparsity. While
previous work on GPAs has shown speedups only for very high sparsity (typically
99\% and above), the present work demonstrates that our static sparse
implementation outperforms equivalent dense calculations in FP16 at lower
sparsity (around 90%). IPU code is available to view and run at
ipu.dev/sparsity-benchmarks, GPU code will be made available shortly
Stochastic Modelling Approach to the Incubation Time of Prionic Diseases
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies like the bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans are
neurodegenerative diseases for which prions are the attributed pathogenic
agents. A widely accepted theory assumes that prion replication is due to a
direct interaction between the pathologic (PrPsc) form and the host encoded
(PrPc) conformation, in a kind of an autocatalytic process. Here we show that
the overall features of the incubation time of prion diseases are readily
obtained if the prion reaction is described by a simple mean-field model. An
analytical expression for the incubation time distribution then follows by
associating the rate constant to a stochastic variable log normally
distributed. The incubation time distribution is then also shown to be log
normal and fits the observed BSE data very well. The basic ideas of the
theoretical model are then incorporated in a cellular automata model. The
computer simulation results yield the correct BSE incubation time distribution
at low densities of the host encoded protein
A Study of the Orbits of the Logarithmic Potential for Galaxies
The logarithmic potential is of great interest and relevance in the study of
the dynamics of galaxies. Some small corrections to the work of Contopoulos &
Seimenis (1990) who used the method of Prendergast (1982) to find periodic
orbits and bifurcations within such a potential are presented. The solution of
the orbital radial equation for the purely radial logarithmic potential is then
considered using the p-ellipse (precessing ellipse) method pioneered by Struck
(2006). This differential orbital equation is a special case of the generalized
Burgers equation. The apsidal angle is also determined, both numerically as
well as analytically by means of the Lambert W and the Polylogarithm functions.
The use of these functions in computing the gravitational lensing produced by
logarithmic potentials is discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by MNRAS Sept 6 201
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