1,720,971 research outputs found
Convective instability and boundary driven oscillations in a reaction-diffusion-advection model
No full textIn a reaction-diffusion-advection system, with a convectively unstable regime, a perturbation creates a wave train that is advected downstream and eventually leaves the system. We show that the convective instability coexists with a local absolute instability when a fixed boundary condition upstream is imposed. This boundary induced instability acts as a continuous wave source, creating a local periodic excitation near the boundary, which initiates waves travelling both up and downstream. To confirm this, we performed analytical analysis and numerical simulations of a modified Martiel-Goldbeter reaction-diffusion model with the addition of an advection term. We provide a quantitative description of the wave packet appearing in the convectively unstable regime, which we found to be in excellent agreement with the numerical simulations. We characterize this new instability and show that in the limit of high advection speed, it is suppressed. This type of instability can be expected for reaction-diffusion systems that present both a convective instability and an excitable regime. In particular, it can be relevant to understand the signaling mechanism of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum that may experience fluid flows in its natural habitat
Effects of developmental variability on the dynamics and self-organization of cell populations
No full textWe report experimental and theoretical results for spatiotemporal pattern formation in cell populations, where the parameters vary in space and time due to mechanisms intrinsic to the system, namely Dictyostelium discoideum (D.d.) in the starvation phase. We find that different patterns are formed when the populations are initialized at different developmental stages, or when populations at different initial developmental stages are mixed. The experimentally observed patterns can be understood with a modified Kessler-Levine model that takes into account the initial spatial heterogeneity of the cell populations and a developmental path introduced by us, i.e. the time dependence of the various biochemical parameters. The dynamics of the parameters agree with known biochemical studies. Most importantly, the modified model reproduces not only our results, but also the observations of an independent experiment published earlier. This shows that pattern formation can be used to understand and quantify the temporal evolution of the system parameters
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Influence of fast advective flows on pattern formation of <i>Dictyostelium discoideum</i> - Fig 15
Get PDFa) Uniform cell distribution at the beginning of experiment in a flow-through microfluidic channel (Vf = 10 mm/min). b) During the propagation of the waves, the variations in cell density due to chemotactic cell movement are still negligible. c) Aggregation patterns after 8 hours starvation show cone-shaped structures with long streams downstream of the centers. d) Lateral streams, extended almost 0.5 mm in y-direction, start to line up in the direction of flow.</p
Variability and order in cytoskeletal dynamics of motile amoeboid cells
No full textThe chemotactic motion of eukaryotic cells such as leukocytes or metastatic cancer cells relies on membrane protrusions driven by the polymerization and depolymerization of actin. Here we show that the response of the actin system to a receptor stimulus is subject to a threshold value that varies strongly from cell to cell. Above the threshold, we observe pronounced cell-to-cell variability in the response amplitude. The polymerization time, however, is almost constant over the entire range of response amplitudes, while the depolymerization time increases with increasing amplitude. We show that cell-to-cell variability in the response amplitude correlates with the amount of Arp2/3, a protein that enhances actin polymerization. A time-delayed feedback model for the cortical actin concentration is consistent with all our observations and confirms the role of Arp2/3 in the observed cell-to-cell variability. Taken together, our observations highlight robust regulation of the actin response that enables a reliable timing of cell movement
Rapid multi-plane phase-contrast microscopy reveals torsional dynamics in flagellar motion
No full textHigh speed volumetric optical microscopy is an important tool for observing rapid processes in living cells or for real-time tracking of sub-cellular components. However, the 3D imaging capability often comes at the price of a high technical complexity of the imaging system and/or the requirement of demanding image analysis. Here, we propose a combination of conventional phase-contrast imaging with a customized multi-plane beam-splitter for enabling simultaneous acquisition of images in eight different focal planes. Our method is technically straightforward and does not require complex post-processing image analysis. We apply our multi-plane phase-contrast microscope to the real-time observation of the fast motion of reactivated Chlamydomonas axonemes with sub-µm spatial and 4 ms temporal resolution. Our system allows us to observe not only bending but also the three-dimensional torsional dynamics of these micro-swimmers
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