Articles

Demographic supply-demand imbalance in industrial structure in the super-aged nation Japan

Japan has a rapidly decreasing population, with ultra-low fertility and extremely fast aging. The rapid dynamics constitute a warning that change in the industrial structure may be unable to meet the changing ...

Authors: Naoki Kishida and Hiroshi Nishiura

Identification of influential proteins in the classical retinoic acid signaling pathway

In the classical pathway of retinoic acid (RA) mediated gene transcription, RA binds to a nuclear hormone receptor dimer composed of retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and retinoid X receptor (RXR), to induce the ex...

Authors: Hamed Ghaffari and Linda R. Petzold

Numerical simulation of embryo transfer: how the viscosity of transferred medium affects the transport of embryos

Embryo transfer (ET) is a key step of assisted reproductive procedures, where the transferred medium containing the embryos is injected into the uterine cavity through a transcervical catheter and blended with...

Authors: Dali Ding, Weiping Shi and Yang Shi

Osmotic and diffusive flows in single-file pores: new approach to modeling pore occupancy states

The relation between osmotic permeability, P_f, diffusion permeability, P_d, and the number of water molecules, N_p, in the single-file membrane pore remains an open question. Theoretical analyses, empirical studies...

Authors: Gordon Kepner

Modern and traditional approaches combined into an effective gray-box mathematical model of full-blood acid-base

The acidity of human body fluids, expressed by the pH, is physiologically regulated in a narrow range, which is required for the proper function of cellular metabolism. Acid-base disorders are common especiall...

Authors: Filip Ježek and Jiří Kofránek

A conceptual model for optimizing vaccine coverage to reduce vector-borne infections in the presence of antibody-dependent enhancement

Many vector-borne diseases co-circulate, as the viruses from the same family are also transmitted by the same vector species. For example, Zika and dengue viruses belong to the same Flavivirus family and are prim...

Authors: Biao Tang, Xi Huo, Yanni Xiao, Shigui Ruan and Jianhong Wu

Application of Bayesian evidence synthesis to modelling the effect of ketogenic therapy on survival of high grade glioma patients

Ketogenic therapy in the form of ketogenic diets or calorie restriction has been proposed as a metabolic treatment of high grade glioma (HGG) brain tumors based on mechanistic reasoning obtained mainly from an...

Authors: Rainer J. Klement, Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay, Colin E. Champ and Harald Walach

A mathematical model for Zika virus transmission dynamics with a time-dependent mosquito biting rate

Mathematical modeling has become a tool used to address many emerging diseases. One of the most basic and popular modeling frameworks is the compartmental model. Unfortunately, most of the available compartmen...

Authors: Parinya Suparit, Anuwat Wiratsudakul and Charin Modchang

Determinants of viral load rebound on HIV/AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral therapy: results from South Africa

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has become the standard of care for patients with HIV infection in South Africa and has led to the reduction in AIDS related morbidity and mortality. In developing countries, the n...

Authors: Claris Shoko and Delson Chikobvu

Modeling the elevated risk of yellow fever among travelers visiting Brazil, 2018

Unlike the epidemic of yellow fever from 2016 to 17 in Brazil mostly restricted to the States of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, the epidemic from 2017 to 18 mainly involved São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and r...

Authors: Yohei Sakamoto, Takayuki Yamaguchi, Nao Yamamoto and Hiroshi Nishiura

A model of hematopoietic bone marrow apoptosis during growth factor deprivation in combination with a cytokine

The process by which blood cells are formed is referred to as hematopoiesis. This process involves a complex sequence of phases that blood cells must complete. During hematopoiesis, a small fraction of cells unde...

Authors: Christina L. Mouser, Eliana S. Antoniou and Evros K. Vassiliou

Outside-host phage therapy as a biological control against environmental infectious diseases

Environmentally growing pathogens present an increasing threat for human health, wildlife and food production. Treating the hosts with antibiotics or parasitic bacteriophages fail to eliminate diseases that gr...

Authors: Ilona Merikanto, Jouni T. Laakso and Veijo Kaitala

Modelling the impact of correlations between condom use and sexual contact pattern on the dynamics of sexually transmitted infections

It is believed that sexually active people, i.e. people having multiple or concurrent sexual partners, are at a high risk of sexually transmitted infections (STI), but they are likely to be more aware of the r...

