687 research outputs found
Emergence of Anti-Cancer Drug Resistance: Exploring the Importance of the Microenvironmental Niche via a Spatial Model
Practically, all chemotherapeutic agents lead to drug resistance. Clinically,
it is a challenge to determine whether resistance arises prior to, or as a
result of, cancer therapy. Further, a number of different intracellular and
microenvironmental factors have been correlated with the emergence of drug
resistance. With the goal of better understanding drug resistance and its
connection with the tumor microenvironment, we have developed a hybrid
discrete-continuous mathematical model. In this model, cancer cells described
through a particle-spring approach respond to dynamically changing oxygen and
DNA damaging drug concentrations described through partial differential
equations. We thoroughly explored the behavior of our self-calibrated model
under the following common conditions: a fixed layout of the vasculature, an
identical initial configuration of cancer cells, the same mechanism of drug
action, and one mechanism of cellular response to the drug. We considered one
set of simulations in which drug resistance existed prior to the start of
treatment, and another set in which drug resistance is acquired in response to
treatment. This allows us to compare how both kinds of resistance influence the
spatial and temporal dynamics of the developing tumor, and its clonal
diversity. We show that both pre-existing and acquired resistance can give rise
to three biologically distinct parameter regimes: successful tumor eradication,
reduced effectiveness of drug during the course of treatment (resistance), and
complete treatment failure
Structure of the Partition Function and Transfer Matrices for the Potts Model in a Magnetic Field on Lattice Strips
We determine the general structure of the partition function of the -state
Potts model in an external magnetic field, for arbitrary ,
temperature variable , and magnetic field variable , on cyclic, M\"obius,
and free strip graphs of the square (sq), triangular (tri), and honeycomb
(hc) lattices with width and arbitrarily great length . For the
cyclic case we prove that the partition function has the form ,
where denotes the lattice type, are specified
polynomials of degree in , is the corresponding
transfer matrix, and () for ,
respectively. An analogous formula is given for M\"obius strips, while only
appears for free strips. We exhibit a method for
calculating for arbitrary and give illustrative
examples. Explicit results for arbitrary are presented for
with and . We find very simple formulas
for the determinant . We also give results for
self-dual cyclic strips of the square lattice.Comment: Reference added to a relevant paper by F. Y. W
Anomalous particle-number fluctuations in a three-dimensional interacting Bose-Einstein condensate
The particle-number fluctuations originated from collective excitations are
investigated for a three-dimensional, repulsively interacting Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) confined in a harmonic trap. The contribution due to the
quantum depletion of the condensate is calculated and the explicit expression
of the coefficient in the formulas denoting the particle-number fluctuations is
given. The results show that the particle-number fluctuations of the condensate
follow the law and the fluctuations vanish when
temperature approaches to the BEC critical temperature.Comment: RevTex, 4 page
Dimer coverings on the Sierpinski gasket with possible vacancies on the outmost vertices
We present the number of dimers on the Sierpinski gasket
at stage with dimension equal to two, three, four or five, where one of
the outmost vertices is not covered when the number of vertices is an
odd number. The entropy of absorption of diatomic molecules per site, defined
as , is calculated to be
exactly for . The numbers of dimers on the generalized
Sierpinski gasket with and are also obtained
exactly. Their entropies are equal to , , ,
respectively. The upper and lower bounds for the entropy are derived in terms
of the results at a certain stage for with . As the
difference between these bounds converges quickly to zero as the calculated
stage increases, the numerical value of with can be
evaluated with more than a hundred significant figures accurate.Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures and 1 tabl
Potts model on recursive lattices: some new exact results
We compute the partition function of the Potts model with arbitrary values of
and temperature on some strip lattices. We consider strips of width
, for three different lattices: square, diced and `shortest-path' (to be
defined in the text). We also get the exact solution for strips of the Kagome
lattice for widths . As further examples we consider two lattices
with different type of regular symmetry: a strip with alternating layers of
width and , and a strip with variable width. Finally we make
some remarks on the Fisher zeros for the Kagome lattice and their large
q-limit.Comment: 17 pages, 19 figures. v2 typos corrected, title changed and
references, acknowledgements and two further original examples added. v3 one
further example added. v4 final versio
The Formation and Evolution of Massive Stellar Clusters in IC 4662
We present a multiwavelength study of the formation of massive stellar
clusters, their emergence from cocoons of gas and dust, and their feedback on
surrounding matter. Using data that span from radio to optical wavelengths,
including Spitzer and Hubble ACS observations, we examine the population of
young star clusters in the central starburst region of the irregular Wolf-Rayet
galaxy IC 4662. We model the radio-to-IR spectral energy distributions of
embedded clusters to determine the properties of their HII regions and dust
cocoons (sizes, masses, densities, temperatures), and use near-IR and optical
data with mid-IR spectroscopy to constrain the properties of the embedded
clusters themselves (mass, age, extinction, excitation, abundance). The two
massive star-formation regions in IC 4662 are excited by stellar populations
with ages of ~ 4 million years and masses of ~ 3 x 10^5 M_sun (assuming a
Kroupa IMF). They have high excitation and sub-solar abundances, and they may
