34,707 research outputs found
Imperfect Imitation Can Enhance Cooperation
The promotion of cooperation on spatial lattices is an important issue in
evolutionary game theory. This effect clearly depends on the update rule: it
diminishes with stochastic imitative rules whereas it increases with
unconditional imitation. To study the transition between both regimes, we
propose a new evolutionary rule, which stochastically combines unconditional
imitation with another imitative rule. We find that, surprinsingly, in many
social dilemmas this rule yields higher cooperative levels than any of the two
original ones. This nontrivial effect occurs because the basic rules induce a
separation of timescales in the microscopic processes at cluster interfaces.
The result is robust in the space of 2x2 symmetric games, on regular lattices
and on scale-free networks.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Geographic body size variation in ectotherms: effects of seasonality on an anuran from the southern temperate forest
Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Background: Body size variation has played a central role in biogeographical research, however, most studies have aimed to describe trends rather than search for underlying mechanisms. In order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of intra-specific body size variation in ectotherms, we evaluated eight hypotheses proposed in the literature to account for geographical body size variation using the Darwin's frog (Rhinoderma darwinii), an anuran species widely distributed in the temperate forests of South America. Each of the evaluated hypotheses predicted a specific relationship between body size and environmental variables. The level of support for each of these hypotheses was assessed using an information-theoretic approach and based on data from 1015 adult frogs obtained from 14 sites across the entire distributional range of the species.
Results: There was strong evidence favouring a single model comprising temperature seasonality as the predictor variable. Larger body sizes were found in areas of greater seasonality, giving support to the "starvation resistance" hypothesis. Considering the known role of temperature on ectothermic metabolism, however, we formulated a new, non-exclusive hypothesis, termed "hibernation hypothesis": greater seasonality is expected to drive larger body size, since metabolic rate is reduced further and longer during colder, longer winters, leading to decreased energy depletion during hibernation, improved survival and increased longevity (and hence growth). Supporting this, a higher post-hibernation body condition in animals from areas of greater seasonality was found.
Conclusions: Despite largely recognized effects of temperature on metabolic rate in ectotherms, its importance in determining body size in a gradient of seasonality has been largely overlooked so far. Based on our results, we present and discuss an alternative mechanism, the "hibernation hypothesis", underlying geographical body size variation, which can be helpful to improve our understanding of biogeographical patterns in ectotherms.https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12983-015-0132-
Investigation of the Nicole model
We study soliton solutions of the Nicole model - a non-linear
four-dimensional field theory consisting of the CP^1 Lagrangian density to the
non-integer power 3/2 - using an ansatz within toroidal coordinates, which is
indicated by the conformal symmetry of the static equations of motion. We
calculate the soliton energies numerically and find that they grow linearly
with the topological charge (Hopf index). Further we prove this behaviour to
hold exactly for the ansatz. On the other hand, for the full three-dimensional
system without symmetry reduction we prove a sub-linear upper bound,
analogously to the case of the Faddeev-Niemi model. It follows that symmetric
solitons cannot be true minimizers of the energy for sufficiently large Hopf
index, again in analogy to the Faddeev-Niemi model.Comment: Latex, 35 pages, 1 figur
On the discrete Peyrard-Bishop model of DNA: stationary solutions and stability
As a first step in the search of an analytical study of mechanical
denaturation of DNA in terms of the sequence, we study stable, stationary
solutions in the discrete, finite and homogeneous Peyrard-Bishop DNA model. We
find and classify all the stationary solutions of the model, as well as
analytic approximations of them, both in the continuum and in the discrete
limits. Our results explain the structure of the solutions reported by
Theodorakopoulos {\em et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 93}, 258101 (2004)] and
provide a way to proceed to the analysis of the generalized version of the
model incorporating the genetic information.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure
Na/K pump regulation of cardiac repolarization: Insights from a systems biology approach
The sodium-potassium pump is widely recognized as the principal mechanism for active ion transport across the cellular membrane of cardiac tissue, being responsible for the creation and maintenance of the transarcolemmal sodium and potassium gradients, crucial for cardiac cell electrophysiology. Importantly, sodium-potassium pump activity is impaired in a number of major diseased conditions, including ischemia and heart failure. However, its subtle ways of action on cardiac electrophysiology, both directly through its electrogenic nature and indirectly via the regulation of cell homeostasis, make it hard to predict the electrophysiological consequences of reduced sodium-potassium pump activity in cardiac repolarization. In this review, we discuss how recent studies adopting the Systems Biology approach, through the integration of experimental and modeling methodologies, have identified the sodium-potassium pump as one of the most\ud
important ionic mechanisms in regulating key properties of cardiac repolarization and its rate-dependence, from subcellular to whole organ levels. These include the role of the pump in the biphasic modulation of cellular repolarization and refractoriness, the rate control of intracellular sodium and calcium dynamics and therefore of the adaptation of repolarization to changes in heart rate, as well as its importance in regulating pro-arrhythmic substrates through modulation of dispersion of repolarization and restitution. Theoretical findings are consistent across a variety of cell types and species including human, and widely in agreement with experimental findings. The novel insights and hypotheses on the role of the pump in cardiac electrophysiology obtained through this integrative approach could eventually lead to novel therapeutic and diagnostic strategies
Conservation laws in Skyrme-type models
The zero curvature representation of Zakharov and Shabat has been generalized
recently to higher dimensions and has been used to construct non-linear field
theories which either are integrable or contain integrable submodels. The
Skyrme model, for instance, contains an integrable subsector with infinitely
many conserved currents, and the simplest Skyrmion with baryon number one
belongs to this subsector. Here we use a related method, based on the geometry
of target space, to construct a whole class of theories which are either
integrable or contain integrable subsectors (where integrability means the
existence of infinitely many conservation laws). These models have
three-dimensional target space, like the Skyrme model, and their infinitely
many conserved currents turn out to be Noether currents of the
volume-preserving diffeomorphisms on target space. Specifically for the Skyrme
model, we find both a weak and a strong integrability condition, where the
conserved currents form a subset of the algebra of volume-preserving
diffeomorphisms in both cases, but this subset is a subalgebra only for the
weak integrable submodel.Comment: Latex file, 22 pages. Two (insignificant) errors in Eqs. 104-106
correcte
Axion Like Particles and the Inverse Seesaw Mechanism
Light pseudoscalars known as axion like particles (ALPs) may be behind
physical phenomena like the Universe transparency to ultra-energetic photons,
the soft -ray excess from the Coma cluster, and the 3.5 keV line. We
explore the connection of these particles with the inverse seesaw (ISS)
mechanism for neutrino mass generation. We propose a very restrictive setting
where the scalar field hosting the ALP is also responsible for generating the
ISS mass scales through its vacuum expectation value on gravity induced
nonrenormalizable operators. A discrete gauge symmetry protects the theory from
the appearance of overly strong gravitational effects and discrete anomaly
cancellation imposes strong constraints on the order of the group. The
anomalous U symmetry leading to the ALP is an extended lepton number and
the protective discrete symmetry can be always chosen as a subgroup of a
combination of the lepton number and the baryon number.Comment: 29pp. v4: published version with erratum. Conclusions unchange
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