Tiling solutions for optimal biological sensing

Biological systems, from cells to organisms, must respond to the ever-changing environment in order to survive and function. This is not a simple task given the often random nature of the signals they receive, as well as the intrinsically stochastic, many-body and often self-organized nature of the processes that control their sensing and response and limited resources. Despite a wide range of scales and functions that can be observed in the living world, some common principles that govern the behavior of biological systems emerge. Here I review two examples of very different biological problems: information transmission in gene regulatory networks and diversity of adaptive immune receptor repertoires that protect us from pathogens. I discuss the trade-offs that physical laws impose on these systems and show that the optimal designs of both immune repertoires and gene regulatory networks display similar discrete tiling structures. These solutions rely on locally non-overlapping placements of the responding elements (genes and receptors) that, overall, cover space nearly uniformly.     

需求弹性在价格决策中的应用

将着眼点由总收益改变为总利润,对于需求弹性用于价格决策,利用微积分方法,分5种情况进行推导,得到的结论修正和补充了现行"经济数学"、"市场营销学"和"管理经济学"等教科书里讲的内容,并在此基础上进一步研究了最佳调价量问题.     

Variability in the noise-induced modes of climate dynamics

New features of noise-induced climate variability are revealed on the basis of the three-dimensional model derived by Saltzman and Maasch. It is shown that the climate system can be highly noise excitable and it possesses the large-amplitude fluctuations even in those regions where its akin deterministic model does not contain any self-sustained oscillations. Intermittency in small- and large amplitude climate fluctuations between different basins of attraction of a limit cycle and stable equilibria substantially influencing the climate state (from warm to cold and vice versa) are found at various noise intensities. Suddenly occurring jumps between the basins of attraction of two stable equilibria corresponding to the warm and cold climate states are statistically confirmed under a certain diapason of noise intensities. The climate system undergoes transitions between its equilibria in the presence of noise in its prognostic variables. In addition, such transitions become more likely with increasing the noise intensity.     

Disentangling stochastic signals superposed on short localized oscillations

We introduce a procedure for separating periodic oscillations superposed on a stochastic signal. The procedure combines empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of a signal with tools of data analysis based on stochastic differential equations, namely nonlinear Langevin equations. Taking the set of modes retrieved from the EMD of the signal, our procedure is able to separate them into two groups, one composing the periodic signal and another composing the stochastic signal. The framework is robust for a broad family of localized oscillations, in the range of large frequencies. In particular, we show that, in this context, the EMD method outperforms a low-pass filter and is robust for a wide interval of different frequency ranges and amplitudes of the periodic oscillation, as well as for a broad family of different non-linear Langevin processes.     

界面张力弛豫法研究不同分子量原油活性组分界面扩张粘弹性

采用界面张力弛豫法研究了不同分子量原油活性组分在正癸烷-水界面上的扩张粘弹性质,阐述了界面扩张模量的弹性和粘性随扩张频率的变化规律.研究发现,随着原油活性组分分子量的增大,极限扩张粘度明显增大,而极限扩张弹性逐渐增大;当分子量大于某一数值后,极限扩张弹性变化不明显.对界面张力弛豫实验结果进行拟合得到的参数表明,界面上和界面附近的微观弛豫过程的数目随原油活性组分分子量的增加而增加,弛豫过程的特征频率也呈规律性变化.不同原油活性组分的界面扩张粘弹性质可从其不同特征的微观弛豫过程得到解释.     

破乳剂对油水界面膜作用机理研究

研究了破乳剂存在下油膜寿命、油膜薄化速率以及油水界面性质与破乳效果的关系.结果表明,破乳剂使油水界面弹性降低,导致油水界面强度减弱,界面膜寿命变短,界面膜厚度变薄.当膜厚度变薄到一临界值时,膜破裂,导致破乳脱水.同种破乳剂,随着其浓度的增加,界面弹性降低.当浓度超过某一值时,界面弹性值基本不变.不同种破乳剂,界面弹性降低幅度越大,其破乳效果越好.界面弹性值可以很好解释破乳剂的脱水率变化规律.     

Effects of local thickness defects on the buckling of micro-beam

A buckling model of Timoshenko micro-beam with local thickness defects is established based on a modified gradient elasticity. By introducing the local thickness defects function of the micro-beam, the variable coe-cient differential equations of the buckling problem are obtained with the variational principle. Combining the eigensolution series of the complete micro-beam with the Galerkin method, we obtain the critical load and buckling modes of the micro-beam with defects. The results show that the depth and location of the defect are the main factors affecting the critical load, and the combined effect of boundary conditions and defects can significantly change the buckling mode of the micro-beam. The effect of defect location on buckling is related to the axial gradient of the rotation angle, and defects should be avoided at the maximum axial gradient of the rotation angle. The model and method are also applicable to the static deformation and vibration of the micro-beam.     

滑带土动力学性质试验研究

为了研究地震高烈度区老滑坡的复活变形原因,本文对滑坡滑带土的动力学特性进行了系列研究。本次试验采用扰动土样,制样基本物理指标按滑带土的现场测试指标确定,在不固结不排水条件下,运用MTS810Teststar程控液压伺服土动三轴仪对单个样品逐级放大动应力的分级试验方法进行。侧向压力 (围压 )分别采用 100kPa、20 0kPa、300kPa三级,通过施加轴向振动荷载 (力 )模拟地震作用,振动波形为正弦波,频率为 1Hz,振幅随试样性质确定。研究结果表明,滑带土在动荷载作用下的动力学性质与其静荷载作用下的力学性质有着较大的差异,主要表现在滑带土的动应力与动应变关系的非线性、滞后性及变形积累特点,动弹性模量与动强度的显著降低以及动阻尼比的显著增大特性。这揭示了动力作用下的滑坡复活原因之一,同时为滑坡稳定性评价和动力作用下的变形机制模拟分析提供了基础资料,也为分析滑带土动力本构模型提供了基本内容。     

The Saint-Venant problem of plane bar under an axial force

I.PrefaceAsweknow,theSaint-Venanttheoryisawell-knownanduniversallyacceptedtheory.Butasoneofthegeneraltheoriesofelasticmechanics,itisnotprovedperfectely,althoughitistestedbyexperiments.Infact,onlyforthesimplestproblemofelasticity,itisnoteasytofindanalytics…     

BEM for simulation of a 2D elastic body with randomly distributed circular inclusions

Based on our 2D BEM software THBEM2 which can be applied to the simulation of an elastic body with randomly distributed identical circular holes, a scheme of BEM for the simulation of elastic bodies with randomly distributed circular inclusions is proposed. The numerical examples given show that the boundary element method is more accurate and more effective than the finite element method for such a problem. The scheme presented can also be successfully used to estimate the effective elastic properties of composite materials. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 19772025).