Search results for "quantitative"
showing 10 items of 2409 documents
Anergy in self-directed B lymphocytes from a statistical mechanics perspective
2012
The ability of the adaptive immune system to discriminate between self and non-self mainly stems from the ontogenic clonal-deletion of lymphocytes expressing strong binding affinity with self-peptides. However, some self-directed lymphocytes may evade selection and still be harmless due to a mechanism called clonal anergy. As for B lymphocytes, two major explanations for anergy developed over three decades: according to "Varela theory", it stems from a proper orchestration of the whole B-repertoire, in such a way that self-reactive clones, due to intensive interactions and feed-back from other clones, display more inertia to mount a response. On the other hand, according to the `two-signal …
Transient frailty induced by cell division. Observation, reasons and implications
2021
We know that stress-factors, e.g. X-rays, have an effect on cells that is more lethal in rapid exponential growth than in stationary phase. It is this effect which makes radiotherapy effective in cancer treatment. This stress effect can be explained in two ways: (a) more vulnerability in the growth phase, (b) improved protection capacity and repair mechanisms in the stationary phase. Although the two explanations do not exclude each other, they are very different in the sense that (a) is a general mechanism whereas (b) is strain and stress-factor dependent. In this paper we explore major facets of (a). Firstly, we emphasize that (a) can account for known experimental stress-factor evidence.…
Is there an infant mortality in bacteria?
2021
This manuscript proposes a significant step in our long-run investigation of infant mortality across species. Since 2016 (Berrut et al. 2016) a succession of studies (Bois et al. 2019) have traced infant mortality from organisms of high complexity (e.g. mammals) down to unicellular organisms. Infant mortality may be considered as a filtering process through which organisms with potentially lethal congenital defects are eliminated. Such defects may have many causes but here we focus particularly on mishaps resulting from non-optimal conditions in the production of proteins, enzymes and other crucial macromolecules. The statistical signature of infant mortality consists in a falling age-speci…
Reproducing kernel hilbert spaces regression methods for genomic assisted prediction of quantitative traits.
2008
Abstract Reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regression procedures for prediction of total genetic value for quantitative traits, which make use of phenotypic and genomic data simultaneously, are discussed from a theoretical perspective. It is argued that a nonparametric treatment may be needed for capturing the multiple and complex interactions potentially arising in whole-genome models, i.e., those based on thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. After a review of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regression, it is shown that the statistical specification admits a standard mixed-effects linear model representation, with smoothing parameters treated as variance components.…
Bicausative matrices to measure structural change: Are they a good tool?
1999
The causative-matrix method to analyze temporal change assumes that a matrix transforms one Markovian transition matrix into another by a left multiplication of the first matrix; the method is demand-driven when applied to input-output economics. An extension is presented without assuming the demand-driven or supply-driven hypothesis. Starting from two flow matrices X and Y, two diagonal matrices are searched, one premultiplying and the second postmultiplying X, to obtain a result the closer as possible to Y by least squares. The paper proves that the method is deceptive because the diagonal matrices are unidentified and the interpretation of results is unclear. Keywords : Input-Output ; Ch…
Forecast Output Coincidence and Biproportion: Two Criteria to Determine the Orientation of an Economy. Comparison for France (1980-1997)
2002
International audience; The method of forecast output coincidence used to determine if sectors are demand-sided or supply-sided in an input-output framework mixes two effects, the structural effect (choosing between demand and supply side models) and the effect of an exogenous factor (final demand or added-value). The note recalls that another method is possible, the comparison of the stability of technical and allocation coefficients, generalized by the biproportional filter: if for a sector, after biproportional filtering, column coefficients are more stable than row coefficients, then this sector is declared as not supply-sided (but one cannot decide that it is demand-sided anyway), and …
A biproportional filter to compare technical and allocation coefficient variations
1997
International audience; In input-output analysis there are two alternate possibilities between Leontief's mechanism (fixed technical coefficients) and Ghosh's mechanism (fixed allocation coefficients). Testing the long term consistency of these mechanisms entails comparing input-output matrices over time. This paper challenges the value of proportional filters (separate comparison of column and row coefficients) and introduces the biproportional filter which allows simultaneous comparison of column and rows. An application is proposed using French input-output tables for 1980 and 1993. The stability of column coefficients cannot be taken for granted and generally, for any sector, both rows …
Experimental study of electrical FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons with modified excitability
2006
International audience; We present an electronical circuit modelling a FitzHugh-Nagumo neuron with a modified excitability. To characterize this basic cell, the bifurcation curves between stability with excitation threshold, bistability and oscillations are investigated. An electrical circuit is then proposed to realize a unidirectional coupling between two cells, mimicking an inter-neuron synaptic coupling. In such a master-slave configuration, we show experimentally how the coupling strength controls the dynamics of the slave neuron, leading to frequency locking, chaotic behavior and synchronization. These phenomena are then studied by phase map analysis. The architecture of a possible ne…
Host–virus evolutionary dynamics with specialist and generalist infection strategies: Bifurcations, bistability, and chaos
2019
In this work, we have investigated the evolutionary dynamics of a generalist pathogen, e.g., a virus population, that evolves toward specialization in an environment with multiple host types. We have particularly explored under which conditions generalist viral strains may rise in frequency and coexist with specialist strains or even dominate the population. By means of a nonlinear mathematical model and bifurcation analysis, we have determined the theoretical conditions for stability of nine identified equilibria and provided biological interpretation in terms of the infection rates for the viral specialist and generalist strains. By means of a stability diagram, we identified stable fixed…
119Sn-NMR Study on Bis(Tri-Butyltin)oxide Derivatives of Phenolic Compounds
1991
Abstract 119Sn-NMR spectroscopy has been utilized in the characterization of various phenolics as their bis(tri-butyltin)oxide, TBTO, derivatives. The present method has been applied both for determination of simple model compounds and for characterization of complex biopolymeric material originating from spent bleach liquor fractionated by an ultrafiltration technique. Based on the large range of 119Sn-NMR chemical shifts of TBTO derivatives of the phenolic compounds and the similar relaxation properties of 119Sn nuclei located in those derivatives, both qualitative and quantitative analytical conclusions can be drawn.