Abstract. We consider an artificial neural network where the signal trans-mission is of a digital... more Abstract. We consider an artificial neural network where the signal trans-mission is of a digital (McCulloch-Pitts) nature and is delayed due to the finite switching speed of neurons (amplifiers). The discontinuity of the sig-nal transmission functions, however, makes it difficult to apply the existing dynamical systems theory which usually requires continuity and smoothness. Moreover, observe that the dynamics of the network completely depends on the connection weights, we distinguish several cases to discuss the behaviors of their solutions. We show that the dynamics of the model can be understood in terms of the iterations of a one-dimensional map. As, a result, we present a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the network starting from non-oscillatory states and show how the connection topology and synaptic weights determine the rich dynamics. 1.
doi:10.1093/imamat/hxn007 Wavefronts for a non-local reaction–diffusion population model with gen... more doi:10.1093/imamat/hxn007 Wavefronts for a non-local reaction–diffusion population model with general distributive maturity PEIXUAN WENGâ€
The utility of characterizing the effects of strain variation and individual/subgroup susceptibil... more The utility of characterizing the effects of strain variation and individual/subgroup susceptibility on dose-response outcomes has motivated the search for new approaches beyond the popular use of the exponential dose-response model for listeriosis. While descriptive models can account for such variation, they have limited power to extrapolate beyond the details of particular outbreaks. By contrast, this study exhibits dose-response relationships from a mechanistic basis, quantifying key biological factors involved in pathogen-host dynamics. An efficient computational algorithm and geometric interpretation of the infection pathway are developed to connect dose-response relationships with the underlying bistable dynamics of the model. Relying on experiments as well as outbreak data, we estimate plausible parameters for the human context. Despite the presence of uncertainty in such parameters, sensitivity analysis reveals that the host response is most influenced by the pathogen-immun...
Sequential antimicrobial de-escalation aims to minimize resistance to high-value broad-spectrum e... more Sequential antimicrobial de-escalation aims to minimize resistance to high-value broad-spectrum empiric antimicrobials by switching to alternative drugs when testing confirms susceptibility. Though widely practiced, the effects de-escalation are not well understood. Definitions of interventions and outcomes differ among studies. We use mathematical models of the transmission and evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in an intensive care unit to assess the effect of de-escalation on a broad range of outcomes, and clarify expectations. In these models, de-escalation reduces the use of high-value drugs and preserves the effectiveness of empiric therapy, while also selecting for multidrug-resistant strains and leaving patients vulnerable to colonization and superinfection. The net effect of de-escalation in our models is to increase infection prevalence while also increasing the probability of effective treatment. Changes in mortality are small, and can be either positive or negative. The...
Cytoskeleton proteins and their regulation proteins could be influenced seriously in Mycobacteriu... more Cytoskeleton proteins and their regulation proteins could be influenced seriously in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection host cells leading to the apoptosis of host cells. Macrophages infected by Mycobacterium avium were detected from cell morphology and genome levels to analyze changes of the cytoskeleton of M. avium infection macrophages. Then the expression of β-actin, cofilin-1 proteins in M. avium infected macrophages were analyzed by western blotting, and the apoptosis of M. avium infection macrophages were tested by flow cytometry. Results indicated that the morphology and genomic DNA of M. avium infection macrophages were not damaged significantly. Meanwhile, β-actin gene and its proteins in M. avium infection macrophages were both decreased, but its regulatory protein cofilin-1 was expressed conversely. Furthermore, macrophages could be induced to apoptosis due to M. avium infection by cytoskeleton changes. These findings contributed us to understand that macrophages infec...
