31,847 research outputs found

    Correcting mean-field approximations for spatially-dependent advection-diffusion-reaction processes

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    On the microscale, migration, proliferation and death are crucial in the development, homeostasis and repair of an organism; on the macroscale, such effects are important in the sustainability of a population in its environment. Dependent on the relative rates of migration, proliferation and death, spatial heterogeneity may arise within an initially uniform field; this leads to the formation of spatial correlations and can have a negative impact upon population growth. Usually, such effects are neglected in modeling studies and simple phenomenological descriptions, such as the logistic model, are used to model population growth. In this work we outline some methods for analyzing exclusion processes which include agent proliferation, death and motility in two and three spatial dimensions with spatially homogeneous initial conditions. The mean-field description for these types of processes is of logistic form; we show that, under certain parameter conditions, such systems may display large deviations from the mean field, and suggest computationally tractable methods to correct the logistic-type description

    Models of collective cell motion for cell populations with different aspect ratio: diffusion, proliferation & travelling waves

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    Continuum, partial differential equation models are often used to describe the collective motion of cell populations, with various types of motility represented by the choice of diffusion coefficient, and cell proliferation captured by the source terms. Previously, the choice of diffusion coefficient has been largely arbitrary, with the decision to choose a particular linear or nonlinear form generally based on calibration arguments rather than making any physical connection with the underlying individual-level properties of the cell motility mechanism. In this work we provide a new link between individual-level models, which account for important cell properties such as varying cell shape and volume exclusion, and population-level partial differential equation models. We work in an exclusion process framework, considering aligned, elongated cells that may occupy more than one lattice site, in order to represent populations of agents with different sizes. Three different idealisations of the individual-level mechanism are proposed, and these are connected to three different partial differential equations, each with a different diffusion coefficient; one linear, one nonlinear and degenerate and one nonlinear and nondegenerate. We test the ability of these three models to predict the population-level response of a cell spreading problem for both proliferative and nonproliferative cases. We also explore the potential of our models to predict long time travelling wave invasion rates and extend our results to two-dimensional spreading and invasion. Our results show that each model can accurately predict density data for nonproliferative systems, but that only one does so for proliferative systems. Hence great care must be taken to predict density data with varying cell shape

    Vacuum-Ultraviolet negative photoion spectroscopy of SF5Cl

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    Using vacuum-UV radiation from a synchrotron, gas-phase negative ions are detected by mass spectrometry following photoexcitation of SF5_5Cl. F−^-, Cl−^- and SF5−_5^-are observed, and their ion yields recorded in the range 8-30 eV. F−^- and Cl−^- show a linear dependence of signal with pressure, showing that they arise from unimolecular ion-pair dissociation, generically written AB + hvv →\rightarrow C−^- + D+^+ (+ neutral(s)). F−^- is the strongest signal, and absolute cross sections are determined by calibrating the signal intensity with that of F−^- from SF6_6 and CF4_4. Resonances are observed, and assigned to transitions to Rydberg states of SF5_5Cl. The Cl−^- signal is much weaker, despite the S-Cl bond being significantly weaker than the S-F bond. Appearance energies for F−^- and Cl−^- of 12.7 ± 0.2 and 10.6 ± 0.2 eV are determined. The spectra suggest that these ions form indirectly by crossing of Rydberg states of SF5_5Cl onto an ion-pair continuum

    A study of a non-deepening tropical disturbance

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    Data from research vessel, instrumented research aircraft, and Tiros VI and Tiros VII SATELLITES to study nondeepening tropical disturbanc

    Models of collective cell spreading with variable cell aspect ration: a motivation for degenerate diffusion models

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    Continuum diffusion models are often used to represent the collective motion of cell populations. Most previous studies have simply used linear diffusion to represent collective cell spreading, while others found that degenerate nonlinear diffusion provides a better match to experimental cell density profiles. In the cell modeling literature there is no guidance available with regard to which approach is more appropriate for representing the spreading of cell populations. Furthermore, there is no knowledge of particular experimental measurements that can be made to distinguish between situations where these two models are appropriate. Here we provide a link between individual-based and continuum models using a multiscale approach in which we analyze the collective motion of a population of interacting agents in a generalized lattice-based exclusion process. For round agents that occupy a single lattice site, we find that the relevant continuum description of the system is a linear diffusion equation, whereas for elongated rod-shaped agents that occupy L adjacent lattice sites we find that the relevant continuum description is connected to the porous media equation (PME). The exponent in the nonlinear diffusivity function is related to the aspect ratio of the agents. Our work provides a physical connection between modeling collective cell spreading and the use of either the linear diffusion equation or the PME to represent cell density profiles. Results suggest that when using continuum models to represent cell population spreading, we should take care to account for variations in the cell aspect ratio because different aspect ratios lead to different continuum models
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