OPTIMAL DISTRIBUTED CONTROL OF STOCHASTIC ELLIPTIC SYSTEMS WITH CONSTRAINTS

The objective of this paper is to study the optimality for stochastic non cooperative elliptic systems. A distributed control problem for a stochastic elliptic systems with constraints on states and controls is studied. First, the existence and uniqueness of the state process for these systems are proved. The necessary and sufficient conditions of optimality are derived for the Dirichlet and Neumann problems

The Moment Problem in Hypercomplex Systems

This paper is devoted to give the necessary and sufficient conditions guarantees that the product of two generalized moment functions defined in a hypercomplex system L1(Q,m) is also generalized moment function in L1(Q,m) . Also, we prove that a bounded continuous function  in a hypercomplex system L1(Q,m) is conditionally positive definite if and only if is generalized moment functions defined in L1(Q,m) . Moreover, we will give the integral representations of a generalized moment functions defined in L1 (Q, m)

Analytical Solution of the Voter Model on Disordered Networks

We present a mathematical description of the voter model dynamics on heterogeneous networks. When the average degree of the graph is $\mu \leq 2$ the system reaches complete order exponentially fast. For $\mu >2$, a finite system falls, before it fully orders, in a quasistationary state in which the average density of active links (links between opposite-state nodes) in surviving runs is constant and equal to $\frac{(\mu-2)}{3(\mu-1)}$, while an infinite large system stays ad infinitum in a partially ordered stationary active state. The mean life time of the quasistationary state is proportional to the mean time to reach the fully ordered state $T$, which scales as $T \sim \frac{(\mu-1) \mu^2 N}{(\mu-2) \mu_2}$, where $N$ is the number of nodes of the network, and $\mu_2$ is the second moment of the degree distribution. We find good agreement between these analytical results and numerical simulations on random networks with various degree distributions.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Lung cancer incidence trends in Iran and in six geographical regions of the country (2000 - 2005)

Background: Lung cancer, the most common type of cancer in humans, is the leading cause of cancer deaths globally, accounting for 1.38 million deaths per year (18.2 of all cancer deaths). Lung cancer is the third most common type of cancer in Iran. Objectives: The present study investigated the incidence of lung cancer in six geographical regions of Iran. Materials and Methods: Data for annual cases of lung cancer were obtained from the national cancer registry during the years 2000 - 2005. The rates of incidence were standardized using world health organization (WHO) population data, and confidence intervals were calculated at 95. Iran was divided into six areas according to geographical differences. The Poisson regression model was used to test the significance of changes in the incidence rates during the study period Results: The age-standardized rates of lung cancer for men and women increased from 0.8 and 0.3 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 4 and 1.5 in 2005, respectively. The highest rate of lung cancer was observed in the mountainous region, and the lowest rate occurred in the western provinces of the Caspian sea region. Despite the difference in the slope of changes, there is an increasing trend in the incidence of lung cancer in all geographical areas. Conclusions: The current incidence rates of lung cancer in all the geographical areas examined are generally increasing. Unfortunately, the rates of urbanization, environmental pollution, and smoking tendency are also increasing in Iran; to control these trends and adjust these risk factors, officials should help more with public-program planning. © 2016, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

On a New Numerical Computation of the Steady State Solution for two Infinite Server parallel Queues

Abstract We consider a network of two M/M/∞ parallel queues having the same poisonnian arrival stream with rate λ. Upon his arrival to the system a customer heads to the shortest queue and stays until being served. If the two queues have the same length, an arriving customer choose one of the two queues with the same probability. Each duration of service in the two queues is an exponential random variable with rate μ and no jockeying is permitted between the two queues. We use a linear program for a numerical computation of the steady state solution of the system. Mathematics Subject Classification: 60J28, 60K25, 90C0

Erythropoietin Couples Hematopoiesis with Bone Formation

It is well established that bleeding activates the hematopoietic system to regenerate the loss of mature blood elements. We have shown that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) isolated from animals challenged with an acute bleed regulate osteoblast differentiation from marrow stromal cells. This suggests that HSCs participate in bone formation where the molecular basis for this activity is the production of BMP2 and BMP6 by HSCs. Yet, what stimulates HSCs to produce BMPs is unclear.In this study, we demonstrate that erythropoietin (Epo) activates Jak-Stat signaling pathways in HSCs which leads to the production of BMPs. Critically, Epo also directly activates mesenchymal cells to form osteoblasts in vitro, which in vivo leads to bone formation. Importantly, Epo first activates osteoclastogenesis which is later followed by osteoblastogenesis that is induced by either Epo directly or the expression of BMPs by HSCs to form bone.These data for the first time demonstrate that Epo regulates the formation of bone by both direct and indirect pathways, and further demonstrates the exquisite coupling between hematopoiesis and osteopoiesis in the marrow

