We study the general problem of equidistribution of expanding translates of an analytic curve by an algebraic diagonal flow on the homogeneous space of a semisimple algebraic group G. We define two families of algebraic subvarieties of the associated partial flag variety, which give the obstructions to non-divergence and equidistribution. We apply this to prove that for Lebesgue almost every point on an analytic curve in the space of m × n real matrices whose image is not contained in any subvariety coming from these two families, Dirichlet’s theorem on simultaneous Diophantine approximation cannot be improved. The proof combines geometric invariant theory, Ratner’s theorem on measure rigidity for unipotent flows, and linearization technique.

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Multistep cell fate transitions with stepwise changes of transcriptional profiles are common to many developmental, regenerative and pathological processes. The multiple intermediate cell lineage states can serve as differentiation checkpoints or branching points for channeling cells to more than one lineages. However, mechanisms underlying these transitions remain elusive. Here, we explored gene regulatory circuits that can generate multiple intermediate cellular states with stepwise modulations of transcription factors. With unbiased searching in the network topology space, we found a motif family containing a large set of networks can give rise to four attractors with the stepwise regulations of transcription factors, which limit the reversibility of three consecutive steps of the lineage transition. We found that there is an enrichment of these motifs in a transcriptional network controlling the early T cell development, and a mathematical model based on this network recapitulates multistep transitions in the early T cell lineage commitment. By calculating the energy landscape and minimum action paths for the T cell model, we quantified the stochastic dynamics of the critical factors in response to the differentiation signal with fluctuations. These results are in good agreement with experimental observations and they suggest the stable characteristics of the intermediate states in the T cell differentiation. These dynamical features may help to direct the cells to correct lineages during development. Our findings provide general design principles for multistep cell linage transitions and new insights into the early T cell development. The network motifs containing a large family of topologies can be useful for analyzing diverse biological systems with multistep transitions.

For any dynamical system T : X → X of a compact metric space X with g-almost product property and uniform separation property, under the assumptions that the periodic points are dense in X and the periodic measures are dense in the space of invariant measures, we distinguish various periodiclike recurrences and find that they all carry full topological entropy and so do their gap-sets. In particular, this implies that any two kind of periodic-like recurrences are essentially different. Moreover, we coordinate periodic-like recurrences with (ir)regularity and obtain lots of generalized multifractal analyses for all continuous observable functions. These results are suitable for all β-shifts (β > 1), topological mixing subshifts of finite type, topological mixing expanding maps or topological mixing hyperbolic diffeomorphisms, etc. Roughly speaking, we combine many different “eyes” (i.e., observable functions and periodic-like recurrences) to observe the dynamical complexity and obtain a Refined Dynamical Structure for Recurrence Theory and Multi-fractal Analysis.

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