Fig. 3.

(Color figure online) The evolution of the of a the total numbers of cells and b the mean numbers of cells in each of $k=4$ stages. In a, we plot the numerical (red line) and analytical (dashed black line) solutions for the total mean number of cells in the case $k=4$ and according to the naive ($k=1$) cell cycle model [analytical solution of Eq. (7)—blue line]. In b analytically determined solutions [see Eqs. (12)–(15)] are plotted as dashed black lines and their numerical counterparts on top as solid coloured lines. The average CCT is $C=10$ arbitrary time units. The average period of each stage is equal (${\mathit{\mu }}_i=C/k=2.5,{\mathit{\lambda }}_i=1/{\mathit{\mu }}_i=0.4$ for $i=1,\dots ,k$)