A measure of individual role in collective dynamics

Identifying key players in collective dynamics remains a challenge in several research fields, from the efficient dissemination of ideas to drug target discovery in biomedical problems. The difficulty lies at several levels: how to single out the role of individual elements in such intermingled systems, or which is the best way to quantify their importance. Centrality measures describe a node's importance by its position in a network. The key issue obviated is that the contribution of a node to the collective behavior is not uniquely determined by the structure of the system but it is a result of the interplay between dynamics and network structure. We show that dynamical influence measures explicitly how strongly a node's dynamical state affects collective behavior. For critical spreading, dynamical influence targets nodes according to their spreading capabilities. For diffusive processes it quantifies how efficiently real systems may be controlled by manipulating a single node.Comment: accepted for publication in Scientific Report

Cellular shear adhesion force measurement and simultaneous imaging by atomic force microscope

This paper presents a sensitive and fast cellular shear adhesion force measurement method using an atomic force microscope (AFM). In the work, the AFM was used both as a tool for the imaging of cells on the nano-scale and as a force sensor for the measurement of the shear adhesion force between the cell and the substrate. After the cell imaging, the measurement of cellular shear adhesion forces was made based on the different positions of the cell on the nano-scale. Moreover, different pushing speeds of probe and various locations of cells were used in experiments to study their influences. In this study, the measurement of the cell adhesion in the upper portion of the cell is different from that in the lower portion. It may reveal that the cancer cells have the metastasis tendency after cultured for 16 to 20 hours, which is significant for preventing metastasis in the patients diagnosed with early cancer lesions. Furthermore, the cellular shear adhesion forces of two types of living cancer cells were obtained based on the measurements of AFM cantilever deflections in the torsional and vertical directions. The results demonstrate that the shear adhesion force of cancer cells is twice as much as the same type of cancer cells with TRAIL. The method can also provide a way for the measurement of the cellular shear adhesion force between the cell and the substrate, and for the simultaneous exploration of cells using the AFM imaging and manipulatio

Logical inference for inverse problems

Estimating a deterministic single value for model parameters when reconstructing the system response has a limited meaning if one considers that the model used to predict its behaviour is just an idealization of reality, and furthermore, the existence of measurements errors. To provide a reliable answer, probabilistic instead of deterministic values should be provided, which carry information about the degree of uncertainty or plausibility of those model parameters providing one or more observations of the system response. This is widely-known as the Bayesian inverse problem, which has been covered in the literature from different perspectives, depending on the interpretation or the meaning assigned to the probability. In this paper, we revise two main approaches: the one that uses probability as logic, and an alternative one that interprets it as information content. The contribution of this paper is to provide an unifying formulation from which both approaches stem as interpretations, and which is more general in the sense of requiring fewer axioms, at the time the formulation and computation is simplified by dropping some constants. An extension to the problem of model class selection is derived, which is particularly simple under the proposed framework. A numerical example is finally given to illustrate the utility and effectiveness of the method

On the coupling of local 3D solutions and global 2D shell theory in structural mechanics

Most of mechanical systems and complex structures exhibit plate and shell components. Therefore, 2D simulation, based on plate and shell theory, appears as an appealing choice in structural analysis as it allows reducing the computational complexity. Nevertheless, this 2D framework fails for capturing rich physics compromising the usual hypotheses considered when deriving standard plate and shell theories. To circumvent, or at least alleviate this issue, authors proposed in their former works an in-plane-out-of-plane separated representation able to capture rich 3D behaviors while keeping the computational complexity of 2D simulations. However, that procedure it was revealed to be too intrusive for being introduced into existing commercial softwares. Moreover, experience indicated that such enriched descriptions are only compulsory locally, in some regions or structure components. In the present paper we propose an enrichment procedure able to address 3D local behaviors, preserving the direct minimally-invasive coupling with existing plate and shell discretizations. The proposed strategy will be extended to inelastic behaviors and structural dynamics

Comparative Assessment of Copper, Iron, and Zinc Contents in Selected Indian (Assam) and South African (Thohoyandou) Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Samples and Their Infusion: A Quest for Health Risks to Consumer

The current study aims to assess the infusion pattern of three important micronutrients namely copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn) contents from black tea samples produced in Assam (India) and Thohoyandou (South Africa). Average daily intakes and hazardous quotient were reported for these micronutrients. Total content for Cu, Fe, and Zn varied from 2.25 to 48.82 mg kg−1, 14.75 to 148.18 mg kg−1, and 28.48 to 106.68 mg kg−1, respectively. The average contents of each of the three micronutrients were higher in tea leaves samples collected from South Africa than those from India while the contents in tea infusions in Indian samples were higher than in South African tea samples. Results of this study revealed that the consumption of 600 mL tea infusion produced from 24 g of made tea per day may be beneficial to human in terms of these micronutrients content. Application of nonparametric tests revealed that most of the data sets do not satisfy the normality assumptions. Hence, the use of both parametric and nonparametric statistical analysis that subsequently revealed significant differences in elemental contents among Indian and South African tea