No Arabic abstract
We study the mathematical properties of a general model of cell division structured with several internal variables. We begin with a simpler and specific model with two variables, we solve the eigenvalue problem with strong or weak assumptions, and deduce from it the long-time convergence. The main difficulty comes from natural degeneracy of birth terms that we overcome with a regularization technique. We then extend the results to the case with several parameters and recall the link between this simplified model and the one presented in cite{CBBP1}; an application to the non-linear problem is also given, leading to robust subpolynomial growth of the total population.
We introduce and analyze several aspects of a new model for cell differentiation. It assumes that differentiation of progenitor cells is a continuous process. From the mathematical point of view, it is based on partial differential equations of transport type. Specifically, it consists of a structured population equation with a nonlinear feedback loop. This models the signaling process due to cytokines, which regulate the differentiation and proliferation process. We compare the continuous model to its discrete counterpart, a multi-compartmental model of a discrete collection of cell subpopulations recently proposed by Marciniak-Czochra et al. in 2009 to investigate the dynamics of the hematopoietic system. We obtain uniform bounds for the solutions, characterize steady state solutions, and analyze their linearized stability. We show how persistence or extinction might occur according to values of parameters that characterize the stem cells self-renewal. We also perform numerical simulations and discuss the qualitative behavior of the continuous model vis a vis the discrete one.
Structured population models are a class of general evolution equations which are widely used in the study of biological systems. Many theoretical methods are available for establishing existence and stability of steady states of general evolution equations. However, except for very special cases, finding an analytical form of stationary solutions for evolution equations is a challenging task. In the present paper, we develop a numerical framework for computing approximations to stationary solutions of general evolution equations, which can also be used to produce existence and stability regions for steady states. In particular, we use the Trotter-Kato Theorem to approximate the infinitesimal generator of an evolution equation on a finite dimensional space, which in turn reduces the evolution equation into a system of ordinary differential equations. Consequently, we approximate and study the asymptotic behavior of stationary solutions. We illustrate the convergence of our numerical framework by applying it to a linear Sinko-Streifer structured population model for which the exact form of the steady state is known. To further illustrate the utility of our approach, we apply our framework to nonlinear population balance equation, which is an extension of well-known Smoluchowksi coagulation-fragmentation model to biological populations. We also demonstrate that our numerical framework can be used to gain insight about the theoretical stability of the stationary solutions of the evolution equations. Furthermore, the open source Python program that we have developed for our numerical simulations is freely available from our Github repository (github.com/MathBioCU).
We study a mathematical model describing the growth process of a population structured by age and a phenotypical trait, subject to aging, competition between individuals and rare mutations. Our goals are to describe the asymptotic behaviour of the solution to a renewal type equation, and then to derive properties that illustrate the adaptive dynamics of such a population. We begin with a simplified model by discarding the effect of mutations, which allows us to introduce the main ideas and state the full result. Then we discuss the general model and its limitations. Our approach uses the eigenelements of a formal limiting operator, that depend on the structuring variables of the model and define an effective fitness. Then we introduce a new method which reduces the convergence proof to entropy estimates rather than estimates on the constrained Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Numerical tests illustrate the theory and show the selection of a fittest trait according to the effective fitness. For the problem with mutations, an unusual Hamiltonian arises with an exponential growth, for which we show existence of a global viscosity solution, using an uncommon a priori estimate and a new uniqueness result.
We analyze the asymptotic behavior of a partial differential equation (PDE) model for hematopoiesis. This PDE model is derived from the original agent-based model formulated by (Roeder et al., Nat. Med., 2006), and it describes the progression of blood cell development from the stem cell to the terminally differentiated state. To conduct our analysis, we start with the PDE model of (Kim et al, JTB, 2007), which coincides very well with the simulation results obtained by Roeder et al. We simplify the PDE model to make it amenable to analysis and justify our approximations using numerical simulations. An analysis of the simplified PDE model proves to exhibit very similar properties to those of the original agent-based model, even if for slightly different parameters. Hence, the simplified model is of value in understanding the dynamics of hematopoiesis and of chronic myelogenous leukemia, and it presents the advantage of having fewer parameters, which makes comparison with both experimental data and alternative models much easier.
The Surface Cauchy-Born (SCB) method is a computational multi-scale method for the simulation of surface-dominated crystalline materials. We present an error analysis of the SCB method, focused on the role of surface relaxation. In a linearized 1D model we show that the error committed by the SCB method is O(1) in the mesh size; however, we are able to identify an alternative approximation parameter - the stiffness of the interaction potential - with respect to which the error in the mean strain is exponentially small. Our analysis naturally suggests an improvement of the SCB model by enforcing atomistic mesh spacing in the normal direction at the free boundary.