ﻻ يوجد ملخص باللغة العربية
The immune system protects the body against health-threatening entities, known as antigens, through very complex interactions involving the antigens and the systems own entities. One remarkable feature resulting from such interactions is the immune systems ability to improve its capability to fight antigens commonly found in the individuals environment. This adaptation process is called the evolution of specificity. In this paper, we introduce a new mathematical model for the evolution of specificity in humoral immunity, based on Jernes functional, or idiotypic, network. The evolution of specificity is modeled as the dynamic updating of connection weights in a graph whose nodes are related to the networks idiotypes. At the core of this weight-updating mechanism are the increase in specificity caused by clonal selection and the decrease in specificity due to the insertion of uncorrelated idiotypes by the bone marrow. As we demonstrate through numerous computer experiments, for appropriate choices of parameters the new model correctly reproduces, in qualitative terms, several immune functions.
Immunity is believed to share limited resources with other physiological functions and this may partly account for the fitness costs of reproduction. Previous studies have shown that the acquired immunity of female common eiders (Somateria mollissima
We consider the problem of self tolerance in the frame of a minimalistic model of the idiotypic network. A node of this network represents a population of B lymphocytes of the same idiotype which is encoded by a bit string. The links of the network c
We present a discrete stochastic model which represents many of the salient features of the biological process of wound healing. The model describes fronts of cells invading a wound. We have numerical results in one and two dimensions. In one dimensi
We consider self-tolerance and its failure -autoimmunity- in a minimal mathematical model of the idiotypic network. A node in the network represents a clone of B-lymphocytes and its antibodies of the same idiotype which is encoded by a bitstring. The
The comment mostly concerns mis-representation of my position on Quantum Biology, by stating that I am reducing cells behavior to quantum particles inside the cell. I contrast my position with that of McFadden-Al-Khalili, as well as with the position