Authors: Nao Yamamoto, Keisuke Ejima and Hiroshi Nishiura

Numerical study of entrainment of the human circadian system and recovery by light treatment

While the effects of light as a zeitgeber are well known, the way the effects are modulated by features of the sleep-wake system still remains to be studied in detail.

Authors: Soon Ho Kim, Segun Goh, Kyungreem Han, Jong Won Kim and MooYoung Choi

On the suitability of an allometric proxy for nondestructive estimation of average leaf dry weight in eelgrass shoots I: sensitivity analysis and examination of the influences of data quality, analysis method, and sample size on precision

The effects of current anthropogenic influences on eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows are noticeable. Eelgrass ecological services grant important benefits for mankind. Preservation of eelgrass meadows include sev...

Authors: Héctor Echavarría-Heras, Cecilia Leal-Ramírez, Enrique Villa-Diharce and Nohe Cazarez-Castro

A review of influenza detection and prediction through social networking sites

Early prediction of seasonal epidemics such as influenza may reduce their impact in daily lives. Nowadays, the web can be used for surveillance of diseases. Search engines and social networking sites can be us...

Authors: Ali Alessa and Miad Faezipour

Time-homogeneous Markov process for HIV/AIDS progression under a combination treatment therapy: cohort study, South Africa

As HIV enters the human body, its main target is the CD4 cell which it turns into a factory that produces millions of other HIV particles. These HIV particles target new CD4 cells resulting in the progression ...

Authors: Claris Shoko and Delson Chikobvu

A patient-specific treatment model for Graves’ hyperthyroidism

Graves’ is disease an autoimmune disorder of the thyroid gland caused

Authors: Balamurugan Pandiyan, Stephen J. Merrill, Flavia Di Bari, Alessandro Antonelli and Salvatore Benvenga

On the utility of a compartmental population kinetics model of intestinal epithelial stem cell proliferation and differentiation

The small intestinal epithelium is a dynamic system with specialized cell types. The various cell populations of this tissue are continually renewed and replenished from stem cells that reside in the small int...

Authors: Erik R. Barthel

Effects of pathogen dependency in a multi-pathogen infectious disease system including population level heterogeneity – a simulation study

Increased computational resources have made individual based models popular for modelling epidemics. They have the advantage of incorporating heterogeneous features, including realistic population structures (...

Authors: Abhishek Bakuli, Frank Klawonn, André Karch and Rafael Mikolajczyk

A mathematical model for histamine synthesis, release, and control in varicosities

Histamine (HA), a small molecule that is synthesized from the amino acid histidine, plays an important role in the immune system where it is associated with allergies, inflammation, and T-cell regulation. In t...

Authors: Janet Best, H. F. Nijhout, Srimal Samaranayake, Parastoo Hashemi and Michael Reed

Estimating the prevalence of infectious diseases from under-reported age-dependent compulsorily notification databases

National or local laws, norms or regulations (sometimes and in some countries) require medical providers to report notifiable diseases to public health authorities. Reporting, however, is almost always incompl...

Authors: Marcos Amaku, Marcelo Nascimento Burattini, Eleazar Chaib, Francisco Antonio Bezerra Coutinho, David Greenhalgh, Luis Fernandez Lopez and Eduardo Massad

Classification and sensitivity analysis of the transmission dynamic of hepatitis B

Hepatitis B infection caused by the hepatitis B virus is one of the most serious viral infections and a global health problem. In the transmission of hepatitis B infection, three different phases, i.e. acute i...

Authors: Tahir Khan, Il Hyo Jung, Amir Khan and Gul Zaman

Theoretically proposed optimal frequency for ultrasound induced cartilage restoration

Matching the frequency of the driving force to that of the system’s natural frequency of vibration results in greater amplitude response. Thus we hypothesize that applying ultrasound at the chondrocyte’s reson...

Authors: April D. Miller, Anuradha Subramanian and Hendrik J. Viljoen

Anistropically varying conductivity in irreversible electroporation simulations

One recent area of cancer research is irreversible electroporation (IRE). Irreversible electroporation is a minimally invasive procedure where needle electrodes are inserted into the body to ablate tumor cells...

