994 research outputs found
Motion of Isolated bodies
It is shown that sufficiently smooth initial data for the Einstein-dust or
the Einstein-Maxwell-dust equations with non-negative density of compact
support develop into solutions representing isolated bodies in the sense that
the matter field has spatially compact support and is embedded in an exterior
vacuum solution
Autoimmune (auto-inflammatory) syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA) - Animal models as a proof of concept
ASIA syndrome, 'Autoimmune (Auto-inflammatory) Syndromes Induced by Adjuvants' includes at least four conditions which share a similar complex of signs and symptoms and have been defined by hyperactive immune responses: siliconosis, macrophagic myofasciitis syndrome, Gulf war syndrome and post-vaccination phenomena. Exposure to adjuvants has been documented in these four medical conditions, suggesting that the common denominator to these syndromes is a trigger entailing adjuvant activity. An important role of animal models in proving the ASIA concept has been established. Experimentally animal models of autoimmune diseases induced by adjuvants are currently widely used to understand the mechanisms and etiology and pathogenesis of these diseases and might thus promote the development of new diagnostic, predictive and therapeutic methods. In the current review we wish to unveil the variety of ASIA animal models associated with systemic and organ specific autoimmune diseases induced by adjuvants. We included in this review animal models for rheumatoid arthritis-like disease, for systemic lupus erythematosus-like disease, autoimmune thyroid disease-like disease, antiphospholipid syndrome, myocarditis and others. All these models support the concept of ASIA, as the Autoimmune (Auto-inflammatory) Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants. © 2013 Bentham Science Publishers
Stability Of contact discontinuity for steady Euler System in infinite duct
In this paper, we prove structural stability of contact discontinuities for
full Euler system
The critical dimension for a 4th order problem with singular nonlinearity
We study the regularity of the extremal solution of the semilinear biharmonic
equation \bi u=\f{\lambda}{(1-u)^2}, which models a simple
Micro-Electromechanical System (MEMS) device on a ball B\subset\IR^N, under
Dirichlet boundary conditions on . We complete
here the results of F.H. Lin and Y.S. Yang \cite{LY} regarding the
identification of a "pull-in voltage" \la^*>0 such that a stable classical
solution u_\la with 0 exists for \la\in (0,\la^*), while there is
none of any kind when \la>\la^*. Our main result asserts that the extremal
solution is regular provided while is singular () for , in which case
on the unit ball, where
and .Comment: 19 pages. This paper completes and replaces a paper (with a similar
title) which appeared in arXiv:0810.5380. Updated versions --if any-- of this
author's papers can be downloaded at this http://www.birs.ca/~nassif
On the L_p-solvability of higher order parabolic and elliptic systems with BMO coefficients
We prove the solvability in Sobolev spaces for both divergence and
non-divergence form higher order parabolic and elliptic systems in the whole
space, on a half space, and on a bounded domain. The leading coefficients are
assumed to be merely measurable in the time variable and have small mean
oscillations with respect to the spatial variables in small balls or cylinders.
For the proof, we develop a set of new techniques to produce mean oscillation
estimates for systems on a half space.Comment: 44 pages, introduction revised, references expanded. To appear in
Arch. Rational Mech. Ana
Initial data for fluid bodies in general relativity
We show that there exist asymptotically flat almost-smooth initial data for
Einstein-perfect fluid's equation that represent an isolated liquid-type body.
By liquid-type body we mean that the fluid energy density has compact support
and takes a strictly positive constant value at its boundary. By almost-smooth
we mean that all initial data fields are smooth everywhere on the initial
hypersurface except at the body boundary, where tangential derivatives of any
order are continuous at that boundary.
PACS: 04.20.Ex, 04.40.Nr, 02.30.JrComment: 38 pages, LaTeX 2e, no figures. Accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev.
Byzantine Gathering in Networks
This paper investigates an open problem introduced in [14]. Two or more
mobile agents start from different nodes of a network and have to accomplish
the task of gathering which consists in getting all together at the same node
at the same time. An adversary chooses the initial nodes of the agents and
assigns a different positive integer (called label) to each of them. Initially,
each agent knows its label but does not know the labels of the other agents or
their positions relative to its own. Agents move in synchronous rounds and can
communicate with each other only when located at the same node. Up to f of the
agents are Byzantine. A Byzantine agent can choose an arbitrary port when it
moves, can convey arbitrary information to other agents and can change its
label in every round, in particular by forging the label of another agent or by
creating a completely new one.
