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

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

A simple derivation of BV bounds for inhomogeneous relaxation systems

We consider relaxation systems of transport equations with heterogeneous source terms and with boundary conditions, which limits are scalar conservation laws. Classical bounds fail in this context and in particular BV estimates. They are the most standard and simplest way to prove compactness and convergence. We provide a novel and simple method to obtain partial BV regularity and strong compactness in this framework. The standard notion of entropy is not convenient either and we also indicate another, but closely related, notion. We give two examples motivated by renal flows which consist of 2 by 2 and 3 by 3 relaxation systems with 2-velocities but the method is more general

Mathematical Analysis of a System for Biological Network Formation

Motivated by recent physics papers describing rules for natural network formation, we study an elliptic-parabolic system of partial differential equations proposed by Hu and Cai. The model describes the pressure field thanks to Darcy's type equation and the dynamics of the conductance network under pressure force effects with a diffusion rate $D$ representing randomness in the material structure. We prove the existence of global weak solutions and of local mild solutions and study their long term behaviour. It turns out that, by energy dissipation, steady states play a central role to understand the pattern capacity of the system. We show that for a large diffusion coefficient $D$, the zero steady state is stable. Patterns occur for small values of $D$ because the zero steady state is Turing unstable in this range; for $D=0$ we can exhibit a large class of dynamically stable (in the linearized sense) steady states

Competition and boundary formation in heterogeneous media: Application to neuronal differentiation

We analyze an inhomogeneous system of coupled reaction-diffusion equations representing the dynamics of gene expression during differentiation of nerve cells. The outcome of this developmental phase is the formation of distinct functional areas separated by sharp and smooth boundaries. It proceeds through the competition between the expression of two genes whose expression is driven by monotonic gradients of chemicals, and the products of gene expression undergo local diffusion and drive gene expression in neighboring cells. The problem therefore falls in a more general setting of species in competition within a non-homogeneous medium. We show that in the limit of arbitrarily small diffusion, there exists a unique monotonic stationary solution, which splits the neural tissue into two winner-take-all parts at a precise boundary point: on both sides of the boundary, different neuronal types are present. In order to further characterize the location of this boundary, we use a blow-up of the system and define a traveling wave problem parametrized by the position within the monotonic gradient: the precise boundary location is given by the unique point in space at which the speed of the wave vanishes

An inequality for the Perron and Floquet eigenvalues of monotone differential systems and age structured equations

For monotone linear differential systems with periodic coefficients, the (first) Floquet eigenvalue measures the growth rate of the system. We define an appropriate arithmetico-geometric time average of the coefficients for which we can prove that the Perron eigenvalue is smaller than the Floquet eigenvalue. We apply this method to Partial Differential Equations, and we use it for an age-structured systems of equations for the cell cycle. This opposition between Floquet and Perron eigenvalues models the loss of circadian rhythms by cancer cells.Comment: 7 pages, in English, with an abridged French versio