Authors: Nicholas Labarbera and Corina Drapaca

A Theoretical Model of the Wnt Signaling Pathway in the Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition

Following the formation of a primary carcinoma, neoplastic cells metastasize by undergoing the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is triggered by cues from inflammatory and stromal cells in the mic...

Authors: Kelsey Gasior, Marlene Hauck, Alyson Wilson and Sudin Bhattacharya

Perspective on the dynamics of cancer

The genetic diversity of cancer and the dynamic interactions between heterogeneous tumor cells, the stroma and immune cells present daunting challenges to the development of effective cancer therapies. Althoug...

Authors: Youcef Derbal

Forecasting infectious disease emergence subject to seasonal forcing

Despite high vaccination coverage, many childhood infections pose a growing threat to human populations. Accurate disease forecasting would be of tremendous value to public health. Forecasting disease emergenc...

Authors: Paige B. Miller, Eamon B. O’Dea, Pejman Rohani and John M. Drake

Test-and-treat approach to HIV/AIDS: a primer for mathematical modeling

The public benefit of test-and-treat has induced a need to justify goodness for the public, and mathematical modeling studies have played a key role in designing and evaluating the test-and-treat strategy for ...

Authors: Kyeongah Nah, Hiroshi Nishiura, Naho Tsuchiya, Xiaodan Sun, Yusuke Asai and Akifumi Imamura

Theory of synergistic effects: Hill-type response surfaces as ‘null-interaction’ models for mixtures

The classification of effects caused by mixtures of agents as synergistic, antagonistic or additive depends critically on the reference model of ‘null interaction’. Two main approaches are currently in use, th...

Authors: Michael Schindler

Transmission dynamics of cholera in Yemen, 2017: a real time forecasting

A large epidemic of cholera, caused by Vibrio cholerae, serotype Ogawa, has been ongoing in Yemen, 2017. To improve the situation awareness, the present study aimed to forecast the cholera epidemic, explicitly ad...

Authors: Hiroshi Nishiura, Shinya Tsuzuki, Baoyin Yuan, Takayuki Yamaguchi and Yusuke Asai

Modelling infectious diseases with relapse: a case study of HSV-2

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 (HSV-2) is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. Although there is still no licensed vaccine for HSV-2, a theoretical investigation of the potential effects of a vac...

Authors: Jinliang Wang, Xiaoqing Yu, Heidi L. Tessmer, Toshikazu Kuniya and Ryosuke Omori

Possible contribution of quantum-like correlations to the placebo effect: consequences on blind trials

Factors that participate in the biological changes associated with a placebo are not completely understood. Natural evolution, mean regression, concomitant procedures and other non specific effects are well-kn...

Authors: Francis Beauvais

Markov modeling in hepatitis B screening and linkage to care

With up to 240 million people chronically infected with hepatitis B worldwide, including an estimated 2 million in the United States, widespread screening is needed to link the infected to care and decrease th...

Authors: Martin A. Sehr, Kartik D. Joshi, John M. Fontanesi, Robert J. Wong, Robert R. Bitmead and Robert G. Gish

Image-driven modeling of the proliferation and necrosis of glioblastoma multiforme

The heterogeneity of response to treatment in patients with glioblastoma multiforme suggests that the optimal therapeutic approach incorporates an individualized assessment of expected lesion progression. In t...

Authors: Vishal Patel and Leith Hathout

A highly pathogenic simian/human immunodeficiency virus effectively produces infectious virions compared with a less pathogenic virus in cell culture

The host range of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is quite narrow. Therefore, analyzing HIV-1 pathogenesis in vivo has been limited owing to lack of appropriate animal model systems. To overcome this, chime...

Authors: Shoya Iwanami, Yusuke Kakizoe, Satoru Morita, Tomoyuki Miura, Shinji Nakaoka and Shingo Iwami

Establishment of a new initial dose plan for vancomycin using the generalized linear mixed model

When administering vancomycin hydrochloride (VCM), the initial dose is adjusted to ensure that the steady-state trough value (Css-trough) remains within the effective concentration range. However, the Css-trou...

