Turing pattern formation in the Brusselator system with nonlinear diffusion

In this work we investigate the effect of density dependent nonlinear diffusion on pattern formation in the Brusselator system. Through linear stability analysis of the basic solution we determine the Turing and the oscillatory instability boundaries. A comparison with the classical linear diffusion shows how nonlinear diffusion favors the occurrence of Turing pattern formation. We study the process of pattern formation both in 1D and 2D spatial domains. Through a weakly nonlinear multiple scales analysis we derive the equations for the amplitude of the stationary patterns. The analysis of the amplitude equations shows the occurrence of a number of different phenomena, including stable supercritical and subcritical Turing patterns with multiple branches of stable solutions leading to hysteresis. Moreover we consider traveling patterning waves: when the domain size is large, the pattern forms sequentially and traveling wavefronts are the precursors to patterning. We derive the Ginzburg-Landau equation and describe the traveling front enveloping a pattern which invades the domain. We show the emergence of radially symmetric target patterns, and through a matching procedure we construct the outer amplitude equation and the inner core solution.Comment: Physical Review E, 201

Feeding the Dragon. An Eschatological Motif in Medieval Europe

This book consists of six original essays concerning two popular eschatological motifs of medieval Europe: the devouring devil, especially in the guise of a dragon, and the zoomorphic mouth of hell, arguably a distinctive English adaptation of the anthropomorphic mouth of hell of classical antiquity. Over a time span ranging from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages and stretching across three languages, Latin, Old English, and Old Norse, the topos of the devouring demonic monster, a veritable commonplace across cultures and ages, is investigated in a variety of texts, including the Holy Scripture, homiletic and hagiographic works by authors such as Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, and Ælfric of Eynsham, and apocryphal writings, e.g. the Seven Heavens Apocryphon and the Gospel of Nicodemus, especially its latter section, the Descensus Christi ad inferos. By detailing the creative interaction of a wide range of influences and the various practices of appropriation and adaptation of a vast stock of source material, both ultimate and intermediate, the contributions afford relevant case studies of the densely interlingual and intertextual modes of textual production, transmission, and reception in the European Middle Ages. Advancing our understanding of the cultural and textual networks of the period, this book will prove an important resource for anyone interested in the dynamic process of mediation between past and present, pagan and Christian, orthodoxy and apocrypha, exotic and local that makes up medieval literary and figurative culture

Matter-wave dark solitons in boxlike traps

Motivated by the experimental development of quasihomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensates confined in boxlike traps, we study numerically the dynamics of dark solitons in such traps at zero temperature. We consider the cases where the side walls of the box potential rise either as a power law or a Gaussian. While the soliton propagates through the homogeneous interior of the box without dissipation, it typically dissipates energy during a reflection from a wall through the emission of sound waves, causing a slight increase in the soliton's speed. We characterize this energy loss as a function of the wall parameters. Moreover, over multiple oscillations and reflections in the boxlike trap, the energy loss and speed increase of the soliton can be significant, although the decay eventually becomes stabilized when the soliton equilibrates with the ambient sound field

Cardiovascular autonomic function and MCI in Parkinson's disease

Introduction: dysautonomic dysfunction and cognitive impairment represent the most disabling non-motor features of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Recent evidences suggest the association between Orthostatic Hypotension (OH) and PD-Dementia. However, little is known on the interactions between cardiovascular dysautonomia and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). We aimed to evaluate the association between cardiovascular dysautonomia and MCI in patients with PD. Methods: non-demented PD patients belonging to the PACOS cohort underwent a comprehensive instrumental neurovegetative assessment including the study of both parasympathetic and sympathetic function (30:15 ratio, Expiratory-Inspiratory ratio [E-I] and presence of Orthostatic Hypotension [OH]). Diagnosis of MCI was made according to the MDS criteria level II. Results: we enrolled 185 PD patients of whom 102 (55.1%) were men, mean age was 64.6 ± 9.7 years, mean disease duration of 5.6 ± 5.5 years with a mean UPDRS-ME score of 31.7 ± 10.9. MCI was diagnosed in 79 (42.7%) patients. OH was recorded in 52 (28.1%) patients, altered 30:15 ratio was recorded in 39 (24.1%) patients and an altered E-I ratio was found in 24 (19.1%) patients. Presence of MCI was associated with an altered 30:15 ratio (adjOR 2.83; 95%CI 1.25–6.40) but not with an altered E-I ratio, while OH was associated only with the amnestic MCI subgroup (OR 2.43; 95% CI 1.05–5.06). Conclusion: in our study sample, MCI was mainly associated with parasympathetic dysfunction in PD

Usefulness of regional right ventricular and right atrial strain for prediction of early and late right ventricular failure following a left ventricular assist device implant: A machine learning approach