actually be comprised of several massive clusters rather than the single
monolithic massive compact objects known as Super Star Clusters (SSCs). Mid-IR
spectra reveal that these clusters have very high extinctions, A_V ~ 20-25 mag,
and that the dust in IC 4662 is well-mixed with the emitting gas, not in a
foreground screen.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, to appear in proceedings of the conference
"Young Massive Star Clusters: Initial Conditions and Environments ", held in
Granada, Spain, September 200
Structural Phase Transitions and Sodium Ordering in Na0.5CoO2: a Combined Electron Diffraction and Raman Spectroscopy Study
The nonstoichiometric NaxCoO2 system exhibits extraordinary physical
properties that correlate with temperature and Na concentration in its layered
lattice without evident long-range structure modification when conventional
crystallographic techniques are applied. For instance, Na0.7CoO2, a
thermodynamically stable phase, shows large thermoelectric power;
water-intercalated Na0.33CoO2.1.3H2O is a newly discovered superconductor with
Tc ~ 4K, and Na0.5CoO2 exhibits an unexpected charge ordering transition at
around Tco ~ 55 K. Recent studies suggest that the transport and magnetic
properties in the NaxCoO2 system strongly depend on the charge carrier density
and local structural properties. Here we report a combined variable temperature
transmission electron microscopy and Raman scattering investigation on
structural transformations in Na0.5CoO2 single crystals. A series of structural
phase transitions in the temperature range from 80 K to 1000 K are directly
identified and the observed superstructures and modulated phases can be
interpreted by Na-ordering. The Raman scattering measurements reveal phase
separation and a systematic evolution of active modes along with phase
transitions. Our work demonstrates that the high mobility and ordering of
sodium cations among the CoO2 layers are a key factor for the presence of
complex structural properties in NaxCoO2 materials, and also demonstrate that
the combination of electron diffraction and Raman spectroscopy measurements is
an efficient way for studying the cation ordering and phase transitions in
related systems.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
Transformation of β-Ni(OH)2to NiO nano-sheets via surface nanocrystalline zirconia coating: Shape and size retention
Shape and size of the synthesized NiO nano-sheets were retained during transformation of sheet-like β-Ni(OH)2to NiO at elevated temperatures via nano-sized zirconia coating on the surface of β-Ni(OH)2. The average grain size was 6.42 nm after 600 °C treatment and slightly increased to 10 nm after 1000 °C treatment, showing effective sintering retardation between NiO nano-sheets. The excellent thermal stability revealed potential application at elevated temperatures, especially for high temperature catalysts and solid-state electrochemical devices
Spanning forests and the q-state Potts model in the limit q \to 0
We study the q-state Potts model with nearest-neighbor coupling v=e^{\beta
J}-1 in the limit q,v \to 0 with the ratio w = v/q held fixed. Combinatorially,
this limit gives rise to the generating polynomial of spanning forests;
physically, it provides information about the Potts-model phase diagram in the
neighborhood of (q,v) = (0,0). We have studied this model on the square and
triangular lattices, using a transfer-matrix approach at both real and complex
values of w. For both lattices, we have computed the symbolic transfer matrices
for cylindrical strips of widths 2 \le L \le 10, as well as the limiting curves
of partition-function zeros in the complex w-plane. For real w, we find two
distinct phases separated by a transition point w=w_0, where w_0 = -1/4 (resp.
w_0 = -0.1753 \pm 0.0002) for the square (resp. triangular) lattice. For w >
w_0 we find a non-critical disordered phase, while for w < w_0 our results are
compatible with a massless Berker-Kadanoff phase with conformal charge c = -2
and leading thermal scaling dimension x_{T,1} = 2 (marginal operator). At w =
w_0 we find a "first-order critical point": the first derivative of the free
energy is discontinuous at w_0, while the correlation length diverges as w
\downarrow w_0 (and is infinite at w = w_0). The critical behavior at w = w_0
seems to be the same for both lattices and it differs from that of the
Berker-Kadanoff phase: our results suggest that the conformal charge is c = -1,
the leading thermal scaling dimension is x_{T,1} = 0, and the critical
exponents are \nu = 1/d = 1/2 and \alpha = 1.Comment: 131 pages (LaTeX2e). Includes tex file, three sty files, and 65
Postscript figures. Also included are Mathematica files forests_sq_2-9P.m and
forests_tri_2-9P.m. Final journal versio
Outlier detection and classification in sensor data streams for proactive decision support systems
A paper has a deal with the problem of quality assessment in sensor data streams accumulated by proactive decision support systems. The new problem is stated where outliers need to be detected and to be classified according to their nature of origin. There are two types of outliers defined; the first type is about misoperations of a system and the second type is caused by changes in the observed system behavior due to inner and external influences. The proposed method is based on the data-driven forecast approach to predict the values in the incoming data stream at the expected time. This method includes the forecasting model and the clustering model. The forecasting model predicts a value in the incoming data stream at the expected time to find the deviation between a real observed value and a predicted one. The clustering method is used for taxonomic classification of outliers. Constructive neural networks models (CoNNS) and evolving connectionists systems (ECS) are used for prediction of sensors data. There are two real world tasks are used as case studies. The maximal values of accuracy are 0.992 and 0.974, and F1 scores are 0.967 and 0.938, respectively, for the first and the second tasks. The conclusion contains findings how to apply the proposed method in proactive decision support systems
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