Biological Designer Self-Assembling Peptide Nanofiber Scaffolds Significantly Enhance Osteoblast Proliferation, Differentiation and 3-D Migration

A class of self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds has been shown to be an excellent biological material for 3-dimension cell culture and stimulating cell migration into the scaffold, as well as for repairing tissue defects in animals. We report here the development of several peptide nanofiber scaffolds designed specifically for osteoblasts. We designed one of the pure self-assembling peptide scaffolds RADA16-I through direct coupling to short biologically active motifs. The motifs included osteogenic growth peptide ALK (ALKRQGRTLYGF) bone-cell secreted-signal peptide, osteopontin cell adhesion motif DGR (DGRGDSVAYG) and 2-unit RGD binding sequence PGR (PRGDSGYRGDS). We made the new peptide scaffolds by mixing the pure RAD16 and designer-peptide solutions, and we examined the molecular integration of the mixed nanofiber scaffolds using AFM. Compared to pure RAD16 scaffold, we found that these designer peptide scaffolds significantly promoted mouse pre-osteoblast MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation. Moreover, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and osteocalcin secretion, which are early and late markers for osteoblastic differentiation, were also significantly increased. We demonstrated that the designer, self-assembling peptide scaffolds promoted the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1. Under the identical culture medium condition, confocal images unequivocally demonstrated that the designer PRG peptide scaffold stimulated cell migration into the 3-D scaffold. Our results suggest that these designer peptide scaffolds may be very useful for promoting bone tissue regeneration

Tracking and coordinating an international curation effort for the CCDS Project

The Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) collaboration involves curators at multiple centers with a goal of producing a conservative set of high quality, protein-coding region annotations for the human and mouse reference genome assemblies. The CCDS data set reflects a ‘gold standard’ definition of best supported protein annotations, and corresponding genes, which pass a standard series of quality assurance checks and are supported by manual curation. This data set supports use of genome annotation information by human and mouse researchers for effective experimental design, analysis and interpretation. The CCDS project consists of analysis of automated whole-genome annotation builds to identify identical CDS annotations, quality assurance testing and manual curation support. Identical CDS annotations are tracked with a CCDS identifier (ID) and any future change to the annotated CDS structure must be agreed upon by the collaborating members. CCDS curation guidelines were developed to address some aspects of curation in order to improve initial annotation consistency and to reduce time spent in discussing proposed annotation updates. Here, we present the current status of the CCDS database and details on our procedures to track and coordinate our efforts. We also present the relevant background and reasoning behind the curation standards that we have developed for CCDS database treatment of transcripts that are nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) candidates, for transcripts containing upstream open reading frames, for identifying the most likely translation start codons and for the annotation of readthrough transcripts. Examples are provided to illustrate the application of these guidelines

NEDD8 conjugation in Schistosoma mansoni : genome analysis and expression profiles.

NEDD8 is an ubiquitin-like molecule that covalently binds to target proteins through an enzymatic cascade analogous to ubiquitylation. This modifier is known to bind to p53 and p73, as well as all Cullin family proteins, which are essential components of Skp1/Cul-1/F-box protein (SCF)-like Ub ligase complexes. Here, we focused on a genomic analysis of the genes involved in the NEDD8 conjugation pathway in Schistosoma mansoni. The results revealed seven genes related to NEDD8 conjugation that are conserved in Schistosoma japonicum, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens. We performed quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR), which showed differential profiles for Smnedd8, Smapp1, Smuba3, Smube2f, Smdcn1, Smrbx and Smsenp8 throughout the life cycle of S. mansoni. Upregulation was observed in 3-day-old schistosomula and adult worms for all analysed genes. We also analysed the transcription levels of Cullin family members Smp63 and Smp73, and observed upregulation in early schistosomula, while cercariae and adult worms showed expression levels similar to one another. Taken together, these results suggest that the NEDDylation/ DeNEDDylation pathway controls important cellular regulators during worm development from cercariae to schistosomula and, finally, to adult