Basic Theory (basic + theory)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Dynamic linkage relationships to the mating-type locus in automictic fungi of the genus Microbotryum

JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 8 2010
J. L. ABBATE
Abstract Regions of the chromosomes determining mating compatibility in some fungi, including Microbotryum lychnidis-dioicae and Neurospora tetrasperma, exhibit suppressed recombination similar to sex chromosomes in plants and animals, and recent studies have sought to apply basic theories of sex chromosome evolution to fungi. A phylogeny of the MTL1 locus in Microbotryum indicates that it has become part of the nonrecombining regions of the mating-type chromosomes in multiple independent events, and that recombination may have been subsequently restored in some cases. This illustrates that fungal mating-type chromosomes can exhibit linkage relationship that are quite dynamic, adding to the list of similarities to animal or plant sex chromosomes. However, fungi such as M. lychnidis-dioicae and N. tetrasperma exhibit an automictic mating system, for which an alternate theoretical framework exists to explain the evolution of linkage with the mating-type locus. This study encourages further comparative studies among fungi to evaluate the role of mating systems in determining the evolution of fungal mating-type chromosomes. [source]


Integrated approach to optimization of an ultrasonic processor

AICHE JOURNAL, Issue 11 2003
Vijayanand S. Moholkar
In an ultrasonic processor, the input electrical energy undergoes many transformations before getting converted into the cavitation energy, which is dissipated in the medium to bring out the physical/chemical change. An investigation of the influence of free and dissolved gas content of the system on the efficiency of this energy transformation chain is attempted. The results of the experiments reveal that the cavitation intensity produced in the medium varies significantly with the gas content of the system. A unified physical model, which combines basic theories of acoustics and bubble dynamics, has been used to explain the experimental results. An attempt has been made to establish the mechanism of the steps in the energy transformation chain, the involved physical parameters, and interrelations between them. It has been found that the influence of free and dissolved gas content of the medium on the overall energy transformation occurs through a complex inter-dependence of several parameters. Thus, simultaneous optimization of individual steps in the energy transformation chain, with an integrated approach, is necessary for the optimization of an ultrasonic processor. The present study puts forth a simple methodology, with the gas content of the system as manipulation parameter, for this purpose. [source]


Principles of pharmacodynamics and their applications in veterinary pharmacology

JOURNAL OF VETERINARY PHARMACOLOGY & THERAPEUTICS, Issue 6 2004
P. LEES
Pharmacodynamics (PDs) is the science of drug action on the body or on microorganisms and other parasites within or on the body. It may be studied at many organizational levels , sub-molecular, molecular, cellular, tissue/organ and whole body , using in vivo, ex vivo and in vitro methods and utilizing a wide range of techniques. A few drugs owe their PD properties to some physico-chemical property or action and, in such cases, detailed molecular drug structure plays little or no role in the response elicited. For the great majority of drugs, however, action on the body is crucially dependent on chemical structure, so that a very small change, e.g. substitution of a proton by a methyl group, can markedly alter the potency of the drug, even to the point of loss of activity. In the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century recognition of these facts by Langley, Ehrlich, Dale, Clarke and others provided the foundation for the receptor site hypothesis of drug action. According to these early ideas the drug, in order to elicit its effect, had to first combine with a specific ,target molecule' on either the cell surface or an intracellular organelle. It was soon realized that the ,right' chemical structure was required for drug,target site interaction (and the subsequent pharmacological response). In addition, from this requirement, for specificity of chemical structure requirement, developed not only the modern science of pharmacology but also that of toxicology. In relation to drug actions on microbes and parasites, for example, the early work of Ehrlich led to the introduction of molecules selectively toxic for them and relatively safe for the animal host. In the whole animal drugs may act on many target molecules in many tissues. These actions may lead to primary responses which, in turn, may induce secondary responses, that may either enhance or diminish the primary response. Therefore, it is common to investigate drug pharmacodynamics (PDs) in the first instance at molecular, cellular and tissue levels in vitro, so that the primary effects can be better understood without interference from the complexities involved in whole animal studies. When a drug, hormone or neurotransmitter combines with a target molecule, it is described as a ligand. Ligands are classified into two groups, agonists (which initiate a chain of reactions leading, usually via the release or formation of secondary messengers, to the response) and antagonists (which fail to initiate the transduction pathways but nevertheless compete with agonists for occupancy of receptor sites and thereby inhibit their actions). The parameters which characterize drug receptor interaction are affinity, efficacy, potency and sensitivity, each of which can be elucidated quantitatively for a particular drug acting on a particular receptor in a particular tissue. The most fundamental objective of PDs is to use the derived numerical values for these parameters to classify and sub-classify receptors and to compare and classify drugs on the basis of their affinity, efficacy, potency and sensitivity. This review introduces and summarizes the principles of PDs and illustrates them with examples drawn from both basic and veterinary pharmacology. Drugs acting on adrenoceptors and cardiovascular, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial drugs are considered briefly to provide a foundation for subsequent reviews in this issue which deal with pharmacokinetic (PK),PD modelling and integration of these drug classes. Drug action on receptors has many features in common with enzyme kinetics and gas adsorption onto surfaces, as defined by Michaelis,Menten and Langmuir absorption equations, respectively. These and other derived equations are outlined in this review. There is, however, no single theory which adequately explains all aspects of drug,receptor interaction. The early ,occupation' and ,rate' theories each explain some, but not all, experimental observations. From these basic theories the operational model and the two-state theory have been developed. For a discussion of more advanced theories see Kenakin (1997). [source]