Background: Identifying candidates for left ventricular assist device surgery at risk of right ventricular failure remains difficult. The aim was to identify the most accurate predictors of right ventricular failure among clinical, biological, and imaging markers, assessed by agreement of different supervised machine learning algorithms. Methods: Seventy-four patients, referred to HeartWare left ventricular assist device since 2010 in two Italian centers, were recruited. Biomarkers, right ventricular standard, and strain echocardiography, as well as cath-lab measures, were compared among patients who did not develop right ventricular failure (N = 56), those with acute–right ventricular failure (N = 8, 11%) or chronic–right ventricular failure (N = 10, 14%). Logistic regression, penalized logistic regression, linear support vector machines, and naïve Bayes algorithms with leave-one-out validation were used to evaluate the efficiency of any combination of three collected variables in an “all-subsets” approach. Results: Michigan risk score combined with central venous pressure assessed invasively and apical longitudinal systolic strain of the right ventricular–free wall were the most significant predictors of acute–right ventricular failure (maximum receiver operating characteristic–area under the curve = 0.95, 95% confidence interval = 0.91–1.00, by the naïve Bayes), while the right ventricular–free wall systolic strain of the middle segment, right atrial strain (QRS-synced), and tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion were the most significant predictors of Chronic-RVF (receiver operating characteristic–area under the curve = 0.97, 95% confidence interval = 0.91–1.00, according to naïve Bayes). Conclusion: Apical right ventricular strain as well as right atrial strain provides complementary information, both critical to predict acute–right ventricular failure and chronic–right ventricular failure, respectively

Rilevamento delle sorgenti doppler della ionosfera tramite radar-HF

Il presente lavoro contiene un insieme di concetti di base utili per comprendere la cosiddetta tecnica della “interferometria doppler”, usata, nell’ambito degli studi sulla ionosfera, per ricavare informazioni sulla conformazione e velocità degli strati riflettenti (operazione chiamata anche sky mapping). È utile ricordare, infatti, che il sondaggio ionosferico tradizionale consente solo la determinazione dell’altezza virtuale di ogni strato, pensato come un unico oggetto riflettente piano. Tale determinazione è giunta nel tempo ad avere una risoluzione molto spinta, dell’ordine di qualche chilometro, tuttavia una ionosonda tradizionale non possiede la capacità di individuare la struttura degli strati riflettenti

Cytokine-induced instabilities in a reaction–diffusion-chemotaxis model of Multiple Sclerosis: Bifurcation analysis and well-posedness

In this paper, we develop a model for the evolution of the Multiple Sclerosis pathology that considers the modulatory influence of cytokines on the activation rate of macrophages. Our starting point is the reaction–diffusion-chemotaxis model proposed in 4, and we modify the macrophage activation mechanism. What triggers the immune cells into an active state is still debated in the medical literature. In this paper, we explore the hypothesis, e.g., Lassmann, (2018), that cytokines mediate the activation mechanism. Our primary focus is on the rigorous analysis of instabilities responsible for the formation of demyelinating lesions and on the qualitative properties of the solution. Through a weakly nonlinear analysis, we characterize the chemotaxis-driven Turing instability and construct the stationary patterns that emerge from this instability. Using biologically relevant parameter values, we show that the asymptotic solutions of our model system reproduce the concentric demyelinating rings, confluent plaques, and preactive lesions observed in Balò sclerosis and type III Multiple Sclerosis. Furthermore, we explore the initiation and progression of demyelinated plaques through extensive numerical simulations on two-dimensional domains. Our findings reveal that the alternative scenario proposed here results in a less aggressive pathology characterized by reduced inflammation levels and significantly slower disease progression. Under the appropriate regularity conditions on the initial data, we prove the existence of a unique global solution to our proposed system. This study provides insights into the role of cytokines in the pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis, shedding light on the disease's dynamics and offering potential avenues for therapeutic interventions

THE NEW INGV DIGITAL IONOSONDE: DESIGN REPORT

The ionosonde is a system which exploits the radar technique: it applies electromagnetic waves with variable frequency in the HF band to measure the ionospheric layers electron density, height and other parameters. This paper is a technical report on the new digital ionosonde (AIS-INGV), which was designed both for research purposes and for the routine service of the HF radiowave propagation forecast. It has been developed almost completely within the Laboratorio di Geofisica Ambientale (LGA) at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). It exploits advanced techniques for the signal analysis, recent technological devices and PC resources. The report is divided into two parts; the first is a general description of the design development, the second is a more detailed description of the blocks and circuits actually built and tested, directed to a specialist reader

Classical and quantum vortex leapfrogging in two-dimensional channels

The leapfrogging of coaxial vortex rings is a famous effect which has been noticed since the times of Helmholtz. Recent advances in ultra-cold atomic gases show that the effect can now be studied in quantum fluids. The strong confinement which characterises these systems motivates the study of leapfrogging of vortices within narrow channels. Using the two-dimensional point vortex model, we show that in the constrained geometry of a two-dimensional channel the dynamics is richer than in an unbounded domain: alongside the known regimes of standard leapfrogging and the absence of it, we identify new regimes of image-driven leapfrogging and periodic orbits. Moreover, by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a Bose-Einstein condensate, we show that all four regimes exist for quantum vortices too. Finally, we discuss the differences between classical and quantum vortex leapfrogging which appear when the quantum healing length becomes significant compared to the vortex separation or the channel size, and when, due to high velocity, compressibility effects in the condensate becomes significant

The new AIS-INGV digital ionosonde

A new digital ionosonde called AIS-INGV (Advanced Ionospheric Sounder) was designed both for research and for routine service of HF radio wave propagation forecast. Nearly the entire system was developed in the Laboratorio di Geofisica Ambientale at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome. It exploits advanced techniques for signal analysis, recent technological devices and PC resources. This paper describes design concepts and performance of the new ionosonde