Behera Anita, O'Rourke S Francesca C
School of Biomedical Sciences, The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT9 7AB, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2008 Jan;77(1 Pt 1):013901; discussion 013902. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.77.013901. Epub 2008 Jan 22.
We argue that the results published by Ai [Phys. Rev. E 67, 022903 (2003)] on "correlated noise in logistic growth" are not correct. Their conclusion that, for larger values of the correlation parameter lambda , the cell population is peaked at x=0, which denotes a high extinction rate, is also incorrect. We find the reverse behavior to their results, that increasing lambda promotes the stable growth of tumor cells. In particular, their results for the steady-state probability, as a function of cell number, at different correlation strengths, presented in Figs. 1 and 2 of their paper show different behavior than one would expect from the simple mathematical expression for the steady-state probability. Additionally, their interpretation that at small values of cell number the steady-state probability increases as the correlation parameter is increased is also questionable. Another striking feature in their Figs. 1 and 3 is that, for the same values of the parameters lambda and alpha, their simulation produces two different curves, both qualitatively and quantitatively.