Age related changes of the motor excitabilities and central and peripheral muscle strength.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose was to investigate the age effects on central versus peripheral sources of strength, fatigue, and central neural excitabilities. METHODS: 42 healthy subjects were recruited as young group (23.73 ±â€¯2.15 years; n = 26) and middle-aged group (57.25 ±â€¯4.57 years; n = 16). Maximum voluntary contraction force (MVC), voluntary activation level (VA), and twitch force of quadriceps were evaluated to represent general, central, and peripheral strengths. Central and peripheral fatigue indexes were evaluated using femoral nerve electrical stimulation. Cortical excitabilities were evaluated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). RESULTS: The middle-aged group had lower MVC and twitch force of quadriceps, but not VA, than young group. No between group differences were found in fatigue indexes. The cortical excitability in middle-aged group was different from young group in paired TMS with inter-stimulus interval of 7 ms. CONCLUSION: The age-related strength loss at early stage was primarily caused by peripheral muscular strength. The deviation of central neural excitability can be detected but the activation level was not impaired in middle-age adults.

Optimal control analysis of a tuberculosis model.

In this paper, we extend the model of Liu and Zhang (Math Comput Model 54:836-845, 2011) by incorporating three control terms and apply optimal control theory to the resulting model. Optimal control strategies are proposed to minimize both the disease burden and the intervention cost. We prove the existence and uniqueness of optimal control paths and obtain these optimal paths analytically using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle. We analyse our results numerically to compare various strategies of proposed controls. It is observed that implementation of three controls is most effective and less expensive among all the strategies. Thus, we conclude that in order to reduce tuberculosis threat all the three controls must be taken into consideration concurrently.

Global stability analysis of an SVEIR epidemic model with general incidence rate.

In this paper, a susceptible-vaccinated-exposed-infectious-recovered (SVEIR) epidemic model for an infectious disease that spreads in the host population through horizontal transmission is investigated, assuming that the horizontal transmission is governed by an unspecified function f ( S , I ) . The role that temporary immunity (vaccinated-induced) and treatment of infected people play in the spread of disease, is incorporated in the model. The basic reproduction number R 0 is found, under certain conditions on the incidence rate and treatment function. It is shown that the model exhibits two equilibria, namely, the disease-free equilibrium and the endemic equilibrium. By constructing a suitable Lyapunov function, it is observed that the global asymptotic stability of the disease-free equilibrium depends on R 0 as well as on the treatment rate. If R 0 > 1 , then the endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable with the help of the Li and Muldowney geometric approach applied to four dimensional systems. Numerical simulations are also presented to illustrate our main results.

Dynamic behavior of positive solutions for a leslie predator-prey system with mutual interference and feedback controls.

We consider a Leslie predator-prey system with mutual interference and feedback controls. For general nonautonomous case, by using differential inequality theory and constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional, we obtain some sufficient conditions which guarantee the permanence and the global attractivity of the system. For the periodic case, we obtain some sufficient conditions which guarantee the existence, uniqueness, and stability of a positive periodic solution.