Biomedical subjects

Angelo Vulpiani

Publications and source records attributed to Angelo Vulpiani.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Properties making a chaotic system a good pseudo random number generator.

We discuss the properties making a deterministic algorithm suitable to generate a pseudo random sequence of numbers: high value of Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, high dimensionality of the parent dynamical system, and very large period of the generated sequence. We propose the multidimensional Anosov symplectic (cat) map as a pseudo random number generator. We show what chaotic features of this map are useful for generating pseudo random numbers and investigate numerically which of them survive in the discrete state version of the map. Testing and comparisons with other generators are performed.

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PubMed2005

Production rate of the coarse-grained Gibbs entropy and the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy: a real connection?

We discuss the connection between the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy hKS and the production rate of the coarse-grained Gibbs entropy rG. Detailed numerical computations show that the (often-accepted) identification of the two quantities does not hold in systems with intermittent behavior and/or very different characteristic times and in systems presenting pseudochaos. The basic reason for this is in the asymptotic (with respect to time) nature of hKS, while rG is a quantity related to short-time features of a system.

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PubMed2004

Topological thermal instability and length of proteins.

We present an analysis of the effects of global topology on the structural stability of folded proteins in thermal equilibrium with a heat bath. For a large class of single domain proteins, we computed the harmonic spectrum within the Gaussian Network Model (GNM) and determined their spectral dimension, a parameter describing the low frequency behavior of the density of modes. We found a surprisingly strong correlation between the spectral dimension and the number of amino acids in the protein. Considering that larger spectral dimension values relate to more topologically compact folded states, our results indicate that, for a given temperature and length of protein, the folded structure corresponds to a less compact folding, one compatible with thermodynamic stability.

Amino Acids↗

PubMed2004

Minimal stochastic model for Fermi's acceleration.

We introduce a simple stochastic system able to generate anomalous diffusion for both position and velocity. The model represents a viable description of the Fermi's acceleration mechanism and it is amenable to analytical treatment through a linear Boltzmann equation. The asymptotic probability distribution functions for velocity and position are explicitly derived. The diffusion process is highly non-Gaussian and the time growth of moments is characterized by only two exponents nu(x) and nu(v). The diffusion process is anomalous (non-Gaussian) but with a defined scaling property, i.e., P(|r|,t)=1/t(nu(x))Fx(|r|/t(nu(x))) and similarly for velocity.

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PubMed2003

Coarse-grained probabilistic automata mimicking chaotic systems.

Discretization of phase space usually nullifies chaos in dynamical systems. We show that if randomness is associated with discretization dynamical chaos may survive and be indistinguishable from that of the original chaotic system, when an entropic, coarse-grained analysis is performed. Relevance of this phenomenon to the problem of quantum chaos is discussed.

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PubMed2003

Diffusive transport and self-consistent dynamics in coupled maps.

The study of diffusion in Hamiltonian systems has been a problem of interest for a number of years. In this paper we explore the influence of self-consistency on the diffusion properties of systems described by coupled symplectic maps. Self-consistency, i.e., the backinfluence of the transported quantity on the velocity field of the driving flow, despite of its critical importance, is usually overlooked in the description of realistic systems, for example, in plasma physics. We propose a class of self-consistent models consisting of an ensemble of maps globally coupled through a mean field. Depending on the kind of coupling, two different general types of self-consistent maps are considered: maps coupled to the field only through the phase, and fully coupled maps, i.e., through the phase and the amplitude of the external field. The analogies and differences of the diffusion properties of these two kinds of maps are discussed in detail.

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PubMed2003

Noise activated granular dynamics.

We study the behavior of two particles moving in a bistable potential, colliding inelastically with each other and driven by a stochastic heat bath. The system has the tendency to clusterize, placing the particles in the same well at low drivings, and to fill all of the available space at high temperatures. We show that the hopping over the potential barrier occurs following the Arrhenius rate, where the heat bath temperature is replaced by the granular temperature. Moreover, within the clusterized "phase" one encounters two different scenarios: For moderate inelasticity, the jumps from one well to the other involve one particle at a time, whereas for strong inelasticity the two particles hop simultaneously.

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PubMed2001

Population dynamics advected by chaotic flows: A discrete-time map approach.

A discrete-time model of reacting evolving fields, transported by a bidimensional chaotic fluid flow, is studied. Our approach is based on the use of a Lagrangian scheme where fluid particles are advected by a two-dimensional symplectic map possibly yielding Lagrangian chaos. Each fluid particle carries concentrations of active substances which evolve according to its own reaction dynamics. This evolution is also modeled in terms of maps. Motivated by the question, of relevance in marine ecology, of how a localized distribution of nutrients or preys affects the spatial structure of predators transported by a fluid flow, we study a specific model in which the population dynamics is given by a logistic map with space-dependent coefficient, and advection is given by the standard map. Fractal and random patterns in the Eulerian spatial concentration of predators are obtained under different conditions. Exploiting the analogies of this coupled-map (advection plus reaction) system with a random map, some features of these patterns are discussed. (c) 2001 American Institute of Physics.

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