Authors: Yasuyuki Kourogi, Kenji Ogata, Norito Takamura, Jin Tokunaga, Nao Setoguchi, Mitsuhiro Kai, Emi Tanaka and Susumu Chiyotanda

An outbreak vector-host epidemic model with spatial structure: the 2015–2016 Zika outbreak in Rio De Janeiro

A deterministic model is developed for the spatial spread of an epidemic disease in a geographical setting. The disease is borne by vectors to

Authors: W. E. Fitzgibbon, J. J. Morgan and G. F. Webb

Modeling multi-mutation and drug resistance: analysis of some case studies

Drug-induced resistance is one the major obstacles that may lead to therapeutic failure during cancer treatment. Different genetic alterations occur when tumor cells divide. Among new generations of tumor cell...

Authors: Mitra Shojania Feizabadi

High resolution hemodynamic profiling of murine arteriovenous fistula using magnetic resonance imaging and computational fluid dynamics

Arteriovenous fistula (AVF) maturation failure remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in hemodialysis patients. The two major etiologies of AVF maturation failure are early neointimal hyperplasia dev...

Authors: Daniel Pike, Yan-Ting Shiu, Maheshika Somarathna, Lingling Guo, Tatyana Isayeva, John Totenhagen and Timmy Lee

Method for generating multiple risky barcodes of complex diseases using ant colony algorithm

Susceptible barcode recognition plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of complex diseases. Numerous approaches have been proposed to identify risky barcodes involved in the progress of complex...

Authors: Xiong Li and Wen Jiang

The role of mobility and health disparities on the transmission dynamics of Tuberculosis

The transmission dynamics of Tuberculosis (TB) involve complex epidemiological and socio-economical interactions between individuals living in highly distinct regional conditions. The level of exogenous reinfe...

Authors: Victor Moreno, Baltazar Espinoza, Kamal Barley, Marlio Paredes, Derdei Bichara, Anuj Mubayi and Carlos Castillo-Chavez

Thermodynamic considerations in renal separation processes

Urine production in the kidney is generally thought to be an energy-intensive process requiring large amounts of metabolic activity to power active transport mechanisms. This study uses a thermodynamic analysi...

Authors: Robert H. Louw, David M. Rubin, David Glasser, Robyn F. R. Letts and Diane Hildebrandt

Personalized life expectancy and treatment benefit index of antiretroviral therapy

The progression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) within host includes typical stages and the Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) is shown to be effective in slowing down this progression. There are great challen...

Authors: Yanni Xiao, Xiaodan Sun, Sanyi Tang, Yicang Zhou, Zhihang Peng, Jianhong Wu and Ning Wang

Estimating the subcritical transmissibility of the Zika outbreak in the State of Florida, USA, 2016

Florida State has reported autochthonous transmission of Zika virus since late July 2016. Here we assessed the transmissibility associated with the outbreak and generated a short-term forecast.

Authors: Linh Dinh, Gerardo Chowell, Kenji Mizumoto and Hiroshi Nishiura

Estimating transmission probability in schools for the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in Italy

Epidemic models are being extensively used to understand the main pathways of spread of infectious diseases, and thus to assess control methods. Schools are well known to represent hot spots for epidemic sprea...

Authors: Valentina Clamer, Ilaria Dorigatti, Laura Fumanelli, Caterina Rizzo and Andrea Pugliese

Erratum to: ‘Comparison of calculated and experimental power in maximal lactate-steady state during cycling’

Authors: Thomas Hauser, Jennifer Adam and Henry Schulz

Feed-forward neural network model for hunger and satiety related VAS score prediction

An artificial neural network approach was chosen to model the outcome of the complex signaling pathways in the gastro-intestinal tract and other peripheral organs that eventually produce the satiety feeling in...

Authors: Shaji Krishnan, Henk F. J. Hendriks, Merete L. Hartvigsen and Albert A. de Graaf

Long range physical cell-to-cell signalling via mitochondria inside membrane nanotubes: a hypothesis

Coordinated interaction of single cells by cell-to-cell communication (signalling) enables complex behaviour necessary for the functioning of multicellular organisms. A quite newly discovered cell-to-cell sign...

Authors: Felix Scholkmann

Application of the backstepping method to the prediction of increase or decrease of infected population

In mathematical epidemiology, age-structured epidemic models have usually been formulated as the boundary-value problems of the partial differential equations. On the other hand, in engineering, the backsteppi...

Authors: Toshikazu Kuniya and Hideki Sano