International journal of clinical and experimental pathology, 2015
MicroRNA-155 plays an important role in the inflammatory response macrophages, while present stud... more MicroRNA-155 plays an important role in the inflammatory response macrophages, while present studies identified that miR-155 was up-expressed in gastritis induced by Helicobacter pylori. We found that miR-155 was over expressed in macrophages infected with H. pylori in vivo or in vitro. Subsequently, inflammatory cytokines IL-23, IL-10, TNF-α and IL-8 were increased significantly, and the expression of CD80, CD86 or COX2, NOS2. Were enhanced in H. pylori infection macrophages by regulated with miR-155mimics. Furthermore, the apoptosis of macrophages induced by H. pylori was increased obviously due to the over-expression of miR-155. Therefore, these observations indicated that miR-155 may act as a inflammatory promoter in H. pylori infected macrophages. These findings contribute us to understand the functions of miR-155 in gastritis induced by H. pylori furtherly.
We propose a coupled system of delay-algebraic equations to describe tick attaching and host groo... more We propose a coupled system of delay-algebraic equations to describe tick attaching and host grooming behaviors in the tick-host interface, and use the model to understand how this tick-host interaction impacts the tick population dynamics. We consider two critical state variables, the loads of feeding ticks on host and the engorged ticks on the ground for ticks in a particular development stage (nymphal stage) and show that the model as a coupled system of delay differential equation and an algebraic (integral) equation may have rich structures of equilibrium states, leading to multi-stability. We perform asymptotic analyses and use the implicit function theorem to characterize the stability of these equilibrium states, and show that bi-stability and quadri-stability occur naturally in several combinations of tick attaching and host grooming behaviours. In particular, we show that in the case when host grooming is triggered by the tick biting, the system will have three stable equi...
Tick infestation and tick-borne disease spread in a region of multiple adjacent patches with diff... more Tick infestation and tick-borne disease spread in a region of multiple adjacent patches with different environmental conditions depend heavily on the host mobility and patch-specific suitability for tick growth. Here we introduce a two-patch model where environmental conditions differ in patches and yield different tick developmental delays, and where feeding adult ticks can be dispersed by the movement of larger mammal hosts. We obtain a coupled system of four delay differential equations with two delays, and we examine how the dynamical behaviours depend on patch-specific basic reproduction numbers and host mobility by using singular perturbation analyses and monotone dynamical systems theory. Our theoretical results and numerical simulations provide useful insights for tick population control strategies.
The attack ratio in a subpopulation is defined as the total number of infections over the total n... more The attack ratio in a subpopulation is defined as the total number of infections over the total number of individuals in this subpopulation. Using a methodology based on an age-stratified transmission dynamics model, we estimated the attack ratio of COVID-19 among children (individuals 0–11 years) when a large proportion of individuals eligible for vaccination (age 12 and above) are vaccinated to contain the epidemic among this subpopulation, or the effective herd immunity (with additional physical distancing measures). We describe the relationship between the attack ratio among children, the time to remove infected individuals from the transmission chain and the children-to-children daily contact rate while considering the increased transmissibility of virus variants (using the Delta variant as an example). We illustrate the generality and applicability of the methodology established by performing an analysis of the attack ratio of COVID-19 among children in the population of Canad...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
The elderly, especially those individuals with pre-existing health problems, have been disproport... more The elderly, especially those individuals with pre-existing health problems, have been disproportionally at a higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents of long-term care facilities have been gravely affected by the pandemic and resident death numbers have been far above those of the general population. To better understand how infectious diseases such as COVID-19 can spread through long-term care facilities, we developed an agent-based simulation tool that uses a contact matrix adapted from previous infection control research in these types of facilities. This matrix accounts for the average distinct daily contacts between seven different agent types that represent the roles of individuals in long-term care facilities. The simulation results were compared to actual COVID-19 outbreaks in some of the long-term care facilities in Ontario, Canada. Our analysis shows that this simulation tool is capable of predicting the number of resident deaths after 50 days with a less than ...
