Asymptotic behaviour of nonlinear semigroup describing a model of selective cell growth regulation (Q805519)

The model considered by the authors concerns a particular regulation of a cell population and is described by the following equation: \[ n(t,y)=2\lambda H\{\pi [N(t)]-y\}\int^{\infty}_{0}f[y,\phi (z)]n[t- \psi (z),z]dz, \] where n is a cell density, H a sigmoidal smooth approximation of the Heaviside function, \(\lambda\) is the probability of a correct cell division, \(\pi\) is a decreasing function of the total number of cycling cells, f is the density of a conditional probability distribution, and \(\phi\) and \(\psi\) are connected with the duration of the cycle and the cell mass. The main part of the paper is devoted to the study of the asymptotic behavior of the solutions of the model and this gives rise to survival or extinction cases. The methods employed in this investigation are those of the nonlinear semigroup theory.