What is the minimum number M of good agents that guarantees deterministic
gathering of all of them, with termination?
We provide exact answers to this open problem by considering the case when
the agents initially know the size of the network and the case when they do
not. In the former case, we prove M=f+1 while in the latter, we prove M=f+2.
More precisely, for networks of known size, we design a deterministic algorithm
gathering all good agents in any network provided that the number of good
agents is at least f+1. For networks of unknown size, we also design a
deterministic algorithm ensuring the gathering of all good agents in any
network but provided that the number of good agents is at least f+2. Both of
our algorithms are optimal in terms of required number of good agents, as each
of them perfectly matches the respective lower bound on M shown in [14], which
is of f+1 when the size of the network is known and of f+2 when it is unknown
Democratization in a passive dendritic tree : an analytical investigation
One way to achieve amplification of distal synaptic inputs on a dendritic tree is to scale the amplitude and/or duration of the synaptic conductance with its distance from the soma. This is an example of what is often referred to as “dendritic democracy”. Although well studied experimentally, to date this phenomenon has not been thoroughly explored from a mathematical perspective. In this paper we adopt a passive model of a dendritic tree with distributed excitatory synaptic conductances and analyze a number of key measures of democracy. In particular, via moment methods we derive laws for the transport, from synapse to soma, of strength, characteristic time, and dispersion. These laws lead immediately to synaptic scalings that overcome attenuation with distance. We follow this with a Neumann approximation of Green’s representation that readily produces the synaptic scaling that democratizes the peak somatic voltage response. Results are obtained for both idealized geometries and for the more realistic geometry of a rat CA1 pyramidal cell. For each measure of democratization we produce and contrast the synaptic scaling associated with treating the synapse as either a conductance change or a current injection. We find that our respective scalings agree up to a critical distance from the soma and we reveal how this critical distance decreases with decreasing branch radius
Rendezvous on a Line by Location-Aware Robots Despite the Presence of Byzantine Faults
A set of mobile robots is placed at points of an infinite line. The robots
are equipped with GPS devices and they may communicate their positions on the
line to a central authority. The collection contains an unknown subset of
"spies", i.e., byzantine robots, which are indistinguishable from the
non-faulty ones. The set of the non-faulty robots need to rendezvous in the
shortest possible time in order to perform some task, while the byzantine
robots may try to delay their rendezvous for as long as possible. The problem
facing a central authority is to determine trajectories for all robots so as to
minimize the time until the non-faulty robots have rendezvoused. The
trajectories must be determined without knowledge of which robots are faulty.
Our goal is to minimize the competitive ratio between the time required to
achieve the first rendezvous of the non-faulty robots and the time required for
such a rendezvous to occur under the assumption that the faulty robots are
known at the start. We provide a bounded competitive ratio algorithm, where the
central authority is informed only of the set of initial robot positions,
without knowing which ones or how many of them are faulty. When an upper bound
on the number of byzantine robots is known to the central authority, we provide
algorithms with better competitive ratios. In some instances we are able to
show these algorithms are optimal
Renal pericytes: regulators of medullary blood flow
Regulation of medullary blood flow (MBF) is essential in maintaining normal kidney function. Blood flow to the medulla is supplied by the descending vasa recta (DVR), which arise from the efferent arterioles of juxtamedullary glomeruli. DVR are composed of a continuous endothelium, intercalated with smooth muscle-like cells called pericytes. Pericytes have been shown to alter the diameter of isolated and in situ DVR in response to vasoactive stimuli that are transmitted via a network of autocrine and paracrine signalling pathways. Vasoactive stimuli can be released by neighbouring tubular epithelial, endothelial, red blood cells and neuronal cells in response to changes in NaCl transport and oxygen tension. The experimentally described sensitivity of pericytes to these stimuli strongly suggests their leading role in the phenomenon of MBF autoregulation. Because the debate on autoregulation of MBF fervently continues, we discuss the evidence favouring a physiological role for pericytes in the regulation of MBF and describe their potential role in tubulo-vascular cross-talk in this region of the kidney. Our review also considers current methods used to explore pericyte activity and function in the renal medulla
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