Spatial camera orientation control by rotation-minimizing directed frames

COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 4 2009
Rida T. Farouki
Abstract The use of rotation-minimizing directed frames (RMDFs) for defining smoothly varying camera orientations along given spatial paths, in real or virtual environments, is proposed. A directed frame on a space curve is a varying orthonormal basis for ,3 such that coincides with the unit polar vector from the origin to each curve point, and such a frame is rotation-minimizing if its angular velocity vector maintains a vanishing component along o. To facilitate computation of rotation-minimizing directed frames, it is shown that the basic theory is equivalent to the established theory for rotation-minimizing adapted frames,for which one frame vector coincides with the tangent at each curve point,if one replaces the given space curve by its anti-hodograph (i.e., indefinite integral). A family of polynomial curves on which RMDFs can be computed exactly by a rational function integration, the Pythagorean (P) curves, is also introduced, together with algorithms for their construction. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Strategies for the numerical integration of DAE systems in multibody dynamics

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION, Issue 2 2004
E. Pennestŕ
Abstract The number of multibody dynamics courses offered in the university is increasing. Often the instructor has the necessity to go through the steps of an algorithm by working out a simple example. This gives the student a better understand of the basic theory. This paper provides a tutorial on the numerical integration of differential-algebraic equations (DAE) arising from the dynamic modeling of multibody mechanical systems. In particular, some algorithms based on the orthogonalization of the Jacobian matrix are herein discussed. All the computational steps involved are explained in detail and by working out a simple example. It is also reported a brief description and an application of the multibody code NumDyn3D which uses the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) approach. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 12: 106,116, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20005 [source]


ASOM applied to column stability

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Issue 10 2008
A. Ranjbaran
Abstract A new method for computation of buckling load and mode shape of a non-uniform column is proposed. Based on the principles of calculus of variations the stability analysis of the column is defined as an optimization problem. Different known techniques of optimization are candidates for solution process. Through analysis of typical columns and comparison of the results with those of other methods, the basic theory and implementation of the presented method is verified. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A simple PWM method for improving lamp current crest factor of valley-filled electronic ballast

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CIRCUIT THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, Issue 3 2010
Zhi-Ren Lee
Abstract In this paper, a PWM method to improve the lamp current crest factor (CCF) of the valley-filled electronic ballast (VFEB) is presented. The VFEB has merits of high power factor, simple structure, and low cost. However, it results in an excessive CCF, which will shorten the lifetime of low-pressure discharge lamp. The proposed method controls switching duty ratio by feeding forward the dc-link voltage waveform of VFEB. It decreased the duty ratio with rising of dc-link voltage. Therefore, the proposed method could restrain the lamp peak current and improve the lamp CCF. The control block diagram and basic theory are introduced to improve the CCF. The computer simulations verify the proposed method and derive a minimum lamp CCF. The experimental results demonstrate that the lamp CCF was reduced from 1.9 to 1.58, the ac line power factor is 96%, and the input current THD is 29.3%. The fixed switching frequency operation gains a satisfactory power quality. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Unemployment and liquidity constraints

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 3 2007
Vassilis A. Hajivassiliou
We present a dynamic framework for the interaction between borrowing (liquidity) constraints and deviations of actual hours from desired hours, both measured by discrete-valued indicators, and estimate it as a system of dynamic binary and ordered probit models with panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We analyze a household's propensity to be liquidity constrained by means of a dynamic binary probit model. We analyze qualitative aspects of the conditions of employment, namely whether the household head is involuntarily overemployed, voluntarily employed, or involuntarily underemployed or unemployed, by means of a dynamic ordered probit model. We focus on the possible interaction between the two types of constraints. We estimate these models jointly using maximum simulated likelihood, where we allow for individual random effects along with an autoregressive process for the general error term in each equation. A novel feature of our method is that it allows for the random effects to be correlated with regressors in a time-invariant fashion. Our results provide strong support for the basic theory of constrained behavior and the interaction between liquidity constraints and exogenous constraints on labor supply. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


On a class of multiple failure mode systems

NAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 2 2002
Michael V. Boutsikas
Abstract The primary objective of this work is to introduce and perform a detailed study of a class of multistate reliability structures in which no ordering in the levels of components' performances is necessary. In particular, the present paper develops the basic theory (exact reliability formulae, reliability bounds, asymptotic results) that will make it feasible to investigate systems whose components are allowed to experience m , 2 kinds of failure (failure modes), and their breakdown is described by different families of cut sets in each mode. For illustration purposes, two classical (binary) systems are extended to analogous multiple failure mode structures, and their reliability performance (bounds and asymptotic behavior) is investigated by numerical experimentation. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 167,185, 2002; DOI 10.1002/nav.10007 [source]


On multiroute maximum flows in networks

NETWORKS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002
Charu C. Aggarwal
Abstract Let G = (N, A) be a network with a designated source node s, a designated sink node t, and a finite integral capacity uij on each arc (i, j) , A. An elementary K -flow is a flow of K units from s to t such that the flow on each arcis 0 or 1. A K -route flow is a flow from s to t that may be expressed as a nonnegative linear sum of elementary K -flows. In this paper, we show how to determine a maximum K -route flow as a sequence of O(min {log (nU), K}( maximum-flow problems. This improves upon the algorithm by Kishimoto, which solves this problem as a sequence of K maximum-flow problems. In addition, we have simplified and extended some of the basic theory. We also discuss the application of our technique to Birkhoff's theorem and a scheduling problem. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source]