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Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are key in understanding tumor growth and tumor progression. A counterintuitive effect of CSCs is the so-called tumor growth paradox: the effect where a tumor with a higher death rate may grow larger than a tumor with a lower death rate. Here we extend the modeling of the tumor growth paradox by including spatial structure and considering cancer invasion. Using agent-based modeling and a corresponding partial differential equation model, we demonstrate and prove mathematically a tumor invasion paradox: a larger cell death rate can lead to a faster invasion speed. We test this result on a generic hypothetical cancer with typical growth rates and typical treatment sensitivities. We find that the tumor invasion paradox may play a role for continuous and intermittent treatments, while it does not seem to be essential in fractionated treatments. It should be noted that no attempt was made to fit the model to a specific cancer, thus, our results are generic and theoretical.

In this work, we model the movement of a figure skater gliding on ice by the Chaplygin sleigh, a classic pedagogical example of a nonholonomic mechanical system. The Chaplygin sleigh is controlled by a movable added mass, modeling the movable center of mass of the figure skater. The position and velocity of the added mass act as controls that can be used to steer the skater in order to produce prescribed patterns. For any piecewise smooth prescribed curve, this model can be used to determine the controls needed to reproduce that curve by approximating the curve with circular arcs. Tracing of the circular arcs is exact in our control procedure, so the accuracy of the method depends solely on the accuracy of approximation of a trajectory by circular arcs. To reproduce the individual elements of a pattern, we employ an optimization algorithm. We conclude by reproducing a classical "double flower" figure skating pattern and compute the resulting controls.

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