Search results for " statistical"
showing 10 items of 1649 documents
Critical behavior of a tumor growth model: directed percolation with a mean-field flavor.
2012
We examine the critical behaviour of a lattice model of tumor growth where supplied nutrients are correlated with the distribution of tumor cells. Our results support the previous report (Ferreira et al., Phys. Rev. E 85, 010901 (2012)), which suggested that the critical behaviour of the model differs from the expected Directed Percolation (DP) universality class. Surprisingly, only some of the critical exponents (beta, alpha, nu_perp, and z) take non-DP values while some others (beta', nu_||, and spreading-dynamics exponents Theta, delta, z') remain very close to their DP counterparts. The obtained exponents satisfy the scaling relations beta=alpha*nu_||, beta'=delta*nu_||, and the general…
Growth patterns at distal radius and tibial shaft in pubertal girls: a 2-year longitudinal study.
2005
Bone changes, in terms of both size and BMD, were assessed longitudinally in pubertal girls. Before puberty, BMD at the distal radius declined, whereas bone size increased, suggesting that normal growing girls experience a transient period of increased bone fragility. This could explain the elevated low-trauma forearm fracture rates reported in earlier studies. Introduction: Longitudinal data on bone growth during puberty are sparse. Such information is needed to understand the sequence of biological changes, the physical and mechanical consequences for the growing skeleton, and the implications for later life. Materials and Methods: The geometric properties and volumetric BMD (vBMD) of the…
A method for the time-varying nonlinear prediction of complex nonstationary biomedical signals
2009
A method to perform time-varying (TV) nonlinear prediction of biomedical signals in the presence of nonstationarity is presented in this paper. The method is based on identification of TV autoregressive models through expansion of the TV coefficients onto a set of basis functions and on k -nearest neighbor local linear approximation to perform nonlinear prediction. The approach provides reasonable nonlinear prediction even for TV deterministic chaotic signals, which has been a daunting task to date. Moreover, the method is used in conjunction with a TV surrogate method to provide statistical validation that the presence of nonlinearity is not due to nonstationarity itself. The approach is t…
The effect of long-chain bases on polysialic acid-mediated membrane interactions
2011
AbstractNegatively-charged polysialic acid (polySia) chains are usually membrane-bound and are often expressed on the surface of neuroinvasive bacterial cells, neural cells, and tumor cells. PolySia can mediate both repulsive and attractive cis interactions between membrane components, and trans interactions between membranes. Positively-charged long-chain bases are widely present in cells, are often localized in membranes and can function as bioactive lipids. Here we use Langmuir monolayer technique, fluorescence spectroscopy and electron microscopy of lipid vesicles to study the role of a simple long-chain base, octadecylamine (ODA), in both cis and trans interactions mediated by polySia …
Mobility determination of lead isotopes in glass for retrospective radon measurements
2008
In retrospective radon measurements, the 22-y half life of (210)Pb is used as an advantage. (210)Pb is often considered to be relatively immobile in glass after alpha recoil implanted by (222)Rn progenies. The diffusion of (210)Pb could, however, lead to uncertain wrong retrospective radon exposure estimations if (210)Pb is mobile and can escape from glass, or lost as a result of cleaning-induced surface modification. This diffusion was studied by a radiotracer technique, where (209)Pb was used as a tracer in a glass matrix for which the elemental composition is known. Using the ion guide isotope separator on-line technique, the (209)Pb atoms were implanted into the glass with an energy of …
First-principles simulations of hydrogen peroxide formation catalyzed by small neutral gold clusters.
2009
Energetics and dynamical pathways for hydrogen peroxide formation from H(2) and O(2) bound to neutral gold dimers and tetramers have been investigated by applying several strategies: T = 0 K geometry optimizations, constrained Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations at T = 300 K and metadynamics at T = 300 K. The competing reaction channels for water and hydrogen peroxide formation have been found and characterized. In each case, the reaction barriers for Au cluster catalyzed proton transfer are less than 1 eV. Water formation is a competitive reaction channel, and the relative weight of H(2)O and H(2)O(2) products may depend on the chosen Au cluster size. Dynamic simulations demonstr…
The tangible common denominator of substance use disorders: a reply to commentaries to Rehm et al. (2013a)
2014
In response to our suggestion to define substance use disorders via ‘heavy use over time’, theoretical and conceptual issues, measurement problems and implications for stigma and clinical practice were raised. With respect to theoretical and conceptual issues, no other criterion has been shown, which would improve the definition. Moreover, heavy use over time is shown to be highly correlated with number of criteria in current DSM-5. Measurement of heavy use over time is simple and while there will be some underestimation or misrepresentation of actual levels in clinical practice, this is not different from the status quo and measurement of current criteria. As regards to stigma, research ha…
Robust dynamical pattern formation from a multifunctional minimal genetic circuit.
2010
Abstract Background A practical problem during the analysis of natural networks is their complexity, thus the use of synthetic circuits would allow to unveil the natural mechanisms of operation. Autocatalytic gene regulatory networks play an important role in shaping the development of multicellular organisms, whereas oscillatory circuits are used to control gene expression under variable environments such as the light-dark cycle. Results We propose a new mechanism to generate developmental patterns and oscillations using a minimal number of genes. For this, we design a synthetic gene circuit with an antagonistic self-regulation to study the spatio-temporal control of protein expression. He…
Analytically solvable Hamiltonians for quantum two-level systems and their dynamics
2014
A simple systematic way of obtaining analytically solvable Hamiltonians for quantum two-level systems is presented. In this method, a time-dependent Hamiltonian and the resulting unitary evolution operator are connected through an arbitrary function of time, furnishing us with new analytically solvable cases. The method is surprisingly simple, direct, and transparent and is applicable to a wide class of two-level Hamiltonians with no involved constraint on the input function. A few examples illustrate how the method leads to simple solvable Hamiltonians and dynamics.
Lévy flights in confining potentials.
2009
We analyze confining mechanisms for L\'{e}vy flights. When they evolve in suitable external potentials their variance may exist and show signatures of a superdiffusive transport. Two classes of stochastic jump - type processes are considered: those driven by Langevin equation with L\'{e}vy noise and those, named by us topological L\'{e}vy processes (occurring in systems with topological complexity like folded polymers or complex networks and generically in inhomogeneous media), whose Langevin representation is unknown and possibly nonexistent. Our major finding is that both above classes of processes stay in affinity and may share common stationary (eventually asymptotic) probability densit…