This peer-reviewed article can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (se... more This peer-reviewed article can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below). Articles in TBioMed are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMed Central. For information about publishing your research in TBioMed or any BioMed Central journal, go to
Abstract. We consider an artificial neural network where the signal trans-mission is of a digital... more Abstract. We consider an artificial neural network where the signal trans-mission is of a digital (McCulloch-Pitts) nature and is delayed due to the finite switching speed of neurons (amplifiers). The discontinuity of the sig-nal transmission functions, however, makes it difficult to apply the existing dynamical systems theory which usually requires continuity and smoothness. Moreover, observe that the dynamics of the network completely depends on the connection weights, we distinguish several cases to discuss the behaviors of their solutions. We show that the dynamics of the model can be understood in terms of the iterations of a one-dimensional map. As, a result, we present a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the network starting from non-oscillatory states and show how the connection topology and synaptic weights determine the rich dynamics. 1.
doi:10.1093/imamat/hxn007 Wavefronts for a non-local reaction–diffusion population model with gen... more doi:10.1093/imamat/hxn007 Wavefronts for a non-local reaction–diffusion population model with general distributive maturity PEIXUAN WENGâ€
The utility of characterizing the effects of strain variation and individual/subgroup susceptibil... more The utility of characterizing the effects of strain variation and individual/subgroup susceptibility on dose-response outcomes has motivated the search for new approaches beyond the popular use of the exponential dose-response model for listeriosis. While descriptive models can account for such variation, they have limited power to extrapolate beyond the details of particular outbreaks. By contrast, this study exhibits dose-response relationships from a mechanistic basis, quantifying key biological factors involved in pathogen-host dynamics. An efficient computational algorithm and geometric interpretation of the infection pathway are developed to connect dose-response relationships with the underlying bistable dynamics of the model. Relying on experiments as well as outbreak data, we estimate plausible parameters for the human context. Despite the presence of uncertainty in such parameters, sensitivity analysis reveals that the host response is most influenced by the pathogen-immun...
Sequential antimicrobial de-escalation aims to minimize resistance to high-value broad-spectrum e... more Sequential antimicrobial de-escalation aims to minimize resistance to high-value broad-spectrum empiric antimicrobials by switching to alternative drugs when testing confirms susceptibility. Though widely practiced, the effects de-escalation are not well understood. Definitions of interventions and outcomes differ among studies. We use mathematical models of the transmission and evolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in an intensive care unit to assess the effect of de-escalation on a broad range of outcomes, and clarify expectations. In these models, de-escalation reduces the use of high-value drugs and preserves the effectiveness of empiric therapy, while also selecting for multidrug-resistant strains and leaving patients vulnerable to colonization and superinfection. The net effect of de-escalation in our models is to increase infection prevalence while also increasing the probability of effective treatment. Changes in mortality are small, and can be either positive or negative. The...
Cytoskeleton proteins and their regulation proteins could be influenced seriously in Mycobacteriu... more Cytoskeleton proteins and their regulation proteins could be influenced seriously in Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection host cells leading to the apoptosis of host cells. Macrophages infected by Mycobacterium avium were detected from cell morphology and genome levels to analyze changes of the cytoskeleton of M. avium infection macrophages. Then the expression of β-actin, cofilin-1 proteins in M. avium infected macrophages were analyzed by western blotting, and the apoptosis of M. avium infection macrophages were tested by flow cytometry. Results indicated that the morphology and genomic DNA of M. avium infection macrophages were not damaged significantly. Meanwhile, β-actin gene and its proteins in M. avium infection macrophages were both decreased, but its regulatory protein cofilin-1 was expressed conversely. Furthermore, macrophages could be induced to apoptosis due to M. avium infection by cytoskeleton changes. These findings contributed us to understand that macrophages infec...
