Eigenelements of a General Aggregation-Fragmentation Model

We consider a linear integro-differential equation which arises to describe both aggregation-fragmentation processes and cell division. We prove the existence of a solution (\lb,\U,\phi) to the related eigenproblem. Such eigenelements are useful to study the long time asymptotic behaviour of solutions as well as the steady states when the equation is coupled with an ODE. Our study concerns a non-constant transport term that can vanish at $x=0,$ since it seems to be relevant to describe some biological processes like proteins aggregation. Non lower-bounded transport terms bring difficulties to find $a\ priori$ estimates. All the work of this paper is to solve this problem using weighted-norms

Incompressible limit of mechanical model of tumor growth with viscosity

Various models of tumor growth are available in the litterature. A first class describes the evolution of the cell number density when considered as a continuous visco-elastic material with growth. A second class, describes the tumor as a set and rules for the free boundary are given related to the classical Hele-Shaw model of fluid dynamics. Following the lines of previous papers where the material is described by a purely elastic material, or when active cell motion is included, we make the link between the two levels of description considering the 'stiff pressure law' limit. Even though viscosity is a regularizing effect, new mathematical difficulties arise in the visco-elastic case because estimates on the pressure field are weaker and do not imply immediately compactness. For instance, traveling wave solutions and numerical simulations show that the pressure may be discontinous in space which is not the case for the elastic case.Comment: 17 page

Optimal Regularizing Effect for Scalar Conservation Laws

We investigate the regularity of bounded weak solutions of scalar conservation laws with uniformly convex flux in space dimension one, satisfying an entropy condition with entropy production term that is a signed Radon measure. The proof is based on the kinetic formulation of scalar conservation laws and on an interaction estimate in physical space.Comment: 24 pages, assumption (11) in Theorem 3.1 modified together with the example on p. 7, one remark added after the proof of Lemma 4.3, some typos correcte

Free boundary problems for Tumor Growth: a Viscosity solutions approach

The mathematical modeling of tumor growth leads to singular stiff pressure law limits for porous medium equations with a source term. Such asymptotic problems give rise to free boundaries, which, in the absence of active motion, are generalized Hele-Shaw flows. In this note we use viscosity solutions methods to study limits for porous medium-type equations with active motion. We prove the uniform convergence of the density under fairly general assumptions on the initial data, thus improving existing results. We also obtain some additional information/regularity about the propagating interfaces, which, in view of the discontinuities, can nucleate and, thus, change topological type. The main tool is the construction of local, smooth, radial solutions which serve as barriers for the existence and uniqueness results as well as to quantify the speed of propagation of the free boundary propagation

On the Inverse Problem for a Size-Structured Population Model

We consider a size-structured model for cell division and address the question of determining the division (birth) rate from the measured stable size distribution of the population. We formulate such question as an inverse problem for an integro-differential equation posed on the half line. We develop firstly a regular dependency theory for the solution in terms of the coefficients and, secondly, a novel regularization technique for tackling this inverse problem which takes into account the specific nature of the equation. Our results rely also on generalized relative entropy estimates and related Poincar\'e inequalities