Search results for "birth–death process"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Evolutionary impact of copy number variation rates.
2017
[Objective]: Copy number variation is now recognized as one of the major sources of genetic variation among individuals in natural populations of any species. However, the relevance of these unexpected observations goes beyond diagnosing high diversity. [Results]: Here, it is argued that the molecular rates of copy number variation, mainly the deletion rate upon variation, determine the evolutionary road of the genome regarding size. Genetic drift will govern this process only if the efective population size is lower than the inverse of the deletion rate. Otherwise, natural selection will do.
Logistic Growth Described by Birth-Death and Diffusion Processes
2019
We consider the logistic growth model and analyze its relevant properties, such as the limits, the monotony, the concavity, the inflection point, the maximum specific growth rate, the lag time, and the threshold crossing time problem. We also perform a comparison with other growth models, such as the Gompertz, Korf, and modified Korf models. Moreover, we focus on some stochastic counterparts of the logistic model. First, we study a time-inhomogeneous linear birth-death process whose conditional mean satisfies an equation of the same form of the logistic one. We also find a sufficient and necessary condition in order to have a logistic mean even in the presence of an absorbing endpoint. Then…
Non-hermitian operator modelling of basic cancer cell dynamics
2018
We propose a dynamical system of tumor cells proliferation based on operatorial methods. The approach we propose is quantum-like: we use ladder and number operators to describe healthy and tumor cells birth and death, and the evolution is ruled by a non-hermitian Hamiltonian which includes, in a non reversible way, the basic biological mechanisms we consider for the system. We show that this approach is rather efficient in describing some processes of the cells. We further add some medical treatment, described by adding a suitable term in the Hamiltonian, which controls and limits the growth of tumor cells, and we propose an optimal approach to stop, and reverse, this growth.
How does environmental variation translate into biological processes?
2001
Birth and death rates, as so many other biological processes, are usually not linearly related to environmental variation. Common examples of non-linear response forms include unimodal ‘‘optimum-type’’ responses and various saturating responses. These responses filter the signal coming from the environment to a corresponding biological process. We explored how different types of environmental signal may be transformed to a biological process. We were interested in the effect of the filter on modulation of (1) the variance of the signal, on (2) the variance-covariance structure between the signal and the filtered signal, and on (3) the match between the power spectra of the signal and the fi…
The linear birth and death process under the influence of independently occurring disasters
1989
A population developing according to a time homogeneous linear birth and death process is subjected to an independently occurring random sequence of disasters. Using an embedded Galton-Watson process with random environments explicit results about the probability of extinction and the asymptotic behavior of the process are obtained.
On the analysis of a random walk-jump chain with tree-based transitions and its applications to faulty dichotomous search
2018
Random Walks (RWs) have been extensively studied for more than a century [1]. These walks have traditionally been on a line, and the generalizations for two and three dimensions, have been by extending the random steps to the corresponding neighboring positions in one or many of the dimensions. Among the most popular RWs on a line are the various models for birth and death processes, renewal processes and the gambler’s ruin problem. All of these RWs operate “on a discretized line”, and the walk is achieved by performing small steps to the current-state’s neighbor states. Indeed, it is this neighbor-step motion that renders their analyses tractable. When some of the transitions are to non-ne…
Contributed discussion on article by Pratola
2016
The author should be commended for his outstanding contribution to the literature on Bayesian regression tree models. The author introduces three innovative sampling approaches which allow for efficient traversal of the model space. In this response, we add a fourth alternative.
Solving a model for the evolution of smoking habit in Spain with homotopy analysis method
2013
We obtain an approximated analytical solution for a dynamic model for the prevalence of the smoking habit in a constant population but with equal and different from zero birth and death rates. This model has been successfully used to explain the evolution of the smoking habit in Spain. By means of the Homotopy Analysis Method, we obtain an analytic expression in powers of time t which reproduces the correct solution for a certain range of time. To enlarge the domain of convergence we have applied the so-called optimal convergence-control parameter technique and the homotopy-Padé technique. We present and discuss graphical results for our solutions. ©
Population processes under the influence of disasters occurring independently of population size
1989
Markov branching processes and in particular birth-and-death processes are considered under the influence of disasters that arrive independently of the present population size. For these processes we derive an integral equation involving a shifted and rescaled argument. The main emphasis, however, is on the (random) probability of extinction. Its distribution density satisfies an equation which can be solved numerically at least up to a multiplicative constant. In an example it is also found by simulation.