International journal of clinical and experimental pathology, 2015
MicroRNA-155 plays an important role in the inflammatory response macrophages, while present stud... more MicroRNA-155 plays an important role in the inflammatory response macrophages, while present studies identified that miR-155 was up-expressed in gastritis induced by Helicobacter pylori. We found that miR-155 was over expressed in macrophages infected with H. pylori in vivo or in vitro. Subsequently, inflammatory cytokines IL-23, IL-10, TNF-α and IL-8 were increased significantly, and the expression of CD80, CD86 or COX2, NOS2. Were enhanced in H. pylori infection macrophages by regulated with miR-155mimics. Furthermore, the apoptosis of macrophages induced by H. pylori was increased obviously due to the over-expression of miR-155. Therefore, these observations indicated that miR-155 may act as a inflammatory promoter in H. pylori infected macrophages. These findings contribute us to understand the functions of miR-155 in gastritis induced by H. pylori furtherly.
We propose a coupled system of delay-algebraic equations to describe tick attaching and host groo... more We propose a coupled system of delay-algebraic equations to describe tick attaching and host grooming behaviors in the tick-host interface, and use the model to understand how this tick-host interaction impacts the tick population dynamics. We consider two critical state variables, the loads of feeding ticks on host and the engorged ticks on the ground for ticks in a particular development stage (nymphal stage) and show that the model as a coupled system of delay differential equation and an algebraic (integral) equation may have rich structures of equilibrium states, leading to multi-stability. We perform asymptotic analyses and use the implicit function theorem to characterize the stability of these equilibrium states, and show that bi-stability and quadri-stability occur naturally in several combinations of tick attaching and host grooming behaviours. In particular, we show that in the case when host grooming is triggered by the tick biting, the system will have three stable equi...
Tick infestation and tick-borne disease spread in a region of multiple adjacent patches with diff... more Tick infestation and tick-borne disease spread in a region of multiple adjacent patches with different environmental conditions depend heavily on the host mobility and patch-specific suitability for tick growth. Here we introduce a two-patch model where environmental conditions differ in patches and yield different tick developmental delays, and where feeding adult ticks can be dispersed by the movement of larger mammal hosts. We obtain a coupled system of four delay differential equations with two delays, and we examine how the dynamical behaviours depend on patch-specific basic reproduction numbers and host mobility by using singular perturbation analyses and monotone dynamical systems theory. Our theoretical results and numerical simulations provide useful insights for tick population control strategies.
The attack ratio in a subpopulation is defined as the total number of infections over the total n... more The attack ratio in a subpopulation is defined as the total number of infections over the total number of individuals in this subpopulation. Using a methodology based on an age-stratified transmission dynamics model, we estimated the attack ratio of COVID-19 among children (individuals 0–11 years) when a large proportion of individuals eligible for vaccination (age 12 and above) are vaccinated to contain the epidemic among this subpopulation, or the effective herd immunity (with additional physical distancing measures). We describe the relationship between the attack ratio among children, the time to remove infected individuals from the transmission chain and the children-to-children daily contact rate while considering the increased transmissibility of virus variants (using the Delta variant as an example). We illustrate the generality and applicability of the methodology established by performing an analysis of the attack ratio of COVID-19 among children in the population of Canad...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
The elderly, especially those individuals with pre-existing health problems, have been disproport... more The elderly, especially those individuals with pre-existing health problems, have been disproportionally at a higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents of long-term care facilities have been gravely affected by the pandemic and resident death numbers have been far above those of the general population. To better understand how infectious diseases such as COVID-19 can spread through long-term care facilities, we developed an agent-based simulation tool that uses a contact matrix adapted from previous infection control research in these types of facilities. This matrix accounts for the average distinct daily contacts between seven different agent types that represent the roles of individuals in long-term care facilities. The simulation results were compared to actual COVID-19 outbreaks in some of the long-term care facilities in Ontario, Canada. Our analysis shows that this simulation tool is capable of predicting the number of resident deaths after 50 days with a less than ...
This peer-reviewed article can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (se... more This peer-reviewed article can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below). Articles in TBioMed are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMed Central. For information about publishing your research in TBioMed or any BioMed Central journal, go to
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